I found much to discuss in this. It would be nice to see the
unpublished World Bank economists' reports you refer to. My experience
is that the economists generally are optimists, down to the Morris Adelman
position that oil is infinite and should be regarded as a 'renewable';
while the geologists tend to take a more sombre view, down to Campbell
and Laherrere's somewhat apocalyptic forecasts of impending doom. In
determining where the truth lies, however, ALL sides tend to ignore
important fundamentals.
Perhaps the single most important thing in discussing energy futures,
and one that is almost always ignored except when it is posed as the
'Chinese threat' is the absolutely dire implication for 5 bn people living
in the peripheries, of any substantial rise in primary energy prices. And
here we are not just talking price rises, but absolute famines of cooking,
heating, and transport fuel. What kind of developmental future lies in wait
for Asia, Africa etc, if oil production plateaus at present levels, let
alone declines? The human, world systemic consequences are so completely
cataclysmic that it is futile to hope that the prosperous cores
can shield themselves; they cannot. I always assumed that the predictions of
future global war of Chase-Dunn et al actually rest on this scenario
(energy famine) more than anything else. Not so?
What seems totally clear is that dematerialisation and virtualisation of
need/want satisfactions are mythical; as Cutler et al have shown abundantly,
net material flows and per capita energy use continue to increase both
absolutely and relatively in the world as a whole. Therefore, since no-one
is suggesting that oil/gas production is going to increase much if
at all (even the DoE EIA) in the next 20 years, and will thereafter
decline, while the human population is set to go to at least 10bn, it
is obvious what kind of world is just around the corner: a mad scramble
to scoop out the last oil, amid deepening systemic disarray and
accumulating increases in the already staggering, unjust and
historically insupportable disparity of wealth and resource-use between
the cores and the peripheries (ie, between imperialism and the neocolonies).
This is the scenario (and actually one could point a truly terrifying
vision, from disintegration of the world market to complete collapse of US
urban society) on the basis of which you want us to think more
positively about the transiton to renewables.
My reading, which has been fairly thorough, suggests that the inevitable
tranmsition to renewable (actually, regression to the earlier 'organic'
solar-driven energy-base typical of all precapitalist social formations)
cannot happen in any way which will permit life as we know it (ghastly
enough for 2/3 of humankind) to continue.
In any case, the technical/social/environmental and above all, the cost,
objections to all the alternatives you list seem practically insurmountable.
Has someone yet invented a photovoltaic cell which yields more energy in its
lifetime than is consumed in manufacturing it (and the energy used in
manufacture is always fossil fuels)?
Does anyone suppose that the environmental objections to nuclear
have been overcome? What kind of world will it be -- given the
appalling geostrategic and country instabilities we shall see -- that is
covered with thousands, even tens of thousands of nuclear installations?
Even a few minutes reflection suggests the appalling security and accident
problems we shall face. But even if they could be overcome (and cost
effectively overcome) the physics do not allow us to suppose that
humankind can susbtitute nuclear for fossil on a planet-wide
basis without encountering the same global-warming and energy-entropy
problems as we will anyway with fossil. The arguments are not even
all that technical but are consistently ignored: if we substituted
nuclear power generators for oil, in sufficient volume to generate
the hydrogen to replace gasoline for transportation etc, the
ambient planetary surface temperatures will increase by the
same order of magnitude as the IPCC indicates for unrestrained
fossil use, and we shall get the same consequences of risen sealevels,
collapse of the northern tundra casrbon sinks, carbonisation of the oceans,
collapse of the ice shelves, increased precipatation and intense weather
events, etc.
Neithe nuclear nor photovoltaics are substitutes, and nor is wind,
geothermal or any of the other supposed alternatives, for a wide
variety of reasons.
But the real point is this: for social development to occur on a
planetary base, such that biodiversity is sustained while living standards
in the peripheries can rise to core levels, two things have to be true
and neither is or will be. First, energy prices have to show prolonged
absolute declines, but they will not, on the contrary. Second, either
energy per unit of production has to fall by many orders of magnitude, or
some way has to be found to abate the global warming implications of having
5 or 10 bn people use as much energy as 1bn now does.
Does anyone seriously suppose that any of these things will happen? The
trends are there: we are at least one percent per annum heading
south on the key demographic, energy-intensity, energy-efficiency and factor
productivity and input-price indicators (if oil prices are falling now it is
exactly because the system is already entering the antechamber of general
slump and social collapse).
This exponential process is a remorseless time-bomb ticking away
in the foundations of capitalism. This is why I say that the world system
faces a situation reminiscent of Europe 1750-1800: rising population,
hunger, social breakdown and revolution. But objectively our circumstances are
far worse now than then.
Mark Jones
christopher chase-dunn [?or Bruce Podobnik] wrote:
> This posting is in response to Jay Hanson's email on the consequences of
>
> growing oil and fossil fuel scarcity. While I think Jay raises some
> important issues, I think the following points need to be emphasized:
>
> 1) Estimates as to the amount of recoverable oil vary.
>
> There is now, and has always been, serious debate within geological and
> policy circles as to how much ultimately recoverable oil exists in the
> earth. Recent reports by economists at the World Bank, for instance,
> point to rising oil extraction in non-Gulf nations (such as a variety of
>
> countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America) to make the argument that
>
> 'concerns about oil supply are outdated' (World Bank -- forthcoming
> report). This conclusion stands in sharp contrast to reports from the
> World Energy Council, the US Energy Information Administration, and the
> World Resources Institute suggesting that within a few decades growing
> resource depletion will begin putting pressure on world oil prices.
> James
> MacKenzie of the World Resources Institute provides what I think is the
> most judicious survey of varying estimates, and concludes by saying that
>
> the geological consensus is that world oil extraction will plateau
> somewhere between 2010 and 2030. This does not mean that oil production
>
> will suddenly cease, but that the costs of extraction and of the fuel
> will
> rise for purely geological reasons. The last remaining producers of
> oil,
> which are likely to be in a select group of Persian Gulf states, would
> then be able to charge premium rates for an increasingly scarce
> commodity.
>
> 2) There are better and worse substitutes for conventional fossil fuels.
>
> The plateauing and then gradual decline of world oil production will not
>
> inevitably lead to global economic disarray. Instead, it is likely that
>
> market and policy dynamics will shift in favor of other energy
> resources.
> The question becomes, which resources? According to a resource-fixated
> analysis, coal would emerge again as the central fuel for world industry
>
> (even in transportation applications) since it is the most abundant of
> the
> conventional fossil fuels. Or, it is conceivable that nuclear
> power could resurge. Indeed, advocates of nuclear power are already
> pushing for the construction of a new generation of reactors that are
> supposed to be 'inherently safe' in this era of concern about greenhouse
>
> gas emissions. It is very important to note, however, that there are a
> whole range of renewable energy technologies (small-scale hydroelectric,
>
> wind, solar, and fuel cells) which now have the engineering and
> commercial
> maturity that could allow them to enter into widespread diffusion in the
>
> next decades (as is argued by such mainstream organizations as the World
>
> Bank, the International Energy Agency, the World Energy Council, and the
>
> US Energy Information Administration). These technologies, of course,
> would have fewer adverse environmental and health impacts than coal or
> nuclear power.
>
> 3) World-systemic dynamics will determine which substitutes are favored.
>
> Contrary to the most dire analyses, technological options do exist to
> construct a post-oil dependent world-economy. Which of the technological
>
> paths are taken, however, depends upon a grand convergence of political,
>
> commercial, and social forces which has always favored one energy
> regime over others at particular historical junctures (see Christopher
> Freeman and Carlota Perez's analyses, as well as my own dissertation).
> Given
> the institutional power of coal and nuclear sectors, it may be that
> those
> technologies have the best shot at reasserting their growth.
> Conversely,
> given the weak political and commercial power of advocates for renewable
>
> energy technologies, these systems may never enter into widespread
> diffusion -- with extremely dire environmental consequences.
> Nevertheless, it is I believe crucially important to recognize that
> sustainable energy alternatives exist -- and that given the right
> political, commercial, and social support they could replace oil as a
> central component of the world energy system. Extremely dire analyses
> of
> the consequences of growing oil scarcity may blind us to the fact that
> such alternatives exist -- thereby fostering apathy among concerned
> citizens. Instead, recognizing that viable alternatives exist,
> environmentalists, world-systemists, policy-analysts, and regular
> consumers should push for their greater diffusion. If such a movement
> could capitalize on concerns generated by forecasts of oil
> depletion, then the plateauing of world oil extraction could in the end
> ironically turn out to be a beneficial rather than a disastrous world
> geological event...
>
> I welcome any response to this posting. Any requests for citations or
> clarifications can also be sent directly to me, at the following
> address.
>
> |--------------------------|
> | Bruce Podobnik |
> | Department of Sociology |
> | Johns Hopkins University |
> | email: podobnik@jhu.edu |
> |--------------------------|