Life after peak oil

Following an initial period of painful adaptation, we can live happily and healthily in a world with high energy costs

Many people think mistakenly that modern prosperity was founded on this fossil energy revolution, and that when the oil and coal is gone, it is back to the Stone Age. If we had no fossil energy, then we would be forced to rely on an essentially unlimited amount of solar power, available at five times current energy costs. With energy five times as expensive as at present we would take a substantial hit to incomes. Our living standard would decline by about 11 percent. But we would still be fantastically rich compared to the pre-industrial world.
That may seem like a lot of economic hurt, but put it in context. Our income would still be above the current living standards in Canada, Sweden or England. Oh, the suffering humanity! At current rates of economic growth we would gain back the income losses from having to convert to solar power in less than six years. And then onward on our march to ever greater prosperity.

The ability to sustain such high energy prices at little economic cost depends on the assumption that we can cut back from using the equivalent of six gallons of gas per person per day to 1.5 gallons. Is that really possible? The answer is that we know already it is.

The economy would withstand enormous increases in energy costs with modest damage because energy is even now so extravagantly cheap that most of it is squandered in uses of little value. Recently, I drove my 13-year-old son 230 miles round-trip from Davis to Chico, to play a 70-minute soccer game. Had every gallon of gas cost four hours of my wage, I am sure his team could have found opposition closer to home.

The median-sized U.S. home is now nearly 2,400 square feet, for an average family size of 2.6 people, almost 1,000 square feet per person. Much of that heated, air-conditioned and lighted square footage rarely gets used. Cities in the Central Valley, such as Elk Grove, that were developed in the world of cheap gas have sprawled across the landscape so that the only way to get to work or to shops is by car. Ninety-four percent of the inhabitants of Elk Grove drive to work. Sidewalks have disappeared in some locations.

Some countries in Europe, such as Denmark, which have by public policy made energy much more expensive, already use only the equivalent of about three gallons of gas per person. I have been to Copenhagen, and believe me the Danes are not suffering a lot from those the daily three gallons of gas they gave up

Sacbee