Humblest apologies if this is just flogging a zombie, but I got zero results on a search, so here we are.
There’s this theory (discussed here and here) that suggests basically that there will be a “Post-Industrial Stone Age” once non-renewable fuels run out, and we’ll have no electricity, forcing us back out into the countryside for survival, assuming we don’t destroy the ecosystem first. That’s a very broad nutshell, probably, but nonetheless… what’s the straight dope on this?
My first instinct is to scoff. I’d never say I have faith in mankind-- far too positive a connotation-- but I’d be willing to bet on its selfishness. Once we’ve experienced comfort, we don’t easily give it up, and I can’t see any foreseeable future in which we’d just sit back and watch such a decline. As long as there’s any ingenuity and motivation in any member of this species, it seems to me inexorable that we’d find a way to continue being as lazy as possible. But, I’ll admit an inherent bias. I want to make sure I’m not just blinding myself to a very real possibility (or perhaps inevitability) simply out of distaste.
Highly implausible, since there are plenty of energy sources available; it’s just that they are more expensive, and most countries haven’t developed them much. Nuclear comes to mind; IIRC with breeders there is enough fuel for thousands of years. Then there’s wind, solar, various forms of geothermal, and so on.
There have been a couple theories like this in the not too distant past. There was the whole ‘Popluation Bomb’ thing, which predicted widespread food riots in the US by the end of the 1970s. The problem with theories like this is that they assume that society isn’t going to change and that new inventions will not come along. For example if oil starts getting really exspensive the objections to nuclear power will become less. Once the objections to nuclear become less it will be easier to build the plants. Then there is the cost factor, once oil becomes more exspensive other technologies that are now too exspensive for the marketplace wil become economically viable.
Also, after a quick read of the links it doesn’t appear that they are doing any adjustment for efficiency. The cars in the 70’s gas mileage was way lower than it is now, the difference is huge. My Grandma’s 1970 Caddy got 7 MPH. My car gets ~30. I have to drive 4 times as much as my Grandma did to use the same amount of gas. I also have to wonder if they considered outside factors that might affect the usage patterns. For example the 1970s oil embargo was probably big enough to alter the results substantially.
Those are a couple quick thoughts.
For an interesting reading on a similar issue look up Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich was predicting widespread famine and chaos in the US by the end of the 1970s. Simon predicted that things would get better. They even went so far as to make a bet about the issue. Guess who won?
Even if it does happen, it won’t be that big of a deal. Two billion people live without any access to electricy as we speak, and whole countries have unreliable access. People transition from one world to the other and back just fine. My mom recently spent three months without electricity or running water in Guatemala. It took a period of ajustment and then she was fine.
Most of the world is not industrialized. Most people make their living off the land, buy few manufactured goods, and conduct business locally. Only three hundred years ago, the entire world was pretty much at the same level of technology and comfort. Less than a hundred years ago, lives were pretty similar around the globe. It would be a little painful for currently industrialized societies to join them, but the real stuff of our lives- family, art, knowledge, work, etc. would stay the same.
Just so we’re clear (and similar to what even sven said), the use of fossil fuels only goes back a few hundred years at most. That was hardly the “stone age”. Not that I buy into these doonsday scenarios, but let’s be clear on what the stone age was-- pre-metal making. You’d have to go back almost 10,000 years to find a time when all humans were living in the stone age.
I won’t laugh at the basic idea entirely, but Duncan’s explanation seems to
be implausible.
Duncan has predicted worldwide electrical blackouts, some permanant, starting
about 2012. That might theoritically be possible in some countries but very
improbable in others. The grid in France and Austraila is 80% powered by nuclear
and coal respectively, Canada is over half hydro and the US is 50% coal,20% nuclear and 9% renewable. Losing NG in the US would be bad for electricity, losing oil would have little effect in any of the countries and coal reserves, unlike NG and
oil aren’t in question over the next century.
Duncan also seems to believe oil and gas will be largely depleted long before
2100, a belief widely shared. How can the end of the industrial age wait 50-75
years after the end of NG and oil?
I wish I still had this, but no longer do. However, years ago I read a treatise by an economist whose basic premise was: In the history of man we have never had a resource crisis because whenever one resource has grown scarce we have always discovered a newer (and better) resource to fill its niche. He had many well-thought-out examples.
Unfortunately it was probably close to twenty years ago that I read it - at the least 15 and my memory is rather sketchy.
As someone very convinced that the days of peak oil are a mere decades away, and who believes that the Pollyannas who have faith that we will always pull another technological rabbit out of the hat just in time are a bit deluded, I still have to pile on to the chorus of scoffers at doomsday scenerios. If we fail to prepare (and building nuclear power plants or any other infrastructure solution takes time) then there may be problems sure. Things will cost more. Some economies will falter. The poor will get poorer. The geopolitic will shift. But not “Day After Tomorrow.”
Unfortunately, it’s quite wrong; the Easter Islanders running out of trees and arable soil comes to mind. What he failed to realize is sometimes there are no new resources. Fortunately, this isn’t the case with energy.
It’s still the Population Bomb that’s going to get us. (We’re in the middle of it now.) But rather than an overall retrogression, I’d expect to see a greater separation between haves and have-nots.
Forgot to mention, if I recall, per capita oil production peaked back in the late 1970’s.
I remember a column by William Buckley about population growth; it pushed a half-baked theory that unlimited population growth is a good thing, based purely on abstract economic principles. No acknowledgement that we don’t live on an infinitely large planet with unlimited resources.
Yes, this is a flawed philosophy, and one we are unfortunely relying on (look at debated regarding alternative energy and the internal combustion engine). It’s widely accepted that the large scale human sacrifice in the Americas was a result of a population which outgrew it’s environment’s ability to support them. War, infanticide, and other major horrors are often a response to limited resouces. We have plenty of examples of people today who are suffering because their environment can no longer support them (look at, say, soil salienation in the Middle East.) An overtaxed society will find ways to reduce their burden, and this usually involves reducing the population by force.
Somehow I think the US will turn to nuclear energy before infanticide. Those parts of the globe where population is a tremendous burden are those that are the least dependent on fossil fuels, and it has always been the case that as incomes and education go up, population growth goes down. Doomsday predictions usually fail because they analyse things statically.
Given that switching over will take time, I’m afraid we’ll stall and argue and stall until there is a crisis. Then, it could take years before we switch over to a new energy infrastructure; in the middle of a crisis, it’ll be even harder. I don’t believe in the back-to-the-stone-age scenario, but regular, large scale blackouts and a major economic crash seem quite possible in America.
India has large scale blackouts on a daily basis. In Delhi, it’s not unusual for power to go out for four or five hours on an average day. While it is inconvenient, and India’s economy isn’t the greatest in the world, they still have a booming tech industry and the middle class has access to a lifestyle that most of us would be pretty happy with.
While I certainly believe that the American political system (and to some extent the culture) lends itself to paralysis until crisis-point it’s also true that, when motivated by crisis both the political and cultural systems are capable of moving damn fast.
In short, should a true monster crisis in terms of fossil fuels hit it’s my belief that suddenly all legislation and regulation holding up construction of nuclear power plants and so forth will vanish into air and the vast majority of the electorate gets behind them (with politicians and advocates pointing to Australia and other nations for examples).
There would certainly be some die-hard anti-nuke holdouts but they would find themselves marginalized, possibly even attacked on their picket lines, by the rest of the citizenry.
My guess is the first plant could be online within two years. Possibly less. There would also likely be federal or state programs to assist those of us with gas heating systems to convert to electric via some sort of loan program.
When I was in my early 20’s, long before I was even dimly aware that most of our energy sources weren’t inexhaustible, I went on a tour of a power generation plant and was amazed by the size of the turbines. Up until that time, my idea of a generator was the little clamp-on deal for your bicycle tire that made your headlight shine if you could manage to go fast enough.
I began to link the two ideas- wondering how many tykes on bikes it would take to make a hydroelectric turbine shaft rotate at a speed sufficient to generate power for the grid.
Fast forward to the not too-distant future. I envision auditoriums full of teenagers peddling on stationary bikes, with their chains all linked to a common drive shaft creating energy for their community. It would replace phys-ed, and we’d end up with a leaner, healthier population. But how many pairs of legs would it take to get a turbine spinning, and keep it running fast enough? A lot, I’m guessing.
Maybe some day, Bally’s and other workout clubs will be located next door to power turbines. Why turn fat into heat on a brake pad when you can turn it into electricity?