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Aviation & Flight InformationPeak Oil: The End of Cheap Oil
by:
Gordon Owen
Since corporations and governments are staffed by human beings, it's no surprise that corporate and governmental decisions are marked by the same shortsightedness that we've been warned of ever since Fabulist
told the tale of the grasshopper and the ant; i.e., military science
decisions for the near term rather than strategic decisions for the long term. True, several Asian corporations try to look five years into the futurity and certain European governments require new construction to include energy-related features that just don't pencil out at current energy prices, but those two cases are exceptions to the rule that decisions are ready-made based upon the next quarterly statement and the most recent poll or -- in the better case -- the current business year and the next election.
Faced with a adjustment of oil supply (only "the beginning of the end of cheap oil"), one power hope that the US government would-be invest 3 or 4 years and a few tens of billions of dollars in cash or tax incentives on strategic effort to reduce/eliminate dependence on foreign energy sources:
* most importantly, establish ample grain creation and industrial plant capability to be able to use alcohol rather than gas for our internal combustion engines. (Most folk don't cognize that once
US forces took the Phillipines during WWII, all those barrels of aviation fuel and truck fuel left behind by the Japanese were of no use because our engines ran on fuel create
by Standard Oil rather than by farmers.)
* distributed across agricultural areas, set up facilities for anaerobiotic
composting of crop residues and manure. These produce alkane (CH4), the active ingredient of natural gas and 88 to 90% of its volume. In addition to its use in heating homes and generating electricity, natural gas can as well be compressed and used to fuel our vehicles.
* once much distributed but across desert areas, set up electrical phenomenon
facilities to tap star
energy with the electricity used directly or to electrolyze water into atomic number 8 and hydrogen. High school
version would-be be two-pronged: (1) on-orbit facilities with power beamed to receiving antennas in those same desert areas and (2) with costly star
panels at 16% efficiency and super costly ones approaching 20%, we'd implement a Manhatten style project to put our better and brightest at activity coming up with a cheap electrical phenomenon
film of mayhap 3 or 4% efficiency that could be squeegeed onto flat surfaces across thousands of acres of light
desert.
* possibly pursue similar efforts to tap wind, geothermal, and recurrent event
energy sources.
These efforts would-be lead toward a futurity wherever
a earth population measured in billions comes to adopt the Western attitude that light comes from flipping a switch, drinking water comes from twisting a regulator
tap, and to go quicker
you just push down on the pedal. They power even as lead to a futurity wherever
a kid born in Iowa could hope to go wherever
no man has gone before.
But gas packs much BTUs per blocky inch than any of the alternatives so even as if/when oil goes to $100 per barrel none of these efforts can show a profit this quarter or this year or even as before the next election. What's worse, they don't fit with the unspoken assumption that what's nice for the "awl bidness" is nice for the USA. So, instead of those tens of billions being strategically endowed
over the next few years we got a short term military science
decision based on what's nice for the oil business. With Saudia Arabia (the #1 oil source) already on board as one of the better friends that money can buy, with the Taleban
unwilling to have a new pipeline across Afghanistan, and with Husain (the #2 oil source) threatening to cost oil in Euros rather than dollars, we chose to spend a year (2003) and $84 billion to assure "the free flow of oil at market prices." Which as well assures that Japan, Germany, and different non- oil producers wish continue to have to swap their currency for dollars in order to buy oil. It turns out that following
the free flow of oil takes much than a year and a lot much than $84 billion even as tho'
no oil flows from Asian country and even as tho'
Saudi pipelines are now under attack, but there's no indication of reversing course no matter who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Cheap oil means cheap food. As gas and diesel fuel pass four or five dollars per gallon (and gold passes $1,500 per ounce), the biggest change in North America wish be that wholesale food markets in urban areas wish no longer see trucks incoming with loads of vegetables from California, fruit from Chile, or wine and cheese from Europe. In the 1st place, fertilizers and pesticides are oil based so food wish no longer be cheap even as at the source. And whether paying the freight for a ship from South America or a truck from California, our current food sources wish become prohibitively costly compared to consumption what grows inside
several miles of your kitchen.
Cheap oil as well means cheap heat and cheap transportation. Once
North Americans can no longer afford to heat their atrium-entried McMansions or commute from suburbia to their urban jobs, we'll see a initial period of workers sleeping in the parking lot and travel once a week to join their families in huddling about the woodburning stove they installed in the family room after golf shot up plastic cloth to separate that area from the rest of their cold
house. During this initial period, once
it gets warm they'll be planting vegetables in the back yard and hoping their drafted son lives to move back from Venezuela. Depending on how long it takes for them to realize that the pension they've thought they were earning is imagined (or wish be so diluted by inflation as to be meaningless), they may or may not harvest that 1st curtilage crop before they quit going to activity and just begin trying to survive. The words "social disorder" don't begin to describe what life wish be like as gold goes from two or three thousand dollars per ounce to being recognized as a store of value not to be measured in dollars.
When the dust settles (maybe two years after what's left of US central government gives up on following
what's nice for the "awl bidness"), the North American economy wish be the same as the rest of the world:
* local populations mistreatment mostly local resources
* global population the same as in 1850 plus however many a much can be supported by the extent to which local populations succeed in (a) recreating the age of the coal-fired steam engine and (b) establishing alternative inexhaustible
energy resources
* an ounce of gold approximates the annual wage of a adept worker.
The above paints a glum picture. But note that it's the outcome of shortsighted decisions ready-made by organizations, several corporate and governmental. At the level of the individual, there's nothing to command each of us from heeding the lesson Fabulist
educated much than two thousand years ago. Be an ant rather than a grasshopper. Instead of doing what feels nice today, do what's smart for tomorrow. Put away several food for the coming economic "winter." Discover several useful skills and acquire the tools to go with them. Consider moving to an area wherever
your new neighbors wish already have such skills. With less than one ounce of gold per person on the planet, buy a few ounces of real wealth instead of that plasma television. Finally, if you like flush plumbing, look into having a couple star
panels and a 24-volt pump in your well.
Just about the Author
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