After peak oil: Will America survive?

As public awareness about peak oil continues to grow, and even the big oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. are now starting to admit that the future supply of oil looks troublesome (see this Boston Globe article), there’s an increasing focus on renewable energy solutions. But most members of the public still don’t understand energy very well, and they generally have no idea whether alternative energy sources like solar, wind or CSP (see below) can replace oil. Many people are concerned about a potential collapse of modern society due to the end of cheap oil. So to help answer some of these questions, I’ve put together a set of uncensored, science-based answers about oil, renewable energy and the future of modern civilization. This is offered in a Q&A format.

Question: Will oil really run out in the near future?

Of course it will. Even the recent conclusions reached by an Exxon Mobil about the future of global oil supplies are wildly optimistic and based on numbers that industry experts speaking off the record say are significant exaggerations of supply made for political reasons. Oil is running out, period, and we may already be past peak oil. From here forward, oil is only going to get increasingly scarce and more expensive. Demand for oil will soon significantly outstrip supply. The growth of China’s consumption, combined with America’s unprecedented thirst for energy means that from here forward, it’s a bidding war over increasingly scarce supplies.

Can alternative forms of energy replace oil?

Yes and no. “Yes” because there’s plenty of energy all around us that can replace oil. There’s enough solar energy hitting the land in the state of Arizona, for example, to meet the entire energy needs of the United States. Likewise, there’s enough wind power in Southern Wyoming to power the whole country, too. But this power is untapped. This is the “No” part of the answer: All the energy in the world is useless to you if you can’t harness it. Without wind turbines, the wind in Wyoming is useless to us. Without solar panels, the Arizona desert is likewise useless to us as an energy source. Actually harnessing these alternative, renewable energy sources would require many billions of dollars in infrastructure spending, and right now, nobody in Washington seems to have the foresight to plan for a world without oil. There is currently very little investment in developing renewable energy sources.

Thus, the United States may find itself energy starved in the near future even though it is surrounded by abundant (unharnessed) energy!

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