Decline and Fall of America's Energy Empire

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Decline and Fall of America's Energy Empire
By Sara Robinson

June 18th, 2008 - 6:21pm ET


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The current debate over offshore oil leases has put America's gargantuan energy appetite back on the discussion table this week. I've tried to stay out of it so far for two reasons.

The first is that (here comes the full disclosure) I married into a family that's been making its modest fortune in the oil patches of the American West for over a century, so there's some personal interest at stake here. (The upside: I've got a box seat from which to report on at least some of the festivities.) The second is that as a futurist — trained in America's oil center, Houston, no less — I take a much longer and systemic view of the situation. And that view gives my thinking about our energy future a rather different shape and direction.

For the bigger context on what's happening, we need to think in centuries, not just decades. There's a lot to this view — this article admittedly oversimplifies a lot, and bypasses a few important issues entirely — but that just means there's plenty more to discuss in future posts. For now, some basics.

Energy and Empire

The bottom line is this: All empires are built on vast amounts of energy. And no great empire in history has ever come to power without controlling and dominating the market in whatever the current preferred energy resource was at the time.

University of Toronto futurist Thomas Homer-Dixon lays out the argument in The Upside of Down, which I recommend to anyone seeking to understand the cause-and-effect relationship between energy and economic and political power. He carefully builds the argument that Rome rose on its ability to harness vast amounts of Mediterranean sunshine, turn it into food, and then reliably move that food around the empire to feed vast numbers of soldiers, builders, and horses and thus consolidate its regime. When that system failed, the empire crumbled.

Likewise, the Dutch built their short-lived empire on the ability to supply oil for Europe's lanterns. They were supplanted by England, which was able to supply better, cheaper fuel out of its vast coal resources. British dominance lasted until a rising America turned out to have unimaginable amounts of coal, which allowed it to undercut the British pound as the world's most stable currency — and outperform the UK economically.

And then came oil, which was soon preferred to coal because it proved to be a far more efficient (hence, cleaner and cheaper) and versatile fuel. You could get far more energy output from a smaller unit (coal's comparative inefficiency made it impractical for small vehicles like cars, for example) and with far less effort; and you could turn it into far more different kinds of products -- not just fuel, but plastics, fertilizers, wonder drugs, and much more. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/americas-energy-empire-100-year-view

[ladjf]

1. Are alternate energy sources subject to being controlled by

energy companies?