Free For All - The Free Liberal Blog: Life After the Oil Crash 3

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Continuing my review of lifeaftertheoilcrash.net from December 4.

Mr. Savinar then moves on to some serious fear-mongering. He cites something called the Olduvai Gorge theory, which purports to prove that industrial civilization is going to start on a downward cliff in 2012 and be down to 1930s per capital energy consumption by 2030. Going to the cited web site, I found a graph showing predicted world oil production. The author then equates this with a serious decline in electricity production.

Dumb!! Electricity is primarily from coal, not oil. Yes, some heavy fractions of oil are used for electricity, and some waste heat from refineries is used for electricity, but the major source is coal, and there is a lot of coal left in the ground. There is also quite a bit of potential for expanding nuclear capacity.

Easy political prediction: breeder reactors will be made legal and even subsidized should electricity become scarce. If you don’t like nuclear power, get cracking on affordable solar power, because the median voter will risk nuclear proliferation well before voting to go back to the stone age.

The author does have something resembling a point when he says that the use of natural gas to make electricity cannot go on. However, it doesn’t have to. As soon as natural gas goes up in price, there will be a call for building power plants using some other form of energy. Don’t panic over brain dead extrapolations.

Now for Mr. Savinar’s next argument:

"Big deal. If gas prices get high, I’ll just drive less. Why should I give a damn?"

Because petrochemicals are key components to much more than just the gas in your car. As geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer points out in his article entitled, "Eating Fossil Fuels," approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US.

This argument has some merit, but Mr. Savinar exaggerates it tremendously. It is certainly true that a 10% drop in oil will likely need more than a 10% drop in automotive travel. Higher priority uses of petroleum like petrochemicals and agriculture will take precedence. However consider these arguments:

1. Pesticides are made from oil;

They don’t have to be. But they probably will be, since the amount of oil needed to produce pesticides is small compared to current use.

2. Commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which is made from natural gas, which will peak about 10 years after oil peaks;

They don’t have to be made from natural gas. A quick googling of “Haber Process” reveals that we need heat and hydrogen to make ammonia for fertilizer. We can get these from nuclear, solar, wind, coal, oil shale or biomass.

3. With … farming implements such as tractors and trailers are
constructed and powered using oil;

And these uses will get dibs on scarce oil if no substitute is available. But do not that the technology to convert coal or biomass into diesel fuel goes back to World War II.

4. [paraphrase] Food storage systems require fossil fuels. But most of the fuels are used in the form of electricity. We have a longer lead time before we run out of coal, and there are other alternatives.
5. [paraphrase] on average, food is transported almost 1500 miles before it gets to the consumer.

This is trivial to fix. Agriculture is currently optimized to minimize labor costs. Should energy costs go up, this will change dramatically. For example, where I went to high school in rural eastern Virginia, there used to be large tomato fields. These are all gone in favor of basic grains, because the canning industry centralized. This process is completely reversible. Similarly, because of pollution, the Chesapeake Bay is oyster yields have dropped dramatically. Rather than close the oyster shucking houses, oysters are hauled from the Gulf Coast to be shucked by these skilled laborers. Should fuel become more expensive than training oyster shuckers, this will change. No exotic technology is needed whatsoever.

Mr. Savinar then goes on to state how a number of other industries rely on fossil fuels. Here, he is extremely sloppy in differentiating which require portable liquid fuels and which require electricity. Some of these uses do require liquid fuels, but peak oil theory does not prove that these fuels will disappear in the near future, only that production will drop significantly. High priority uses will continue! Low priority uses of oil, such as using a giant SUV to carry a single commuter, will decline unless a reasonably priced alternative is found.

And yes, there are alternatives. I will get to them in future entries, but I still have more bad arguments to refute first. Stay tuned.

Life After the Oil Crash 3

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