Peak Opportunity #2 Too Much Energy is Bad for You May 14, 2007
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil , trackback
left: Sandra and horse
When introducing the concept of Peak Oil and explaining what implications it will have I like to start with an image of renewable energy, but I suspect that that phrase will conjure up for most people images of photo voltaic panels or wind-turbines rather than a horse. David Holmgren has pointed out that in the 30-odd years PV panels have been being developed, the technology has approached the level of efficiency of plant chloroplasts (somewhere in the region of 20% )- a stunning achievement given that plants have taken millions of years to evolve to this stage. We might guess from this however that this level of efficiency is perhaps the most that will ever be achievable by this technology, and not put too much hope into further leaps in this kind of technology.
Solar panels require both expensive materials and fossil energy in their manufacture. In one sense, putting a solar panel on your roof is really the same as sticking a large barrel of oil on the roof- far from being a source of “free” or even truly “renewable” energy, photovoltaics, like windturbines and many other forms of “renewable energy” are just more efficient ways of using or effectively storing fossil energy. A big question is, when solar PVs come to the end of their life in 20-30 years, will society have the resource to make new ones?
In the long run technology of this kind will always lose out to biological resources like horses which have the capacity to reproduce themselves.
The next issue to really understand deeply is just how dependent we all are on oil. This isnt too hard- most people would have an awareness of this, but other aspects they may not be so familiar with is just how much fossil energy is required to produce food: an oil crises will mean a food crises. Also, I think it is hard for people to really understand just how much work fossil energy does for us. The analogy I usually use is, I put about 40litres of diesel into my van every week. If that were converted to human-labour equivalent, it would represent about 4 years of manual labour.
The next thing to understand is, how do we know we are running out? lots of people are under the impression there are decades if not centuries of oil left to be discovered, so I usually just show a simple graph derived from ASPO
illustrating how, 
since global oil discoveries peaked in 1964 (the year I was born!) we can be fairly sure there are no major discoveries left to make, despite improved technology and all the investment you might want to help look.
Once people have grasped this reality, the next step is rather harder to make: it is far less commonly understood that we simply cannot make up the shortfall of oil and natural gas by any combination of renewable energies: -the principle statistic I use to explain this is that of the current total of global energy use, only about 5% is actually from “renewable” energies- mostly from biomass/energy crops- the rest is from oil, coal and gas. (Mobbs, 2005).
I usually back this up with a quote from the Hirsch report:
“As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking ” -Report by Robert Hirsch for the US Government in 2005.
This is partly to show that this information is not just coming from loony environmentalists or even renewable energy companies, but that reputable establishment figures are telling the same story in official government reports. But it also helps make the point that, we can’t just suddenly decide, after decades of burning oil like there is no tomorrow, “Oh, OK, let’s just switch to something else then if the oil is running out”. Thus the public debate on energy is overwhelmingly geared towards supply-side issues of energy sources.
It takes time to switch from one type of fuel to another, and if we are within a few years of Peak as ASPO and many others would have us believe (Kunstler thinks it was last year) then, sorry, there isn’t time. And it is not as if there appears to be any major effort to start reducing our car dependency any time soon. (In fact, in Ireland for sure, all major infrastructural projects already in the pipeline as it were seem designed to increase oil dependency, with Mary Harney telling us last week in an RTE debate with Trevor Sargent of the Greens that she could see no reason to hinder the current road-building projects in this country whatsoever).
The next point is that the economy depends absolutely on increasing supplies of cheap fossil fuels if it is to continue “Growth”:
-Ireland imports 9million tonnes of oil every year -At 3% growth p.a. this will need to rise to 12million tonnes by 2012 -UK Natural Gas production is set to peak in 2006- Ireland will find itself at the end of a long pipe-line
Unlike the quasi-religious “flat-earth” economists (in Colin Campbell’s words) who believe everything is a subset of the economy, Peak Oil will force us to confront the reality that economic growth depends upon digging ever bigger holes in the ground, and these holes are beginning to run dry. Growth is coming to an end, whatever the politicians are telling you. This is one of the hardest things to ask people to accept, because the media repeats the mantra of growth so constantly that questioning it is like questioning the need to breathe air.
The end of the car-based economy.
The end of cheap air travel- in our life-times, even in the next few years. I try to emphasize the dramatic nature of the changes ahead because it is all too easy to fall into the complacent approach of suggesting we switch off lights and recycle more because “it is the little things that count”. I really doubt that the little things do count that much and they may not even help because they allow people to feel that significant change is taking place- or rather sufficient change is taking place when it is not.
In Ireland, I think it is a tragic indication of the utter failure of recent governments to actually even begin to address the energy or the environmental issues that we are continually reminded of how quickly the plastic bag tax and the smoking ban have been successfully implemented. We could completely ban ALL plastics and recycle absolutely everything but it wouldn’t really solve the problem while we are buying over 200,000 new petrol cars every year and paving over more and more good farmland.
Too Much Energy is Bad for You
A major conceptual problem with getting the Peak Oil message across it seems to me is that many people will want to believe that basically the system is fine, it is just the small problem of the oil running out, and because we don’t know exactly when it will run out, there is still this belief in renewables. So I try to emphasize that the problem is NOT that the oil is running out- that is just a geological reality, a certainty that was sure to come to pass eventually as soon as we started drilling over 150 years ago. 
The problems are more that: -too much energy is bad for you- it is not so much the availability of energy that is the issue, but what do we use it for? Without oil, we would never have been able to over-fish the oceans or destroy so much of the world’s rainforests. What an extraordinary thing to have been able to achieve! So much of our use of energy is destructive. William Catton calls us homo colossus because energy has allowed us to tread so very heavily upon the earth. This is the opportunity to ask deeper questions: Why do we need so much? What kind of life do we really want?
The third part of this series, in a couple of weeks, will look at the Powerdown Alternative.
References: Catton, William, “Overshoot” Hirsch, Robert, PEAKING OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION: IMPACTS, MITIGATION, & RISK MANAGEMENT
Mobbs, Paul, “Energy Beyond Oil”.
Comments»
Greetings Paul,
What an excellent article - I have no points of disagreement.
I believe we have come to the point where although we could all use much less energy and save the planet, we won’t do it because this involves abandoning the growth economy and all learning to live with less, which is against the core belief system of most people and is politically completely untennable.
The unfortunate reality is that we are all dependent on the growth economy for our subsistance. Even though many have known for a long time that this economy can’t continue indefinitely, no one is able to put up an alternative that allows material wealth to be maintained while reducing the consumption of finite resourses and sustainably managing renewable resources.
Hence I have come to the opinion that the only hope we have to end this destruction of our own planet is for the machine causing that destruction to fail. Peak Oil seems poised to facilitate that failure.
The process of adjusting to the failure of capitalism (the growth economy) will be very painful for all of us, as we all lose our share of the wealth we thought we had, which will probably result in great political turnoil and more energy wars like the Iraq/Afghanistan tajedy.
However the sooner we collectively recognise that the system is doomed, the sooner we can start making progress towards a sustainable future.
Good to read an account from an Irish perspective - it makes the threat seem more real and imminent and helps get us thinking about the appropriate solutions for this island. I’ve been hammering away at this topic with family and friends for about a year and a half now and it does seem to be sinking in, at least intellectually. But it’s not really genuinely and heartfully understood just how enormous the challenge is for this country and the world generally. This is the greatest threat to our national interest there has ever been - sadly, even the Greens don’t seem to have highlighted it as a clear and present danger to the well-being (even survival?) of our people. Fingers crossed and ballots ready to keep the deathlike grip of the aggressive demagogues, sorry, the progressive democrats, off the levers of power in this country! It’s going to be hard enough dealing with the problems they’ve left us…
I like the equivalency figure: 10 liters of petrol is one person-year’s effort. Really puts things in a new light!
“when solar PVs come to the end of their life in 20-30 years, will society have the resource to make new ones?”
We will recycle them…although they will last longer than 20 years…I have a solar powered calculator from about 18 years ago that is still going strong…
“we simply cannot make up the shortfall of oil and natural gas by any combination of renewable energies: - of the current total of global energy use, only about 5% is actually from “renewable” energies”
sounds like we are 1/20th of the way there…besides we will have to make up the shortfall with renewables and greater efficiency…just a simple fact.
“I try to emphasize the dramatic nature of the changes ahead because it is all too easy to fall into the complacent approach of suggesting we switch off lights and recycle more because “it is the little things that count”. I really doubt that the little things do count that much and they may not even help because they allow people to feel that significant change is taking place- or rather sufficient change is taking place when it is not.”
But then again even the longest journey begins with a single step… Still I agree that we have a whole lot of steps to take.
We (at least I) don’t need as much as we have, but learning to live with less will at the very least be cheaper!
Jeepers one would think you have fallen in despair without even trying to change your lifestyle…