Timing is everything

As I watched a panel of speakers take questions about Michigan’s and, by extension, the world’s energy future at a recent conference, I was struck by how different their unspoken timetables for change were.

The panel included peak oil lecturer and author Richard Heinberg who other than James Howard Kunstler is probably the most widely recognized name in peak oil circles. It also included Albert Bates, a polymath of sorts, who has authored several books on sustainability, argued environmental and civil rights cases before the U. S. Supreme Court, helped to organize the Global Ecovillage Network, and works assiduously to teach others about permaculture and natural design. Also included were two Michigan state representatives, a utility representative, an independent wind power expert, and an academic transportation expert.


For those who acknowledged the possibility of an upper limit on and perhaps an ongoing drop in the supply of oil starting in, say, the next few years, the time for drastic action seemed to be more or less “yesterday.” Not surprisingly this group included Heinberg, Bates, the transportation expert and the wind power expert. One of the state representatives also fell into this group.

The other state representative and the utility representative cautioned against a headlong rush into renewable energy. Yes, an energy transition is necessary to address global warming and fossil fuel depletion. But 2050 is a better time frame for completing the transition. We were told by the state representative that putting all of our eggs in one basket, namely, renewable energy, risked economic damage and risked betting on technologies that might not survive, work as planned or might be improved upon considerably over time.

Rushing to build an entirely new energy infrastructure may indeed not result in an optimal system and may saddle us with technology that will likely be superseded. Witness the efficiency gains in wind generators and the far greater knowledge we have today about where to deploy them compared to, say, 20 years ago. A gradual energy transition would clearly be much better in many ways.

The key question is whether we have the time for said gradual energy transition. Should the analogy be the computer revolution that took from the end of World War II to the middle of this decade to make ownership of a home computer all but universal in the United States? Or should the analogy be the American entry into World War II which led to a command economy directed by the federal government with the aim of winning the war?

Energy Bulletin