Suppose you were advising Kerry on Peak Oil/Global Warming

[Karmadillo]

What would you advise? Should he attempt to lead us into a Wendell Berry world of small farms and modest living? Should he roll the dice and put all of our remaining resources into technological salvation with a Manhattan Project in pursuit of fusion, a space program that might lead to mining the moon and asteroids, and a space elevator that would just be incredibly cool? Should he continue the Oil Wars? Or should he assume the worst and prepare lifeboats that might survive the deluge? Extra points for persuasively optimistic advice.

People who post in this part of DU seem awfully well informed. I'm just curious to know what you would do if you had access to political power and a chance to make things better (assuming things can be made better).

[NeoGreen]

1. No easy answers...

There isn't a source of energy that gives the 100:1 return that mined petroleum gives.

Plus, any response will likely be phased in and include conservation (immediate return), decentralization (multiple small generators), diversification (geothermal, biomass direct solar and wind) and the development of future sources (i.e. I remember reading about space based solar collectors using microwaves beamed to earth based power generator/converters in Omni around 1980).

[Xithras]

9. Microwave power transmission has been discredited for orbital use

The fundamental technology works and has been successfully tested here on Earth, but it suffers from problems ranging from atmospheric ionization to power loss over long distance. You could do it, but you'd waste 90% of the energy getting it down to the surface and would need absolutely massive collectors to make it worthwhile (literally, they would be as large in the sky as the moon).

I'd place my money on antimatter or O3 powered fusion.

[NeoGreen]

19. Figures....

That's what I get for referencing ideas from a 24yo article.

Now that antimatter thingy...

SCOTTY WE NEED MORE POWER!

Captain, I canna' change the laws of physics!

(someone was going to eventually, so I figured I do it first)

[smiley_glad_hands]

2. Ethanol & Biodeisel in the Short Term

The Long term situation is trickier, but we certainly do need a "manhatten project" type event to get there.

[Ready4Change]

3. My two cents. (okay, its long. More like 200 cents.)

Peak Oil is potentially disastrous to our society. Oil is used in nearly every facet of the industrialized world. If we go, unprepared, into a time of scarce oil supplies, we go prepared for our own ruin.

However, oil isn't going to instantly run out. Peak Oil theory merely says it's about to start getting prohibitively expensive. While this can be disastrous news for our oil consuming society, it can also be viewed as a tremendous opportunity, one of which we in the United States, with our high tech research abilities, are well positioned to take advantage. Just as the Middle East currently profits from the worlds appetite for oil, we can profit from the Futures appetite for alternatives. As a byproduct, we can all benefit from the cleanliness of many of those alternatives.

I see there being 3 key areas on which to focus. Residential power, Transportation power, and Industrial power.

Residential power needs can be met by a combination of alternative and conservation measures. At current production costs this is prohibitively expensive for most citizens. As oil driven power costs increase, demand for residential alternatives will increase, with a momentary market driven rise in costs. Since the goal is to promote actual residential alternative installations, subsidies to home owners who wish to be early adopters of alternative power should be provided, so that early demand is not hindered by subsequent price increases. Increased demand with subsidies should provide cashflow which will allow industry to ramp up production and eventually use economy of scale to bring prices back down, at which time subsidies can be retracted.

Key technologies: Solar photovoltaic, Solar water heating, standby residential power storage methods, highly efficient home lighting and appliances, higher efficiency home insulation.

Transportation power at this time is nearly totally oil driven. This includes deisel powered rail, kerosene based jets, and gasoline and deisel power road traffic. The issue here is not so much the method of power generation so much as the compactness and energy density of the fuel source. These are areas in which oil products are excellent. Perhaps the most universal replacement as a transportable fuel source is liquidfied hydrogen. This can be produced in scale at industrial grade power production facilities and transported to distribution centers. The biggest problem is the current codependance of the existing oil driven fleet with the existing oil distribution network. To get around this codependance will require a third party (the Government) to commit major resources, both to industry to rebuild it's distribution network, as well as to private individuals to upgrade the vehicle fleet.

Key technologies: Hydrogen fuel cells, Liquid hydrogen storage, Industrial grade hydrogen production, Residential grade hydrogen production.

Industrial power is both the hardest and most vital area to convert to alternatives. While solar methods can be used to meet Residential needs, Industry and Transportation hydrogen production call for more robust techniques. The near term focus should be on safer, smaller nuclear facilities. Experience in Europe demonstrates that more numerous, smaller plants have advantages over the strategy used in the US of larger plants, in which a single failure results in massive outages. As oil costs increase the power production industry should be instructed to convert to nuclear as costs allow. Government loans should be provided, but subsidies should not, as they will result in unneeded early adoption and unneeded price increases, as well as diverting government funds from developing longer term industrial power technologies. Research in longer term sources should be promoted with Government grants, with a goal of producing replacements for nuclear power production.

Key technologies: Smaller nuclear power plants, Spent nuclear fuel treatment and waste storage, Large Scale Solar and Wind production, Tidal production, Geothermic production, Fusion production, Distributed power sharing regulations, Large scale standby power storage.

Peak Oil looms as a potential world wide disaster. By taking strong measures it can be converted into a grand opportunity. An opportunity to free ourselves from oil dependance, from concerns over greenhouse gases, and over a large amount of the pollution we produce. The choice of which world our children will live in depends on our actions today.

[Viking12]

4. I'll add that long-term mitigation startegies aren't sufficient

to deal with the problem as presented (peak oil AND global warming). The suggestions Ready4Change provides are useful for reducing carbon dependency long-term but we need some short term repsonse as well. The reality is that we've already committed ourselves to warming, we need to adopt agricultural, forestry, & land use practices to minimize our vulnerabilites to climate change. We also need to increase short-term oil/gas efficiency to bridge the technological learning curve for alternative transportation fuels. An agressive gas-electric hybrid policy that would dramatically inporove gas mileage is something we could put into practice sooner rather than later.

[Ready4Change]

11. Market forces are doing that, but not fast enough.

Unless gas prices rise more steeply people are going to continue buying large wasteful vehicles when they aren't needed. My favorite solution is a $2 per gallon surcharge which is routed directly to alternative research.

But we all know how unviable that is during an election year. x( Sadly, it will be even more unviable as gas prices natually go through the roof.

[hunter]

6. Hydrogen is a difficult fuel, especially for cars and household use.

If you are going to make hydrogen from any energy source (coal, nuclear, solar, wind) it is probably best to use it to make fuels that ordinary consumers are comfortable with -- such as methane, methanol, gasoline, and various "bottled" gasses.

The "hydrogen economy" as it has been described by Arnold Schwarzenegger, General Motors, Shell Oil, etc., is complete and utter bullshit, a fairy tale meant to distract us.

We will have industrial scale hydrogen production using coal or nuclear power, but we won't use that hydrogen directly for transportation or household uses.

[Ready4Change]

10. Can we?

Is it possible to convert hydrogen to the forms you mention? I mean technically I suppose it's possible, but with any conversion there is energy loss, and in breaking hydrogen from water we've already lost a fair amount from our generation source, whatever we choose for that.

If there were an efficient, none polluting method of converting hydrogen to a room temperature liquid I'd agree. I haven't heard about any such, though I'm no chemist.

[phantom power]

13. Using the energy to manufacture hydrocarbons is fairly efficient.

I recall figures of 80% efficiency, which is pretty good.

Either way, any sustainable fuel cycle is going to be less than 100% efficient. Doesn't matter if we manufacture H2, synthetic diesel, DME, or what-have-you.

But it's clearly in our interest to make the cycle as efficient as possible.

[hunter]

14. Sticking a big fuel cell under the hood of a car is difficult.

Getting this fuel cell to run reliably for 100,000 miles is also difficult.

Gasoline style spark engines will run on hydrogen, but they will run on methanol too. Methanol is easier to store and transport than hydrogen.

You take steam and coal and hydrogen and do something like this to make methanol:

H₂O + C + H₂ --> CH₃OH

The actual process is more complex, but it's not any more difficult than many modern oil refining processes.

A few more steps using sophisticated catalysts turns methanol into gasoline.

You can also make DME (DiMethylEther) from methanol, which is a "bottled gas" fuel like propane that works well in diesel engines.

If we are interested in reducing the total carbon dioxide output of the fuel cycle, the steam and the hydrogen don't have to be made using coal. The carbon doesn't have to come from coal either.

I would hate to see coal used as an energy source to make hydrogen. That would create more carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gas problems than petroleum does now.

Using coal mostly as a carbon source, and not as the primary energy source for fuels is not such a bad idea.

Realistically, if we wish to maintain our high energy lifestyle over the centuries we will be forced to use nuclear power. Using coal will destroy our environment.

Hydrogen will be part of any solutions, but I don't think it very likely we will ever see a hydrogen pump at our local gas station, not the way Shell advertises this in their magazine advertisements.

(These advertisements, by the way, remind me very much of nineteen-fifties U.S. advertisements for nuclear power, or the current crop of Chinese advertisements, which show happy kids playing on the front lawns of their neighborhood nuclear power plants, etc...)

[Ready4Change]

16. If coal is used as a carbon source

As your formula states it, it looks clean. However, coal is more than just carbon. What happens to all the other chemicals that are part of coal in the process? Are they burnt away and sent out a smoke stack? Mixed with excess steam cooled into water to be filtered (or not?) Dryed compounds? Do they have uses, are are they a waste material we need to get rid of somehow?

Not nay saying the idea, just wondering (from a non chemists viewpoint) what the pluses and minuses of this process are. Thanks.

[ramapo]

5. It's very much a social issue

First priority is conservation. It's easy, it's cheap, everyone can do it. We had a good start in the '70s but everybody quickly lost interest with the '80s cheap-oil era and Reagan's happy talk.

Serious move towards solar and wind on both a large and a small scale. There should be large solar/wind farms along with individual home units.

The biggest problem, the crazy aunt in the attic that nobody wants to talk about, is the unsustainable nature of our whole living fabric. Suburban sprawl has hugh energy costs. There is a pitiful mass-transit infrastructure because all the money has gone into building highways.

We will all have to live smarter, closer, more efficiently. How about not investing in growing a hugh metropolis in the middle of the desert? The mindset that we can have everything at minimal cost has to change.

Technology can help but society must change. I don't know that Kerry would have the support to suggest that such change is needed.

[NeoGreen]

7. The other elephant in the room...

...that almost no one is talking about (pardon the elephant reference) is the link to peak oil and the US food supply.

Or, the scary answer to the question: "How many energy calories are expended for each food calorie sold in the US system."

Include not only the diesel for the farmer's tractor but the calories expended for feed, fertilizers, water pumps, pesticides and herbacides.

Not only will we be cold (no heat) and stuck at home (no gas) in our McMansions, but it is likely that our kids will be hungary too (no food, see "no gas").

[Ready4Change]

12. If you're reading this, and less than 50 years old...

It's highly likely YOU'LL be cold and hungry.

There's reason to believe we are at peak right now. From this point forward oil gets more expensive (albiet with the regular market ups and downs.) As more people, and more countries, realize this, the oil market will get worse, and it's likely oil wars are coming soon, unless Iraq is their actual start.

[amazona]

15. we need to stop selling people on zero calorie foods

I'm blocking on the name, but the same woman who said, on the subject of butter versus margarine, "I trust the cows more than I trust the chemists" has also written quite a bit on the dangers of spending 400 calories in shipping to sell a 5 calorie strawberry.

We need to stop hyping fresh fruits and vegetables. Maybe back in the day before systemic pesticides, eating fresh produce was a health plus but now it is a cancer hazard. Yet we are still telling people to eat "five a day" and damn the pesticides and poisons...let alone the huge energy cost to ship fruit and vegetables that have almost no calories.

If you can't raise the lettuce in your backyard, you don't need to be eating it. It is a luxury, not a medicine and not a guarantee of health and long life.

[phantom power]

8. So, what would it take to *actually* advise Kerry on energy policy?

Or, advise any politician, for that matter?

I've come to the conclusion that there's enough expertise among some of the regulars in this forum to formulate an actual policy. The kind with a budget, timetables, milestones, etc.

I realize it's long out of fashion, but in theory people like us are supposed to be able to propose these things to our fearless leaders, and even be taken seriously.

Anybody know how that gets accomplished in real life? Assume there's an actual plan, saved as an MS Word file, printed out in a colorful binder, etc? Who do we take it to?

[NNadir]

17. Kerry is in no position right now to announce a practical energy policy.

However, once he is in office, and controls the agenda with the bully pulpit, he needs to do what he can do and Bush cannot: Think.

He needs to be frank with the American people about the nature of the crisis they face, their responsibility to the future, and, for that matter, their responsibility to the present. (He also needs to study the history of the Carter administration to do this, so that he does not repeat the Carter mistakes in communication. Carter was right, but he did not market his correct impressions very well.)

He needs to educate the American people about risk; and risk/benefit analysis. He needs to be clear about what oil costs; about what coal costs; and about the modern day limits of renewables.

The only viable solution for the near term is nuclear energy. I suspect that Mr. Kerry will recognize this at some point, because, well, Mr. Kerry, again, can think.

Mr. Kerry then should move strongly to encourage renewable, nuclear, and conservation research. These kinds of investment, as opposed to war, are positive because they create rather than destroy infrastructure. As such they represent a positive feedback loop on the economy as opposed to the negative feedback of oil wars.

Oh yeah, he should get our asses out of Iraq as quickly as possible to provide the money for this investment.

[benburch]

18. Population reduction is the only long term answer.

The huge question is will it be war, famine, exposure, plague, or contraception?

[NeoGreen]

20. We seem to be well on our way...

... to war and famine.

Contraception? Eh' who needs it, plague will be the coup-de-grace.

(Plague? Yeah, all sudden like)

We'll be just like a bunch of bacterium in a petri dish.

[Dogmudgeon]

21. It will be plague, I'm certain

I have a well-earned reputation as an apocalyptic. I'm not in the wisdom of my dotage -- I'm only 46 -- but I first became interested in these issues when The Limits to Growth came out in paperback, and I was able to afford its $1.95 price.

Once a large enough number of people in a given area start going hungry, epi- and pandemics are unavoidable. Hunger destroys the immune system early on, and during a wet, chilly winter, with fuel prices too high to provide much heat, influenza will certainly become established within the population with much higher morbidity and mortality than we're used to seeing.

Again, personal experience counts. My grandmother nearly died as the result of starvation, after losing her appetite entirely while developing severe depression; which then led to congestive heart failure and severe anemia. This all took place over the past year or so. I understand it's common in the elderly (she's 91). We did not expect her to live through the last critical period, but she did. She would have rebounded easily if she was getting adequate nutrition.

Why do you think most Africans die of AIDS within about two months of receiving their first diagnosis? Most of those people have barely enough food and minimal public health measures. When starving people with many small, chronic infections get seriously sick, they die.

We can survive $15/gallon gasoline. We can survive turning the thermostat to 65F during a winter. We can survive with fewer vegetables in the off-season. We can even survive a massive economic breakdown. But if hunger ever becomes widespread in America, we will be no safer than the third-world people who will die earlier and faster.

I've mentioned an unsavory point before, mainly for "shits an' giggles", but I'll mention it seriously now -- there are over 75 million domestic cats in this country, and probably 20-50 million more feral cats. A continent full of hungry people who are armed to the teeth will go through the cats right after taking all the other small game they can get. Some dogs will be spared, since dogs have more economic "value" than cats do, but a lot of dogs will be included in the kill, too.

And after the cats and dogs, there are people. The average cat weighs about ten pounds. The average person weighs about 150 (averaging normal-weight men and women) and provides over 100 pounds of high-grade meat protein. Don't think it won't happen in a dire enough famine.

The In-Laws. It's What's For Dinner.

Here are two benchmarks we can monitor: The first 25-million-death influenza outbreak will mark when we start to "go over the Oil Cliff", and the first 100-million-death famine/disease die-off will mark the beginning of the full-scale human die-off. I suspect that when Americans start shooting "da widdle kitties" for food, the world population we be around 25% of what it was at peak (1.8 - 2.5 billion instead of about 7 - 10 billion). Ultimately, human population would stabilize under 1 billion, depending on how destructive the die-off was in the details. (That is -- "famine? plague? nuclear war?")

Tentative timing of these disasters, in the absence of decisive action:

25M event, 2010 (energy crisis destroys world economy within 3-5 years);
100M event, 2020 (world die-off begins; population plunge begins within 1-2 years);
kitty kill, 2030 (American die-off begins within a year);
die-off ends, 2050 (population stabilizes at <1 billion).

Figure some wiggle room in there for unexpected action in energy breakthroughs, better political responsiveness, etc. And also for things like war, war, and more war.

Can we avoid it entirely? Sure. If we put the effort into re-tooling our world for sustainability that we now put into warfare, it will be a cinch.

Will we avoid it?

You don't have to be an apocalyptic like me to think the chances are low. But we have no other real options.

--bkl

[hunter]

23. A flu epidemic coupled with an antibiotic resistant bacteria...

That's what's going to get us.

I wonder if that's why so many Americans are fat? Not because we don't exercise enough, but because some sort of primal instinct is kicking in -- something deep within our biology that recognizes when society is about to collapse.

[ramapo]

24. It'll certainly be too late....

There'll be no retooling of the world, only a rebuilding.

There is no way that the American people would accept the massive social changes required to begin to turn the ship around. We'll drive ourselves to disaster.

Best case is Kerry gets elected. Do you see him going on TV to level with the public about what the future holds? Do you think Congress would provide any support for moving spending from war to retooling society?

We're much more likely to suffer through some very ugly resource wars. The US will attempt to use its military power to assure a supply of oil and other required resources. At some point the rest of the world won't put up with us. Russia always has the nuclear card to play. That's the apocalypse I grew up worrying about.

Anyway we are famous for our lack of proactive thought. We are incredibily spoiled with an unrivaled sense of entitlement. We will have to learn some painful lessons before anything changes.

[Terry in Austin]

25. Avian flu

In his book Global Brain, Howard Bloom fills in the back-story of global flu pandemics and the current focus on avian outbreaks. With the H5N1 virus, the usual vector is bird to swine to human, during which it undergoes a mutation that the human immune system "knows" and can handle. Direct bird-to-human transmission increases the danger dramatically; if the virus mutates further and develops the ability to pass from human to human, it's a recipe for pandemic.

In the 1997 Hong Kong outbreak, public health officials acted quickly and culled the entire poultry population, an estimated 1.5 million birds, within three days. This rapid response is thought by many experts to have averted an influenza pandemic. The workings of this flu virus were so unfamiliar to the immune system that according to researcher Robert Webster, it could have wiped out "half the world's population"-- that's 3 billion victims.

[Dissenting_Prole]

26. Have a nice day!

:)

Tomorrow could (will) be worse.

[ejcastellanos]

22. The first four a biblically approved and sanctioned methods

Obviously abstinence is the way out of this mess.