Reply #69: Good analysis!

[Dogmudgeon]

Our main point of disagreement seems to be how long economic stability will last. I think 20 years is optimistic, but I've been wrong before. Anyway, I'll list some of the arguments I have:

1. Oil seepage from matrix to drillhead is how the process works in the first part of the oil's path, but gravity exacts a price in energy once it enters the pipe. Whether a mechanical pump or a horse is used, the equation becomes: Net Energy = Oil Energy - Energy Used to exploit it ... right now, the equation makes pumping in the old Pennsylvania oil fields profitable, although it's not a very big profit center overall. As less oil is available at the drillhead, supply goes down, price goes up, and it pays to put more energy into extraction. But there's point where it just becomes too expensive to pump it out and I think it will be reached sooner than later.

2. While the oil use curve is likely to be symmetrical, economic stability is likely to be erratic. The entire world economy depends on using ever-increasing amounts of oil, and the usage (demand) growth rate is about 2.8% per annum (I think this is from Campbell's work). We can sustain a flat, or falling, usage rate for a few years. We did it from 1973-1983, but we got a recession; and that fall-off was about 5%. Assuming a 40% fall-off in usage rate between now and 2015, that portends some major economic trouble.

3. The use of petroleum products for transport is actually secondary to the use of it for industrial processes and electrical generation. Your illustrations of transportation modes changing are good, but the price to goods producers -- not consumers -- will determine the economic climate. Without an aggressive program to meet these crises, I believe it will suck like nothing has sucked before.

4. Biomass: I have no statistics on it, but I'd wager that the energy density is too low to ease anything other than domestic energy shortages. The same thing applies to horses -- they are not nearly as efficient as tractors, and can really only be used for family and small-community farming. I think coal is a better candidate for the industrial transition, but it's horrendously dirty with current technology.

5. I don't think that the oil itself is used for fertilizer -- it's the nitrate "salts" that are left after refining. We won't have to reserve oil for fertilizer, but we will have a lot less fertilizer to use, and it will be more expensive.

As always, correct me if I'm wrong about any of this! :)

Now, to the positive remarks:

1. The entire social fabric is going to change. For each five-year period we fail to achieve net energy gain, the number of people migrating back to the cities will double. The suburbs will very likely become deserted and plowed under to make room for farmland -- or just left deserted. As for work, I don't think people will live closer to work so much as work on-line. We absolutely can't afford to regress in our technical and intellectual pursuits. Many more people may be doing more "menial" work, but I think a large percentage of people will still be doing office-type work. Just not "at the office."

2. The product maturity cycle you discussed is a very strong factor, and you're the first person I've encountered who has talked about it in any detail. New forms of personal transport will probably be a transition or a supplanting technology. I recall seeing a gasoline-powered superlight car in 1979 or so. It was made from plastic, fiberglas, and lightweight composite structural members. Its engine was puny, but it could carry 500 pounds of passengers and cargo and got something like 250 miles per gallon. Such a car would be "economical" to drive with gas prices at $30/gallon.

3. Passenger air transport will be DOA with the first price shock. But several firms have been developing dirigibles that use far less fuel than jet aircraft, and hydrogen is again a viable choice as a lifting gas now that technologies exist to reduce the risk of explosion to extremely low levels. Upside: Very large amounts of cargo can be carried at potentially rock-bottom cost. Downside: They are pretty slow, under 100 MPH.

4. Along the same lines, engineers have developed super-low-power appliances and gadgets and other household tools. Even ovens have been designed to use much less energy and cook food much more efficiently. Microwave ovens will still be energy hogs, but since they are not used for more than a minute or two at a time, they won't be retired too soon. Acoustic cooling will allow refrigerators that use 1/20th of the power of the current models. TV tubes are on the way out, anyway, and incandescent bulbs could be replaced by LEDs (with customizable light spectrums) within a few years. Such bulbs would be expensive to produce in a limited-energy economy, but they use MUCH less electricity than incandescents AND they never burn out.

5. If the pinch is really bad, why not develop a washing machine powered by a stationary bike? And who the hell needs dryers, anyway?

6. If we keep up our technical expertise, we could move heavy industry into space in about 50 years, where sunlight could be used as the power source.

Ah, but I'm rambling right now. If you can add/criticize/amplify on any of this, feel free to take a crack at it.

--bkl