Global efforts to substitute for oil: Learning by doing ourselves in

As of now, the replacement of oil is not gaining ground. The implication is worse than mere stagnation. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) warns of severe negative economic fallouts unless a crash program of mitigating the effects of the peak is undertaken 20 years before it occurs. A little familiarity with peak predictions (clustering between 2010 and 2020, skewed toward the lower limit of the range) shows that the world has already missed its cue. DOE predictions also show that, despite the beating of drums, the ratio of renewable sources in the world supply of energy will barely change between now and 2030. It will remain close to, but below 10 percent. In its savage appetite for untrammeled economic growth, the world blindly ingurgitates energy resources; dependence on oil is on the rise. From a distant future perspective, our civilization may well appear demented. It accelerates even after being told that the paved road ahead will soon end, to be followed by an unknown and dangerous terrain. Any way we look at it, global energy policies (if the brew of divergent and conflicting national and transnational corporate aspirations qualifies for the concept) clearly fall short of any

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