Dark predictions of "the end of suburbia" bring about
choking fits in those trying to stop new developments on pristine or virgin land. If only it were true.
Calling for "the end of times" is famously lucrative for the predictors.
You never would have heard of Malthus (1766-1834) but for his charmingly innocent belief that food supplies would
increase only arithmetically (flat line up), while population increased geometrically (curved up). Poor Malthuseans,
didn't take into account the fact that such puny mathematical models don't represent, exactly, REALITY. But it
was great for money-making and attention; the otherwise insipid thoughts of Malthus would never have even survived
the penny dreadfuls.
We're still struggling with the crackpot economic "theories" of Ricardo, predatory free trade based on
Bentham's calculus of pain for the few vs. pleasure for the many.
So now we are plagued with the "PEAK OIL" alarmists, authors and lecturers. Predicting the imminent end
of civilization based on the "peril" that we will run out of oil. There's a whole industry of PEAK OIL,
conferences, books, lectures, etc.
IF ONLY!!
Turn it around. What we NEED is a $5/gallon gas tax! And PRODUCTION of existing EVs, combined with rooftop solar
systems. Instead of government hostility to solar power and EVs, we need government support of solar power and
an end to support for gas-guzzling cars.
If only it were true. Our problems would be solved; the price of oil would rise, and more sustainable, cheaper,
alternative fuels and sources of energy would take the place of increasingly expensive oil.
The problem is NOT that we're going to run out of oil!
Our problem IS that we're NOT going to run out of oil before suffocating in the debris of the oil economy.
To think that the problem is oil depletion, or "the end of oil", is charmingly naive.
"Historicism," as ridiculed by Popper, is the belief that some result is inevitable: for example, Communism
arising out of the "internal contradictions" of Capitalism. Popper's point is that if it's truly inevitable,
why are you making money (and often killing people) to make it happen?? Historicism arose out of the beclouded
imagination of the obscurantist G.W. Hegel, and has plagued us ever since.
So if "the end of oil" is inevitably going to happen, well, let it be.
It's just not intellectually honest, if you believe it to be inevitable, to make a lot of money selling books proclaiming
the end of civilization in a fiery mass of oil wars. Heck, we've had oil wars for generations, and it hasn't hurt
our economy at all.
We can't even get an oil tax passed!
Heck, we can't even get "an end to oil subsidies", our Taxpayer-funded money handed to oil companies
that are already making BILLIONS per quarter in profits!
A rise in the price of gas to $5 per gallon is impossible in the current political climate: detractors talk about
"how can people afford the gas to go to work". Not mentioning that they have, at the behest of Big Oil,
eliminated all alternatives.
But raise the price of gas to $7/gallon, and it's no more than in Japan or Europe, where in response, the cars
get up to 70 mpg and there are electric trains.
Raise it to $15/gallon, and you will find some changes in transportation policy being demanded. Yet $15/gallon
only corresponds to a price per barrel (42 gallons plus cracking and tax) of about $700/bbl. Try $1500/bbl., if
oil ever became really scarce, and you will see human ingenuity at work, devising battery technology that makes
Toyota's 10-year NiMH research look only preliminary.
The point is that PEAK OIL plays on the same doomsayer mentality that led Malthus to put a too-simple mathematical
model onto very complicated economic and real-world structures around food production/population. Obviously, however
obvious it appeared at the time to Malthus and his followers, "PEAK FOOD" has not (yet) occurred. In
fact, we now have an ongoing FOOD GLUT, too much food, which has led to continual population expansion (as noted
by Malthus; but that expansion has only started!). The FOOD GLUT continues, leading to a continuing and devastating
fall in the price of food, and a correspondingly devastating rise in world population, a very dangerous and real
problem (and one interpretation of Malthus' ideas, to give him credit).
Those gullible enough to spend a lot of time either propounding or debunking "PEAK OIL" are wasting their
time: if it's inevitably going to happen, you are not going to stop it.
Doug
---FROM A REPUTABLE SOURCE:
"Although Hubbert peak theory receives most attention in relation to peak oil production, it has also been
applied to other natural resources.
"PEAK NATURAL GAS
...the North American peak would occur in 2007...Even if new extraction techniques yield additional sources of
natural gas...the energy returned on energy invested will be much lower...which inevitably leads to higher costs
to consumers of natural gas
"PEAK COAL
Peak coal is significantly further out than peak oil...there are reserves for 190 years. Hubbert had recoverable
coal reserves...peaking around 2150...
"PEAK NUKE
Technologies such as the thorium fuel cycle...considerably extend the life of uranium reserves [which] would last
for 10 to 20 years...[breeding] plutonium 239...we'd have at least 100 times as much fuel
PEAK HELIUM
...Helium production is expected to decline along with natural gas production...the second-lightest chemical element
in the Universe...so light that...it dissipates slowly into space and is lost forever...
"PEAK BALONEY
Peak bulls*** has been estimated to have already occurred in 2008, with the second election of G.W. Bush. However,
new supplies continue to come on-line, and P.B. has been postponed to at least 2012. Unless that's bulls*** too.
"PEAK CONCRETE
Concrete is composed, basically, of basalt, rock, carboniferous compounds that form a tight shield against water
and have a high compressive strength. The demise of Carbon is predicted to have a devastating effect on the last
few uncast concrete storehouses; no later than 2012.
"PEAK DONUT
The worldwide supply of donuts has been steadily diminishing, from a peak of 42 billion donuts per day in 2001,
to a current level of only 38 billion donuts per day.
"PEAK METAL
All metals come, ultimately, from the explosion of first-generation suns. Hubbert applied his theory to "rock
containing an abnormally high concentration of a given metal" and reasoned that the peak production for metals
such as copper, tin, lead, zinc and others would occur in the time frame of decades and iron in the time frame
of two centuries like coal...
"FELINE FELICITY
The number of felinis familaris, the common house cat, has been in a steady decline since 1995, roughly following
Bubble's Peak.
"PEAK GOLD
The possibility of Peak Gold has emerged recently...global output has been falling by roughly one million ounces
a year since the start of the decade. The total global mine supply has dropped...as ore quality erodes..."There
is a strong case to be made that we are already at 'peak gold'...Production peaked around 2000 and it has been
in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore,"
he said...
"PEAK PHOSPHORUS
Phosphorus supplies are essential to farming and depletion of reserves is estimated at somewhere from 60 to 130
years...America's supply is estimated around 30 years...Phosphorus supplies affect total agricultural output which
in turn limits alternative fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol...
"PEAK WATER
Hubbert's original analysis did not apply to renewable resources. However, over-exploitation often results in a
Hubbert peak nonetheless. A modified Hubbert curve applies to any resource that can be harvested faster than it
can be replaced.
"PEAK SUN
Solar energy has been on the rise since 2009, but is expected to peak around 2012, and thereafter to enter a period
of rapid decline. Sun is expected to completely vanish shortly after 2012.
"PEAK FISH
At least one researcher has attempted to perform Hubbert linearization (Hubbert curve) on the whaling industry,
as well as charting the transparently dependent price of caviar on sturgeon depletion. Another example is the cod
of the North Sea. The comparison of the cases of fisheries and of mineral extraction tells us that the human pressure
on the environment is causing a wide range of resources to go through a depletion cycle which follows a Bubba curve. |