The end of cheap energy
April 13th, 2008 by I.C.
If we expect to have any fighting chance in dealing with climate change and oil depletion, then we will have to rethink our conception of energy.
To be plain, the energy free ride we’ve received from fossil fuels — cheap, abundant, and easy to refine — is over.
Every week, oil prices hit new records. Last week, they were at $112 a barrel.
Last year, oil prices were $75 a barrel.
In 2003 — just five years ago, and before the war in Iraq — the price of a barrel of oil was under $25 a barrel.
Oil is the blood of civilization. It powers everything. It is used in every manufacturing process and is the key component of plastic, which is ubiquitous in our society. It is used to make fertilizer and power tractors — the basic elements of modern food production.
Without oil, our lives change dramatically, and not for the better. All the modern conveniences we take for granted are a result of cheap energy, of cheap oil.
Because oil is so important, it is no surprise that the control of oil has led to war. This is what led the British to seek control of the Middle East and install puppet kings in the 1920s, and what led the United States to continue this legacy after World War II. It’s why the Shah of Iran was overthrown in 1953, and why the United States gave weapons to Iraq in 1980 against a nationalist Iranian regime. It’s why the United States went to war with Iraq in 1990 and rescue Kuwait — to preserve the balance of power in the Middle East and preserve its access to cheap oil.
It’s why the United States invaded Iraq in 2003: to control the oil of the Middle East.
Today, people are beginning to suffer from the effects of high oil prices. They are the poor, the marginalized, the invisible — the people who cannot afford to pay the high premiums for gas in cities without functional public transportation (e.g., cities in states west of the Mississippi), who have to choose between food and energy (and God forbid that there is a health need, because health care is largely unavailable as well), whose faces are not the faces that you see on the six-o-clock news because they are neither light-skinned nor rich (so there must be no newsworthy stories about them); today, at this very moment, it is these millions who act as unchosen vanguards of a future without cheap energy.
And their experiences appear to indicate that life without cheap energy will be very difficult indeed.
There is so much hope placed on technology — fuel cells will save us, or solar power, or wind power, or geothermic, etc. The list is endless, the snake oil salesman undusting their tried-and-true techniques to get a little private funding (or even government funding) on the hope that the energy free ride can continue.
In the meantime, there continues to be little concern over the effects of oil: that the use of cheap oil is melting the polar ice caps and leading to a world of potentially dramatic changes in terms of environment.
Oil has allowed humanity to live a way of life that is just not sustainable. This is especially true for Americans. Americans are five percent of the world population, but produce 25% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, consume 25% of the world’s resources, and generate roughtly 30% of the world’s waste. If everyone in the world lived like Americans, we would need the resources of four Earths. That isn’t possible. We only have one Earth.
Yet countries like India and China see the American way of life and they are motivated to obtain it as well. For centuries, so many countries have been mired in poverty and oppression. They see the good life of America — a society powered by cheap energy, and all the benefits of that — and they want that way of life as well.
As the prime users and beneficiaries of cheap oil, Americans will have to take the lead in coming to terms with its overuse. They will have to take responsibility for an unsustainable way of life, and start to develop a new way of living — one that is more sustainable and healthier. Americans will have to give up some of the comforts and benefits of cheap energy. That is a difficult thing to accept, but if there is any chance of dealing with the effects of climate change and expensive energy in the future, then it will have to be done.
We are not talking about buying Priuses and putting the thermostat lower. Our habits, assumptions, and behaviors are intimately tied to our thinking about energy: that it is cheap, plentiful, and harmless to the environment. None of these things are true anymore. Energy is no longer cheap; it is no longer plentiful (at least with regard to fossil fuels); and it is now generally accepted science that the use of fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide, which is contributing to climate change.
We need a totally new way of thinking that is based on that reality. Then we will be able to successfully deal with the problems that arise from the consumption of cheap energy.
Think about how difficult that is. I write these words on a computer made from plastic (and thus made from oil), powered by energy coming from an outlet in my wall that comes from electricity (produced either by natural resources such as coal or even nuclear power). If I am hungry, I will go and eat food that was grown with fossil-fuel based fertilizers and gas-powered tractors, and delivered by a gas-powered truck to a grocery store, where I went and drove my gas-powered car. Every moment of my current existence and all of my basic needs are based on the availability of cheap energy. This will all change in the near future.
Instead of waiting for the effects of this to ripple through society — and those effects will be harsh — people need to start affirmatively changing their lives. The best way to do this is to live a life where less energy is consumed. Live in smaller communities, walk more, use less energy; the suburban sprawl that we have generated in the past 50 years must come to an end. People will have to start living together again as they once did before the advent of the suburb.
This may mean a return to urban areas, but new (and better) models of social living can be created as well. Suburbs can be transformed to incorporate elements of food production — yes, growing food in the suburbs — so that food is local and doesn’t have to be transported hundreds of miles by truck to get where it needs to go. In fact, all sorts of manufacturing and light industry can be recreated within the suburb so that all basic needs are met within a small radius. There is simply no need for our goods and services to be manufactured in China and then shipped (by a gas-powered ship) to the United States. This may benefit the industrialist who saves on cheap labor, but it is destructive to the common good and to the environment as well. American industry will have to be reborn and retrofitted for sustainability and incorporation into the community.
But the most important change takes place in the mind. We have to learn to recognize the waste of everyday life and seek to change it. When you walk into a drug store, and find yourself surrounded by aisles and aisles of plastic goods, consider the energy use (and the oil use especially) in manufacturing all those plastic goods and shipping them to that store. Consider how many of those items will be wasted. That way of life is just totally unworkable in a world without cheap oil. It is nice to go into a upscale grocery store and see so many different items from around the world — but that way of life is just not workable without cheap oil. We’ll probably all have to eat locally grown food in the near future if we expect to meet our food demands.
We’ll have to rediscover the fact that global problems — no matter their size and scope — can be best met by local solutions. Let the people, at the local level, come up with the solutions on their own and they will learn to take care of themselves. This is the essence of American-style democracy, and in reality, that way of life is the key in confronting the challenges of the 21st century.
Everything I’ve described here will become obvious in the coming months, if it is not obvious already. Oil will climb higher, more people will suffer, the economy will falter as it starts to stall on the decline of cheap energy — cheap oil is its blood. At some point, the news of melting of polar ice will become difficult to avoid and shut out. This is all inevitable.
What is not inevitable is the reaction to these events. They may seem catastrophic, but these problems can be managed. But that will require effort, and a change of thinking about the world we all live in. It will require a recognition of reality. Sometimes, reality is the most difficult thing in the world to accept.
