[WEC-All] Peak Everything - a reply to Larry Reed

[Mark Robinowitz]

On Nov 7, 2007, at 9:41 AM Nov 7, Larry Reed wrote:

>
>
> I'm old enough to remember the early 1960's predictions that earth's
> population will out run the world's food supply. It didn't happen


Those who had the best information predicted a few decades ago that  
the energy crisis would really begin to hit around the turn of the  
century, and they were essentially correct.

Fish in the oceans are in decline.   Where are the fabled salmon of  
Oregon?   Some still thrive, but many of the best runs are in history  
books.  Overfishing in the oceans and destruction of river habitats  
are well documented.

Old growth timber is mostly gone.  The fact that old growth forests  
are the best storage systems for carbon, and that our old growth  
forests provide clean air, clean water and even some critical  
medicinals (plants, fungi) has not resulted in their complete  
protection.   Selective logging of tree farms makes more board feet  
in the long run, but greed in the short run still calls the shots.   
This is why Oregon's clearcuts are easily seen in satellite photos,  
and there is some evidence the clearcutting is disrupting rainfall  
patterns and causing desertification downwind of the Cascade Range.   
A NASA analysis in 1992 found that the Oregon Cascades forests were  
much more fragmented than those of the Amazonian state of Rondonia.   
Peak timber is past in Oregon, with or without environmental laws.

Natural gas production in North America is in decline and is the  
reason for the proposed Liquid Natural Gas terminals on the Oregon  
Coast - facilities that are not guaranteed to be built because they  
pose ultrahazardous risks to the nearby communities (Coos Bay / North  
Bend and Astoria) and the natural gas supplies in Asia are already  
allocated for Japan and Korea.

Even coal will likely "peak" around 2020 world wide, and coal mining  
in the eastern US is removing - permanently - large sections of the  
Appalachian mountains, a range that was among the oldest landforms on  
the planet.

Soils are in decline, especially in the Midwestern US.

Clean air and water are in decline almost everywhere.

Currently, grain production per capita is at record low levels world  
wide, due to ecological stress, rising demand for meat (the least  
efficient means to make food) and the new threat of biofuels (a great  
idea on a SMALL scale, but we don't have an extra Earth to turn into  
a biofuel production center to replace the oil).

In other words, we need to change what we are all doing and  
prioritize survival of the biosphere that gives us all life.

Concern about climate change is unlikely to make these changes happen  
- the rising price of energy and/or rationing is much more likely to  
impose these changes, regardless of politics, psychology and  
entrenched interests.  As geologist Colin Campbell puts it, it will  
be "imposed by nature."



> because world food supply between 1970 and 1985 grew by 250% and is
> continuing to increase. In college I also read most of the mid 1940's
> predictions that the world would run out of oil by end of 1960's.  
> Before
> their was oil /gasoline there was wood/ whale oil. In fact there was a
> short period of time just after the turn of the 20 century when most
> cars were powered by lead-acid batteries- electricity until gasoline
> stations became more readily available. As a land use planner with a
> history minor I'm more optimistic. (Than Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich
> and Mark) I believe we'll keep the private vehicle because of the
> freedom it affords and represents. As it did at the turn of last  
> century
> the type of fuel will change to something else; possible transition  
> from
> oil to Hydrogen, Electric, and /or Atomic; maybe even anti-gravity.
> History has shown us these 'transitions' will happen fasten than
> predicted and without serious economic upheaval.
>


This energy transition is likely to be different, since it involves a  
reversal of direction from increasing use of energy to decreasing use  
of energy.  There's no new source of concentrated energy to tap into.

Hydrogen is not a "source" of energy - you still have to generate the  
needed energy to create the hydrogen from somewhere.  Plus, a policy  
to build lots of fuel cells using platinum would quickly find there's  
not enough platinum to replace the power grid.

Nuclear power also has limits on the amount of uranium (those  
supplies are finite).  Nuclear reactors also generate lethal wastes  
incompatible with creatures using DNA (ie. the Hanford waste tanks)  
and have serious civil liberties and security issues, since the  
technology leads to weapons.   That's not a viable approach, either.

Solar energy does not have these toxic problems, but it works best as  
a decentralized technology (on every rooftop, not square kilometers  
of panels in the desert).  Unfortunately, the infrastructure for  
widespread usage of this does not exist, although it could be scaled  
up over a few years (and will have to be).  Perhaps one day the City  
of Eugene will decide to require the ancient technology called  
passive solar design as a condition of getting a building permit for  
a structure (the idea is only about 2,500 years old).  None of the  
new homes I've seen going up (with one lonely exception) seem to have  
been designed by architects who know which way the sun rises and sets  
- since proper solar orientation on a building can cut energy costs  
for heating and cooling with minimal cost difference for the  
construction.  It makes more sense to buy a Hummer SUV than to build  
a poorly designed building since the Hummer will only last a few  
years, while the inefficient building will last for decades (at  
least).  Some European jurisdictions have started to make these types  
of building code changes, but the US (as usual) is lagging.  Since  
part of the suburban disaster of West 11th and Highway 99 is  
construction of toxic, inefficient, shoddy buildings that are very  
ugly, fixing the problem to make west Eugene a beautiful place would  
require retrofitting of existing structures to use much less energy,  
which will be needed when the cheap, abundant energy is replaced by  
expensive, scarce energy.

Even if Anti-Gravity technology is real, we would still have to work  
to protect soil and grow food.   And we have already had a "free  
energy" source -- it was called petroleum, and we have largely  
squandered it (how much of the things we have made with petroleum  
will be functional after the oil era?).

It would be nice to use the remaining petroleum as a bridge toward a  
sustainable society so there will be something usable left over when  
it's gone.   Investing in solar panels, wind farms, relocalized  
production of food and other things, a First World quality intercity  
train system, etc. - these and many other shifts will be needed for  
civilization to outlast the oil era.

The infrastructure for these shifts barely exists and would take  
years to scale up - but Peak Oil is here, now.   Merely improving  
bike lanes, sidewalks and fancy buses does not even begin to address  
the scale of the shifts that will be forced on us all.



> Don't misconstrue my above analysis to mean I'm against walking,
> bicycles, and mass transit, because I'm not. I use all of them and
> believe their facility improvement will serve us well. There are  
> lots of
> reasons to support these modes other the "end of oil", better health,
> better for the environment, life style-improved quality of life, to  
> name
> a few.
>
> Larry E. Reed. Principal
> JRH, Land Use Planning Division
> PH (541) 687-1081
>



from Goal One Coalition:

Eating fossil fuels
Here’s a fact that goes largely unnoticed:

Americans eat almost as much in fossil fuels as we burn in automobiles.

As a consequence, the continual decrease in the world’s oil reserves  
will more likely result in longer bread lines than longer gas lines.

We are eating fossil fuels in the form of synthetic fertilizers and  
pesticides - but this is resulting in the degradation of farm land.   
Farm land is also being gobbled up by urban sprawl.

Using fewer machines and less chemical fertilizer and pesticides  
would actually be good news for the poorer countries where farmers  
can’t afford expensive “inputs.” We must re-invent an ecologically  
intensive agriculture that produces a better yield without degrading  
the ecosystems. Sustainable or “organic” agriculture was simply the  
right way to farm for many centuries.


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