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Epicurean Simplicity
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Opportunity for FUNDAMENTAL change
Posted Jan 9, 2009 by Richard Heinberg
An article by Neil Reynolds in Friday's GLOBE AND MAIL, titled "Obama's energy quick fix bound for the slag heap," quotes University of Manitoba Professor Vaclav Smil to support its thesis.
"The only way that Mr. Obama could significantly advance this objective . . . would be with the help"—and here Smil is speaking: "of a deep and lasting recession." The article continues: "Otherwise, [Smil] said, 'there will be precious little of any rapid change.' "
Smil's reasoning? "Energy systems are inherently inertial. . . . Energy transitions take decades to accomplish. Anyone who expects Mr. Obama to transform the world will be disappointed [and] the degree of disappointment that must follow such naiveté will be phenomenal."
Well, right on cue we have an article from Reuters titled, "Saudi official says global oil demand could fall 45 percent." Yes, you read correctly: 45 percent. The official, Majid al-Munif, an adviser to Saudi Arabia's oil minister, gives 23 percent as the lower boundary of possible demand destruction, but even this figure is stunning. The world hasn't seen demand for oil decline like this at least since the 1980s, if ever.
The economic crisis is causing immense pain and suffering, and that will only increase. However, it would be a blunder of historic proportions not to seize the opportunity that it affords for the initiation of a comprehensive energy transition. Smil is correct: this is a project that cannot be accomplished in four or eight years. But it has to happen, and that means it has to start at some definable point in time.
With demand for fossil fuels down, it is easier to increase the market share of renewables, and it is also easier to introduce energy conservation measures (which can be branded as economic survival tools for cash-strapped energy consumers).
We will NEVER have a better opportunity than we do now.
Get The End of Growth http://www.postcarbon.org/eog | Watch the animation Who Killed Economic Growth? http://bit.ly/whokilledgrowth
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Reader Comments
3 comments
Change the Fundamentals of World Economy
From: Saint, Feb 8, 2009 12:44 PM
The opportunity of fundamental change lies in changing the fundamental bases of capitalist world economy. An economy where exponential growth contradicts sustainable growth, and an economy that transformed the world into a realm of creditors and debtors, the money barons on the creditors side and the rest of the world in the other. The creditors would demand exponential growth to allow for debts being paid, while the debtors would struggle to maximize their output to repay their debts. This cannot be achieved in a sustainable way, leaving the cheap fossil fuel as the only viable solution to keep the economy growing and running. As simple as it seems, this is the world reality.
The unethical speculative futures market in the oil market, ensured during the last year a constant shortage of oil, by buying cheaper on the spot market, selling higher in the futures market, store the oil inside tankers, and even rolling over past contracts for future deliveries, until the constant shortages of spot market skyrocketed the price of oil. This fact lead many of us who are unaware of the speculators tools and the dangers of derivatives and market tools, think that peak oil had already arrived
Mr. Obama scheme (if applicable) would at its best increase the share of renewable energy out of fossil fuel into the US economy by very few percentage points, but it won’t change dependence on fossil fuel as it is the only fuel necessary to ignite a fast recovery of growth. A growth that he promised he will deliver.
If peak oil had really arrived, (my expectation it did not yet, but will within few years) , then we shall expect a M shame recovery rather than the L shape you have predicted in the previous article, although, such recovery will be marked by a wider distribution of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, wider unequally distributed growth and more poverty, wars, misery and even hunger.
I believe that the remaining fossil fuel is enough for all, if money is more justly distributed, if we can regulate the world economy to prevent greed from controlling our lives, and if the world stop borrowing from its future and learn to live with the existing means for a better future to our children.
Dr. Wirth: your prediction
From: Randy, Jan 27, 2009 05:03 PM
Dr. Wirth: your prediction of societal collapse based on the deterioration of our highway infrastructure is exactly why we need to put as much of our remaining money and energy and ingenuity into restoring the freight and passenger rail system in this country. Which can be run on electricity when the oil runs out.
Window of Opportunity for Change
From: Clifford J. Wirth, Ph.D., Jan 11, 2009 06:27 PM
True, there is window of opportunity for change.
Alternatives, however will not even begin to fill the oil gap. There is no plan nor capital for a so-called electric economy. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
"By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame."
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.