alt.brains

June 26, 2006
     The energy debate around the US has taken a definite turn this spring, since oil prices stepped back up to the $70 zone, but the thinking around these issues has only gotten worse. That's because there is only one idea dominating the public discussion: how to keep our cars running by other means, at all costs.

      We're certainly hearing more about energy from government and business. President Bush made the "addicted to oil" confession in January. Chevron and British Petroleum (or Beyond Petroleum, as BP wishfully styles itself) have both run ad campaigns acknowledging the oil-and-gas crunch, and the mainstream media has joined the campaign to pimp for bio-fuels. But all the talk is driven by the assumption that we will keep running WalMart, Disney World, and the interstate highway system just like we do now, only with other "alternative" liquid fuels.

     The more naive members of the environmental sector have been suckered into this line of thinking, too -- especially the college kids, who imagine we can just divert x-amount of acreage from Cheez Doodle production and re-direct it to crops devoted to making liquid fuels for Honda Elements. They need to get some alt.brains.

     Nobody is talking about the much more likely prospect that we'll have to reduce motoring drastically, and make other arrangements for virtually every aspect of daily life, from how we get food, to how we do business, to how we inhabit the landscape. The more we resist thinking about the larger agenda for comprehensively changing daily life, beyond our obsession with cars, the more likely we will veer into hardship, political trouble, and violence.

     The reason for this collective failure of imagination seems pretty obvious: the older generations are hopelessly vested and invested in the hard "assets" of suburbia, which they feel they cannot walk away from; and the younger generation is too demoralized by the fear that they will never be vested in any assets (while many seek refuge from thinking at all in the electronic sensory distractions of video games and Ipods, or else in irony and other forms of manufactured alienation).

      If I was a kid now, I'd find a lot more to rebel against than what we faced in the 1960s: the draft and the insipid program of Levittown. I'd rebel against a generation of adults selling the future for obscene pay packages. I'd rebel against everything from the mendacious nonsense of Rem Koolhaas to the profligate stupidity of Nascar. I'd want to eat Donald Trump for lunch (and set free the wolverine that lives on his head.) I'd utterly reject the false commoditized reality and set out to discover the world. I'd get busy building a society with a plausible future (and be real excited about it).

     Sometimes I wonder if we just enjoy lying to ourselves. Sometimes I think: if this nation could somehow harness the energy in all the smoke it blows up its own ass, we'd all be able to drive to heaven in Cadillac Escalades.

Comments

[sad truths]

Fakery everywhere.

Insulation from real interaction with nature, narcoticized awareness of reality.

It can't have always been this way.

And it can't remain this way.

Don't expect any soft landings.

[^_^]

To hell with America, the generations that preceded my own have ruined whatever chances I had for a comfortable, successful life. I hope they get the worst of whats yet to come.

[Shep]

"Sometimes I wonder if we just enjoy lying to ourselves."

There's no doubt about it.

[bud4wiser]

Hey, we exist in whatever culture the "market will bear". What do you think life is - somekind of reality show?

The world has turned out just like a lot of science fiction stories have said it would, only nobody notices.

Let's face it, the facts change all the time.

[Mike]

I wonder what young folks today really want. I wonder if they -- on average -- realize there's an alternative to a life where one is constantly plugged in, tuned in, bought in?

I think traditionally young people question that which they see as "of the elders," and accept everything they see as "new." Technology seems new. Cell phones and computers and PDAs and games are re-fangled every year. This *is* youth culture.

Some major jolt has to shake them out of this view, or it'll never change. Think the "Modern Kids" of the Baby Boom, raised on science and TV and modernity. One assassinated president and an inductrial-strength war . . . and they changed their tune, getting in touch with nature, the natural, the rustic. At least til they got cynical in the 70s.

* * *

Anyway, my new posts don't relate to that or to JHK's topic this week. But if you like your satire served up provocatively, complete with stereotypes of German nationalism, jibes at group-think, and that special brand of anthropomorphic humor I've hitched my wagon to . . . then come on over and take a look.

[nostalgia]

Who even recognizes the lies anymore?

Apart from ca. 5.8 billion people, I mean.

On the other hand, it is stunning to see someone say being against the draft was frivolous compared to the urgent need to be against a society so bleak that the only escapes are electronic distractions and irony. Obviously, someone who has never truly known the difference between watching limbs fly all over a screen, and watching yours fly all over the landscape.

If Kunstler had talked about being against a war for oil which will consume young Americans as being a reason to be at least as self-interested as those who protested against the draft for Vietnam, then he would be making a solid, if not exactly heroic point.

To call for mass protest against a society which leads to mass media distractions and irony seems a bit futile, somehow.

Hatred of suburbia is not a mass movement - suburbia was. One which I certainly feel is destined to fail, but this means nothing to those living in suburbia.

Besides, I consider watching it all crash from a distance a reasonable future to look forward to, without having to lift a finger.

[kd]

Fine post this week, Jim. Simple, to the point.

[ross]

I like the part about eating Trump, though the Donald, with all that blubber, would simply not be tasty. With all that blubber he might make decent soap. The quote about freeing the wolverine on his head was inspired, even though wolverines aren't blonde.

I agree with nostalgia about Jim being misguided in his invidious juxtaposition of that which was protested in the sixties to that which is not being protested now.

[Mauricio Babilonia]

It's not just the college kids being seduced by the biofuel fantasy. It's also Robert Redford:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/30/redford.oil/index.html

and the American Lung Association (albeit from a pollution-control angle):

http://www.cleanairchoice.org/

[Weaseldog]

"Besides, I consider watching it all crash from a distance a reasonable future to look forward to, without having to lift a finger" - nostalgia

It's been crashing since the 1970s, starting in Africa.

In the late 1970s, I remember seeing a picture of nighttime Africa from spaced. It was crisscrossed with highways, you could see the headlights from the cars. Cities all over the continent were lit.

Now if you look at nightime pictures of that continent the interior is dark. No one is driving the highways at night.

Watch some of the old TV series of Tarzan and Doctari (sp?), they show an idealized Africa that once was. The movie 'Born Free' gives another glimpse.

Hollywood doesn't make film like these anymore, because Africa is no long that continent. That world is gone, it's crashing now.

In 1987, world population growth began outpacing energy growth. So that year, we saw Peak Oil, measured on a per capita basis. Ever since, the energy available to each person on the planet has been in decline. Each year, we've become poorer as the wealth must be distributed among more people. It hasn't been equal. We've maintained our modern cyborg world by inciting wars on other continents, and taking their resources in criminal enterprises. In Africa, we support genocidal warlords, because they work cheaper than legitimate governments. Kidnapped child laborers that can be worked to death and buried in mass graves, are cheaper than paid workers. This lowers costs and we call it the Invisible Hand of the Market. It's the Invisible Hand with it's very visible friends, wielding machine guns and whips.

I think it's clear we're at Peak Oil, right now. We can be sure until we're looking at it in the rear view mirror. But we expect even Saudi Arabia to go into decline next year. There's no nation left to pick up the slack. Next year, we may be getting a taste of the post peak world.

Nostalgia, you're not the only one speaking with confidence that Peak Oil is a problem for the far distant future. You're in good company. But I don't think the evidence bears this out. The situation since 1987 has given us a series of little tremors. They are little wanrings of the big one to come. As we get closer to the post peak world, these tremors have become more frequent and more intense.

Our 2000-2001 energy downturn triggered an economic restructuring. In 2003, world energy was back on the rise again. But now it's stalled once more. 2006-2007 may well see it decline again. As it does, we'll see more economic restructuring. Like a house, resettling on a sinking foundation.

If we truely are about to hit Iran, then 2005-2006 will mark the peak and 2007 will be a year of decine, hardships and sacrifice, even for those of us in the First World, who believe that we've insulated ourselves from hardship, by standing on the suffering of others.

I don't think we have as much time as many people think we do.

[msjanket]

Jim had a hard weekend. According to Jim, we need to destroy suburbs and cars in the future. Oil shale and tar sands are considered off limits by our hero. No, Jim needs to have society come to a dead end to fulfill his prophecy. Sure, high carbon dioxide made from the refinining processes in these two modalities is a big problem. Yet, Jim is probably disappointed that the ozone hole over Australia is apparently receding. Drat.
Jim, we luvv ya, guy, but kick up that Zoloft prescription just a mite.

Mike

[kd]

"...we've insulated ourselves from hardship, by standing on the suffering of others."

Well said, Wease.

[Lise]

The grown-ups are responsible for how they bring up the kids. I-pods, video games and TV are used for babysitting and so the kids continue to do what they know when they hit puberty and beyond. The grown-ups are continuing what they knew from their childhood from the World War 2 generation: make a lot of money so that you can have a big car, buy a lot of stuff including vacations abroad, and live in a house in suburbia.

Perhaps the baby-boomers who were most likely to "drop out" of the adult scene (some of them living on communes) could get the ball rolling and throw out the TV, video games, I pods and cell phones and plant gardens this summer or take the kids to some protest marches.

Anything to help get the ball rolling...

[Cats PJs]

"I'd want to eat Donald Trump for lunch (and set free the wolverine that lives on his head.)"

John Lennon said it a long time ago, something to this effect:

Keep you doped with religion, sex and TV

[montysano]

"Oil shale and tar sands are considered off limits by our hero. ..... Sure, high carbon dioxide made from the refinining processes in these two modalities is a big problem."

Maybe that's why JHK considers them "off limits"; they're not a real solution, despite the unsettling cheerleading by 60 Minutes (who also did a recent rah-rah piece on coal gassification).

I think what JHK wants to see, and I'm with him on this, is a serious national discussion on our energy future that includes the fact that at some point, energy usage will have to decline. Whether it's 10 years, or 20, or 50, at some point we go into decline. That's the proverbial Elephant in the Room.

[Weaseldog]

The ozone hole was severly damaged by freon and other industrial chemicals we were releasing into the atmosphere. We cut out the worst of those emissions and it's gotten a bit better.

The ozone hole and global warming are related because they are a part of our atmosphere, just like lightning and snow are. That doesn't mean they are driven by the same forces or that they are both driven by the same chemicals.

Confusing the zone hole with global warming is apparently another oil industry driven meme. It's essentially like arguing that because we've eliminated polio, leukemia is no longer a problem.

As some have pointed out, if we conserve, someone else will just use more. It's impossible for our generation to prepare for hardships like this one. We lack the education to undertsand the problem. Emotionally we are stunted. Not just our kids with iPods, but the adults with the faith that the universe loves us and that God doesn't let bad things happen to people.

And because as a people we're ignorant, self indulgent and lazy, we won't even see a need to prepare.

Y2K was easy to understand. We're well educated to understand time and clocks. We could test computer systems by just setting the clocks ahead. We could define the problem in many of our computers by simply looking at the code and seeing the fields aren't big enough for a four digit year. We had the educational background needed to undertand and foresee that problem. Bean counters could tell us how much it would cost to fix and how much it would cost, not to fix it.

Y2K was easy. Costly, but easy.

Peak Oil, will be Hard and Costly.

JHK calls for sacrifices. To give up some of the cyborg in us, that marries us to our machines. We won't though. We're too soft, lazy and ignorant to sacrifice for the future.

So don't worry about it Mike, no one will make you junk your SUV. There will just come a day when you run out of gas, and just can't get it back home.

[German Mike]

Tar sands,
It takes about 1000 cubic feet of natural gas to extract 1 barrel of oil and about another 700 for further processing/purification. That makes around 1700 cubic feet per high quality crude.
BTU per unit:
1 barrel crude 5,800,000
1 cubic foot gas 1026
5800000/(1700*1026)=3.33
That's not counting the other overhead such an operation requires. Once the natural gas bonanza in Canada comes to a halt so does the tar sands to oil production. Nuclear power might keep it going for a few more years but uranium ore is a finite resource whose end is in sight.

[TNT]

Is it possilbe that the government has some miracle energy fix in its closet they would break out WTSHT. The stealth airplanes, how long ago were those invented befor we all knew about it. My concern on this miracle cure is that there has to be timely transition from the black goooey shit to the miracle cure. I hate to say it, and i do not wish it, I see nothing but a collapse on the horizon. I cannot even convince my family of this Dog the bounty hunter is more important!

[george]

How can you blame the madness of America on SURBURBIA, for heavens sake? Consider the New Urbanist fantasy of Seaside, built by architects who know better, on a Gulf Coast barrier island. Built on sand. Built right in the path of a hurricane storm surge. Built 40 miles from the nearest real town, Ft. Walton Beach, on which it is dependent for hospital, police, fire and rescue, ect. The Seaside resident are extremely wealthy, for the most part, (Seaside being a second home) and are likely to have flown into the place on a time-share jet. Not only that, unless you happen to have a place ON the beach you have a view of your neighbor's imitation Olde Florida...roof. These overpriced slums, destined to become scrap lumber when the inevitable hurricane comes through, are one of the greatest real estate scams of all time.

[Weaseldog]

"Oil shale and tar sands are considered off limits by our hero. ..... Sure, high carbon dioxide made from the refinining processes in these two modalities is a big problem." - msjanket

Tar sands are a great way to get a trickle of oilm while destroying thousands of square miles of wilderness and farmand.

Some people sink money into bad investments all the time. We call them suckers. Shale is a sucker bet. It requires more energy to process than you get back. So it's a great way to scam investors. I bet it becomes a new government pork program, to take money from the taxpayer and give it to Halliburton. It's ideal for that. It can never turn a profit on it's own, so it will have to subsidized forever, just like ethanol.

Any energy source that is energy positive, should turn a monetary profit. If it can't turn a monetary profit, then it probably doesn't turn and energy profit either.

Tar sands currently require as much fresh water and natural gas as is conmsumed by a small city, to produce a few million barrels a day of oil. The stranded natural gas that is powering current operations is beginning to run low. When it is gone, production will slow as produced oil is burned to produce oil, instead of using natural gas.

Tar sands, will see a production decline, regardless of the quantity left to process. This is because there's only so much water available to drive this process.

[Cyndiluwho]

Montysano, IMO, what JHK really wants is to see us all shoved, kicking and screaming back into the 1930s. Especially those who consume conspicuously. Not defending conspicuous consumption just saying he seems a bit antsy to see such folks get what he thinks they deserve rather than actually discussing energy solutions.

Weaseldog, you're right. Adults really do believe those platitudes like God doesn't give us more than we can bear, footprints and that all good dogs go to heaven.

[Mike]

I enjoy this blog, but every couple of weeks it strikes me that it's a one-note orchestra. Instead of blatting out the same "suburbia bad, highways bad, oil bad" tune almost every damn week, add some variety in here. Focus is nice but tunnel vision is not. Within the insular world of this blog, let's take it for granted that oil production is declining while demand is rising, and the world needs to develop alternative energy sources. And let's take it as a given that life will change and a-holes in Escalades will get theirs. There are people and organizations attempting to develop solutions, to actually do something here. Why not move on to that or other aspects of the issue rather than autistically banging your head against the same spot on the wall?

[peakoilmom]

Weaseldog:

I'm with you. The crash is already happening, but we are so self-centered we can't see it. I heard a report on the BBC News this morning about the "bamboo railroad" in Cambodia. Admittedly, Cambodia's problems stem more from the Khmer Rouge than peak oil, but hearing about this makeshift rail line made me think of how we in the States might be traveling in a couple of decades or so...

For anyone interested in the bamboo rail line, here are two links:

http://www.goworldtravel.com/ex/aspx/articleGuid.1A58B178-F389-4105-8ECC-2BB8B2C8F567/xe/article.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1029/p18s04-hfes.html

It's good to see people having so much ingenuity when they have so little. I wonder if we Westerners would be as creative?

And for some photos of the "official" Cambodian rail system and the bamboo line, see ..

http://khmeroverseas.blogspot.com/2005/09/choo-choo-train-and-development-of.html

[kd]

Books offering/outlining/exploring "solutions" abound -- & have since at least the 70's. From E.F. Schumacher (remember Small is Beautiful) to Wendell Berry, even as radical as Hakim Bey. JHK has even hinted at "solutions" in his books. Unfortunately, folks want "solutions" to mean just what JHK has expressed -- the pipe dream that we can keep things up & running "as usual."
We should explore new (& rediscover old) ways of thinking/seeing, as well as doing.

* An aside: good post from Barbara Ehrenreich today:

http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/2006/06/the_piggery_awa.html

[Weaseldog]

"There are people and organizations attempting to develop solutions, to actually do something here. Why not move on to that or other aspects of the issue rather than autistically banging your head against the same spot on the wall?" - Mike

Actually, I think the problem is that there are no solutions.

Not as long as the problem is defined as, "How do we keep living high on the hog?"

Nature endowed us with a limited supply of fossil energy that took hundreds of millions of years to lay down. The energy that was fossilized over a million year period, lasts us about one year.

When that's gone, the party is over.

If there is a solution it ultimately involves having a lot fewer people. Ideally it might involve saving some of the energy that's left, for generations that haven't been born yet.

But we will not focus on such a notion. Instead, we will...

1. Keep consuming energy at the maximum rate that technology allows.
2. Keep expanding our world population.

In this context, there are no solutions. We can conserve but that just lowers costs and encourages consumption (Jevon's Paradox). We can talk about population reduction, like we have for decades. We can point out that some societies are making great strides. But the world population keeps rising while we talk.

Our population and consumption numbers will come down. But not due to man made solutions, or anyone's good intentions. Consumption will come down because we're running out. Our population will run down because life will become nasty, brutish and short.