Peak Tech?

July 23, 2007
     Go anywhere in America, among any class of people -- from the Nascar morons to the Ivy League -- and one expectation is pretty universal: that technology will only bring us more wonders and miracles, and it will certainly save-the-day where our energy problems are concerned. This would seem natural for people living in an age when a simple cassette SONY Walkman is superceded by an 80-gigabyte iPod in one generation. But what if this assumption is off? What if peak technology occurs roughly in the same wave as peak energy?

     Of course, another nearly universal expectation is that we will go through an orderly transition between the end of the oil fiesta and whatever comes next -- implying, naturally, that some new sovereign energy resource is out there in destiny's green room, getting prepped up, waiting to be sent on-stage. The confusion about this, induced by strenuous wishing, is such that most people expect the next energy resource to consist of technology itself.

      This has been the heart of my beef with the rosy future crowd. Energy and technology are not the same thing, not interchangeable or substitutable. If you run out of one (energy), you can't just plug in the other (technology). I certainly believe other energy resources exist besides oil and methane gas, but I maintain that we will be grossly disappointed by what they can do for us, given what we are currently running in society. Nor am I categorically against the idea of using these other things: solar, wind, bio-fuels, what-have-you. I can even be persuaded on nuclear with its many hazards, if that's the only way to keep the lights on. But all of these things will not preclude the extreme necessity to make severe changes in our manner of daily living -- and to do so rather quickly.

     Far from evolving triumphantly to yet-higher realms of technological nirvana, I'd expect a raw struggle to preserve much of the knowledge and applied technique that has already been acquired. I do happen to believe that the petroleum twilight will bring quite a bit of disorder to our society, which almost certainly means that the institutional context for research and development will suffer. Most particularly, I doubt that the big universities will be able to carry on in an energy-and-capital-starved future. Exactly how they might disintegrate is an open question. Last year, for example, I was shown the new bio-medical research "facility" at the University of Michigan, a building at least the size of a Cunard ocean liner, and wondered as I beheld it exactly how they were going to heat the goddam thing ten years down the line. But one might as well ask how the U might fund the paychecks of the building's occupants as Michigan's economy falls into an ever-larger crater. Such is the hubris-induced weakness of mind among those in charge of things that these mundane questions are not even asked.

     The same pretty much goes for the big corporations. Their world is going to change pretty rudely, too. Far from expecting them to take over our lives even more comprehensively than is the current case, I expect them to wobble, fall to their knees, and expire as the tonic of globalism vanishes down the drain of economic history. Just as most people expect technology to save-the-day for energy, the same people expect the world to keep becoming an ever-smaller place of more intricately co-wired parts. Not me. I expect the world to become a larger place. I expect the wiring to unravel in a contest over the world's remaining oil. I expect that the nations of the world will eventually retreat back into their own continental regions (while that retreat may be violent and messy). I expect our energy problems to limit any organization's ability to project power and influence -- whether it is a government or a corporation. I expect that anything now running at the giant scale will either have to downsize real fast or go out of business.

     Few of the rosy futurists foresee anything but ever-greater peaks of affluence among an ever-larger pool of players. I think they have been watching too many installments of "Richistan" on cable TV. My own notion is that capital will dry up quicker than rain on a Scottsdale patio as our energy predicament becomes apparent, since expectations of future growth (of economies and the capital representing them) are keyed to an assumption of unlimited energy resources. When the truth finally hits -- that there are real limits to the things of this world -- it will knock the capital markets on their asses. We will see large numbers of men wearing Rolex watches weep into crumpled certificates as the tranches of hallucinated wealth dissolve in the mists of their hopes and dreams. This means, at least, that investment in technology R and D on the grand scale will probably not meet our current expectations.

     In any case, it is getting pretty late in the day for us to just kick back and nurture fantasies about the future of technology while the prospect of an oil export shock resolves more vividly before us -- the first symptom of an industry that will shortly fly to pieces. Of course the very last thing we should be doing -- which everyone from the Nascar morons to the Ivy League "greenies" is doing -- is focus all effort on how to keep the American automobile fleet running by some magic means other than gasoline. I say, just as a mental jump-start, let's put at least some of that effort into getting the choo-choo trains running again -- but this is too silly for the boys at MIT or even the Pentagon.

     A few years ago, I went to the famous TED conference in Monterrey, where the mandarins of computer tech gather every year to hear talks about the neat things happening in the world beyond Silicon Valley. (I was part of the "entertainment.") By far the most popular presentation of the whole conference was the one on flying cars. Yeah, I know. It was straight out of a 1937 edition of Popular Science Magazine. But that's where their heads were at. All those twenty billion dollar heads, and that was what really lit their wicks. In case you wonder why I'm skeptical about where we're going in this country.

Comments

[kmcrawford111]

I chalk up a lot of the belief in the technology savior to President Bush's totally irresponsible promise of a hydrogen economy.

Sure, let's just keep doing what we've been doing! Down the road, we'll just switch over everything to hydrogen! No problem, because we're going to be throwing more money at it now!

The national thinking, when there is any at all, seems to be that if we throw enough money at any concept, it will become reality.

Taking it a step further, how many people are actually thinking about the scalability of new technologies and whether it is possible they, including any combination, can replace fossil fuels? Even fewer, it seems. Just because something can be done, it doesn't mean it can replace the insane amount of oil we quaff today.

Has it ever been more clear that we have to become a society that uses less energy?

I'm going to rant here. I believe we've had a much better means of transportation for a long time. It seems to hardly be discussed, little more than a novelty.

It's called a bicycle.

It can replace much of current transportation. I'm certain it uses only a small fraction of the resources used by autos. It doesn't pollute. It's quiet. It can even be quite fast. It's comparatively cheap. I maintain that the money saved by replacing driving with cycling where feasible, by lesser fuel consumption and lower repair requirements on the auto that would otherwise be used, would pay for a decent one in relatively short time. So I couldn't believe anybody now car-dependent who said they couldn't afford one.

It would help solve the obesity epidemic. Kill two birds with one stone.

Note that I am not suggesting replacing all driving with bicycling right now. I also am well aware of the dangers of bicycling. Some of the attitude I see is appalling ("Get off MY road!!"). I believe that if more people got out of their cars and onto bikes more, we would have a greater respect for bicyclists and hopefully bicycling would then become safer, possibly with the aid of law and minor infrastructure changes.

All these good things, and still so little discussed. The only reason I can imagine: utter laziness. To me, a bad sign of the state of affairs is that the green movement's icon is a fucking car (Prius). I'm firmly with Kunstler's belief that we have to do better. We have to become less obsessed with cars.

[Holmes, I presume]

Never fear, fans of the motorized American existence, barefoot scientists are hard at work on the soon-to-be unveiled Toyota Poi-us. Yes, it runs on rods of the compressed sticky paste staple of Hawaiian meals made from the taro root.

I consider this to be discussion (of the ironic absurd variety). Jim, please don’t ban me from the site!

[Laura Louzader]

To Steve Duncan, imaginative use of the internet with the goal of using it to steeply reduce travel is only one of the ways we MUST use the tech we have to aid us in our conservation effort. Why indeed does anyone drag people in over distances of hundreds of miles to a conference that could be conducted over the internet? Let's put those big servers to use and get the full benefit of them. Same goes for paying bills and ordering groceries to be delivered (as I do)-use what you are already using to read blogs and cruise the net to make life possible without a car, or at least with only a shared car now and then.

Additionally,make use of old technologies. For example, don't buy an Mp3 if you already have old vinyl, tapes, and cd's and the equipment to play them. Get the good of what you have.

The most important thing we can do, while there is time, is ditch far-flung exurban dwellings in favor of something smaller closer to necessary retail and public transit. The time to ditch your exurban mini-palace is now, before the real estate market starts the next leg down as the trillion bucks worth of mortgage resets triggers an even bigger wave of foreclosures. No matter how much a loss you have to take on the place now, it is nothing compared to the loss you will take if you wait until your exurban enclave becomes totally beyond reach of transportation. Better to sell a year early than a day late.

If you're buying, think how you can dowscale. If you were thinking of a 5 room condo in an elevator bldg, think of 4 rooms in a courtyard instead. The closer the train, the better.

Get used to wearing your clothes a lot longer and take care of them accordingly. This is the time to stop buying fads- you don't need that pale pink leather $400 handbag with the big rossette you will only wear once. All purchases of consumer items such as clothing, furnishings, housewares, should be made with the idea that you are going to have to make the stuff last a lifetime, so maybe you don't want a bunch of faddy, cheap junk from IKEA but would rather get something "antique" but well made and restore it.

PAY DOWN CREDIT CARDS, and get all your other debt reduced or eliminated. This is a good time to figure out how to live without a car, so ditch the thing, and end all those car payments and insurance premiums and repairs and fuel bills NOW. When people see how much money they save not owning a car, and how much less hassle it is not to be bothered with repairs and being towed and your teenager wrecking the thing, they wonder why they subjected themselves to the sheer punishment of car ownership. I stopped letting a car own me 20 years ago, and life has been more delightful ever since.

Tell your teens NO NO NO YOU CAN'T HAVE A CAR. The little buggers never needed to be driving, anyway.

I remember reading the academics of the 50s who predicted that automobiles and television would destroy our culture, and they have not, in my opinion, been proved wrong. There are, in any large community, groups of people who have banded together to get television and cars out of their lives and offer people an alternative culture. Look for those groups to give you moral support.

[John Galt]

I'll start by apologizing for my self-important username, but it was the only permutation of John Galt remaining. I run a small technology business building scientific instruments.

I really like Jim Kunstler's biting wit and appropriate alarm over the current situation. With that said, I think that he is wrong in some ways. Even if he were more wrong than right, his voice is a valuable contribution to the debate over public policy and serves to warn the public about the consequences of individual choices.

Until last week, I thought that humans face a simple three-way choice - either 2/3 die off, we make a big mess with coal, or we go nuclear whole-heartedly. One of our Senate aides remarked that we probably will get the worst possible combination of all three.

It is possible to power the easy-motoring utopia (including all of the trains and trucks) with nuclear electricity, but the expense will be staggering. Building hundreds or thousands of new power plants, upgrading the grid and replacing the vehicle fleet will cost trillions of dollars. The tragic ongoing misallocation of resources (overconsumption in general, very well represented by SUVs and McMansions) will be liquidated by The Greater Depression, which will sow the seeds of a better future - if we can survive it. Before this commodity cycle is over, we will have real double-digit interest rates, the Austrians will be vindicated, and the Keynesians burned at the stake. Americans will again save diligently and value technology education.

The future will include cars and hydrocarbon fuels, but they will be much smaller and much more expensive, respectively. The value of transportation is, and always has been, very high. The cost of water transport is quite low and will not go away, even with much higher oil prices. In general, free trade increases the net wealth of humans.

There are bits of good news out there. �In particular, the western US is rich with potential geothermal power. I add this as a fourth choice for the future of the US, as the scale is sufficient (given a staggering investment) to produce enough electricity to power the entire grid *and* the easy-motoring utopia. The know-how to exploit this reservoir of power is technology. New technology would be needed to deploy large scale solar electricity, and, in time, may match or exceed nuclear and geothermal electricity.

Not many people realize that 6% of California's electricity comes from geothermal sources (>1250 MW), and nearly twice as much of Nevada's power (on a per capita basis, >250 MW of installed capacity). The investment required to convert the entire fleet of US vehicles, including railroads, to electric power will be nearly as staggering as the investment required to upgrade the electric grid and provide the generating capacity to serve them.

That's my two cents. Keep up the good work Jim.

[Uncle Remus]

D.E.N.I.A.L.

We deny there is a problem and we are unwilling to deny ourselves luxuries we perceive as rights.

And in that, we deny ourselves any opportunities to mitigate a worsening future and thereby deny future generations, if any, of same said.

[Uncle Remus]

The is JHK's approach and then there is this:

http://www.revbilly.com/

[XER]

Good post Jim. The technology gods are not going to be happy with today's sermon. IMHO, people who preech and believe in technology as our saviour, are far more dangerous than traditional religious fanatics. As energy gets more and more expensive, it will be harder and harder to turn stones into bread. The world will soon begin to see that we have put all our faith in a technological tower of babal. When the tower collapses (The foundation of the tower being cheap energy which is now starting to crack), the Cosmic Hell will be fully revealed.

[Uncle Remus]

David Matthews, this one is for you.

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From the Rev. Billy

“The meek shall inherit the Earth.”

Who said that? Emma Goldman? Or was it Subcommandante Marcos?

Here’s another question. Who is the meek party in question? Who has been genocided and holocausted more than another victim in history? It’s a trick question. The Earth. The answer is the Earth.

The Earth shall inherit the Earth. We are all the Earth ourselves, of course, but we’re a rogue species that may now be rejected by our fellows in creation, like the many once-dominating life-forms who have been returned to the dust. If we eventually get through this climate crisis and extinction epidemic and our rash of wars – it will be because we knew that we got really really MEEK.

Reverend, are you asking for me to be powerless? – I’m supposed to be powerless on purpose? Yes children -- try meekness like this. Walk from where you are toward the greatest amount of nature – even if it’s just a tree on an exhausted traffic island. Go to the natural world and make no demand, have no statement. Let’s call it Radical Humility. Face the rest of life, leave your human power behind, and have no pre-emptive belief. Not even – “I want to save you!”

Listen, see, and wait – without conditions. Take the non-human into us, in a way that we haven’t before. Let strange life systems come to us with our new instructions. The intelligence which flows in the rocks and grass and wind and birds is not hearable by 200 foot cell phone towers and does not register on picture-window size home entertainment screens. But you and I can hear it.

What the Earth says to us is not vague at all. It is specific. It comes in subjects object and verbs set to a heartbeat. Officially, our governments regard nature as without language. Our scientists and – our culture generally – doesn’t think speech can come from rocks, or even chimps. But global warming, for instance, is coming to us as dramatic screaming monologues. Much of our population is spending some time every day translating the waves, fires, floods and droughts into the King’s English. It is so astonishing to us that nature talks. Nature is shouting with a whisper that can flood a continent.

The End of the World is very exciting. It is like a gathering of Guernicas. So much drama. And so many swashbuckling celebrities and suddenly GREEN! corporations are finding the spotlight at the End. The increased compassion for nature by the famous is astounding, but Hollywood’s heavy-breathing love of the drama of the climate crisis leaves the impression that they love the apocalypse as much as their right-wing Christians, their opponents in the well-known cultural war. But very few commercial personalities seem to have the meekness to be in the other media – communications of wilderness, from the wild.

Let me humbly propose some Inheritors, before we chase the Devils. Rachel Carson, author of The Sea Around Us, is a little woman who was hounded by the chemical companies but inherited the Earth. Wangari Maathai , the Kenyan planter of a million trees, who won the Nobel Peace Prize, has taught heads of state the humble on-your-knees-with-muddy-hands act of lowering a seedling into the ground. And the most effective image for Al Gore may be his long shots of simply standing at the edge of his river talking quietly. “We may lose all this” – he is opening the door for his public to the Aldo Leopolds and Walt Whitmans, who loaf and invite their souls but are American radicals of a type that wait within the environmental movement and have been there more deeply and longer than the new Green brat packs.

With Reverend Billy, I mimic the least meek of our American iconic characters, the televangelist. I’m an Elvis impersonator with a secret. Somehow the transcendent moments of our “Fabulous Worships” come when I am “beside myself” -- stuttering haltingly toward a truth that comes from an unknown source, falling back into the wave of gospel. In our last show the whole lot of us whispered “Change-a-lujah!” again and again.
If I judge anyone, I want to do it more carefully then I have in the past. We are all sinners doing the best we can and we are all forgiven. But – a commercial celebrity who is Green as hell will insist that it is best that the system of the present economy remain as it is. You can’t get these people to talk about globalization, sweatshops, or the Orwellian bleaching of our minds by the product monoculture. No – they have 2 movies a year to sell, with the flotilla of pixilated spin-offs. So, if the Celebs can’t look inward, they swashbuckle outward, flying into the old colonies and picking up orphans for the cover of People.

The Devil here is not the celebrities, who are just people doing their best – it is a system where share-holders of their corporations demand ever-expanding returns for the money they move around. That cancerous per-share expansion is the thing that is not meek. And you don’t hear the public voices in the United States ever talk about this fetishistic love of growth. Hasn’t it been proven long ago that the GNP does not indicate real prosperity? Stop buying that! The gambling casino of the Dow Jones is still recited as received wisdom by our pretty TV anchors, yet another layer of celebritude.

Each of us is a celebrity, down in our own world. Each of us should resist going to the horizon, away from where we are, to flashily show off our love. Each of us has to strip down to simple nature, get THAT radical. The Earth that inherits itself will do so by turning culture upside down and inside out. Commercial celebrities don’t have that option. They are the modern old priests that frowned on Rachel Carson and Wangari Maathi and Jesus and Malcolm… They must resist real change. Our new earth-inheriting leaders will instruct us radically - with a whisper, and then a long pause for the crickets and singing leaves to come through."
----------------------------------

The redemption lamp is lit.

That is all.

Carry on.

[Andy R]

Comments test - it wouldn't let me do it earlier so I'm checking to see that I wasn't blacklisted.

If you see this, I wasn't (whew that was close!)

[halebop]

Have you read the headline recently...

"75% of Americans Obese by 2015"

If these people were 1/3 smaller we would have half the problem (in our country) solved right there.

What an injustice, to overfeed a child, get him/her all fattened up then throw them out into a world where they are forced to make daily choices like big mac or petrol, big mac or tuition. Totally predictable is the choice that will always prevail.

I used to live in a mountainous community. Worked, played, socialized all without a car. I didnt take the bus that often either. My day range was about 60 miles and my overnight range was about 100. (my girlfriend lived 100 miles away and I saw her regularly). The point is that we largely do not need our cars. 90% of driving doesnt need to be done. The other 10% can be done on a motorcycle or train.

Now obviously I was joking about the fat people hogging the resources...but only half joking. There is alot of "mental fat" out there that keeps people buying useless crap. Its just as bad as our subsidies of the beef industry that deals in gustatory crack.

My point has been made here before. Alot of the technology that will ease our suffering already exists in the most efficient machines invented to date. Bicycles. Imagine what the Romans could have done with a legion of mountainbikes!

One more thing. The idea that those lightweight electric machines are going to be able to navigate a highway of deep potholes is way off. You are gonna need a Hummer to commute across town or on the interstate.

[asoka]

JHK,

Fun post. Scary as hell. Needs some references to external data sources to back up the "I would expect..." "I happen to believe..." I doubt..." but it is a very inspiring essay nonetheless.

The only danger is you might lose credibility if you cry wolf too often and then things you predict don't happen.

That's why it would be good to hyperlink on words or phrases to sources of support for what appear to be opinions about changes coming, but probably do have concrete evidence of existing changes or trends to back them up. (Like you did last week linking out to the Oil Drum.)

All in all a very enjoyable (though frightening read) today.

Oh, and thanks for clamping down on the trolls.

[asoka]

Laura said: "...only Ron Paul has even hinted at the pass we are at or suggested making any structural changes in the way we live our lives or conduct business."

Dennis Kucinich has spoken directly to peak oil and about making changes through a Kennedy-esque mobilization of national will to address the multiplicity of problems we face.

[Uncle Remus]

Politicians are all talk. Even the best intended will be hamstrung by politics and special interest money, and frankly, the best intended don't have a chance of being elected.

Americans will change when nature holds a gun to their collective head and likely not a minute sooner.

The bulk of us has one task in America, and that is to spend money - keep the cash churn going. Any and everything will be done by the government, big business, and yes celebrities and politicians, to keep us doing just that - churning dollars.

Any attempt at fixing the problems we face means upsetting the cash churn, dropping the stock price and taking away from the sacrosanct bottom line of profit and the almighty expansion.

Be a one person revolution. Stop spending money needlessly - especially money you don't REALLY have. Kill your TV. Buy local whenever possible.

But you already know this.

[thal]

montysanto,

Excellent points about marketing and pyschologists. Yesterday I watched the first television I've seen in over three weeks. Absolutely spellbinding, graphics, drug adverts, consumption at light speed, eat a donut, drink a high energy drink, and all of it with an undercurrent of how shitty it wants you to feel if you aren't/haven't got/don't want/don't feel like/etc. etc. - punctuated only by programs that sell more of the same pathologies.

The only thing I might add as some perspective is that when removed (fuckin fucker's turned off), after a couple of days of twitching in withdrawal, the brain settles back down to a normal pace and a good book suffuses through a thing called mind.

[Gary49er]

Dave Mathews mentioned that our "God like qualities" are dependent on cheap unlimited energy.
While I may or may not agree with that, how do we know there is not another source out there??
I think that there is. There have been little "proofs of concept" discoveries occurring from time to time. Unfortunately the discoveries are suppressed, thereby temporarily lost.
I say temporarily lost in that I believe (hope) that the energy concerns that do the buying up and suppressing of breakthroughs will bring them out as their hold on the depleting energies fades.
Quantum physics is amazing - we are on the verge - yet STILL at the mercy of large financial concerns.
Knowledge will not be lost - let's hope and pray that choke holds are!!

As a side note; in the late 60s I personally met a man who invented and used a carburetor that gave his mid 60s Cadillac around 65 mpg. He told me of the visits he got when he started to market it. He was told to shut up - he did.

Another fun event, same time frame, is that I personally met the man who invented the paper milk carton. That was a boon for may Dad and I as when it came out we were delivering milk. Remember home delivery? The paper was much lighter to handle than the glass!!

Back to the energy discussion, JHK is right in that we need to rearrange our lives (some of us have) to be smarter, less wasteful and use more common sense.

I do not believe man will go backwards with the passing of the 'oil age'. He will transition into the new age - what ever that may be.

Will there be a bottle neck? Will the transition be easy? We have the means to say no and no - but will we?? That is the 64 thousand dollar question!!!!

( all IMO )

[sirbikes]

Well said kmcrawford111. Bikes are impressive pieces of technology. Yesterday I did a ride early in the morning (less traffic) and was riding a constant 25mph. You'd be amazed at how quickly you can get around by bike. See Yogurt v. Gasoline: http://www.neistat.com/movies/yogurtvsgasoline/index.htm

Later I hauled some lumber and five 4x8 sheets of plywood (yes, my bike trailer can handle that). See www.bikesatwork.com

In the future I hope to make a fortune doing shopping/grocery runs for people marooned in the suburbs.

[XER]

One area of peak tech that has become visible to me is in live musical production. Last night I was playing at a gig where a guitar player was playing a telecaster 1950 tech, through an original Fender Pro amp 1949. People in the audience were greatly delighted by the sounds they were hearing from this guy. A balding pony tailed boomer equiped with two cell phones told me he could not believe something could sound so good coming through such "outdated and ancient technology." Fender is now reproducing low watage vintage amps through their custom shop because demand is there. If you ask me, technology peaked in musical sound technology around 50 years ago. Same goes for accoustic guitatrs as well. Look at the flat top steel string guitar. Has not really changed since the 1930's. To me, modern music has become mostly harsh and loud with the modern digital tech shit. Technology has created a vast array of lousy musicians posing on stage and hiding behind technological smoke screens. Take all the pedals and computerised proccesors away, and you will see that the Emperor has no cloths. this goes for recording techology as well.

[Uncle Remus]

Your American tax dollars at work.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/23/raygun_lorries_for_us_army/

"This sort of money is chickenfeed to Boeing" really points out the "infinite" nature of American expectations.

Geez.

[Uncle Remus]

@ XER - tube amps dude. Makes even a cold CD sound warm. And, they'll more likely to survive an EMP. And a turntable with a decent cart and a fair piece of vinyl. Hmmmmm - music.

No need to go all esoteric, I had an old Fisher tube receiver that was plenty sweet for my ears. I left it with someone and forgot who. [shrug] Old Dynakits work too. The Asians are putting out cloners, all dressed up with alleged specs, but I'd be cautious.

I currently do not own a stereo.

@ sirbikes - biking definitely an excellent means of transpo. I have found that in larger cities, the bus is superior for all but really localized use. In that situation, the buses had bike racks on the front that allowed significant range in a huge sprawling city so that the bike could be used to extend the destination options even beyond walking.

I no longer live in a large city and biking is actually quite dangerous in the small town I currently reside in. Poor city planning to say the least. Bus service is virtually non-existent.

But, I persist in finding ways off the main routes that get me from point A to B.

[loadedbeat]

Wow, the RSS alert has just come through, and already there are lots of comments. Good on ya Jim for your filtering effort.

Anyways:

http://stuff.co.nz/4138258a10.html

We here in New Zealand are yet to notice the 11 month high on Crude pricing due to our rather high Kiwi Dollar.

Not many people here have been able to put 2 and 2 together, in regards to the fact that the high Kiwi dollar is keeping petrol prices down at the moment.

God help us when it drops from the 80c mark, back down to 50-60c. Then we'll know.

Great Post Jim!

[Dr.Doom]

John Galt,

I know a bit about geothermal energy, and what you said about it's potential to replace fossil fuels in North America is simply not true--sorry. Geothermal can supply limited amounts of heat and electricity, mainly to western states and Hawaii, but it will not scale to replace fossil fuels doing same now in those very places, let alone elsewhere.

Your suggestion that conventional fission nuclear could replace fossil fuels is also not likely to be scalable. Agree that it would be very expensive to even try to attempt, but we have probably already lost the lead time and cheap fossil fuel energy to produce the scores of new plants needed in the USA.

Finally, a comment about science and technology in general. As a scientist, I can attest that the vast majority of scientists and engineers are part of the problem of mass denial in this fine country. Like corporations and the government, science big and small does not want to recognize that soon tightening financial circumstances may cut off those grant funds, not to mention the AC, the lights, their jobs and their pensions.

[george]

It comes down to who you believe. According to The Globe And Mail, oil industry economists are predicting the price of crude to hit eighty dollars a barrel by the end of '07 and top one hundred dollars a barrel in '08. Meanwhile, executives over at Chrysler [formerly Daimler-Chrysler] were predicting that their newly-redesigned gas-hogging 2008 minivan would break all previous minivan sales records. If you believe the good folks at Chrysler then the oil economists must be lying.
P.S-Maybe if JHK had perfect teeth and fabulous hair like John "Breck Girl" Edwards he'd get a better reception from audiences.

[Bernard]

Were did Jerry Johnson go? I always enjoyed reading his posts.. Remember Jorge? He left about a year ago and he was great to read... I have learned quite a bit since Ive been lurking here at the board but kind of quit reading when the fighting started and the idiots started posting more than anyone else. Lets hope we can keep this place civil.

[Holmes, I presume]

george,

John "Breck Girl" Edwards -- funny. JHK, with a wig of exquisitely groomed shimmering long hair, would then be what, the Pantene Girl of Doom?

Among reasonably well-informed humans, IMO the word is out about the problem.

Even MSN Money writer, Jim Jubak, is now aware. (But he wasn't not so long ago -- this can clearly be seen from earlier writings.) Maybe he actually reads his e-mail.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/TheOilSqueezeHasJustBegun.aspx?page=all

The sinking in of personal consequences is what many are grappling with now I venture.

[asoka]

Dr. Doom said: "science big and small does not want to recognize that soon tightening financial circumstances may cut off those grant funds, not to mention the AC, the lights, their jobs and their pensions."

Scientists are receptive to rational argument supported by empirical evidence. But they don't do as well with words like "soon" and "may".

This echos my comment to JHK about his use of the words, "I expect..." five times in one paragraph, without providing concrete reasons that might help the reader understand why they might also expect the same.

Of course, a bare-knuckled message that your entire means of livelihood, your way of life, will be demolished "soon" is not likely to be received well.