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Page added on April 4, 2013
Peak Oil: Energy Transition
An observation worth noting … and pondering, from Dean Fantazzini, Mikael Höök, and André Angelantoni:
[S]trictly speaking, for the last 150 years we have not transitioned from previous fuel sources to new ones — we have been adding them to the total supply. We are currently using all significant sources (coal, oil, gas and uranium) at high rates. Thus, it’s common but incorrect to say that we moved from coal to oil. In fact, we are using more coal now than we ever have (IEA, 2010). We never left the coal age. The challenge of moving to alternative energy sources while a particularly important source is declining, in this case oil, should not be underestimated
If life were genuinely fair, in an alternate reality sort of way, those who deny the validity of climate change and/or Peak Oil would be obliged to suffer the consequences of their denial of facts, evidence, reality on their own….The rest of us would be free to make and then implement whatever plans we may in order to move forward with some semblance of optimism that we’ll adapt as depletion of finite resources continues, leaving those others to fend for themselves.
Of course life isn’t fair. We continue to have far too many people in positions of some “authority” or reputation who insist against all evidence that we’re all going to be just fine and that we have absolutely nothing to worry about because (a) it’s all a hoax; (b) human ingenuity will save us; (c) technology will save us, or (d) “yeah, there may be some issues, but it’s all overblown because the doomers enjoy scaring us,” or some variation of that theme.
Their refusal to address the facts (or in some cases even acknowledge that there are any facts in support of climate change/Peak Oil) means that their delusions, fears that Business As Usual won’t return any day now, or self-serving interests which clearly do not extend to the general public are going drag the rest of us down with them. Adaptation, public discourse, planning, research, and any other efforts needed to facilitate some beginnings of transition away from our fossil fuel dependency are all hindered as a result because of the “disputes” about evidence.
The likely outcome is that we will all be forced at some point well before we’re ready and prepared to make some painful and drastic changes in our personal and commercial lifestyles. Those changes will be more costly, more difficult, more painful, more everything except more enjoyable. It will feel like waiting for a fire to become a ten alarm conflagration before we think to grab a hose and turn the water on. That’s not going to be a good place for any of us.
Whatever satisfactions we might then hold because the deniers are getting what’s coming to them will quickly be overshadowed by the realization that we’re obliged to deal with those very same consequences, too.
6 Comments on "Peak Oil: Energy Transition"
J-Gav on Thu, 4th Apr 2013 1:48 pm
Good point. And it’s not so much that ‘we’re all in this together’ (the expression is wisely avoided in this article) because the 1% or 10% definitely won’t be into ‘togetherness’ with the rest of us when TSHTF. That’s where the real injustice lies : many deniers have benefited from their denial and thus will be in a better position to buy themselves some extra time than most of those who understood the dangers early on …
DC on Thu, 4th Apr 2013 1:55 pm
Q/S]trictly speaking, for the last 150 years we have not transitioned from previous fuel sources to new ones — we have been adding them to the total supply.
This is a key point that almost everyone overlooks. About the only ‘fuel’ that comes to my mind that we really ever ‘got off’ of, was whale oil! And it wasnt event strictly because coal and oil were so awesome. We only got ‘off’ whale oil because we had pratically exterminated the source. We nearly ‘peaked’ the whales right out of existence before we found ‘alternatives’.
Beyond, weve simply been piling on new energy sources-not ‘transitioning’ anything. NG power plants did not cause one single coal plant to close, nuclear, for its endless shortcomings, didnt close a single coal or NG power station.
This is why renewables, as much as I support them, wont close a single coal or gas, or nuclear plant either. In fact, renewables are simply used to offset the growth in power demand. Or put another way, renewables are not closing coal plants, but just adding to our total energy output. Even now, there seems to a marked preference for building coal plants over wind and solar. Maybe at some point renewables really will truly supplant coal, but It wont be for the reason pale greens hope.It will be because most of the coal plants are shuttered due to lack of cheap easy coal and societies total energy output will be so low the economy will have collapsed. The energy what wind and solar is providing would be rationed and so prohibitively expensive that the last thing anyone would use it for would be playing Nintendo or charging there last-gen Ijunks.
The take away message should be the next time someone calls ‘frak’ gas a ‘bridge fuel’ to a ‘sustainable’ energy future, all you have to do is smile and tell them where fulla $hit.
BillT on Thu, 4th Apr 2013 2:08 pm
Well said J-Gav & DC. I’m hoping to be totally off the grid, in a few years, at our farm in the jungles of the Philippines. I know that our system will need oil energy to come into existence, and that when it wears out, I will have to do with even less, but by that time, I will probably have already adjusted to semi-hunter/gatherer levels.
GregT on Thu, 4th Apr 2013 3:35 pm
BillT,
Funny that you should say that. My father recently commented to me, “I seriously question your desire to return to the hunter/ gatherer lifestyle.”
Any attempts at getting him to read, or listen to, any information contrary to his belief that BAU will continue on indefinitely, have been rejected, ignored and ridiculed.
He grew up without automobiles, electricity, and even running water.
J-Gav on Thu, 4th Apr 2013 4:37 pm
Good luck BillT. Some on this forum don’t agree but it sounds to me like you’re on the right track. If you’ve got a decent plot of land, stuff just grows and grows in that climate … an abundant food forest will only take a couple of years or so to get going, a vegetable garden, some chickens, ducks … don’t know about pigs, personally I’d be hesitant … If there was any way I could do it, I’d be aiming for the same sort of semi-autonomy. Which island is your farm on by the way?
BillT on Fri, 5th Apr 2013 2:25 am
J-Gav, It is on the main Island of Luzon. We will be directly east of Manila. 1/4 mile from a river that feeds out of a mountain range and 5 miles from the Pacific at 250 feet elevation. The land is now planted with coconuts and pineapples. The neighbors have chickens and a carabao (like a water buffalo). The soil needs a little work, but it tests out ok for most crops. With a wind generator, PV panels and a decent battery storage system, we can be independent of most everything.
It may not be needed, but is it a mistake to want to cut off the leeches in the BAU world we now live in? Imagine: no rent, phone bills (prepaid if we want a cell phone), electric bills, water bills, car payments, car insurance, income taxes, (yes, a small property tax and I will have to file my fed tax return to the IRS forever.) But, will I miss the rest? Nope! I can still have a lifestyle similar to that when I was young and enjoy the years I have left.