Peak Oil and Alternative Energy

I read “Planning, policy, strategy and energy (part I)” today at the Energy Bulletin, where the author discussed two books about peak oil, energy usage, and human ingenuity. I am currently in the camp that believes that the Kunstler, the author of “The Long Emergency” is accurate, with an eventual spiral into small towns, and what the author calls a medieval lifestyle. (Although I believe that with appropriate social structure, such a lifestyle might not be so bad, but you still have to deal with global warming). The second author, Peter Tertzakian, has written the book “A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World”. It takes a different tone on the future of humans. Here is my take, if you want to hear it.

Throughout human history, there have been marked increases in wealth and human population, and these are all associated with an increase in energy usage. In fact, when the subject of wealth creation comes up, I surmise that what is actually occuring is increased energy usage. The more energy that is used, the more wealth is created.

Now, the current paradigm, cheap oil, is based on the usage of what is most likely the most versatile energy source on the planet: oil. In order to understand the massive amount of energy that it takes to make oil, it is important to understand the entire energy ‘tree’, if you will.

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