In "The Coming Energy Crunch", New York Press writer Aaron Naparstek looks at the growing evidence that the oceans of oil that modern economies depend on is beginning to dry up.
Having two children who are just reaching the age where they can start looking at being out and on their own, I have been pondering the inevitable time when the availability of fossil-fuel energy starts to decline. What sort of world is coming for them and their children in 2010, 2020, 2030?
Naparstek's article postulates that it won't be a very pleasant place to live. As energy and transportation costs become a larger percentage of the national economy, the impacts on daily routines and expectations will become significant. In a market which has moved more and more into a model which depends totally on rapid and cheap transport of goods over long distances (think Wal-Mart), rising fuel costs will have a dramatic effect. Expect the shelves to empty of items which have to be moved in from distant sources (something which I have already been seeing at the local SuperCenter), followed by shortages in more mundane items (like milk? Milk prices have increased 60% here in the last 60 days, most of the increase due to increased transportation expense).
Naparstek runs off the rails a bit at the end with this bit:
"Kerry could use rising gasoline prices and spiraling violence in the Middle East as a way to create a sense of urgency around energy issues. He could propose a Manhattan Project for energy independence. Such a project would include converting our blackout-prone electrical grid to wind power, incentives for high-fuel-efficiency automobiles, rebuilding the nation's passenger rail system and re-designing American communities for less automobile dependency. "
Uh, isn't Kerry one of the ones who is opposed to the Hyannis wind project? In any case, wind power is notorious for undependibility, and inability to scale to the level needed. Huge tracts of land are taken up for relatively small results. It's sort of like converting your whole house to a solar cell to light a flashlight.
And, as Steven Den Beste has pointed out before, there can't be a "Manhattan Project" when you don't know what you're looking for.
I recently read an announcement that some university had discovered some alga that could be tickled into producing a bio-diesel-like substance which could be refined for automobile use. There was the implication that this is a promising line of research for future energy independence.
Well, sorry, but it's not. Biodiesel is promising only if you reduce the energy requirements of about 70% of the earth's population to zero. And if you can pull that off, you don't need the alga. You can just turn that 70% into biodiesel directly.
"Soylent Green is people".
I will believe in biodiesel from alga as soon as one municipal unit, i.e. village, town, county, starts meeting all its energy requirements from biodiesel made from alga.
Posted on June 7, 2004 11:03 AM