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15 May 2006 HEADLINE |
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SYNOPSIS: Kurt Cobb picks up theme proposed by EV World several years ago on what aspects of society will be impacted by a post-oil peak era.
Source: Energy Bulletin
Class: EDITORIAL/OPINION
Triage For the Post-Peak Oil Age
When casualties overwhelm battlefield doctors, they are often forced to sort the wounded into three groups: those who will survive without treatment, those who will likely die even with treatment, and those who will probably live but only with treatment. In the post-peak oil age we will likely be faced with a similar situation in deciding which activities a lower-energy society can support.
Tentatively, I propose the following triage for various broad areas:
1) activities that are "Expected to Make a Full Recovery," ones that I think will spread and intensify out of necessity,
2) activities labeled "Code Blue"--the medical term for emergency treatment of heart attack patients--activities which I think may only survive with our active intervention or which may only be available at the level we want them to be through special efforts, and
3) activities labeled "Do Not Resuscitate" which are unlikely to survive post-peak no matter how much effort we put into them. Only "Code Blue" items are meant to indicate my preferences for a post-peak oil world.
The other categories are predictions (a dangerous practice) about what I think will and won't thrive in a low-energy society. I will certainly miss some activities such as cheap air travel. Others such as motorized sports, I won't. But, my preferences don't matter since the availability and price of liquid fuels will, in my view, determine the fate of both activities.
The table below is not meant to be a complete list by any means. No doubt readers will disagree--perhaps vehemently in some cases--with my predictions and preferences. My aim is neither to irritate nor to prescribe, but rather to help begin a process that I believe will become absolutely necessary. I say absolutely necessary because our failure to recognize those activities which won't survive under any circumstances may cause us to waste valuable (and diminishing) energy resources on hopeless cases. That lost energy will be energy that we cannot spend on things that we will desperately need such as wind and solar power.
No one likes to choose, but choose we must if we are going to have the future that we want (given our constraints) rather than the one that is simply forced upon us.
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··········Category·········· |
Expected to Make A Full Recovery |
Code
Blue |
Do Not Resuscitate |
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Agriculture |
Organic farming |
Scientific research on organic practices; non-GMO seed preservation |
Industrial/Chemical Farming |
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Transportation |
Walking; bicycling; sail power |
Passenger and freight train service; water transportation |
Private automobiles; transcontinental trucking; commercial air travel; vacation cruise lines |
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Telecommunications |
Face-to-face conversation |
The Internet |
Cable/Satellite Television |
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Culture |
Oral history and storytelling |
Libraries; certain museums; unique nationally recognized performing groups (opera, theater, ballet, symphony) |
Theme parks; any sport involving motorized vehicles; large-scale professional sports teams |
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Education |
Neighborhood and home schooling |
Smaller, decentralized secondary and higher education |
Large, energy-intensive colleges and universities |
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Science |
Widespread curiosity about and close observation of the natural world |
Scientific research and education on truly sustainable practices |
Megaprojects such as particle accelerators and space exploration |
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Religion/Spirituality |
Spiritual teachings that view the natural world as sacred |
Ecumenism and tolerance |
Megachurches; television ministries |
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Government |
Local governance |
Local democratic participation |
Large, centralized administration |
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Business |
Local, small-scale craft and manufacturing; locally owned retail; personal service |
Local economic networks |
Big box chain stores; just-in-time delivery; worldwide logistics |
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City/Land Use Planning |
Planning which focuses on local resources |
Vibrant urban centers; preservation of arable land |
Suburban and exurban sprawl; megacities
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Energy |
Physical labor; animal power |
Renewable energy especially wind and solar |
Corn ethanol; any net energy negative biofuel |
Reader Comments
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7 comments so far...
18-May-2006
21578
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wintermane is obviously not thinking of a dramatic peak oil event (access to space will get cheaper?), but is assuming some kind of global weather change (little ice age? really?). The prediction of the doomsday cults is certainly correct however. I'm not sure it will be as dramatic as author Kurt Cobb describes, while others think it will be more severe and only people with their own herd of goats and well will survive. It will probably take decades to drop to oil production that we had in the 1950's for example. But we can surely say oil output will drop faster than society can easily adapt, leading us to some kind of economic downturn and wider use of human energy (biking, walking) and mass transportation, at least initially. Hence the idea of applying triage is a good one, and one we can adjust as predictions are proved or disproved. If the weather is too severe to walk or bike (I know people who biked thru Duluth's winters in MN), then it's too severe for any agriculture. I think hydrogen fuel cells will remain with nuclear fusion (as opposed to existing fission) as some kind of future ideal, always about 15-20 years away. There is a lot of coal and tar sands, etc. but they come at a big environmental cost and need time to ramp up to the massive quantities required to replace oil, which of course quickly reduces that 250 year lifetime that's often quoted.
Posted by: Rob Neff
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15-May-2006
21082
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Never any discussion of coal. 250 years of burn avalable for power!
Posted by: s o
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15-May-2006
21099
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What a festering load of bull.
I could do a better job using goat entrails.
Ill cover each in turn.
ag. Ag will do just peachy food will just cost more and what chems are used will be created from other sources of hydrocarbons. Gm foods and synthetic foods will boom. Organic foods will wither as climates get far too chaotic to ensure yields.
Tranportation.
Bikes and foot will wain as weather goes back to what it was like in the 1500s and then gets even worse. You wont be ABLE to bike to work in many places without risk to life and limb. Trains cargo ships and such... will run just fine but will cost far more using various coal/bio/electric/wood fuels they find cheap. Personal transportation. Will be just fine.. a tad more expensive then now but a great swath of fuels will power our cars in 20 years.
telecoms sat tv is here to stay and will only get bigger and yes the internet is humming along just as badly as it ever did and will continue to hum along drunkenly for centuries to come.
Face to face... people will avoid each other far more as bugs win the battle and as germ warfare agents break out.
Culture. theme parks are doing better then ever and they will be amazing in 30-50 years. Racing will grow far more interesting as electric and fuel cell cars take over them the old motors. Cars that go 3-400 mph will race along tracks that recharge them as they speed along.
ed. yes universities are edging toward the abyss but theny will still dominate up until plague fears destroy them all.
science... pork pork pork the enternal political meat.
religion... doomsday cults and escape the earth cults will blossom as both the cost of getting off the earth goes down and the number of people who can actauly get off the plnnet increases. By 2100 at least a few cults will have perminent bases offworld.
Gov.. nothing short of ww3 and ww4 will change gov all that much... so expect changes in 50 years or so...
Bussiness... microfabs microfactories automated factories portable factories. Expect alot of transport tubes to go in that ship bulk goods via eltric propulsion underwater underground and above.
land use... hypersprawl as people flee the cities to avoid the superbugs of the 21st century. Implosion as very many people die in said plagues and in wars. All cities will be targets. Fortifield cumminties will have to deal with beo engineeers abominations realzed by terrorists cultists and governments wqhile cities will crumble as manpower cant root out monsterous rats and vermin that will fill them.
energy... alot more nuke power mainly due to warfare and bioterror organisms. Alot of gm fuel crops grown underground. Entire swaths of the planet will be dark for the first time in a very long time.
Posted by: wintermane me
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16-May-2006
21126
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God I hate the message editor thingy here...
Posted by: wintermane me
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19-May-2006
21843
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There seems to be a big confusion between a lack of oil and a lack of energy. These things are completely different.
Oil as a liquid has been a convenient energy for years, but there has been other energies around long before oil and many new energy sources have appeared since oil.
For sure going from gasoline-based cars to plug-in-hybrid cars supplemented with a little biofuel is going to take some time; but most other energy demanding applications have already converted to electricity decades ago.
No one would imagine a gasoline-powered vacuum cleaner in his house, or a gasoline powered dishwashing machine. Virtually everything operating in the home is already electric. Even grass mowers are turning electric, either with a cord or with a battery.
Trains are already running on electricity and where they don’t, it is because of investment considerations rather then technological problems.
Planes can fly on liquid hydrogen like in the Cryoplane proposal. That’s about the only place where an hydrogen fuel cell makes sense.
Stoves and heaters can all be replaced by high COP heat pumps that transport heat rather then make it.
What else, phones, the internet, satellite communication, it is all electric from the beginnings so no worry there neither; they will be along for a long time.
Oh yeah, of course, the classic one, where does all the electric energy come from? Well, like now from nuclear fission, from wind, from solar, from industrial geothermy, from sea waves energy, from nuclear fusion and last but not least from the recovery of all the energy incredibly wasted today.
A typical light bulb is using 100 Watts of power while LED’s run on 3 Watts of power; see the math when multiplying by the number of bulbs.
Another one, sure, what about those thousands of square miles of south oriented roofs that keep transforming the sunlight in ... well... wasted heat... instead of electricity.
What about efficiency, a typical car throws away all the energy when braking instead of making regen. The same for trains and airplanes.
What about heat recovery; a simple inox pipe running through the shower sewage tube can save a lot of energy. All the water coming in at 15°C can be preheated by the water running out at 35°C. The difference in inlet temperature make a big saving in heating energy in the boiler. Going from 30 to 37 is not the same as going from 15 to 37. That’s a 68 % saving. Again multiply by the number of houses, it’s huge.
International travel,well why should we keep dragging on the Atmosphere for 10000 miles when we can just take a big start and jump above it. It’s not because a president decided to stop the NASP that another one can’t restart it. Especially when it becomes easy stuff with today’s materials and technology.
Doomsday is not upon us, but the need to at last use technology and move forward is upon us.
Many people want to keep gas guzzling instead of buying an hybrid, well those are indeed in for a big surprise.
Other people keep using oil for heating, they probably don’t know that heat pumps is the major heating system in Sweden. Not especially a warm place.
Most people keep thinking short term when they buy something. That’s not saving money, it is wasting it. You are much better off borrowing a bit to buy the costlier better and save on it’s use, then buy the cheap bad and keep borrowing later to still be able to use it.
In fact we live a fantastic time, one in which we will finally see the last dinosaurs disappear and see the beginning of the new diamond age.
Posted by: Patrick Leonard
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17-May-2006
21277
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I'm with wintermane here. The editors predictions will only happen if an ecological taliban takes over. A world of happy smiling peasants. Sustainable - yes but barely human.
Posted by: Andrew L
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21-May-2006
22001
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This Cobb guy is humorous. We will eliminate private cars and air travel then go face to face for communication. How, learn yoga and levitate to the person in the next State you need to talk to? Mr. Cobb must be an environmentalist as he never mentions the 'N' word as any part of a solution, although I will agree that corn ethanol is a dead end that exists for political reasons only.
Posted by: Mike Swift
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