Great Expectations

April 11, 2005
      Over in Vermont last week, I ran into a gang of biodiesel enthusiasts. Biodiesel is oil extracted from vegetable crops that can be used to run engines and do other things as a replacement for petroleum. They were earnest, forward-looking guys who would like to do some good for their country. But their expectations struck me as fairly crazy, and in a way typical of the bad thinking at all levels of our society these days.

     For instance, I asked if it had ever occurred to them that bio-diesel crops would have to compete for farmland that would be needed otherwise to grow feed crops for working animals. No, it hadn't. (And it seemed like a far-out suggestion to them.) Their expectation seemed to be that the future would run a lot like the present, that bio-diesel was just another ingenius, innovative, high-tech module that we can "drop into" our existing system in place of the previous, obsolete module of regular oil.

       Their scheme seemed misconceived in the same way as the ultra-high-mileage "hyper-car" that has been pushed for years by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute -- the main effect of which would be to promote the idea (especially among environmentalists!) that we can continue the suburban life of easy motoring. Lovins' even compounded this inanity by locating his institute's new headquarters (a green building!) way up a mountain road in Snowmass, Colorado, where all the employees have to drive cars to work (in four-wheel drive vehicles!).

     I notice lately that there are two kinds of hubris operating among the "forward-thinking" classes in America (which is to say, those who are thinking at all). One I call techno-hubris. It represents the idea that there are really no limits to our powers of innovation and it is obviously the product of our experience in the past century, especially of our victory in World War Two and of the 1969 moon landing. The other kind is organizational hubris, the certainty that we can organize our way around the oil bottleneck, global warming, and population overshoot. What both modes of thinking have in common is that neither recognizes the probability that we are moving into a period of discontinuity, turbulence and hardship. Both modes of thinking assume that we can negotiate a smooth transition from where we are now to a new-and-improved human condition.

     There is a remarkable consistency in the delusional thinking at every level of American life these days. When Americans think about the future at all, they seem to think it will be pretty much the way we live now. The buyers of 4000 square foot McHouses think that they will be able to continue heating them with cheap natural gas, not to mention commuting seventy miles a day. The stadium builders assume that major league sports will continue just as it is today, with chartered jet planes conveying zillionaire athletes incessently back and forth across the continent. The highway engineers and the municipal planners are focused like lasers on providing more roads and more parking spaces for evermore cars. The architects are designing more skyscrapers, despite the decrepit condition of the electric grid and the frightful situation with our depleting natural gas supply. We're so confident, so sure of ourselves.

     When you combine the seven deadly sins with high technology, you get some really serious problems. You get turbo-sins. It's dreadful to imagine what goeth after turbo-pride.

Comments

[Ken]

There is a place for biodesiel, but it isn't fueling single passenger cars. Even after almost everyone is getting around by foot, bicycle and mass transit, we will still need some railroad locomotives, buses, short haul trucks and construction equipment. There lies the need for biodesiel.

[Roger Blanchard]

My impression is that most people don't appreciate how much liquid hydrocarbons the U.S. uses, about 20.6 million barrels/day this year, the very high energy density of oil relative to alternatives that people suggest, and the historically high value for the energy profit ratio of oil, gas and coal relative to alternatives.

Another impression I have is that environmentalists think that if we all just use hybrid cars, everything will be fine. First, not everyone would want a hybrid. Certainly you wouldn't if you have serious hauling or towing, such as bass boats, snowmobiles and ATVs. Second, if everyone drove a hybrid, it might reduce consumption 3-4 mb/d but we would still consume a lot of oil. There are a lot of Americans with a lot of money so they can handle much higher gasoline prices without making changes in their oil consumption.

Having followed the energy supply issue for ~25 years I have observed the various claims about new technologies involving fuel cells, fusion, hydrogen generation, ethanol production, oil shale, wind, solar, etc. It's easy to make claims that these technologies will replace oil. Talk is cheap. At this point, we're as dependent on oil as we were in the 1970s. Any new energy technology that might be used would take a long time to have a significant impact and we don't have too long before the situation becomes serious.

I'm expecting oil production to increase over the next few years due to the large number of megaprojects (>100,000 b/d) that are expected on-line in 2005 (15) and 2006 (11). The summed peak production is estimated at 5.7 mb/d. In 2007 and 2008 there are only 3 megaprojects expected to come on-line in each of those years and the volumes of oil are much smaller. I think that is when the oil situation will get serious.

Roger Blanchard
Sault Ste. Marie, Mi

[Jussi Hämäläinen]

I still have this book that I got as a kid.It's,appropriately enough,called "Oil" (in English).The book was written as a textbook for teenagers,covering all the basic aspects of production,environmental effects and future availability of oil as they looked ca 1980.I must say that the British writing team did a sterling job,for the information in the book has hardly aged since.

Unfortunately,that is also part of the problem.For the authors included warnings,in the preface and elsewhere in the text that oil was a non-renewable resource and that "no combination of alternate energy sources (including biofuels,which are not new at all) can replace oil if use it all up during our lifetimes"(loose translation).

Sadly,no new information has emerged to brighten the picture since then.We still know the same things about oil that we did 25 years ago.Expect that,in the meantime,the future of dwindling resources has arrived.And what was once common knowledge (!) has been pushed out of polite discourse in the expectation that the "cheap-oil fiesta",as JHK put it,will continue forever.

Denial is sweet while it lasts.

[Jussi Hämäläinen]

I will make the same point in shorter form:everything you can read about the problem of oil,apart from the global warming aspect of it,has been known for decades.There's no significant new information out there,we've just gotten better at ignoring it.

[Weaseldog]

What megaprojects Roger? New Saudi Arabias?

Unfortunately, discovery peaked in the late 1960s. Ever since then, every year has shown a declining discovery curve. The majors are now discovering less than half the volume of oil they produce every year. These days a mega-project is a little-teeny-tiny-project from the perspective of the 1970s.

On the rest of your points Roger, I pretty much agree with you.

As to biodiesel, it's been calculated that if you used all of the land East of the Mississippi for biodiesel production and nothing else, you'd produce only the quantity of fuel that Florida consumes. So we'd need to discover new continents to make enough of the stuff to power the US lifestyle.

Alternatives like shale, ethanol and frozen methane will never become profitable because more energy has to be consumed to produce them, than we get back. Imagine an investment opportunity where you put in a $1.50 to get a guaranteed $1.00 return. You'd be dumb to make that investment, right? That's the problem with some of these alternatives.

On ethanol, I'm waiting to see how that turns out. Archer-Midlands, a corporation that is getting fat on the public trough, says ethanol is an energy winner. A recent study put's ethanol down as a 6:1 energy loser. Everyone has different numbers, with those getting a cut of our paychecks as an ethanol subsidy posting positive ones, and every one else posting negative ones.

Anyone notice food prices going up as more farmland is devoted to making ethanol to burn in cars?

Wind and nukes have the probelm of scale. We'd need 100s of new nukes built every year, just to get back to 2% energy growth, if petroleum production stays flat. More when petroleum production declines. Wind has a similar problem of scale. So in a declining energy landscape, where will the energy and wealth come from to build such massive projects?

[Roger Blanchard]

Most of the megaprojects are in deepwater offshore areas. If necessary, I can provide data for all of them. A megaproject is a project that will have a peak production of at least 100,000 b/d. That does not mean they are supergiant or megagiant fields. Most of these projects will peak quickly and decline quickly. Most deepwater fields will peak within 5 years and some may peak within a year or two. Some will not reach their projected peaks.

Roger

[Michael M]

So far, it seems that everyone is looking for ways to keep the western lifestyle afloat. If things are as dire as people claim (as they very well could be), shouldn't we instead be simply looking for ways to survive? Whether its ditching the majority of automobiles and relying on either public transport and pedal-power to ensure larger scale societal survival or, more desperately, the survival of isolated communities within the larger societal collapse. Like post-oil monastaries perserving humanity & knowledge through the new dark ages. It seems that in either of these scenarios, biodeisel could play a role and therefore deserves more research and development. But it could never be a full replacement for modern oil consumption.

[kd]

After reading Jim's always excellent post & Micahel M's comment ("it seems that everyone is looking for ways to keep the western lifestyle afloat") I want to add that the "western" lifestyle isn't only western anymore. Just visit any of the Asian megacities & you'll see the familiar out of control traffic & air pollution, useless office buildings, industrial waste, flood of ephemeral petroleum-based plastic products, televised dreams of consumption, blind faith in the promises of "high" technology, & dazed & clueless young people...

it's a clusterfuck of global dimensions.

[kd]

Of course "western" lifestyle can also mean our "birthright" faith in the mythic American west, with "endless" land & resources to exploit & get rich from, plenty for all, where a man can be a man, etc. The west that became the Geography of Nowhere Jim writes about.

[BD]

i agree with michael m...

as edward abbey said: retreat. retreat. retreat.

[Adam O'Neil]

I think the point is that the 'western lifestyle' will always be available to those who can afford it. The problem lies in the proportion of people who actually belong to this category declining and how the rest of society will accept this. Especially in a nation where people are told that they can think of these things as being "non negotiable".

I have worked, briefly, on a biodiesel system and mostly it does seem to only really be viable as a system to augment oil use rather than replace it. The statstic I read was that a farm designed to produce biodiesel would require 20% of its land just to keep the farm machinery running. Wind seems to be a much more sensible answer, given current technology, for at least reducing the crisis (3cents a kWh, is apparently possible) but I would imagine we will have to be fairly deep in crisis before the NIMBY's finally shut up and let it happen.

[kd]

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying Adam. The "western lifestyle" is not a just a 'personal choice' or a luxury of the rich, but a vision of the world we have exported thru the media, global business ventures, & the science-fiction-is-reality wet dream we've bought & sold to the world.
A vision based on growth, consumption, & belief in magical science.
It's a vision that attracts university students from third world countries to come here & study technology & management, a vision that replaces ideas with schemes, traditional homes & villages with concrete monstrosities, tradional goods with cheap plastic, family life with television, heroes with celebrities.

Retreat may be worth considering, at least on a personal level.

[Weaseldog]

Thanks Roger, for the definition of mega-project. It doesn't mean what I expected it to mean. But it does fit the predictions that ever increasing resources will have to be invested to capture ever diminishing resources.

As you know, post peak doesn't mean more drilling, just that the quantity of new oil coming online won't keep up with the quantity of oil going offline.

[Adam O'Neil]

When I said "western lifestyle" I did mean just the US but I think the idea does still work in the context you are talking about, kd. The US may have exported an idea around the world, I remember hearing one story about a NASA project to put TV's in african villages to give farming education, in the end all the villagers wanted to watch was "Dallas". Even with your concept of us selling this idea around the world, however, I do not really see it as relevant as it is not as if they could actually ask for a refund for the lie they have been sold. They will be just another victim. On a domestic level I can see social troubles but internationally I cant see anyone trying to invade the US for selling a false dream, only for direct aggression against themselves or their interests. People around the world may want to move to the US as soon as they can no longer afford to do so (or are forbidden from doing so) they stop coming and are out of the equation as far as the US is concerned. Immoral? Yes. Will that make a difference? No.

On the domestic front it is different as people are brought up to believe the "western lifestyle" is their right, not something to aspire to. We happen to be lucky enough that most of us can actually afford something approximating to it at the moment. My point was that when this changes there will always still be people around that can afford to live that lifestyle, reminding everyone else what they have lost. Moreover the people who can no longer support anything approaching this lifestyle will actually be here, not in a distant country, so this represents a much more serious problem.

I am not sure what you mean when you talk about "retreat" do you mean US withdrawal from the global scene, personally moving to the 'back of beyond' or me withdrawing my last post? I recently attended an energy symposium on the coming crisis and the 'back of beyond' looks quite appealing. Is that what you are planning?

[Dave]

The techno enthusiasts will be blown away by the techno caused melt down in store for the bio-sphere. The result may be the emergence of radical cadres of luddites who will actively destroy any hint of a return to industrialism. As total collapse begins and the cenzoic age spins its way down the entropic drain those remaining hominids will make sure of one thing. Something evil came and went that was powered by something called industrial rationality. That form of thinking will be taboo and not allowed to emerge. So between now and then why let us tune our fiddles, order another round, find our spots in the crowd and prepare for one hell of a show.

Or allow our heroic and sympathetic impulses to guide us and try to save something of value from this nutty time. Personally I still don't know which is the wiser course.

[hopping madbunny]

Sweden's been running power plants and automobiles on biodiesel produced from pig and cow manure for some time. They even make a Volvo that runs on this fuel.

It's ridiculous to grow crops for biodiesel when one can grow crap for biodiesel, with no need to drill, and no danger of running out of the locally-produced supply.

It would be smarter to use this fuel for trains and public transit, heating and power generation and local trucking, rather than for private automobiles. Cars will still cost a lot of energy to make and waste a lot of materials. The private automobile would and should become a rarity.

It might also be good to subsidize the breeding of draft horses for smaller farms, rather than continue the use of tractors.

Bicycles are useful in cities in the good weather; buses or trolleys in the bad.

I was at an environmental conference this weekend where I spoke with local farmers who all use animal manures for fertilizer on their organic farms, none of the oil based nitrate fertilizers that are supposedly so essential. I plan to purchase all the food that I can from these people at local farmer's markets.

Yes, it's putting a band aid on a brain tumor, considering that the climate is going to change no matter what, but it is possible to slow down and live better while you are doing it. Whether the vast and fast majority of people in this and other countries will accept that they must give up some toys to survive is debatable. But I speak with a lot of drivers who are not fond of their cars and who would switch to public transit if there were any.

And the elephant in the room: stop wasting materiel and treasure on WAR!

[Art]

I tell the proponents of Bio-diesel that its best application is in a hybrid drive train, where combustion efficiency and emission reductions are maximized.

Hybrid technology is in a class by itself, far far superior, not only in every aspect of all classes of transport vehicle, but most important, its potential affect upon land-use and development.

I'm thinking of writing an article based on this title, "The Car Will Save The World".

-- an explanation how hybrid technology best directs urban/suburban development toward incorporating a multi-modal transportation system, whereby walking, bicycling and mass transit will become increasingly commonplace, supplanting car-dependency, and, how hybrid technology may direct the growth of local and regional economies, overpowering the fatuous 20th Century global economy.

Serious inquiries invited. "The Car Will Save The World"

I follow Jim's career because of land-use and development considerations which I consider closer to the core of the problem. Jim is correct: Technofixing the car fixes nothing.

[BD]

adam-

you ask what was meant by retreat...

i believe kd was referring to an earlier post that i made when s/he said 'Retreat may be worth considering, at least on a personal level. '

edward abbey stated: retreat. retreat. retreat.

we will all benefit greatly, both now and in the coming years, if we realize that our best option is just what abbey recommended...

retreat in your battles of hope to 'save the world'...

retreat from the paradigm that makes possible all of the fatal flaws which jim writes about and we are all discussing here...

it is time to relearn forgotten skills, move to and live in your local bioregion, reprioritze...

retreat.

i know weaseldog has made several lifestyle adjustments- and so have i... have the rest of you? jim? or do think that this level of action is a bit premature or unneccesary? i see it as a win-win situation... 1) it prepares you for what most here see as an inevitability-- and 2) even if this vision of the future does not play out, you are still living a more wholesome, 'real' life.. one that is relatively free of the gluttonous ignorance which we all so despise...

i assume you all know of the boiling frog analogy?

have you jumped out of the boiling pot?

or have you been content to just lay there and have the heat slowly turned up on you?

HEY YOU!!! time to jump out, snap out of it...

retreat. retreat. retreat...

[hopping madbunny]

BD asks if the 'rest of us' have made adjustments. My entire life has been a 'lifestyle adjustment'--choosing to live in cities that have public transport or bike paths, not owning a car. I could have made more money in cities that wouldn't allow me to live car-free. I am downsizing the electrical stuff including this computer, buying local organic produce.
It may not be much, but it's something.

[Andy R]

hoppingmad...
Your lifestyle choice easier to do if you're either a: not in the USA b: don't have a family (meaning kids) to educate c: are blessed to be in a safe urban area where you can leave the house with a reasonable expectation of returning without incident and finding everything as you left it.

In the US, most of that cannot happen in an urban area, particularly the education part - unless you can afford private school or your urban community is of the private, gated variety.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any sort of urban regentrification in the US that involves working families with kids moving in. Mostly it's affluent folks without kids that are gentrifying these spaces and they are often surrounded by decay.
Without good and safe schools, living in cities is not yet and option for middle class families in the States. Perhaps the Long Emergency will change that out of necessity, but if it does, reversing 50 years of outward migration in a short time will be quite a social upheaval. Doing a housecleaning of the administrative education bureaucracy and returning public schools to the community is a must. The Feds will have to leave children behind (sorry Dubya), but the upside is that they will leave them alone...

[Weaseldog]

The longer we wait, the more trapped we'll become. I've become all to aware myself that I'm stuck with what I have and I need to make the best of it.

I just made different choices than some. When the tech boom was going, I got into a house that was in an older neighborhood and underpriced. The advice I kept getting was that I could afford a big house on a zero lot line costing me 3-4 times what I was looking for. Had I taken that option, I'd surely have lost it with all the unemployement I've endured since 2001.

As far as education, I have mixed thoughts on that. It's healthy for your kids to have one, but I'm sure there are any good ones being provided anywhere in the US. Admittedly as I've never had children I can only speak from experience from relatives, but education doesn't seem to be what it was in my day and I didn't get the opportunities my father got.

And since degreed jobs are no longer for Americans, but are all being shipped to Asia, I'm not sure if kids today will ever be able to pay off their college debts.

As to the house I did choose, it's on 3/4 acre in the city. I've planted fruit trees all over it and am now keeping chickens. I do some vegetable gardening and am working to get a few plots in now before it's too late. I currently have peaches, pears, blackberries and figs on the limb. The eggs from chickens that aren't raised in tiny cages on medicated feed, are incredible.

But the biggest decision I've made is to pay off my home early. I never got the second mortgage Goerge told us all to get, in order to join in the ownership society, so I own more of my home than all my neighbors. My goal is to pay it off in under five years. I don't know if the economy will allow that, but I'll try.

As to what's coming, don't think of it as the end of the world, it's simply change, and change happens all of the time. We're in the grand cycle and it goes up and down. No matter which direction it goes, you should do your best to prepare for the changes. I'm looking to the Soviet Union after the wall came down, to see what I may have to make do with.

We may only have a few years of relatively stability left. What are you doing?

[Andy R]

Weaseldog,
3/4 of an acre in the city??
Highly unusual. No zoning issues with livestock?

I've got small house on 4 acres 20 miles from my job (I know, I know...) I own more of it than my neighbors with their 3,000+ Sq Ft Mchouses. We bought the least expensive property 5 years ago in a rural area that is now dotted with 600K + Mchouses. The schools are great because everybody cares. I plan on doing whatever it takes to stay because I love it, it's in an area largely protected from overdevelopment and I have two large vegetable gardens which will get more attention once I finish my degree this summer - unless I have to move to Asia to use it. My favorite part is the corn/squash area, where I plant the corn in the Native American style (in a circle), then let the squash vines climb the stalks. We eat winter squash from fall until almost spring, storing them in a cool dark place.
I have the facilities for goats, chickens etc... but none are in the offing just yet.

I'm not too worried about a mortgage - I figure if debt is monetized, my mortgagge will appear much smaller compared to the inflation that will ensue.

[Oldtimer]

Can you live on fresh or dried fruit 12 months of the year? Do you raise your own feed for those chickens? What do you use for fuel for heat, for cooking? If you burn wood, do you have your own woodlot?

No one seems to realize the true scope of the problems we face. We're looking at a return to a pre-internal combustion economy, yet for the most part we're two to three generations removed from direct experience of that life. Few seem to realize just how many layers of our lifestyle will be peeled away.

We will not drive. We will not travel much beyond our own neighborhood or village, except to move permanently to a new place. We will walk a lot.

Most food and other products will be produced and consumed locally. Forget out-of-season fruits and vegetables; think root cellars. Imported items - coffee, tea, chocolate - will be too expensive for most consumers.

Electricity will be too expensive for most home use.

And that's the good news, assuming we can get beyond the transition. Considering how blissfully unaware we are, in general, of how close we live to the edge, it's going to be a wicked hard fall. There will be horrendous crime, neglect, poverty and fear, all the way down.

Of course, we could get to know our neighbors now, learn to share before it's too late ....

Nah.

[kd]

Adam, BD pretty much covered what I meant by "retreat" when he said "retreat from the paradigm that makes possible all the fatal flaws which Jim writes about..."

I meant it on the personal level--beginning with one's own thinking, then lifestyle, as far as possible.

But you added an interesting dimension when you wrote "US withdrawal from the global scene". I, for one, would like to see the US discontinue its purposeful importation of the American consumer lifestyle, discontinue predatory business practices (I wonder sometimes why the "Borg" in Star Trek captured our imaginations so--maybe there's something Borg-like in the way US corporations operate overseas; human beings have a fear/fascination with negative self-portraits--think of Don Siegel's classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), & for-profit miltary adventures.

Well, now I'm going to finish reading all these other posts!

[Art]

Well gee, guys. I hoped one of you would take my assertion about hybrids seriously.

....hybrid technology best directs urban/suburban development toward incorporating a multi-modal transportation system, whereby walking, bicycling and mass transit will become increasingly commonplace, supplanting car-dependency, and, how hybrid technology can direct the growth of local and regional economies, overpowering the fatuous 20th Century global economy.

Listen. For the exurbans here, the next-generation "Plug-in" Hybrids have large battery packs, 200-400 lbs, which can be recharged via a few large photovoltiac panels. Here is your electricity supply in an emergency. They'll have a useful lives of between 10-20 years depending upon use. The panels will last at least 20 years. The latest Lithium-ion batteries are promising; a nano-technology application worth supporting, IMO. Here is a slew of sustainable industries bound to become market leaders. (Don't ask me how to manipulate the SM, I'm clueless there).

The greatest need for change is of course in the city and inner suburbs. Here, the hybrid plug-in battery packs offers an economic incentive to drive shorter distances and support the growth of local economies, which in time become feasibly tied to regional economies via regional transit systems. I'm a monorail fan, though the $1.5 Billion proposal in Seattle is disgracefully engineered; those bastards at GM calling the shots I say.

C'mon. Isn't the title, "The Car Will Save The World" frickin' startling? The Hybrid can lead to a car less driven. Get it?