"The end of civilization"?

[flowomo]

This is my weekly newspaper column, published today.
Also available online at:
http://cumberlink.com/articles/2008/05/01/opinion/columns/rich_lewis/doc4819c796e2877801704211.txt


Got some peak oil in my tank
By Rich Lewis, Sentinel Columnist, May 1, 2008

$1,091.72.
That was how much it cost to fill our home oil tanks this week in preparation for the next heating season — 280 gallons at $3.90 each.
That’s pretty shocking when you consider the price was about $2.50 a gallon one year ago, $1.40 in 2004 and under $1 in 2002.
And of course gasoline is now around $3.60 a gallon, up from about $2.60 a year ago and about $1.40 in 2002.
Depressing numbers, but not nearly as depressing as the picture painted about oil in an April 9 article in The Arizona Republic by Guy McPherson, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona.
He predicts “the end of the world as we know it.” Soon.
McPherson’s argument rests on a much-debated concept known as “peak oil.” The term, first used in 1956 by petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert, describes the point at which oil production reaches its “peak” and then begins to decline. Some say we have reached the peak; others say it’s decades away.
The bottom line is that once the peak is reached, less and less oil will be available to those who want it and the price will rise, until there is none at all.
This seems obvious enough. Oil can be used up and, unlike, say, trees, you can’t plant oil seeds to grow a new crop.
The real debate is over the effects of peak oil — and specifically whether it means, in McPherson’s words, “the end of civilization.”
His case for that disturbing claim is that we have sufficient oil supply “to keep the world running for 30 years or so, at the current level of demand” (but, of course, demand is rising as countries like China and India push hard to grow their economies).
But, he says, that’s “irrelevant” because the United States “absolutely demands” not “oil” but “cheap oil.” He notes that 90 percent of the oil consumed in the United States is burned by airplanes, ships, trains and automobiles and so “our entire system of food production and delivery depends on cheap oil.”
And those days, he says, are gone forever. Nothing we can do will reverse the rise in oil prices.
“Within a decade,” he writes, “we’ll be staring down the barrel of a crisis” because oil, now running at a little more than $100 a barrel, will cost $400 a barrel in 10 years as we slide down from the peak.
“We have come to depend on cheap oil for the delivery of food, water, shelter and medicine,” McPherson writes. “Most of us are incapable of supplying these four key elements of personal survival, so trouble lies ahead when we are forced to develop means of acquiring them that don’t involve a quick trip to Wal-Mart.”
Many others have written about the consequences of “peak oil,” and some agree with McPherson and some don’t. Many experts dismiss the whole argument about the “end of civilization” as “garbage” and a “myth.” A Google search on “peak oil” returns almost three million hits — so it’s obvious the topic is being widely discussed even if the term hasn’t yet percolated down to our daily conversations.
But as you sift through the arguments against the idea that we are on the edge of a disaster, you don’t find quite enough to make you feel entirely comfortable.
One argument is that new, untapped oil reserves are being discovered all over the planet — but this fails to take into account the politics of oil and whether the countries sitting on top of that oil can produce it and will want to sell it — to us, cheaply.
Another argument is that new energy technologies will bail us out. But, as McPherson notes, no alternatives exist now that can be “scaled up” to serve the entire United States, let alone the world.
How many solar panels or windmills or hydrogen cars have you seen around Carlisle? Could these or any other alternatives be ready to shoulder the load in 10 years? Or 20 years?
Will the cost of the energy they produce be cheaper than oil? And don’t forget — all these new technologies require the use of oil to develop, produce and transport, a chicken-and-egg problem that’s seldom considered.
This is what makes the current political debate over high gas prices so laughable. The president wants to go after oil in Alaska that might keep our tanks filled for a few more years. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are pushing for elimination of the federal gas tax — a move that might save you a dime a gallon this summer. Both ideas will help as much as an umbrella in a tornado.
Let’s suppose the truth lies somewhere between the “end of civilization” and the “don’t worry, be happy” schools of thought. Let’s suppose that oil prices only, say, double in the next 10 years. Let’s suppose that new technologies begin to fill in more of the gaps. Let’s suppose that oil-rich countries remain willing to sell us their oil, and oil-hungry countries generously agree to stop demanding so much of it.
All of these are possible. None is guaranteed.
And none addresses McPherson’s main point, which is that we depend on cheap oil to maintain our current lifestyle.
McPherson urges us to start making “other arrangements.”
The oil bill sitting on my kitchen table says he might be right.

Rich Lewis’ e-mail address is: [e-mail]