Evolutionary psychology and peak oil: A Malthusian inspired "heads up" for humanity. -- by Dr. Michael E. Mills
"Oil peaking will be catastrophic, beyond anything I have seen... We are about to drive the car over the cliff and say, `Oh my God, what have we done?'" -- Robert L. Hirsch, Ph.D., US Department of Energy consultant.
Overview.
I initially developed this webpage for my students, especially those in my Ecological Psychology course. The goal was to provide a succinct overview peak oil, and "heads up" about the social and personal challenges we will need to confront in the near future.
This web page is divided into the following topics, which will be explored in turn:
Ecological overshoot as a general problem in population biology.
The possibility of avoiding a human Mathusian collapse via a Kurzweillian "techno-fix"
Peak oil as a an example of human ecological overshoot.
Possible economic and social scenarios following peak oil.
Contributions by psychological science, and evolutionary psychology in particular, that may help to mitigate these problems.
Part 1: Ecological overshoot as a general problem in population biology.
Evolutionary scientists are aware of the concept of ecological "carrying capacity," and Malthus' application of these ideas to human populations. Malthus wrote:
"It is an obvious truth, which has been taken notice of by many writers, that population must always be kept down to the level of the means of subsistence; but no writer that the Author recollects has inquired particularly into the means by which this level is effected..." -- Thomas Malthus,1798
Klein reported that in 1944, 29 reindeer were brought to St. Matthew Island. Initially there were abundant food sources, and the reindeer population increased dramatically. There were no predators to cull the population.
About 20 years after they were first introduced, the reindeer had overshot the food carrying capacity of the island, and there was a sudden, massive die-off. About 99% of the reindeer died of starvation.
As shown in the graph below, this is an example of a general phenomenon. All species suffer population collapse or species extinction if they overshoot and degrade the carrying capacity of their ecology.
Wine: Population Growth and Decline of Yeast Cells in a 10% Sugar Solution
Below is another example of a population overshoot and collapse scenario. This is the population graph of yeast cells in a 10% sugar solution. Note that the yeast population first explodes exponentially, and is then followed by population die-off as the finite nutrients are exhausted and their own waste products pollute their environment.
Source: http://dieoff.org/page137.htm Price, D. (1995). Energy and Human Evolution. Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary tudies, 16, 301-19. Growth of yeast in a 10% sugar solution (After Dieter, 1962:45). The fall of the curve is slowed by cytolysis, which recycles nutrients from dead cells.
This is how yeast turns grape juice into wine. The next time you say “cheers” over a glass of wine, remember that you are drinking the waste products (alcohol) of a collapsed yeast colony with poor ecological management skills!
The primary question is this:
Are humans smarter than yeast? -- Bob Shaw
That is, as a species, can we avoid population overshoot and environmental pollution on our finite planet?
The fate of humans on Easter Island suggests, well, perhaps not.
"All species expand as much as resources allow and predators, parasites, and physical conditions permit. When a species is introduced into a new habitat with abundant resources that accumulated before its arrival, the population expands rapidly until all the resources are used up." - David Price, Energy and Human Evolution http://dieoff.org/page137.htm
When the first humans arrived on the island, there were abundant resources to support the small population. The human population increased dramatically. There were no predators to cull the population. The population continued to grow until it eventually overshot the island carrying capacity.
After overshoot, most of the population starved. Apparently, they even turned on each other, sometimes resorting to cannibalism.
For more information about carrying capacity and overshoot see:
Of course, the entire earth can also be viewed as an "island" with some resources that are finite and that are being rapidly depleted by a human population explosion.
"The world is involved in a monumental resource battle as the irresistible force of an exploding global population smashes into the immovable object of finite resources." -- David McWilliams
The graphs above suggests that humans, like the reindeer, yeast, and Easter Islanders, will eventually overshoot our planetary carrying capacity, and suffer the Malthusian consequences.
Imagine the world as a petri dish.
But... won't scientific advances and technology save us from ecological overshoot?
Raymond Kurzweil has argued in his book The Singularity is Near, that scientific knowledge, like populations, grows geometrically too. He believes this will allow us solve problems of ecological carrying capacity, cure disease and aging, and solve the problem of energy depletion. He is optimistic that technology will help us overcome population overshoot and collapse. For example, computers will become increasingly powerful, as noted in graph below of the historical and projected exponential growth of computing power.
With respect to energy, Kurzweil predicts in his article Expect Exponential Progress that "the power we are generating from solar is doubling every two years; at that rate, it will be able to meet all energy needs within 20 years."
Malthus vs. Kurzweil: Countdown to the final human race of the 21st Century.
It will be a race toward either paradise or oblivion, right to the last moment. -- Buckminster Fuller
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. -- H.G. Wells, The Outline of History
So, we have two opposing, exponentially increasing trends. One could lead to ecological overshoot and collapse; the other could lead to scientific/technological solutions to these problems.
Malthus vs. Kurzweil
Which will arrive first? Ecological overshoot and collapse (Malthus), or a "techno-fix" (Kurzweil)?
No one knows.
But, we probably won't have to wait long to find out. One of these two scenarios will likely occur within the next several decades. But, which one?
Generally it is healthy to be optimistic.
But optimism can be deadly if it produces a Pollyannaish denial of real problems. We should not ignore problems by assuming "someone else" will take care of it, or that "the market" or "technological breakthroughs" will always come to the rescue in time.
Solutions may not come in time, and we may get a quite rude Malthusian smack down later. (In my opinion, should the internet go down due to energy shortages, the Mathusian writing will be on the wall... )
To avoid this, we must solve the transition from our finite, depleting oil resources to renewable energy.
Technological civilization runs on energy.
Part 2: Peak oil as a an example of human ecological overshoot.
"We know that we cannot sustain a future powered by a fuel that is rapidly disappearing. ...breaking our oil addiction is one of the greatest challenges our generation will ever face. ...This will not be easy." -- Barack Obama, August 4, 2008 http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5zCW
One of the most critical finite energy resources are fossil fuels, which provide a cheap, dense source of energy to power technological/industrial civilization.
"Peak oil" isthe point when 1/2 of extractable world oil has been extracted.
A related concept is "peak oil production," when oil production starts an inexorable decline, causing oil prices to increase. Here, the term "peak oil" will refer to peak oil production.
The amount of oil produced by a particular oil field, or a region, shows a regular pattern: first oil production increases, then it reaches a peak, and, finally, as the oil field begins to dry up, oil production starts an inexorable decline.
This "bell curve" pattern of oil production, called the Hubbert curve, is also true for world oil production as a whole.
Below, the countries in red are already past their oil production peak; those in green have yet to pass peak (but most will in the next 5 or 10 years).
The graphs below suggest that we may be on a "bumpy plateau" for a while before we start down the inexorable down slope of the bell shaped Hubbert curve.
The term "economic peak oil" refers to the lowest real (inflation adjusted) price of oil -- a price that will never be seen again. That is, unless an economic replacement for oil is found, or, oil demand collapses due to economic collapse.
There are three very important "take home" messages.
The first:
1. We are close to, or at, both of these inflection points now:
Peak oil production
Oildemand/production crossover
But what about transitioning to renewable energy sources?
That would be a good idea. But we should have started 30 years ago to avoid a very difficult energy transition period.
Ready for the second take home message? Be sure you are sitting down, because the first time this reallty sinks in, it feels like taking a punch to the stomach:
2. We have, as of now, no renewable energy source, nor combination of sources, that can scale up quickly enough, or provide anywhere near to the energy equivalent of oil, to avoid a severe, worldwide energy shortage.
Sorry to break the news.
Let's take a moment to re-read and digest that last take home message (and its implications).
"There is no quickly scalable and energy-equivalent substitute for oil" ...in termsof its energy density, EROEI (energy returned on energy invested), transportability, safety, range, infrastructure, and cost.
This is quite a tragedy -- many people in poor countries will literally starve to death because of this.
The third take home message:
3. Even if we had renewable energy sources to provide the equivalent energy of oil at the same cost, our entire economic infrastructure is oil, not electron or hydrogen, based. The economy might not be able to work as well on non-oil based energy. For example, could airplanes, or large mining trucks, be run on batteries?
So there are very grave economic and social risks starting now, and exacerbating over the next several decades.
For the past century, oil has been an essentially free source of extremely dense and useful energy. Poke a hole in the ground in the right location, and you get an unparalleled source of energy. And, it can also be used to make a variety of products such as plastics, tires, asphalt for roads, medicines, etc. That is, when we are not burning it.
I was a firm believer in solar, wind, and geothermal energy until a few years ago, and I still believe they will help individuals. But no combination of these "renewable" technologies will make a notable difference at the level of 300 million Americans, much less the 6.5 billion people in the world. ...No alternatives scale, and we're out of time. We made the important decision about energy policy at two critical junctures in American history: (1) shortly after WWII, when we created the interstate highway system and the suburbs to build a way of life that had no future because it relied completely on ready supplies of a finite resource, and (2) in 1980, when we dismissed conservation at irrelevant..." -- Professor Guy McPherson (see this link)
But what about hydrogen, and the coming "hydrogen economy?"
Take another deep breath. Hydrogen is not a source of energy (like oil is).
You can't poke a hole in the ground and "strike hydrogen." It actually takes another source of energy (such as electricity) to make hydrogen. Hydrogen is just a "storage medium" for energy, like a battery. And, it is less energy efficient than a battery.
Energy Efficiency of Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars vs. Battery Electric Cars:
In one year the entire world produces about 1 cubic mile of oil (2006 data). It would take 50 years of energy production by each alternative energy source below to accumulate the equivalent energy in 1 cubic mile of oil that the world uses now in one year.
To produce an equivalent amount of energy provided by oil in one year would take:
200 Three Gorges Dams 2,600 Nuclear Power Plants 5,200 Coal Fired Plants (not good for global warming...) 1,642,500 Wind Turbines 4,562,500,000 Solar Panels
Reaching peak oil production is bad enough. But it gets worse...
...additional factors that will likely further exacerbate the problem:
1. China and India are now growing massive middle classes.
They want cars, and this desire will substantially drive up the worldwide demand for oil.
The State of California consumes more oil every year than does the entire country of China (source). Populations: California, 37 million; China, 1.3 billion. Only about 1 out of 70 people in China currently own a car. The rest would like to. Car sales in China are up more than 800% since 2000 (source).
2. As noted above, current renewable energy sources are far less "energy dense" than fossil fuels, and they are not rapidly scalable.
A few relevant quotes:
"No combination of conservation measures, alternative energy sources, and technological advances could realistically and economically provide a way to completely replace [oil] imports in the short or medium term." -- Stuart McGill, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President
"Based on everything we know right now, no combination of (renewable energy sources)... will even permit us to operate a substantial fraction of the systems we currently run -- in everything from food production and manufacturing to electric power generation... We are in trouble." -- James Howard Kunstler, "The Long Emergency" "No combination of renewable energy systems have the potential to generate more than a fraction of the power now being generated by fossil fuels." -- Jay Hanson
"In our own day, we must eventually move to lower grade energy resources as we slowly run out of oil. Therefore, we might expect the transition from oil to oil alternatives to be a decisively less successful energy transition than previous energy transitions in history, since all the previous transitions were from low grade to high grade energy resources, and the coming oil transition is from a high energy resource of oil to lower grade energy resources." -- Professor Douglas Reynolds, oil and energy economist
"If someone, somewhere, comes up with a source of power that is safe, inexpensive, and for all intents and purposes inexhaustible, then we, the Chinese, the Indians, and everyone else on the planet can keep on truckin’. Barring that, the car of the future may turn out to be no car at all." -- Elizabeth Kolbert, Running on Fumes, The New Yorker, 11/5/07
3. Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI), or "net energy," is falling.
The real underlying problem is not peak oil, but declining "net energy" or "EROEI," for oil.
This is one of the most foundational peak oil concepts to understand. It doesn't matter how much oil is in the ground -- what matters is how expensive it is to get it (as well as the flow rate).
To get 100 barrels of oil in 1930, it took only 1 barrel of oil energy. In 1970 the ratio had dropped to about 30:1. Now that ratio has fallen to about 10:1. Once this ratio falls to 1:1, it will take more than one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil. Game over. (More info here and here; also see "Why EROI Matters" by Professor Charles Hall, and Net Energy and Jevons' Paradox, John Michael Greer.)
So, more important than peak oil is "peak net energy."
Note in the following charts how rapidly the oil EROEI decline comes near the end for net oil energy. The Hubbert Curve is symmetrical; unfortunately, the Net Energy Hubbert Curve is not -- it looks more like a shark fin. The downside of the curve is more like falling off of a cliff.
4. Oil exporting countries will reduce (or stop) exporting oil when they cannot meet their own growing internal demand for oil.
Because the U.S. reached peak oil in 1970, as noted above, our domestic oil production has declined ever since. Where did we get the oil we needed after that point? From foreign countries.
Today the U.S. sends over 700 billion dollars a year to foreign countries to purchase oil. Our economy can't take that kind of financial hemorrhaging for long.
Further, as those foreign countries reach peak oil, and their oil production begins to decline, they will have less oil to export.
For example, the U.S. gets much of its oil from Mexico; however Mexico will be unlikely to meet its own internal demand for oil within a decade -- there will be none left to export to the US. (See "Net Oil Exports and the Iron Triangle" by Jeffrey Brown.)
Compared to 2007, in 2008, Mexican oil production dropped 6.4% and their oil exports fell by 14%. (Source:
The "Export Land Model" by Jeffrey Brown suggests that, as world oil production declines, while at the same time world oil consumption increases, the amount of oil available for export from oil producing countries to oil importing countries will decrease over time.
Ironically, as U.S. oil production further declines, we will become increasingly dependent on oil imports in the future. (While our politicians continue to talk about oil independence as if that was a realistic possibility...)
As the cost of energy rises, the cost of everything else made with oil and oil energy (like building materials) also rises. (More info here.)
6. Oil hoarding.
Once it becomes clear that world oil production is on an inexorable decline, and that oil prices are on an ever upward trend, oil hoarding will begin. Some oil may simply not be for sale, at any price. Oil prices will spiral upward in a self-reinforcing, yet volatile, feedback loop. (More on this: see this article.)
Should the oil markets themselves begin to 'connect these dots' then all our lives are going to be impacted violently and immediately. ...as soon as Peak Oil is recognized that for all practical purposes the situation is already upon us, then a fast and vicious "resource grab" will be initiated. The price of oil in the markets will begin to rise dramatically. This will initiate a circular hedging hoarding mentality in large end-users, governments, and multi-nationals. This will then have a myriad of devastating effects... --Steven Lagavulinhttp://deconsumption.typepad.com/deconsumption/2005/03/the_most_import.html
Part 3: Possible economic and social scenarios following peak oil.
"Alas, poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!" -- William Shakespeare (Venus and Adonis)
Without the quick development of dense, renewable and rapidly scalable energy sources, we may be in for a very difficult ride ahead. If we don't act now, oil may be to modern industrial/technological civilization what trees wereto the Easter Islanders, what grape juice was to the yeast colony, and what grass was to the St. Mathew Island reindeer.
Cheap, abundant energy is the oxygen of modern civilization.
There is no substitute for energy. The whole edifice of modern society is built upon it. It is not "just another commodity" but the precondition of all commodities, a basic factor equal with air, water and earth. -- E. F. Schumacher (1973)
When critical resources are decreasing, game theorists call this situation a negative sum game. Such "shrinking overall pie" situations can often lead to intense conflict, unless social structures are developed to help to enable cooperation, and, in the case of peak oil, a massive effort to develop renewable energy is started immediately.
Whether we will have enough time at that point to make the transition to renewable energy is the question.
So, what does this mean for me? For example, what will a gallon of gasoline likely cost in the future?
Superhighways, coast to coast. Easy to get anywhere. On the transcontinental over road, just climb behind the wheel. How does it feel? When there's no destination that's too far? And somewhere on the way, you might find out who you are... -- "Living in America," James Brown, song lyrics.
Ok, let's bring this home to what we all understand -- gasoline prices.
Below is one possible future price scenario for a gallon of gas. Of course, it would be surprising if the gas price projections in the table below were exactly on the mark each year, but the general upward trend in prices is likely to be accurate.
Think about this: How would your life (and the economy) change in 2012, just a few years from now, if a gallon of gas costs over $17 a gallon?
Historically, the price of a gallon of gasoline has been about the price of a barrel of oil divided by 20, with a lag of up to a year and a half. According to this historical relationship, oil at $200 a gallon might equate to gasoline at $10 a gallon.
Historical and projected (to 2012) world oil supply, demand, and price:
"The challenge over the next several decades is to manage the consequences of unavoidable dependence on oil and gas that is traded in world markets and to begin the transition to an economy that relies less on petroleum. The longer the delay, the greater will be the subsequent trauma ...the transition could be especially disruptive." -- Council on Foreign Relations. "Independent Task Force Report #58 "National Security Consequences of Oil Dependency" http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pd
"Humans encountered a giant lottery ticket in fossil fuels. As the gradient began to dissipate in 1970s consuming nations replaced it with debt, imported energy, and borrowing from nature, future, and thin air." -- Nate Hagens http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/5422#more
The graph below shows the percent of total world gross domestic product (GDP) (economic output) that is spent on oil. The vertical axis is price, the horizontal axis is world oil production per year. The graph is a bit difficult to interpret because there is no axis for time. However, each dot represents a particular year, and time would pretty much correspond to the horizontal axis of oil production per year. Note that as oil production has maxed out, the percent of world GDP spent on oil has shot up. With oil at $135 a barrel, the dot would be up above the top of the graph at about 6.5%.
Graph: Percent of world economic output spent on oil.
"Multiplying production (barrels per year) times the oil price (dollars per barrel) gives a total cost in dollars per year. It's an enormous number; tens of trillions of dollars per year... Oil production obviously cannot consume 100 percent of the world's income. My intuitive, uninformed guess is that it cannot go above 15 percent. If we see oil at $300 per barrel, we will be looking out over the smoldering ruins of the world's economy."
To further exacerbate the problem, world GDP will itself shrink as the price of oil increases. That is, not only will the cost of oil consume a greater percentage of the world economic pie, but the size of the economic pie itself will shrink as the price of oil increases. That is a self-reinforcing feedback loop.
As noted in the graphic below, oil production growth is highly correlated with world GDP growth. A decline in oil production will likely lead to a corresponding decline in world GDP.
"How fast does the economy decline as oil production declines? In his latest report, drawing on various sources, Robert Hirsch reasons that the correlation is 1:1. A 2.5% annual decline rate will shrink the global economy by 25% in 10 years. Other reports substantiate that ratio.
...our GDP will decline at approximately the rate oil declines.
...With the annual oil decline rate expected to range between 2% and 5% (see Hirsch, 2008) and the Oakland Peak Oil report using 2.6%, we will have a massive unemployment and homelessness problem on our hands. It also seems reasonable to expect that a great deal of wealth will be destroyed during the decline, as is happening now in the current credit crunch but on a larger scale."
In fact, 4 of the past 5 economic recessions in the U.S. followed oil price spikes.
Note the relationship between oil price spikes and economic contraction.
After U.S. domestic oil production peaked in 1970, Saudi Arabia came to the rescue. Who will come to the rescue when Saudi Arabia reaches its own peak of oil production?
Demitry Orlov has explored the Russian economic collapse after its oil production fell. The world came to its rescue, and provided the oil imports it needed for an economic recovery.
Who will come to the Earth's rescue after world peak oil?
Here is Demitry Orlov's (tongue-in-cheek) solution:
Had the Former Soviet Union remained economically isolated, the free-fall would have continued. Kolodziej and Reynolds drew some interesting conclusions based on these data. Firstly, the crash in oil production preceded collapse in USSR's Gross Domestic Product. The lag time between the two, and the severity of the collapse are clear enough to ascribe causality: to say that the oil crash caused the economic collapse. On the other hand, coal and natural gas production, which also crashed, did so after the GDP collapsed, again, with a significant enough lag time to say with confidence that it was economic collapse that caused coal and gas production to crash.
What actually happens to an economy and a society under such circumstances? With oil in short supply, industrial production plummets, the economy stalls, there is a financial crisis because of debts going bad, followed by a commercial crisis because of falling demand and lack of credit, followed by political collapse caused by dwindling government revenues, followed by social collapse as unemployment rises and crime becomes rampant. After a while of this, the idea of you and your friends going out to the oil field and pumping some more oil starts to seem rather odd, and so oil production heads to zero.
The global oil peak is different from all the little localized peaks in that the planet as a whole cannot import its way out of an oil shortage, resulting in a global economic collapse. The economic collapse will, in turn, cause global oil production to crash even faster, extinguishing the industrial economy.
As Russian oil production was saved by foreigners, so Earthling oil production must be be saved by aliens from outer space.
Although we have absolutely zero data on which to base this assumption, we must assume that oil production throughout the rest of the universe has not peaked yet. Further, we must assume that interstellar vessels will deliver this oil to Earth in a timely manner, making up for any planetary production shortfall before Earth's economy collapses. Further, since Earth has few resources to trade for this oil, let us assume that the aliens will be happy to give us their oil in exchange for a truly excellent recipe for brioche ŕ tęte which (for reasons we should find intuitively obvious) no-one in the rest of the universe has been able to perfect.
The nominal price of oil might fluctuate wildly as the underlying monetary supply expands (inflation) or contracts (deflation). Economic systems may become so unhinged by oil price fluctuations that the system becomes wildly chaotic, with extreme cyclical swings prices as economies collapse to due high oil prices, recover, collapse again, and so on.
The bottom line is this: oil will become increasing expensive in real terms, even as it goes through wild swings of nominal decreases (due to general economic contraction and deflation) or nominal increases (due to monetary inflation). During an economic depression, the real price of oil will be too expensive for most people despite nominally low oil prices. That is, if you don't have much money, oil is pretty expensive even when it is nominally cheap.
As noted earlier, a shrinking economy is a "negative sum game" (similar to the game of "musical chairs"). Such situations typically lead to intense conflicts over resources (and make resource wars more likely).
"When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war; which provideth for every man, by victory, or death." - Thomas Hobbs, Leviathan
Video: Dr. Robert L. Hirsch, Sr. Energy Advisor at Management Information Systems, delivers a keynote speech at the 2008 AFVi Conference in Las Vegas about the economic impacts of peak oil.
Why aren't we getting a "heads up" about peak oil?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. --Upton Sinclair
Brief answer: Governments and corporations are not in the business of communicating bad news to their constituents (although ethically they should), especially when such bad news will threaten short term profits or chances of re-election. They are "near-sighted."
The first sobering "heads up" was by geologist M. King Hubbert, in 1956. He warned that oil production in the lower US 48 states would peak in 1970. In 1957, Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover gave a speech in which he warned about the future decline in fossil fuel resources, and he stressed the need to tell the younger generation. However, there were no warnings about peak oil from the government.
U.S. oil production did peak in 1970, just as had Hubbert predicted in 1956. He also warned that world oil production would peak sometime around 2000. Given that Hubbert had already gotten one prediction right, you might think that the government and corporations would warn us about the predicted 2000 world oil production peak.
Since 1956, the world economy has proceeded under a sort of oil company spell that has woven the illusion all around us that oil depletion is so far into the future that we don't need to worry about it. That belief was essential to support the aim of an endlessly growing economy.
...Today, despite skyrocketing oil prices, most politicians still avoid the term "peak oil." Most of the media still treat peak oil advocates with skepticism, using epithets like "fringe" and "so-called" to describe peak oil theory
When speaking of energy issues, politicians will often use the euphemism of energy security, acknowledging that the US has only three percent of the world's oil reserves and warning that most of the rest of it belongs to unfriendly or unstable governments. While there is truth to this type of statement, it sets up a framework for conflict by creating the perception that there is plenty of oil left but bad people are keeping it away from us. Both Democrats and Republicans buy into this view. In this election season, some Democrats seem even more willing than Republicans to play the oil fear card and promote quick-fix measures that are ineffectual or downright ridiculous.
...After years of toning down the message of peak oil in public discourse, voters need to let candidates know that now is the time to tone it up.
From 1970, when U.S. oil production peaked, until today, when world oil production is peaking, instead of warning us about peak oil, the U.S. leaders allowed us to became increasingly dependent on foreign oil by failing to start a massive program to produce renewable energy.
President Carter did make a bit of an effort to warn us. In a televised televised speech on April 18, 1977, Carter said:
Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge our country will face during our lifetimes. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.
...The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.
Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.
Here is a video of this speech:
This theme was expanded in his July 15th, 1979 "Crisis of Confidence" speech. Carter warned that the 1979 oil crisis was the "moral equivalent of war." He also said: "We believed that our nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil." Note that he came close, but he didn't quite explain why our oil resources were not "limitless."
President Carter set the following national goals in that speech (goals, which in retrospect, were a stunning failure):
Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation.
...I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.
I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds...
...we will mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.
Wait... did he say 20 percent of our energy would be from solar power by the year 2000? Did he say that we would reduce imported oil to zero by 1990?
Most egregiously, President Carter never really explicitly mentioned the words "peak oil." He never mentioned the more general problem of world oil depletion, or the declining world oil EROEI. He did not mention that renewable sources of energy could not replace the equivalent amount of energy provided by oil.
Had the real, underlying problem been clearly articulated back then, might things have turned out differently 30 years later? What if, back in 1979, President Carter had mentioned that oil production in the U.S. had peaked nine years ago, and we were on a irreversible decline? What if he had mentioned that Hubbert had forecasted that peak, and that we had only about 20 years to prepare before Hubbert's prediction that world oil production would peak around 2000?
At least President Carter mentioned the general problem, albeit without mentioning peak oil. To be fair, none of the subsequent presidents have never mentioned the words "peak oil" in public, either.
In 1980 Carter proclaimed, in what came to be called the Carter Doctrine, that the U.S. would intervene militarily if our oil supply from the mid-east was threatened. Apparently he was aware that renewable sources of energy were not going to replace oil quickly enough, despite his earlier comments to the contrary.
In 1993, President Clinton, along with the heads of the major U.S. car companies, launched the Partnership for the New Generation of Vehicles. By 1997, they had produced an 72 mpg concept "supercar" that would be a diesel-hybrid combination. After a billion dollars of government money, in 2000 the concept cars were wheeled out.
In 2002 the Bush Administration scrapped the project.
In her article Running on Fumes, Elizabeth Kolbert reviews this project, and writes:
Detroit has to change. Detroit won't change. The two statements seem incompatible, and yet here we are. The Big Three still claim to be on the verge of introducing revolutionary new technologies—"Imagine: A daily commute without a drop of gas," a G.M. ad touting a battery-powered car (still in the concept stage) exhorts—even as they continue to fight higher fuel-efficiency standards, on the ground that meeting such standards would be technologically infeasible.
Today, we still aren't we getting a "heads up" from the current U.S. President, or other world leaders. Why?
If a bus is barreling down the street toward you, don't your leaders and the media have an ethical duty to warn you?
Although we have not gotten a warning from top government and business leaders, or from the majority of the main stream media, the word is starting to get out.
A very small group of U.S. congressional representatives -- the US Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, with representatives Udall and Bartlett, is sounding a warning. But this issue is so important, it should be coming from the very top national and international leaders.
Is there enough time (and oil) left to make the transition to renewable energy?
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences." -- Winston Churchill, November 1939
In 1977 Barry Commoner wrote in The Politics of Energy that we must begin developing renewable energy now becausetheremaining oil reserves themselves will be needed to serve as the transitional medium to build a renewable energy infrastructure.
That was over 30 years ago.
More recently, Dr. Robert Hirsch, in a study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy titled Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management concluded that to avoid serious impacts, a peak oil mitigation crash program must start 20 years before peak oil. We apparently are at peak oil now, and the crash mitigation program has yet to begin.
Again, the critical issue is this: once peak oil and its potential consequences become generally known and accepted, will there be enough time to make the transition to renewable energy sources quickly enough to avoid major economic and social disruptions?
Will the last precious barrels of oil be used to power SUVs, or will they be used to build the renewable energy infrastructure that is needed to avoid an energy famine?
For now, what renewable sources of energy can help to at least mitigate the upcoming energy famine?
Let's evaluate several sources of energy in terms of their current potential.
Note: I am not an energy expert. However, I developed the tables below simply because I could find no similar simple, overall summary developed by experts. The data in the tables are my rough estimates, and, could be a bit off the mark.
Point values in the tables below:
5 - Very Good 4 - Good 3 - Medium 2 - Poor 1 - Very Poor
*EROEI: "Energy Returned on Energy Invested." Approximate EROEI values are in parenthesis. E.g., a score of 2 means that twice as much energy is returned as energy invested. For example, with an oil EROEI of 20, it would take one barrel of oil ("invested") to produce 20 barrels of oil ('returned"). Reference source for EROEI figures: http://eroei.com/eval/net_energy_list.htm
What is most disconcerting is that there is no renewable energy source that comes close to the energy advantages of oil, especially with respect to its energy density and its "net energy" (EROEI -- energy returned on energy invested).
POTENTIAL AS A FUTURE, LONG TERM ENERGY SOURCE:
Summary Score (from previous table)
Low depletion rate
Low Greenhouse Gases
Low Future Costs
Summary
Score (Average)
NON- RENEWALBE, FINITE ENERGY SOURCES:
Oil
4.8
2
2
2
2.7
Coal
3.5
3
1
3
2.6
Natural Gas
3.1
1
2
1
1.8
Nuclear
3.3
2
5
2
2.8
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES:
Hydro (dams)
3.0
3
5
3
3.5
Wind
2.8
5
5
5
4.5
Solar PV
2.8
5
5
5
4.5
Biomass Ethanol
3.5
3
3
3
2.8
Geo- thermal
2.4
4
5
4
3.9
Ocean
waves / tides
2.3
5
5
3
3.8
RANK ORDERING OF CURRENT RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES (based on the above tables):
For more discussion about the pros and cons of various forms of energy, see:
Energy in a Nutshell, by Alice Friedemann. Also see Peak Oil and Alternative Energy -- why there is no good alternative to oil (in terms of net energy). Peak Oil: Alternatives, Renewables, And Impact, by Clifford Wirth, Ph.D. Energy Grades and Historic Economic Growth, by oil and energy economist Douglas Reynolds. "In our own day, we must eventually move to lower grade energy resources as we slowly run out of oil. Therefore, we might expect the transition from oil to oil alternatives to be a decisively less successful energy transition than previous energy transitions in history, since all the previous transitions were from low grade to high grade energy resources, and the coming oil transition is from a high energy resource of oil to lower grade energy resources."
Will a scientific breakthrough come in time to save us from a worldwide energy famine?
"...the tactic of using the remaining fossil fuels to prepare to prepare for a post-fossil fuel future is a matter of buying time until "they," the scientist-nerd-innovator-geniuses, come up with a new a superior energy source. For all I know, this miracle will occur. ...but it puts the human race into a jam, cramming for a final exam that it can't afford to lose." -- James Howard Kunstler, "The Long Emergency"
I had a colleague and good friend who contracted a deadly form of ovarian cancer. She was a scientist, and she investigated the medical literature herself. She read every research article she could find. She was convinced that if she could live another five years (the limit of her prognosis), a breakthrough cure might be found in time to save her.
Tragically, a technofix did not come in time.
A scientific breakthrough cure for our terminal energy decline might come in time, or, it might not. To save us, the breakthrough must provide renewable, dense, clean, safe, and transportable energy that can scale up rapidly, with an EROEI equivalent, or better, than that of oil.
Areas where we desperately need to see a breakthrough scientific discovery.
Below are some possibilities -- keep your fingers crossed that one of them provides an energy techofix breakthrough in time.
1. Nuclear fusion. Fifty years ago they said it would be ready in fifty years. Not. Now when do they say it will be ready? Fifty years from now...
2. Solar photovoltaic. Can it scale up rapidly? Can its efficiency be increased? Can its cost be radically reduced? Can it avoid using rare earth minerals?
3. Oil made by genetically modified algae via photosynthesis. Can it scale up rapidly? What is the EROEI? Can genetic breakthroughs to modify algae come in time?
Keep an eye on this one -- it might work and it might scale up rapidly. For more information see:
See the New Energy Congress website for more information about these areas of research, as well as other promising areas of renewable energy investigation.
However, keep in mind that, as was the case with my friend, there are no guarantees that a technofix will come in time.
What will happen if we don't make the transition to renewable energy in time?
"So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late." -- Bob Dylan
"Running low on gas... " -- Amelia Earhart
" ...the oil economy is going away. While it is still here, we can use it to fuel the transition to the energy economy of the future. If it goes away before we've done it, we are screwed." -- Omri Schwarz, http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/1/11/23344/7099
"Finding a new source of energy to replace fossil fuels may be the most daunting task ever to face mankind." -- Jim Puplava
If we do not quickly transition to rapidly scalable and energy dense renewable energy, the predictions made in the following graphs paint some very grim scenarios. Caution: The graphics below are explicit (Rated F -- for Fear inducing).
As you review these graphs, keep in mind that these nightmares are not in some distant future. They may arrive in less than one or two decades from now.
Note in the graph above that, without some type of scientific breakthrough, the low energy density of current renewable energy sources (in green) result in renewable energy sources that barely make a dent in the total energy picture.
Yes, the graph above suggests that billions of people may have an early, unpleasant demise if the oil (i.e., energy) depletion problem is not solved. Soon.
But weren't predictions of doom made before, and they didn't happen?
Yes. Some predictions did not come true.
Paul R. Ehrlich predicted in his 1968 book The Population Bomb that a mass starvation would occur in the 1970s or 1980s. It didn't. The green revolution literally arrived just in time with new agricultural pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation and the breeding of high yielding crops.
However, this still did not prevent famine, or the severe malnourishment, of people in many countries.
Here are the original predictions that were made in 1972:
Instead of falsely calling "wolf," these predictions appear to be on track as of today.
Several prominent scientists, including Jared Diamond, Stephen Hawking, and E. O. Wilson, concur that the consequences of human ecological overshoot are likely to be severe by 2050.
Several books have recently explored some these predictions:
"...something is happening here but you don't know what it is do you, Mr. Jones?" -- Bob Dylan, song lyrics (Ballad of a Thin Man)
"(After giving a talk on peak oil)... there’s always one guy at the back whose head has seized up like a crashed computer and who’s desperately trying to reboot to a more familiar welcome screen. He’s the one spewing out a dozen variations on This can’t be so." -- Dave Hughes http://www.walrusmagazine.com/print/2009.06-energy-an-inconvenient-talk/
" ...the shock that is going to occur, in my opinion, is going to be a psychological shock. (Peak oil) really isn't yet in the public consciousness. ...people will all of a sudden wake up to the reality of this, and begin to think about what it means." -- Dr. Robert L. Hirsch
Denial vs. Catastrophizing
There seems to be a spectrum of reactions to peak oil, especially when first learning about the problem. On one end are the deniers; on the other end of the spectrum are the catastrophizers.
Jews in Germany in 1939 paid a dear price for denial. Those who saw a catastrophe ahead left the country. (The film "Nowhere in Africa," and the book by the same name, is a true story about a Jewish family that decided to uproot themselves from their home in Germany and flee to Africa. Some of their extended family and friends who remained in Germany did not survive.)
On the other end of the spectrum from denial is catastrophizing. Catastrophizing is believing the worst possible situation will happen, and imagining it vividly, to the point of obsession. We all did this as teenagers when we found a pimple on our face and couldn't imagine facing our school mates the next day. We got over it.
But, some didn't. Catasrophizers under the mind control of religious zealots have many times throughout history believed the end of the world was nigh -- and sold all of their possessions in their anticipation of their ascension into the rapturous light. It was a bit embarrassing when the target date passed uneventfully. Sometimes they re-set the date. And waited. Sometimes they made it a self-fulfilling prophesy by drinking suicidal or homicidal Kool-aid.
It would be interesting to do a study comparing peak oil catastrophizers vs. peak oil deniers. Most likely there are some personality / developmental background differences there.
Bottom line: the future is very, very hard to predict. However, doing some best estimate risk management is still prudent. My house is unlikely to burn down, but I still buy fire insurance.
First step: Let's all admit that we have a problem.
As "oilcoholics," the first step is admitting that as a society that we have a serious problem, something that is akin to a self-destructive addiction.
Second Step: Work Though the Stages of Oil Depletion Grief -- both on a personal and on a social level.
We may only be in the first stage (or entering stage two?) of oil depletion grief. It may generally follow this progression:
1. Denial. "Peak oil? Baloney! There's lots of oil left. No worries, mate."
2. Anger. "It's the damn ________'s (oil companies, governments, OPEC, etc.) fault that oil prices are going up. They're gouging us. The bastards!"
3. Bargaining. "But what about new oil discovery technologies? What about biofuels? I can keep my SUV, right? Someone, or some new discovery will save us ...right?"
4. Depression. "Damn... no renewable energy source is as energy dense as oil, or quickly scalable... Holy crap. We are _________ (in for a rough ride, doomed, etc.)"
5. Acceptance. "Ok, even if we are in for a rough ride, what I can do? What can I ask my government representatives to do? How can I make a difference? How can I prepare? How can we support research into potential technological breakthroughs?"
Part 4: What can psychological science, and evolutionary psychology in particular, offer to help to address these problems?
Can humans be "smarter than yeast?" Can we be the only species that can successfully avoid ecological overshoot and collapse? These are psychological problems -- are we psychologically sophisticated enough to manage our own collective behavior?
Evolved adaptations (including psychological ones) are all solutions to problems of inclusive fitness in ancestral environments. Our ancestors' "inclusive fitness" refers to the number of genes they projected into the next generation via reproduction, and by helping those who shared their genes (close kin).
Inclusive fitness has been the "designer" of human psychological adaptations.
Evolution cannot look forward; it cannot anticipate what it has never encountered. We have no psychological adaptations to avoid ecological overshoot. In fact, we have just the opposite.
Here's the sobering rub:
Inclusive fitness is always relative to others; it is not absolute.
That is, nature doesn't "say,"
"Have 2 kids (or help 4 full sibs), and then you can stop. Good job! You did your genetic duty, you avoided contributing to ecological overshoot, and you may pass along now..."
"Out-reproduce your competitors. Your competitors are all of the genes in your species' gene pool that you do not share. If the average inclusive fitness score is 4, then you go for 5... "
In other words, our psychological adaptations are designed to not just "keep up with the Joneses" but to "do better than the Joneses." This is in whatever terms that increase inclusive fitness -- number of children, and things that have led to them, such as status, multiple wives, resource acquisition and control, etc.
Here is a film clip that illustrates this.
An unfortunately corollary of the relativity of inclusive fitness is that an organism can also increase its inclusive fitness by reducing the inclusive fitness of others. That potentially makes murder, genocide, warfare, and other nasty stuff potential genetic pay offs.
Game theory
Game theorists suggest that, with every interaction with others, we have a choice to either cooperate or to "defect."
How can we set up a situation wherein it is in everyone's interest to both reduce oil consumption, as well as invest in renewable energy sources?
Evolutionary psychology and the problem of the "Tragedy of the Commons"
Evolutionary psychology suggests we will tend to be altruistic (not expect repayment) toward close kin (especially those with high reproductive value), and we will tend to be nice to non-kin with whom we have established an on-going, mutually beneficial reciprocal relationship. We will tend to be selfish otherwise. Also, we may be spiteful (hurt another even at a cost to self) to reduce the inclusive fitness of others, especially when they are reducing our inclusive fitness and/or the overall resource pie is shrinking.
Below are a few slides I developed for use in my classroom lectures. (Note: I will add more text for further elaboration later...)
Some Foundational Ideas related to Evolutionary Psychology (from Mills, 2005).
Level Theorist Theory Example Adaptations
Individual Behavior
Darwin -- 1859
Natural (“survival”) & Sexual Selection
Bones, skin, vision, pain perception, etc. Peacock’s tail, antlers, courtship behavior, etc.
Family / Kin Behavior
Hamilton - 1963
Inclusive Fitness / Kin selection
Altruism toward kin, parental investment, the behavior of the social insects with sterile workers (e.g., ants).
Repeated interactions with non-kin
Trivers - 1972
Mutualism / “Tit for Tat Reciprocity”
Cheater detection, emotions of revenge and guilt, etc.
Single interactions with non-kin
Gintis, 2002 (and others)
Generalized (or “strong”) Reciprocity
Generalized reciprocity to in-group / Generalized hostility to out-group.
Transmission of Culture / Ideas
Dawkins - 1976
Meme propagation
Language, music, evoked culture…
We will tend to act altruistically when certain conditions are met. One of the them is called "Hamilton's Rule."
We tend to behave as if we still lived in small tribes as did our ancestors. This “error” makes generalized cooperation, or "strong reciprocity," possible. We may be willing to help strangers, without an expectation of repayment, as long as we perceive them as members of our "tribe." It may be a set of adaptations that were designed for small in-group cohesion during times of high inter-tribal warfare with out-groups.
Today, the capacity to be altruistic to in-group strangers may result from a serendipitous generalization (or "mismatch") between ancestral tribal living and today's large societies that entail many single interactions with anonymous strangers. We think members of our in-group are part of our "tribe." Result: strong reciprocity -- acting like a "good Samaritan," cognitive concepts of justice, ethics and human rights.
Ironically strong reciprocity also has a dark side. It may also underlie adaptations for aggression toward "out-groups," including the capacity for xenophobia, racism, warfare, genocide. And, for fighting over increasingly scarce resources.
Strong reciprocity is more likely to occur in a "positive sum game" (when the entire pie is growing) because the costs of non-cooperating are higher. One simply has to cooperate to expect a progressively larger slice of the pie in the future.
So, generalized reciprocity works well when the overall resource pie is growing (in a "positive sum game").
But, as was noted above, the Peak Oil crisis is a "shrinking energy pie" situation (a "negative sum game").
A shrinking energy pie:
Successful adaptation to peak oil requires that the whole world to cooperate as oil resources dwindle. Is that possible?
Fooling evolved mental adaptations with "psychological illusions."
So, what are we up against to avoid ecological overshoot? Nothing less tenacious than human nature. Hopeless? Not sure yet.
If we are to have a chance to be "smarter than yeast", we have to be smart enough to understand and manipulate our own psychological adaptations. We have to "fool Mother Nature." We have to agree to fool ourselves.
Can we? Yes. In fact, it happens all the time today.
We can enjoy films, TV and photos because they were not part of our ancestral environment. We have no adaptations to counter these novel tricks -- we often have difficulty distinguishing between virtual reality and reality.
For example, when we watch a TV sitcom such as "Friends" we are fooled (at least on an emotional level) into thinking the characters really are our friends. We may smile and say hello if we see Jennifer Aniston on the street (she was in our living room, after all).
But, don't expect a reciprocal response, though. To Jennifer, of course, we are an intruding stranger she has never met.
We cry and laugh at movies, despite the fact that we know what we are watching is just light projected through film, the actors are reading from a script, and there is a sound guy holding a boom mic standing just out of the frame. Sure, it is sad that the ship sank, but no one on the set actually drowned. Nevertheless, our psychological adaptations are fooled, and we may leave the theater a bit misty.
So, just as we can be fooled by perceptual illusions, we can also be fooled by psychological illusions.
Can we fool our psychological adaptations to help to live sustainably on a finite planet? Probably.
Engineered social self-deception, intentionally designed activate psychological adaptations, may help to modify our own behavior to help to mitigate ecological challenges.
In addition, women may have a special role to play. They need to be prepped to find "ecological men" of limited resource consumption really, really sexy. Unfortunately, sexual selection has designed women to tend to prefer "alpha males" -- high status, high consumption, high resource control men (in ancestral times, they helped women's children survive and thrive).
Men are adapted to do their darned best to give women what they want, or face reproductive oblivion. One way that today's men have demonstrated their high status has been to drive big SUVs.
However, what if tomorrow women found the guy behind the wheel of a Prius irresistible? And, what if women sexually rejected the guy driving an SUV? What do you think would happen to Prius sales?
Powerful media / advertising messages probably could help to fool our psychological adaptations. (This is called "social advertising" or "social marketing.") We need to develop a strong "social narrative" of mutual cooperation on a finite planet.
However, right now, we are getting advertising messages that encourage short term consumption over longer term sustainability. Below is a video parody of a "clean coal" TV commercial:
Needed: A sustainability movement and world leadership that is not "near-sighted."
A new social movement is needed - a sustainability movement. This is particularly important for anyone who plans to live in the future.
Young people in particular need to mobilize and demand change now. A grass-roots movement of the magnitude of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the women's rights movement of the 1970s, is needed. Today no one wants to be called a racist or a sexist. Those movements had clearly defined out-groups to vilify as the "enemy" -- and that may have helped to mobilize and motivate activists.
But who is the enemy now? There is no out-group. The enemy is us. We are fighting against ourselves -- our base psychological adaptations to compete for relative status, mates and resources.
It just doesn't have the same impact to shout out at someone driving an oversized SUV:
"You non-sustainablist!"
(Or... maybe it would work? Try it, and let me know how it goes...)
In addition, will those who are currently powerful expend their political capital to effect the desperately needed emergency transition to renewable energy, and do so in time? This is an ultimate issue of vision and leadership.
There is the rub.
Visitors since August, 2008:
For some more of my thoughts regarding these issues, see:
My PowerPoint slides from my talk presented at the 2005 LMU Bellarmine Forum: "Why A Sense of Global Community Needed to Survive the Coming World-wide Energy Crisis: Peak Oil, Ecological Carrying Capacity, and the Perilous Phase Transition to Renewable Energy Sources."
For more information about Preparing for Peak Oil:
Post Carbon Institute helps individuals and communities understand and respond to the environmental, societal, and economic crises created by our dependence on fossil fuels.
Titanic Lifeboat Academy Helping people build lifeboats for the transition through resource depletion, climate change & population overshoot
1. Initially, higher prices for energy and food items and a major recession. 2. Longer term, a decline in economic activity. 3. Transportation difficulties and electrical outages. 4. Possible collapse of the monetary system. 5. Failure of economic assumptions to hold. 6. Changed emphasis to more local production. 7. Reduced emphasis on debt. 8. Reduced emphasis on insurance and pensions. 9. More people will perform manual labor. 10. Resource wars and migration conflicts. 11. Changes in family relationships. 12. Eventual population decline.
Peak Moment TV a television series emphasizing positive responses to energy decline and climate change through local community action. Also available at Global Public Media
Peak OIl? ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) -- excellent, balanced presentation. It includes interviews with Colin Campbell, Robert Hirsch, Chris Skrebowski, and others.
Discovery Channel's Addicted to Oilreported by Thomas Friedman (author of "The World is Flat").
Kenneth Deffeyes, author of "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak," explains his theories and looks at oil alternatives. http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=072705
Lecture by physics professor David Goodstein, author of "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil." Lecture given at Caltech on 10/13/2004: http://today.caltech.edu/theater/list?subset=science(search in list for lecture)
Interview with 'Twilight in the Desert' author Matt Simmons. Are the Saudis running out of oil, and are their reserve estimates accurate? What other sources might help fill the gap? (Originally aired: 06/15/2005) http://www.eande.tv/main/?date=061505
BBC Connections: The Trigger Effect. Excellent program on our interdependence on fragile links between different forms of technology, with a focus on the 1965 New York blackout, and the cascading technological collapses that followed. The film has some quite ironic coincidences, showing the twin towers and an incoming flight with the flight number 911. This is the documentary that prompted the 1996 film by the same name.
DVDs:
History Channel -- Mega Disasters -- Oil Apocalypse (2007)
Matt Savinar on Coast to Coast radio program, November, 2007 (mp3).
Energy Roundtable -- Financial Sense Newshour Features discussions with James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency," and Richard Heinberg, author, "Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World." Also, Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil:Current Events, "... we passed the peak on December 16, 2005..."
U.S. National Commission on Energy Policy -- Oil Shockwave report.
On June 23, 2005, a group of nine former White House cabinet and senior national security officials convened to participate in a simulated working group of a White House cabinet. Their task: to advise an American president as the nation grapples with an oil crisis over a seven-month period. As they enter the room, they are unaware of the circumstances or nature of the oil crisis.
The Behavioral Aspects of Peak Oil: Basic Contingencies, by Lyle Grant. Summary at TheOilDrum.com, and full paper (PDF) "Peak Oil as a Behavioral Problem" that appeared in Behavior and Social Issues, 16, 65-88 (2007)
PeakOilBlues.com -- website -- "peak oil aware" psychotherapists who know the stress the dawning awareness of Peak Oil, and who wish to assist others in learning how to transform any frozen or destructive emotional reactions into more proactive, productive responses.
Money Talks " ...our economy fails to charge us the "true cost" of denying future generations the fossil energy they might need to feed themselves 50 years hence."
Earth Clock -- population, etc. http://www.celsias.com/2007/11/04/earth-clock/
Websites related to Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI, EROI, or "net energy" or "exergy") -- one of the most essential concepts to understand with regard to oil and renewable energy:
Hope for some possible energy "technofixes" (knock on wood that they
arrive in time, are rapidly scalable, have a high EROEI, are renewable, clean and cheap):
The wiki New Energy Congress reviews the most promising claims for up-and-coming clean, renewable, affordable, reliable energy technologies, in order to come up with a weighted list of recommendations of the best technologies. See, in particular, their Top 100 Technologies. Some of these are controversial (a few might be criticized as outright cranks), while others are scientifically proven and commercially available. See, in particular, the MagLev Wind Power Generator.
WSJ: The World Has Plenty of Oil, By Nansen G. Saleri "Where do reasonable assumptions surrounding peak oil lead us? My view, subjective and imprecise, points to a period between 2045 and 2067 as the most likely outcome."
"Most people assume linearity in environmental processes, but the world is largely non-linear: it's a complex system. An important feature of complex systems is that we don’t know how they work. We don’t understand them except in a general way; we simply interact with them. Whenever we think we understand them, we learn we don’t. Sometimes spectacularly."
Youtube video: Global Warming and Other Catastrophes Humorous (?) look at previous botched predictions of pending world catastrophes in the media (to the soundtrack of REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It")
On a more sober note: Entertainment Scientists Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted by 2013 (humor)
"If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored." -- Richard Dawkins "God's Utility Function" Scientific American (November, 1995), p. 85
Economic scenarios given rate of decline after peak oil:
" "Peak Caviar" is another confirmation of how common the "Hubbert" behavior is. It doesn't matter if a resource is theoretically renewable, as sturgeons and whales are. If sturgeons or whales are killed much faster than they can reproduce, then they behave as a non renewable resource; just as crude oil."
"As you see, the declining phase of the production curve is much faster than the growth phase. In my interpretation (Bardi 2005), these asymmetric curves appear when people make a large effort to continue increasing production. By means of increasing effots and using the best technologies, it is possible to make production continue its growth beyond its "natural" peak at midpoint. This increase, necessarily, is paid with a more rapid fall after the peak. Renato Guseo (2008) and his coworkers have modeled the same behavior for the world's crude oil production."
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