What if technology was suddenly created that made oil by and large irrelevant, or at least significantly so. What would happen in the Arab world? Would the lack of oil wealth cause a further rise in insular fundamentalism? Or would the decreased value of the physical resource force Arab leadership to invest more in maximizing the potential of their human resources and accelerate its integration into the modern world’s community of communities? Would it destabilize the region even more so than it is today and make pan regional war more likely as despotic regiemes became desperate?
Not all that far fetched a premise. If battery technology continues to improve and the twin heads of c/o global warming and energy independence continue to howl, then EV’s, or at least PHEVs that derive most of their range from grid derived power may replace gasoline in the transportation infrastructure. No it won’t be a sudden transformation, but a significant shift over a decade or so is not outside the realm of the possible. What is likely to happen if it does?
It would be nice to think they would “invest more in maximizing the potential of their human resources and accelerate its integration into the modern world’s community” but let’s face it. They have no experience with that and have built a model almost totally opposed to that. I cannot see how they would all of a sudden become humanists.
That said there would be a major shock in the Western world too. There is a LOT of money wrapped up in oil right here. A lot of people employed by them too. If tomorrow you invented an infinite energy supply that was nearly free and cheap and environmentally friendly such that these companies folded overnight I think the economic repercussions would be severe. Not saying it shouldn’t be done if it could be done but expect trouble just the same.
Of course I am personally with the tin foil hat gang that oil companies are sitting on new energy technologies and sitting on them until the oil runs out when they will miraculously and just in time produce new and efficient alternative energy sources (which they will also conveniently monopolize). They simply have too much money invested and make too much money selling oil to ever really be interested in anything else.
Muslim countries did pretty well before oil was a major commodity. Arguably better than their European and Indian neighbors, in a lot of ways. I wouldn’t be suprised at all to see the Middle East flourish as the world became less dependant on oil, for a couple of reasons.
One is that foreign countries would have less reason to exploit the Middle East. Oil keeps nasty dictators alive, because we (the world) always have been willing to support whoever keeps the juice flowing at the price we want. All sorts of great things start happening once we stop sending guns to random guerillas and dictators, and stop exploiting people. First on that list is that they’re less inclined to blow up our people and our stuff. Second is that they’re able to actually develop politically, and make progress toward modernization. If oil is replaced over the next ten years, I bet Muslims in the ME have a higher standard of living in 20.
I disagree. The Middle East was not doing well before oil became a major commodity. The Ottoman Empire was known as the sick man of Europe because it was constantly on the verge of collapse. I can’t think of any objective standard by which countries in the Middle East were doing better than Europe at any point from 1600 to 1900.
And I don’t see how cutting off oil revenue would improve things. It would just change these countries from stable rich dictatorships to unstable poor dictatorships. The people would lose most of what they’ve got while gaining nothing for it.
Well, there is the argument that losing the prop of oil would weaken the dictatorships and allow progress to happen once the old regimes collapse. So, in the long run, they might be better off.
Of course, the problem with that idea, is that it’s analogous to trying to improve conditions in a slum by setting it on fire and hoping something better is built on the ruins. And what’s worse, I think it’s inevitable; even lacking the OP’s new technology, sooner or later the oil will run out and they’ll be in the same situation. I think it’s more likely that most of the place will collapse; too much of it doesn’t seem to have anything to offer but oil, and the despots generally aren’t interesting using that oil money to create the sort of society that does have more to offer. And the region’s infestation by extreme Islam doesn’t help.
Most of the rest of the world would be better off in the OP’s scenario, I think. Economic dislocations in the short run, but not social collapses or wars. And in the long run the world in general will be better off. And again, those economic dislocations are inevitable, as the oil will run out eventually; at least in this scenario there’s a superior replacement.
Not to derail the “what if” discussion, but (a) battery technology, AFAICT, is improving only incrementally, with little apparent likelihood of significant breakthroughs, and (b) even if everyone was driving electric cars by 2020, the juice has to come from somewhere. To the extent that nukes and renewables can’t fill the gap, we’d convert power plants from coal to oil because oil’s significantly cleaner to burn than coal is, not just in terms of general pollutants but in terms of CO2 emissions.
But it would be a significant derailment. My analysis differs substantially from yours and I’ll leave it at that unless you want to open up a separate thread to discuss it. Meanwhile leave it a science fiction what-if. If you wish, imagine a new set of biofuels produced cost-effectively by designer micro-organisms from cellulosic feedstocks and algae grown with CO2 emissions at the power plants. Or make up a different set of new technologies or circumstances.
The premise is indeed merely a sudden version of what I think will occur as it eventually costs enough more to get oil out of the ground that other options are chosen for most purposes. A future that we should start thinking about.
I personally am enough of a cock-eyed optimist to believe that Arab leaders will see it coming and start developing the human intellectual resources. But I am cynic enough to believe that if collapse occurred (think post US invasion Iraq on a pan-regional scale) the West would by and large try to just wall them off without oil as an interest to keep them there. In that case it would be handled like Africa has been handled: damn shame these massacres, lets have a concert for them.
We could always hope or pray (or try to find support) for a third alternative: If the Space Based Solar Power effort ever became a reality, we would still need petroleum for many of our lubricants and most of our plastic production. It is remotely conceivable that as SBSP ramped up, (which, even if it can be made to work, soon, will require an undetermined amount of time to implement across the world), oil needs could be gradually reduced instead of crashing, giving time for the Middle East to find other sources of income.
Tom, real world, independent of any potential SBSP, will be a more gradual change. If for no other reason because of the basics of supply and demand: as other technologies become cheaper than oil has become in that future time the demand for oil will decrease faster than the supply decreases and price consequently would drop until a new equilibrium hits in which gas is as cheap as the new technology (unless gas is then taxed in order to keep its price stably high and encourage the new technology’s uptake). The reality is unlikely to ever be the sudden change that I have created for the thought experiment. But it is of interest to predict what would happen in that extreme case and then what could/would happen differently given a slower time course. And that is part two that I was going to ask later: how could/should Arab leadership prepare for such an eventuality; will they; and how will it effect the rest of us if they do or do not?
Has there been any kind of historical precedent that might be similar to this hypothetical situation? Perhaps a theocracy that got most of its wealth from a single commodity that suddenly lost its value? I can’t think of any, but there’s plenty of folks way more knowledgeable about history than me here.
Not WRT a specific commodity; but the Age of Exploration, opening oceanic trade routes between Europe and Asia, gradually marginalized those cities and regions, such as Venice and the various stops along the Silk Road, that had profited by being situated astride the old Mediterranean and land-based trade routes.
To the OP: It essentially depends on how wisely those nations invest the income from oil. Saudi is pissing it away on desal plants to grow wheat in the desert, extravagant living for the aristocracy, and arms. Dubai OTOH are trying to turn themselves into a local financial centre, and now receive only 30% of their income from oil.
A recent example is the island nation of Nauru , whose entire wealth depended on the mining of guano for phosphate. They completely failed to invest the proceedings wisely, instead choosing things like musicals and office buildings; they managed to lose 90% of their overseas investment in only 10 years. Consequently, now the phosphate has run out the nation is broke, and consists of a ring road around a disused quarry. They don’t even have a capital city.
They are dependent on Australian charity, their only other source of income being concentration camps Australia built there to house and so deter boat people.
We used to light our houses with whale oil. Nobody does this anymore because petroleum cam along.
We used to heat our homes with wood. Then coal came long.
After coal came fuel oil or natural gas or electricity.
The old way of doing things have gone obsolete over and over throughout history. It is a debatable matter if these things happened suddenly. Certainly large numbers of people is western countries have heated their homes with coal in living memory.
A post-oil strategy that uses oil to power desal plants to grow wheat you could buy elsewhere for one tenth the price is an intelligent investment? I have this bridge …
I am guessing it has more to do with self reliance. If you feed your populace with foreign food mostly they have got you by the balls. Even moreso than with oil. A number of countries have economically silly policies in place for this reason (I think Japan protects their rice industry precisely for the self reliance aspect…fiscally it does not make sense). That and perhaps enabling farmers to farm keeps them happy and the Saudi royal family in less fear of having their head’s chopped off by rebellious citizens (just a guess though).
So drastically diminish oil income … water supplies tighten up at the same time and the capacity to desalinate is reduced as that is an expensive option. What are we left with?
A bunch of countries, many despotic dictatorships and/or theocricies, with little viable economy and large fundamentalist movement already either in control of state apparatuses or intermittently fighting with state apparatuses as well as sniping at each other. Little in the way of educational infrastructure and a major tendency in the culture to isolationism from the West. Now with little water to drink let alone to grow food with and little resources to buy it with. Little to develop a new economy from.
I won’t quibble too much with your heating statements, but you may want to see “Long Run Trends in Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1500-2000)” by Roger Fouquet and Peter J.G. Pearson, Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, Imperial College London, September 2003. Whale oil was not nearly as commonly used as people think, and gas lighting was a mainstay for a very long time (spec. Fig4, Fig6, and Fig 7). Just as an FYI.