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NO OIL?
Soon the World's Available Oil
Will Begin to Deplete.
No OIL?
What Would Life Be Like Without Oil?
In What Ways Would Our Life Change With No Oil?
Consider: From oil comes fuel for automobiles, ambulances, fire trucks, trucks for transport, buses, trains, planes, ships, boats, agricultural equipment, mining, road and bridge building equipment, road maintenance equipment, logging trucks, construction equipment, waste removal equipment, forest fuels (pine needles, etc.) removal equipment, lawn mowers, motor cycles, and in many places for heating ...
Also, oil is involved in the production of asphalt, plastics, and many chemicals. Manufacturing is dependent upon transport of raw materials; and marketing is dependent upon shipment of finished products, both to and from the warehouse. If we had no oil, what part of your life would not be affected?
Of course, we won't suddenly find ourselves with no oil. As production diminishes over time, prices will rise, not only on gasoline and other oil derivatives, but on everything dependent upon them one way or another -- which means almost everything ..... except not necessarily wages, the cost of labor. In other words, the income of individuals would not rise with the cost of living.
This would be an inflation in contrast to the inflation caused by the increase in the money supply attendant upon our debt-money system. In our debt-money system, all costs are affected, including cost-of-living raises in individual income. In the oil depletion inflation, wages will not increase commensurately. Most of our lives will be rather severely affected before the more costly alternative sources of energy become economically feasible in accordance with market principles.
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
-- Kenneth Boulding ca. 1980), The Party's Over, p. 167
.... by early in the twenty-first century, the era of pumping "black gold" out of the ground to fuel industrial societies will be coming to an end.
-- Paul Ehrlich (1974), The Party's Over, p. 81
Geologists Know
the World's Production of Oil Will Soon Peak
If It Hasn't Already Done So
It will be a few years before there is no oil; but soon the amount of oil available will begin to diminish. What is our government doing to encourage conservation? Will alternative sources of energy be adequate for our needs? What would life be like with no oil? What must we do to prepare ourselves to adapt to changing circumstances?
If there is anything that has played a primary role in the prosperity and economic growth of the United States, it is abundant affordable oil-based energy. We have consumed it increasingly, as if there were no tomorrow; but it is, for practical purposes, a nonrenewable resource of finite quantity.
The day there will be no oil available is not as far in the future as many suppose. Long before that actually happens its waning availability will price it out of the reach of first one, then another facet of industry. What changes will that cause? How will they affect you? and when?
What About Alternative Fuels?
Can They Be Made Adequate For Our Needs?
Alternative fuels can be made adequate for our needs, but without help from the government they are limited by market principles, which will kick in too late to avert severe hardship.
Solar towers in a 60 mile square in the Mojave Desert could furnish the energy for the whole nation, at roughly twice the current cost of oil. It could be done by the government at a small fraction of the cost of the war in Iraq.
There would still be the problem of converting that energy for use in automobiles. But hybrids are in development now that can run on electricity from a battery for 120 miles between charges. That would cover most city driving; we would have to burn gasoline only for longer road trips. That would postpone considerably the time of no oil availability.
Surely if the federal government has any power under the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution, preparation for alternatives as we approach the time of no oil should be it. But our government, unaccountable to the people, instead of turning its attention to building solar towers, actually subsidizes oil consumption in many ways, hastening at our expense the time of no oil availability.
Barring Government Intervention
What Can We Do to Prepare
For the Time of No Oil?
What can we do to prepare to adapt to the possibility of no oil availability? Can we avert the collapse of our society? These questions, and more, are addressed in The Party's Over, by Richard Heinberg. Here are a few highlights and excerpts ...
Ch. 1 Energy, Nature and Society
A fascinating general discussion of the relationship of energy to matter in nature and in human societies.
Ch. 2 Party Time; The Historic Interval of Cheap, Abundant Energy
Traces the history of the industrial era -- the historic interval of cheap energy -- from the first use of coal in 12th century to petroleum and electricity in 20th century with "cascading streams of inventions and conveniences."
Ch. 3 Lights Out: Approaching the Historic Interval's End
Assessment of oil resources with estimates of reserves and extraction rates. ... not what we frequently hear from economists and politicians. Exploring why the petroleum reserve estimates of independent geologists diverge so far from those of governmental agencies. Following is a quote from a summary of a seminar taught at MIT by M. King Hubbert in 1981 ...
The world's present industrial civilization is handicapped by the coexistence of two universal, overlapping, and incompatible intellectual systems: the accumulated knowledge of the last four centuries of the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy; and the associated monetary culture which has evolved from folkways of prehistoric origin.
The first of these two systems has been responsible for the spectacular rise, principally during the last two centuries, of the present industrial system and is essential for its continuance. The second, an inheritance from the prescientific past, operates by rules of its own having little in common with those of the matter-energy system. Nevertheless, the monetary system, by means of a loose coupling, exercises a general control over the matter-energy system upon which it is superimposed.
Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and, according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest.
-- "The Intellectual Systems: Matter-Energy and the Monetary Culture." Summary, by M. King Hubbert, of a seminar he taught at MIT energy Laboratory, 30 September 1981 (quoted by Richard Heinberg in The Party's Over, p. 91.
... and Heinberg's assessment of that quote ...
Hubbert thus believed that society, if it is to avoid chaos during the energy decline, must give up its antiquated, debt-and-interest-based monetary system and adopt a system of accounts based on matter-energy -- an inherently ecological system that would acknowledge the finite nature of essential resources.
-- Richard Heinberg in The Party's Over, p. 91.
(For a discussion of how that can be done, see Restoring the Dollar.)
Ch. 4 Non-Petroleum Energy Sources: Can the Party Continue?
Explores the available alternatives to oil: from coal and natural gas to solar power, wind, and hydrogen, including cold fusion and "fringe" free-energy devices. The good news is that there are alternative sources of energy -- some of them very good. The bad news is that they are much more costly to produce. Before they will become economically viable sources, the price of oil will have to be much higher than now. How much higher? How will that price affect you?
Ch. 5 A Banquet of Consequences
Explores the consequences of waning supplies of oil.
Ch. 6 Managing the Collapse: Strategies and Recommendations
What can we do? -- individually, as communities, as a nation, and globally.
Continuing to increase our dependency on petroleum consumption is clearly a suicidal course of action. The only intelligent alternative is to begin reducing energy consumption and finding alternative energy sources to substitute for petroleum.
-- Paul Ehrlich (1974), The Party's Over, p. 123
We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.
-- George W. Bush (2002), The Party's Over, p. 167.
My father rode a camel.
I drive a car.
My son flies a jet airplane.
His son will ride a camel.
-- Saudi saying, The Party's Over, p. 81
The Saudis are apparently very aware of the finite nature of oil, and at least will not be surprised when there is no oil available. But President Bush's statement reveals no accountability on the part of our government that we should be conserving oil and preparing for the day there will be no oil available. It is not that they don't know better. In 2001 he said ...
We can't conserve our way to energy independence, nor can we conserve our way to having enough energy available. So we've got to do both. -- George W. Bush (2001), The Party's Over, p. 205.
The Party's Over is a very informative and interestingly written book by Richard Heinberg, about what will happen as we approach the time
when there will be no oil,
Power Down is an update by the same author. In both books he emphasizes the fact that a debt-based economic system is viable only when there is cheap fuel, such as oil, to fuel the growth forced by that system. With the cost of that fuel rising faster than the forced inflation, there will be double rising prices .... on everythng but labor. If your income does not rise with the cost of living, where will you be?
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