It seems like everyone is trying to twist their brains around the problem of high gasoline and oil prices lately. Kevin's latest ruminations, involving the impending decline of the natural oil supply, are here. Mine are in this post.
I've been paying attention to everything I've had to pay attention to, and not the cause of rising gasoline prices so much, lately.
But the problem is a big kicker, and it's been around for long enough for all of us to have had plenty of time to think about it in our spare moments, so recently, I managed to come upon a new theory of my own (and which Kevin's post reminded me of): What if the oil companies know something we don't and are very scared they're going to hit "peak" oil production soon, after which the world's ability to meet the daily human demand for oil will slowly decline? What if they are jacking up the price simply to get the last pennies they can out of their dying industry?
I'm not saying that we're going to run out of oil tomorrow. I have no reason to doubt the usual expert prognostications which forecast (at the most gloomy) another 50 years or so of scooting around in gasoline-powered vehicles. But it's definitely time to start facing the problem of what to do when there is no more oil, and perhaps the latest creepy gasoline prices are one more reason to spur us to think about it.
Whenever I think of the onset of peak oil production, I sort of half-imagine the onset of some sci-fi, Mad Max state of things. I'd bet a lot of other people do, too. But after some more thinking about it, I don't think push is going to come to shove in that way, and I think there is not even a need to worry about that occurring. Most likely, in my opinion, we are going to end up building more nuclear reactors, and will all be driving around in cars with electric batteries powered with juice from those generators. We'll collect all the toxic reactor waste, and shoot it into space every once in a while, and the nations will try to locate their respective reactors as far from their own citizens and their most heavily populated areas as possible.
But we can't count on all the conservatives and all the most stupid and irresponsible people in society, who brought us failures like the Katrina response, the 9/11 response and the war in Iraq, to start planning for this new state of things. No matter how big the problem, they'll put important things off, only worry about themselves, handle things terribly, and rig the new system one-sidedly. It seems no one is worrying about the infrastructure that has to be put in place to handle our new nuclear society. But when you think about it, this transition from fossil fuels and oil products to mostly nuclear fuel and recycled plastics will probably be the greatest struggle of the 21st century (God willing) and will prove all similar rhetoric about the so-called War on Terror to be nothing but naive and short sighted.
Let us look at the repercussions:
(1) For one thing, we probably aren't going to have to worry about global warming as much as Al Gore suggested, because after we experience a few decades more of creepy (but slight, in the grand scheme of things) global-warming related changes, the oil industry is going to be all but over, and vehicle emissions across the globe will go way down. Emissions from recycling plants and nuclear power plants will not nearly make up for the smoke all our gasoline vehicles produce.
(2) But on the other side of the ledger, we don't have any of the stuff we're going to need as primarily nuclear people-- who will expect nuclear power to take the place of gas-- designed and built yet. We need the cars, the trucks, the airplanes (or replacement for the airline industry, if feasible battery-powered aircraft can't be designed), the power plants (of course), and anything else necessary for the provision, storage, and use of this power to power everything that gasoline powered before (including almost all of our oil-fueled electricity-generating plants) as well as a way to use it for heating our homes. Probably new public regulatory law and a lot of think-tank work on the public-policy side of it all will have to be written (that is, answers to the questions of how the state will handle all the new technology).
(3) Then there is the problem of plastics (not to mention nylon, and at least a few other commonly used petroleum-based materials). When we run out of oil, we run out of fresh sources of this, too. So get ready to be hurting, and paying more than you expected, for all sorts of things made out of this substance you once treated as if it was as common as sand. That means things as simple as TV controllers, video-game consoles, plastic screws, buttons, and pegs, as well as things like plastic implants used in cosmetic and orthopedic surgery. As much recycling as we do now, perhaps we will end up digging up non-recycled plastic from our trash heaps to be sent to recycling facilities, eventually. Imagine if CDs suddenly became scarce! Again, replacing all this stuff or providing the plastic is something that hasn't been planned for, but needs to be.
(4) This is the one that makes me realize, more than anything, that we should be planning for and implementing the change from a petroleum-based society to a nuclear one now: warfare. We simply cannot count on not getting into serious and important wars in the future, and we cannot afford to let the end of petroleum put us at a disadvantage in those wars-- in a world that will be one of dwindling resources of all sorts, not just oil-- when responding better or more promptly to the end of petroleum would have left us less disadvantaged.
Facing facts, we are not likely to find anything that propels most of our vehicles and explosive-bearing projectiles better than petroleum-based fuel, barring some undreamt-of technology; for example, a battery-powered tank (if it can even move) is not going to be able to keep pace with a diesel powered one, and the diesel powered tanks will inevitably win in tank warfare against the battery-powered ones. This is why it's crucial to start switching off gas and to nuclear power now: so we can start buying petroleum to put into a newer, bigger strategic reserve, end the Iraq war, and retire all our petroleum-using military vehicles until future use in a very new and very necessary war. Say the war is with China-- the idea of nuclear war makes great press copy, and really rattles people, but if the two sides are rational (and I admit that can't always be counted on) war between us will involve no nuclear weapons being used, and in a post-peak oil world, will depend heavily on who can project the most petroleum-fueled force at her adversary, relying on a strategic reserve to power many of the vehicles. This is simply because the scale of the two arsenals is so large that either side that risks nuclear war (by firing a nuclear weapon first) is committing suicide-- her nation will quite possibly be nigh wiped-out by the enemy's retaliation. Nuclear war waged against a similarly-armed opponent is absolutely a gamble in a way that conventional warfare can never be. So if the USA and China ever go to war, at least if they are competently led, they will fight a conventional war, and to stand a chance of winning will need the best conventional-powered weapons available. Barring possibly a few exceptions where other sources of power will be superior, these weapons will always be the petroleum-powered ones.
(5) A somewhat similar problem involves disposal of the waste. Jet and rocket fuel-- needed to send the stuff out of our atmosphere and into outer-space-- are currently petroleum-based; putting nuclear waste at the bottom of the sea, in abandoned mines, or in the middle of deserts may in the long run be too dangerous. In that case, the ultimate utility of our current space-travel technology (which will never take us to meet people from another planet, or to populate other planets) will be to blast at least some of this stuff out into space. In that case, we want to save some of the world's oil to make it possible that we can keep doing that. When all the world has switched to nuclear reactors, perhaps it will even turn out to be more jet-fuel-efficient to shoot off rockets that carry waste from several nations at once, and international law or treaties will be developed to ensure that this occurs and that remaining petroleum is used absolutely sparingly, so that humans will not someday be living a lot closer to nuclear waste that they can't get rid of than they would like.
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There are probably other problems, perhaps even big ones, that I've overlooked. But I think the ones I've identified are enough to make the point that it's time to get working now. Just the idea of the scarcity of plastics should set the mind reeling. Hopefully you will be involved in getting people to think about all this or in solving some of these problems.