Re-Visiting Thoughts On Peak Oil & Planning

In the course of conducting research for a book I’m now working on, I came across this post. After editing it to focus on just a few key issues, along with a tweak or two for clarity, I thought it might be worth another look.

What happens when the inevitability of declining resources begins to affect us all? How will an ongoing failure to inform—and the unnecessary and damaging delays that result—help anyone?

Peak Oil matters.

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We are on the brink of a new energy order. Over the next few decades, our reserves of oil will start to run out and it is imperative that governments in both producing and consuming nations prepare now for that time. We should not cling to crude down to the last drop – we should leave oil before it leaves us. That means new approaches must be found soon….. The really important thing is that even though we are not yet running out of oil, we are running out of time.”  – Fatih Birol, Economist – International Energy Agency, 2008

With the IEA having now admitted Peak Oil occurred several years ago, the urgency of addressing the myriad impacts of having reached the summit of oil production is all the more pronounced. As I and others have discussed, it’s going to take many years for us to fully move away from our longstanding reliance on fossil fuels to power our economy and support our lifestyles. Unfortunately, we’re already years behind in preparing and doing.

I have on multiple occasions raised the issue that in order for us to have some hope of successfully transitioning away from fossil fuels (and despite continuing opposition in some quarters about the need of an active and involved federal government), it is only from strategies as created, directed, supported, and financed by our federal government that this hope can find fulfillment. To be sure, much of what needs to be done will be provided by the private sector—as shaped and guided more specifically by local or regional entities. One or two approaches aren’t the answer! But without a national strategy and framework for deciding on priorities, we’ll be confronted with a hopeless mix of ad hoc attempted solutions from literally thousands of directions. Chaos, anyone?

In short, 200 years of abundant energy have allowed us to build an extremely complex civilization based on dozens of interrelated systems without which we can no longer live – at least not in the style to which we have become accustomed. Food production and distribution, water, sewage, solid waste removal, communications, healthcare, transportation, public safety, education — the list of systems vital-to-life and general wellbeing goes on and on.
Those who believe that ten years from now we will be able to get along with much reduced government have little appreciation of how modern civilization works or how bad things are going to get as fossil fuel energy fades from our lives….
Whether one likes it or not, the size and complexity of the coming transition will be so great and unprecedented and there will be so much at stake that only governments will have the authority and power to cope with the multitude of problems that are about to emerge. Be it heresy in some as yet unknowing circles; all this is going to require a massive transfer of resources from private hands to public ones. [1]

That’s the reality. We can continue to debate it ad nauseum, but in the end, we will have no choice. How quickly can we muster the intelligence and courage and wisdom to understand what is at stake—and how widespread will be the changes—so that we take advantage of the resources we’ll need right now, rather than coming to the same conclusion only after needless ideological battles?

Thousands and thousands of items are made from and/or dependent on oil for their existence. When the true decline of oil sets in (many suggest we’re on a several years long “plateau” of production as the precursor to experiencing actual limitations in availability), which items should first be eliminated?

How do we make the assessment as to which products should no longer be produced? Who delivers that message to the designers and producers and shippers and end users? What’s their Plan B?

Or if doing away with product lines entirely is not the strategy, then what percentage of production should be curtailed? What criteria will be employed in making determinations that other products or services or consumers will have priority? Who among us will volunteer to make do without some items so as to permit others with the same needs to enjoy them instead? How well is that going to work if we’re all instead flying by the seat of our pants with no guidance whatsoever?

Where do we point fingers for the terrible short-sightedness in failing to invest in research, public transportation, and infrastructure now and how much will that help? What kind of costs will we all have to absorb and endure in years to come when the existing infrastructures will be inefficient and all but useless, and when even more will have to be done in a much shorter period of time to address even bigger problems?

We owe it to ourselves to commit to becoming better informed, because we are most definitely all in this together. My liberal philosophy will no more stave off the adverse impact of declining oil production and fossil fuel availability than will one’s Tea Party inclinations. We all need to move beyond that. Idealistic? Certainly! Necessary? Absolutely!

Of course everyone wants more of the same! Who in their right mind would voluntarily undertake or accept the massive changes Peak Oil suggests we’ll have to endure? But those changes are coming … perhaps not in the usual near future that most of us are limited to considering, but the changes will begin long, long before we’re ready for them. We have a choice to begin the occasionally painful process of adaptation and transition now when we can do so with far less pain than will surely be the case in the years to come, or we can sit tight and hope for the best.

That is a choice. It’s not a good one, but it is a choice.

Are we going to be content to let the marketplace sort all of this out? Do we think that unregulated industries will immediately step to the plate and direct all of this fairly and efficiently on their own? Can we expect that industry leaders will just band together across the nation and put together a coherent plan?

Are we willing to allow a thousand different voices to make decisions based on their own understandably narrower concerns and hope that everyone is coming to the same conclusions so as to maximize the efficacy of these choices? Piecemeal approaches that address some small aspect of need for some short period of time in some limited geographical area for just a few consumers is in the end a monumental waste of limited resources, time, and effort.

As I’ve repeatedly stated: there are no easy, quick, simple, or inexpensive solutions. So too are there no easy, quick, or simple approaches that lead us to the strategies and solutions we’ll have to rely upon. Can we recognize that a nation speaking with one voice in the face of these daunting challenges is indeed our best hope?

We’re going to have to attempt a lot of different solutions from many sources, but we will ultimately be best served if the efforts and strategies and inputs derive from a vision and from plans and determinations that have as their source an informed national agenda. We need to speak up, and we’ll need our national leaders in and out of government to listen and utilize their skills in ways they all too infrequently demonstrate. They too, must expand their vision and express far more courage and wisdom than they typically show us.

The process will take enough time as it is. Let’s not add more problems to the mix.

Peak Oil Matters