Recently we discussed how Richard Dawkins made a fool of himself in a Salon.com interview. I’m not trying to make a regular thing of this, but this week Salon has an interview with professional liberogriper James Howard Kunstler (subscription or “daily pass” required to read article).
To Salon’s credit, whereas they seemed to take Dawkins rather seriously (or reverently), the Kunstler interview is prefaced with something of a disclaimer about, well, how lame he is:
OK, before we analyze, just a few prelims. First, that Peak Oil will happen is a mathematically sure thing if you grant that the planet is not producing new oil in its bowels right now. Second, I’m fairly convinced myself that Peak Oil has already happened or will happen in the near future. I don’t doubt either that this new reality will cause some hardships. What I do doubt, pace Kunstler, is that 1) The world will slide into primitive dysfunction straightway and 2) the world’s reaction to such dysfunction will be to create an order that is more and more congruent with my own political vision.
Let’s look at some snippets:
This sounds reasonable, but it’s surrounded by a lot of blather about how America is these days. In any case, his position is clear here and keeps getting clearer: We can’t live without oil. We’re doomed. We’ll never maaake it!
Cite! Many numbers missing here (“immense amounts”?).
Cite! Thin margins vs. cost of transport? Numbers please.
I think the cost of transport will go up when we switch to nuclear power and fuel cells, but I doubt that it will be so very unpredictable. If anything, it ought to be higher but more predictable, since fuel prices won’t be based on the volatile cost of oil.
I’m not a fan of SUVs either, but this strikes me as being way too politically picky.
He’s not thinking. Obviously, if a car got good enough mileage after peak oil, then there would be no problem continuing to drive it just as before.
We can do both, right?
Umm, nuclear power?
No, it will disappear!
Er, why would the cities be in trouble? You set up one nuke plant for each and you’re in business. Actually, I should think the cities, because of their centralization and walkability and all the things he seems to think he wants, would be in a better position to do well. But noooo. And why “nooo”? Because that’s not what this joker likes. He likes the small towns and cities, real communities.
Damn the mega-structures, damn them!
I would also hasten to point out that the contractions in the cities he mentions have a lot to do with economic factors that have nothing whatsoever to do with his doomsday scenario. Lame.
OK, now we’re in la-la territory. What is a “cornpone Nazi”? Perhaps that’s an oblique reference to the current president. :dubious:
Now, I know what a McManshion is–a crappy constructed but expensive house for pretenders to the upper classes. But what is a “McCar”? That’s a new term to me. Really, this guy’s just doing the standard libero-socially-conscious paint-by-numbers griping that is a mirror image of Rush’s knee-jerk prattle.
In any case, I think the “entitlements of suburbia” come down to a family’s desire to own its own house on its on land in safety and quiet. How does this contradict what he said before about cities shutting down and people surviving out in the boonies?
Ohmuhgawd, it might take five years to find a solution to the Big Problem! By then all hell will have broken loose!
This guy just can’t be taken seriously.
Yeah, we’ll light candles and sing, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke…”
There’s a lot more blather, but I think that’s enough. Here’s the Straight Dope on what’s really going to happen: Oil will peak out, true, but we are going to build a shitload of nuke plants, maximize solar and other “alternative” energy sources, and eventually develop fusion, at which point we’ll never worry about energy again.
I read the article too and, oddly enough, he seemed to understate the predicted consequences of a “peak oil” collapse. Most of what he mentioned in the article amounts to little more than annoying inconveniences when compared to things like massive global starvation and perpetual warfare (with nuclear weapons). Also, he all too quickly went to the “we’re doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it” attitude.
[Boldness added.]
If I may hijack this thread for a moment, but Des Moines is a big city? The metropolitan area where I live has a larger population than Des Moines’ but nobody outside of the most seriously deluded civic booster would ever consider us as a “big” city. This must of been some sort of subtle joke on Kunstler’s part that the interviewer didn’t pick up on.
James, James, James, when you make it this obvious that your argument is being shaped to fit your preexisting political agenda, you take all the fun out of picking it apart.
I agree that Kunstler is hitching his own social agenda to a different problem, but I think he’s right to the degree that there is a real problem out there. I just don’t agree with him on what the consequences or the solutions are.
I do think cities are particularly vulnerable to an oil crisis. Modern cities are dependent on transportation and that’s the segment of the economy that’s going to be most affected by an oil shortage.
Nuclear power is not the answer. The problem is we’re ostensibly running out of fuel, not energy. Fuel is a high density, portable storable form of energy. You can’t put a nuke plant in each car and even if you have a glut of nuclear power plants, it’s not yet imemdiately obvious how your going to power the car.
With a large number of nuclear plants, you have the spare power to either produce standard gasoline from other hydrocarbon sources, or to electrolyse water to produce hydrogen for fuel cell cars.
Now, the estimates I have seen predict that is would take roughly 400 large nuclear power plants to replace US gasoline production. That is a large number, and would be quite expensive, but given the political will to do so, not impossible for the United States to construct over a period of 10-15 years.
How do you produce standard gasoline? From natural gas or coal? And hydrogen cars are still in their infancy because we don’t have a good idea how to safely store H2.
That’s right, as of now they’re in their infancy. That doesn’t mean they won’t be in their infancy in ten or twenty years, especially as the need for alternative-fuel vehicles becomes greater.
I like the nuclear option-we’ve BLOWN $300 billion on Iraq, and in all probability, we will spnd even more! If we had only invested that in nuclear plant-plus, the money would be spent here! Just freeing ourself from the ME would be worth it-and i don’t see us getting anything more than deeper and deeper into the mess that is the ME.
Total energy expenditure in the U.S. is about 7% of GDP. And not all of this is petroleum. As the cost of oil increases, other energy sources start to be economically viable, and conservation begins to make great economic sense. How many factories out there could operate on less energy, but don’t because at current energy prices it’s not profitable to do so? Raise energy prices enough, and you’ll see large changes in manufacturing, transportation, etc. Alternative energy sources like wind and solar and nuclear will start springing up to take up the slack.
But even if energy doubles in price every ten years, it would only have an effect of reducing GDP growth by .7% per year. But this slope will flatten, because as petroleum gets more expensive we will move away from it, lowering its influence.
This is not an economic disaster, nor will it fundamentally change society in a drastic way. The changes will be on the margins - plug-in hybrid cars will become popular. Resistance to nuclear power will fade, leading to more nuke plants. Energy-intensive goods and services will become less competitive to their alternatives.
No gloom, no doom. Hell, oil has gone from $20/barrel to $50/barrel in a short period of time, and most economists think the result of that has been a slight slowing of GDP growth and a slight increase in inflation, and that’s about it.
I earnestly hope you’re right – I certainly don’t want to live in the low-energy, local-economy, labor-intensive future Kunstler predicts (and I don’t believe he really wants to live in it either) – but what on what do you base your confidence in the inevitable triumph of technofix? “Alternative fuels” might or might be adaptable for making cars run the way they run now – and that’s the real elephant in the living room. As for fusion, researchers have been working on controlled fusion power since the ‘70s, and AFAIK they’re no closer now to a sustained fusion reaction that will yield more energy than was put into creating it. It might be as fundamentally insoluble a problem as the Star Trek FTL drive, or the “impulse drive” that moves the ship around without expelling any reaction mass. "Ah canna change the laws o’ physics, Captain!"
I think his point is that that figure is going to rise, an eventuality for which we are absolutely not prepared.
I think I detect a certain amount of hand-waving here, Sam. What good reason do you have to think that there’s really that much slack in our industrial efficiency that can be taken up so easily? And what does it mean to “move away” from petroleum? I don’t even live in the suburbs, but I put a lot of mileage on my car. There is really no alternative if I want to have a life. I hope someday I’ll be able to trade it in for a hydrogen fuel-cell car, but I’m not confident the technology will be perfected (if at all) before the crunch hits – and when it hits, it’s not going to stop. In 1974 and 1979, oil price spikes caused a global recession, and those were temporary spikes caused by fleeting political conditions; we won’t be so lucky next time. It’s not just personal transportation. Whatever adds to the cost of fuel adds to the cost of anything that needs to be shipped, which includes practically everything but information. When the grits hit the fan, there’s going to be a lot of panic and cutting of losses. I don’t know if industry will have the time to slowly adapt to changing circumstances the way you’re describing.
“That’s about it”? Will you stop and think a few moments about the consequences of “a slight slowing of GDP growth and a slight increase in inflation,” year after year with no end in sight, at a time when the U.S. economy is already saddled with massive federal budget deficits, unprecedented levels of personal debt, and balance-of-trade deficits? It will make the '70s look like a walk in the park.
That’s what I said. If it doubles every ten years, then the cost of energy as a fraction of GDP will go up by .7% per year, assuming everything else stays the same.
I made no claim about how much slack there is or isn’t. The point is that industrial manufacturing takes into account the cost of energy. When those costs change, the patterns of production and consumption change. If energy were free, we’d all be driving 500 HP monster cars. We don’t, because we have to consider the cost of energy.
The point is that as energy prices increase, the price of goods will change disproportionally in that goods that have a large energy cost as a percentage of their overall costs will be disadvantaged. People will move to alternatives, whenever it makes sense to do so.
We have the capability today of making cars that get 80 mpg. Plug-in hybrids achieve that. We could even go to all electric if we really, really had to. The limitations of all electric vehicles have prevented them from having any traction in the marketplace, but hey, if it’s the only game in town, that’s what people will drive.
What makes you say that? For example, if oil goes to 80 dollars a barrel, two things will happen - one is that people will reduce the consumption of petroleum, easing demand. The other is that previously unprofitable fields will open up, such as the Alberta tar sands. We may in fact reach a point where supply once again outstrips demand, and prices will stabilize for a long time. I don’t know if this will happen, but it might. In the meantime, the move to alternative energy sources may bring greater efficiencies and cost reductions to those sources, and we’ll wean ourselves off of oil completely (well, not completely, but to the point where we burn only as much gas as we get as waste from refining oil for other uses)
Oil prices weren’t the only factor in the recession. Not by a long shot.
Yes, I understand. That’s why inflation follows price spikes in energy. Again, the result of that will be an increase in the price of transported goods, which will cause the market to adjust to take that into account. Assuming that the current patterns of production, distribution, and consumption will stay the same until there’s a crash is not the correct way to look at the problem.
Oh, please. We’ve been average GDP growth of 3-4% for a long time. We may in fact be heading into a period of lower growth by .7% per year because of increasing costs of energy. That’s not a disaster. It means that recesions will be deeper, and periods of growth shallower. We may be heading into a time where the rapid growth experienced by our parents is gone, but that doesn’t mean disaster. And that assumes that no other technologies will come along that offset that increase in energy costs. With nanotech, biotech, and other potentially economy-shaking technologies right around the corner, I wouldn’t make that bet.
Sure it’s fair. In order to back up the BS he’s spouting, he needs cites. He may also say, “Cites are in my forthcoming book.” But he at least needs to recognize that what he’s saying isn’t prima facie obvious; rather, it’s mostly prima facie retarded.
I’ve noticed how all of these gloom-and-doom forecasts always ignore coal, which, last I checked, accounts for more energy production in the US than any other source. Of course, coal is a fossil fuel, too, and it isn’t unlimited, but there’s a heck of a lot more of it than there is oil. At current rates, we have enough coal to last for centuries. Call it 150 years, to take into account industrial growth, and to let coal take up the slack from oil on vehicle-moving (whether by liquification, fuel cells, or some other technology doesn’t really matter). And if we don’t have practical fusion within 150 years, our civilization probably doesn’t deserve to survive.
Quoth BrainGlutton:
Absolutely not. We know for absolute certain that sustainable, exoenergetic fusion is possible, because we’ve seen it. Step outside and look up, and you’ll see a self-sustaining fusion reactor. Doing it on a scale practical for powering a city is a devil of an engineering problem, to be sure, but it is an engineering problem, not a problem of fundamental physics. And any engineering problem will be solved, if enough time, money, and effort is devoted to it.
Lord knows I’m no radical green but this is the crux of the problem: the American love affair with the personal automobile.
While it’s provided untold and unheralded freedom of movement for the individual it has come with significant cost: pollution, consumption of resources, urban and suburban sprawl, and so forth. So it’s not like it’s been an unmitigated good.
Seriously, why could one not live without a car? I live in a small town and could do so fairly easily. For longer trips I could take a bus or train (there’s no real air service within 100+ miles of where I sit).
Do I currently do that? No. But it’s acheivable. I see no reason it couldn’t be. And my wife and I don’t even have a commute. I’m a consultant and she telecommutes to Washington DC so we both work at home.
In reading criticisms of America’s “automobile culture”, you might gain the impression that the USA is the only nation on earth where people drive cars. Hardly. Britain, France, Italy and other nations have a long history of domestic automobile production. People love cars, and will drive them as long as it’s affordable. Americans are not uniquely at fault there.
What was different about the USA was that automobiles were invented around the time that the US became a global industrial powerhouse, outpacing Britain and the rest of Europe; and that we had large amounts of domestic petroleum for decades. We could afford to invest in an automobile culture to an extent that Europeans couldn’t. Britain, France and other European nations have long been in the situation that petroleum is expensive and has to be imported. This hardly means that civilization has collapsed there.
I agree that it will be disruptive to the American economy when petrol costs $3.00 - $5.00 a gallon, but I don’t think we’ll see what Kunstler is evidently obsessing about: a “cascade” effect, where spiraling fuel costs cripple our very ability to adapt. As mentioned earlier, there’s a LOT of potential fuel sources that would be exploitable if the price of crude goes high enough. If nothing else, people will make the free-market descision to drive ultra-economy cars if they’re tired of their gasoline bills. I even wonder if coal-fired steam engines could make a comeback in a dramatically improved form.
In addition, the reason Americans tend to drive big gas guzzlers is not because Americans are less environmentally sensitive than Europeans, but because the U.S. is spread out, the roads and parking spaces are large, and this favors larger autos. Many European countries are densely packed, distances to travel are typically smaller, and the roads are often narrow and parking spaces tight. All of this pushes people towards owning smaller vehicles.
Canadians tend to be more ‘European’ in outlook, and we even have high gasoline taxes that keep our gas prices much higher than in the U.S., yet we are just as addicted to SUVs and large sedans and big horsepower as are Americans. It’s all about the nature of the travel.
But as soon as gas prices get to the point where this gets painful, you’ll see a mass exodus out of the gas guzzlers. It won’t even take that long, because once people become convinced that gas prices will be rising constantly you’ll see the resale and residual value of gas guzzlers go down, which will increase the cost of ownership and lease payments. The market is pretty good at pricing in future values.
In fact, that’s already starting. SUV and truck sales have been softening dramatically, and the small sedan is making huge gains into the marketplace. Hybrids are a big sales success, with manufacturers selling pretty much all they can make. As these cars become more refined and hybrid technology moves into the mainstream, you could see the CAFE average go up substantially - without government interference.
Jonathan Chance said:
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While it’s provided untold and unheralded freedom of movement for the individual it has come with significant cost: pollution, consumption of resources, urban and suburban sprawl, and so forth. So it’s not like it’s been an unmitigated good.
[quote]
Why is it always assumed that urban sprawl is a bad thing? Urban sprawl is a benefit of the automobile. People move out to the suburbs because they like it there, and ultimately the success of any economy is measured by how it provides for the desires of the people. Suburban life is pretty damned good. It’s a major part of the North American lifestyle. Green spaces, comfortable, large living spaces, garages, backyard barbecues, play areas outside for the kids in a fenced in, safe place. Low noise, isolation from neighbors. Are there costs associated with it? Of course. Just like every other luxury on the planet.