Energy Geopolitics 2006 by Richard Heinberg

[IrateCitizen]

A good read, echoes many of the themes regarding Russia brought up by Emmanuel Todd in his book, After the Empire. In short, the Bush regime has completely screwed the US's future prospects.

http://www.energybulletin.net/16393.html

[TheFarseer]

1. very interesting read

Why does this administration insist on making enemies at every turn? Of course they are used to getting their way with bullying and bribes and now the rest of the world isn't playing ball and most of them aren't afraid of us. What are we going to do? Invade Russia? We're screwed, with this leadership anyway. We need someone that has the foresight to develop our own energy supply and make a few allies that can help us until we are ready to be self sufficient. Even the Saudis are not going to help us float along forever.

[IrateCitizen]

2. "The American way of life is non-negotiable"

That's the answer to your question, in a nutshell. You said, "We need someone with the foresight to develop our own energy supply...." Frankly, I believe (as does Heinberg, to a large degree) that part of this equation is learning to make do with significantly less than we have become accustomed to.

The Republicans have been pursuing one possible strategy -- go to war for oil. Honestly, I view this policy -- as batshit insane as it is -- as slightly more viable than that being advanced by the majority of Democrats in Congress. The Dems seem to believe that we can preserve our environment and continue in our current growth economy and sprawl-based living arrangements while simultaneously weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels entirely. Everything I've read so far has convinced me that this is what Kunstler (for all his numerous faults) calls the "Jiminy Cricket syndrome" -- that if you wish for something hard enough, it will come true.

[TheFarseer]

3. LOL I like that - "Jiminy Cricket Syndrome"

The republicans seem to think that if they don't talk about Peak Oil or any other bad news about oil, it will go away. Going to war over oil is f*cking stupid. How much oil have we used up trying to secure Iraq's oil all the while lowering the amount hey have actually been pumping? I was encouraged a month ago with all the talk on alternative energy but now it seems to have all been talk and now we are on to more important things like pretending to care about immigration and gay marriage amendments. You're right, the bottom line is we need to use less oil. Replacing every SUV with a plug-in hybrid would almost solve the problem by itself. Make them diesel hybrids and then find an efficient way to make a boat load of bio-diesel and that solves the entire problem. Of course I'm being way to simplistic, but the point is, we can do this if we have the courage to take action and just do it.

[IrateCitizen]

4. I think we're still stuck in the car-centric mindset...

... and we have to abandon it if we're going to make meaningful changes. Your own post betrays how deeply embedded the belief of the hereditary right to own an automobile is in the American mindset. I'm not saying this to call you out in any way -- simply using your own words as a tool of pointing out how deep this religion of the automobile goes in our country.

I'm not saying that cars should be completely gotten rid of immediately, but the fact is that they are an extremely energy-inefficient mode of transportation when compared with other alternatives -- no matter how much you try to dress them up. Rather than replacing every SUV with a plug-in-hybrid, I'd rather see us make our communities much more walk/bike friendly, develop train and bus service that connects communities, and gradually phase out the automobile as the primary mode of transportation. Expecting to make a boatload of biodiesel and continue expending massive amounts of energy manufacturing and operating our vehicles is, IMHO, an example of the Jiminy Cricket syndrome at work.

Then again, I'm reminded of conversations with my wife on this subject and her resistance to taking the train, simply because it doesn't allow her the freedom to go and leave when she wants. And she's someone who is environmentally conscious. It's a helluva hurdle to overcome.

[TheFarseer]

5. I don't think it's realistic to expect people. . . . . . . . .

to give up cars altogether. For instance, my folks live in rural western Nebraska. Would I ever even see them again if no one had a car? I can understand taking the bus/subway to work or moving closer to your job, but giving up personal transportation all together is a definite step backward for society. At the same time, I see more and more gas guzzling SUVs on the road so people are simply not understanding just what is at stake.

If we can conserve as best we can for now and cobble together a few different things to take the place of oil, I think that is the best approach. For instance, when I was in grade school - Reagan and Bush I years - We watched a documentary movie in school about trains that ran on magnets in Japan. No diesel, no electricity even, just magnets. Where the heck is that? It's been 15-20 years! Of course the answer is they would need to change their infrastructure and equipment and that is expensive. Why don't we help them with tax credits and implementation? I'm sure Union Pacific would rather take their diesel costs down to zero. If we could devote all the money we are devoting to the war, tax cuts for millionaires and interest on the debt to problems such as these, we'd be much better off. Or we could do the exact opposite of conserving and make no serious efforts to develop anything!

[depakid]

6. Realism has to do with system constraints

In this case, the system constraints are geophysical and economic.

Americans will never give up their "entitlements" to cars, McMansions and such. Not willingly.

But, in the end, many will be forced to- through rising prices, because the era of cheap oil is just about at an end- and there's very little they can do about it.

Rural living has its advantages- but without cheap transportation, it also has its disadvantages. Just as it did a century ago.

[IrateCitizen]

7. What people "expect" and what reality is are often different things...

Unless we can come up with a liquid fuel that has the same kind of EROEI as oil -- without contributing to further environmental degradation and global warming -- it doesn't matter a whit what people are "expected" to do. When reality steps in, there is no such thing as bargaining. That is the point that I am trying to make.

The giving up of personal transportation is not a step backward for society. It is a step backward for the freedom of the individual to go anywhere he or she wants, anytime he or she wants. If anything, the removal of individual transportation might actually be better for society because it would force people to actually rediscover the concept of community -- and depend more on social relationships and interaction than escapism.

As for your personal situation, I can relate. My parents live in rural PA, about 2-1/2 hours from my wife and I. Without personal transportation, I wouldn't see them very often. However, if given the choice between expecting to continue personal transportation (and destroying the environment in the process), and giving it up in order to leave the planet habitable for future generations, I think if I want to be able to look myself in the mirror I'd better be ready to choose the latter.

BTW -- the trains of which you speak are called "MagLev" trains (for magnetic levitation). They do require electricity in order to power the electromagnets, but since there is no friction between the train and the track, they can travel at extremely high speeds using less power than we currently use. If you happen to peruse much in the peak oil community, you will find that rail is a huge part of just about everyone's solution. However, rail is not personalized travel -- it is public transportation.

[NNadir]

9. I like this post.

I love it when people pay attention to reality in clear and succinct ways.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. It's not impossible...

I haven't seen my parents in nearly 2 years - the round trip would take something around 60 hours - but we have things like telephones, email and webcams, so we keep in touch. Whilst it's not as good as actually seeing them in person, in exchange we have gained a much better life for our daughter.

Now, I admit that I'm an unusual case: I've been working as as a IT risk analyst, and when I applied the same methodology to life in the UK (with an all-star cast of power supply, security, peak oil, resource wars, climate change in general and THC in particular) I went so batshit with fear we were out as soon as we could clear the paperwork. Hopefully we'll be nicely settled and fairly self-sufficient by the time the shit really hits the fan (and in my mind, the only question is over which handful hits first).

It strikes me the problem is mainly one of education: If the population at large understood just how fucked up things are getting, they'd realise that they have much more to loose than the ability to get a drive-thru cheeseburger on a Saturday evening. But while we have the Orwellian Clean-coal-pollution-is-life mantra being fed to people who seem barely evolved from cattle, and governments that answer to corporations rather than the future, the future continues to look bleak.

[Delphinus]

8. I'm reading this and thinking,

the boy king had to win - a Democratic president would not behave the way this idiot has been - in order to bring about widespread change. It's like the fall of America is being manipulated, both from within and without.