Peak Oil

I have been a "peak oil crank" for twenty years. Even before anyone knew what peak oil was, I was a peak oil crank. The motto of the peak oil crank has always been "Deal with reality, or reality will deal with you."

Everyone knows that oil is a finite resource. Everyone knows it is not available in unlimited supply. Everyone knows that the supply of oil is running out. We will reach maximum oil production within fifteen years, and as that production declines, it will devastate society.

What we have, we are not using wisely. We are running an energy deficit that makes the budget deficit look like child's play in comparison when one really considers the ramifications. For instance - who among us (besides the peak oil cranks, of course) realizes that for every kilo-calorie of energy produced in the form of food, we expend ten kilo-calories of energy in the form of fuel? True fact. This is not sustainable. In fact, the situation is downright schizophrenic. To continue down this path is the route to social breakdown and anarchy, with a side-trip into fascism along the way. The social devastation won't happen overnight, but it is going to happen, and probably in my lifetime. The instability of the oil markets that we have seen in the last two years or so are not isolated incidents. They represent the onset of a permanent and terminal condition.

Let me offer a much-oversimplified explanation. Oil production follows a bell-curve. This means that if peak oil is reached in 2020, we will be producing the same amount of oil in 2040 as we did in 2000 - but the world will have a much larger population and more people will be competing for the limited and dwindling resource. Prices will go up as supply goes down. Oil based economies will feel the heat and begin to crumble. Resource wars will erupt. Many of us believe that they already have erupted. Russia fights to retain the oil-soaked Chechen region, the United States invaded an oil-rich country on the premise of fighting terrorism, when that country had nothing to do with the act of terrorism that predicated the war. It is reductio ad absurdum.

The largest oil reserves in the world are in the Caspian Basin. It just so happens that our own country is involved in hostilities in that region of the world right now, laying the groundwork and building the permanent bases for the intensifying resource struggles to come. We spend two billion dollars a week fighting an oil war, while we could drastically curtail our need for and consumption of the stuff with one year of investing into energy alternatives at the same rate we spend to fight a war over a limited and filthy resource. Some believe peak oil will happen as early as 2010. (How long did the Army Chief of Staff say we needed to stay in Iraq again? And does anyone really believe we will leave by then?)

Unfortunately, I have a lot less answers than I do clear lines of sight at the problems. People much smarter than I am are stumped by this quandary. That doesn't mean we throw our hands in the air and give up. Not by a long shot. But it does mean we wake up and start dealing with reality so we can palliate the effects that lie in store.

Alternatives are the first thing we need to develop. Electric motors need to replace the internal combustion engine. Wind, solar and nuclear energy generation are the Green Triumverate. Everyone needs to get over their nuclear heebie-jeebies right now. For the love of Mike, people. Does anyone still believe that nuclear energy is really the big, bad wolf?

Three Mile Island wasn't a disaster. That containment chamber worked in practice exactly the way it was supposed to in theory. It contained the radiation and the area is safe and habitable now. No new nuclear plants have been approved in over 20 years. How stupid is that? Nuclear is the cleanest energy we can produce outside solar and wind. So for crying out loud, lets fire up some reactors and stop building coal-fired plants.

Carbon is dead, people. Anyone interested in a habitable planet and a future that is not fraught with turmoil, strife and economic hardship needs to start educating themselves now, and speaking up about what they learn.

As I said at the beginning of this post, if we don't deal with reality, reality will deal with us, in a most harsh and unpleasant way.