Regarding your comment about the Energy Department predicting that the oil peaking will occur in 2037. I don't think so! Oil has already peaked; refer to Hobarts Curve and Senator Russell Bartlett's presentation to the Senate on Energy. Anybody in leadership that thinks we have another 30 years before oil peaking will occur is living in a fantasy world. Other sources? Well, think again, the oil tar sands in Canada require an equal amount (energy wise) of natural gas to make a barrel of oil. You want to use all your natural gas up - then make oil from tar sand. Solar, good luck. A petroleum engineer once told me that most people do not understand how valuable oil crude actually is. He said that they (the industry) crack over 137 different products from crude and gasoline at that time (1972), was only the 67th most important. Oil is probably the single most important item on this planet for human survival.
Turning down the thermostat and using energy saving light bulbs is going to accomplish nothing if in a decade you have twice as many people using energy. I can only remind people of 'Easter Island', that little island situated in the South Pacific where an experiment in human survival occurred in the 19th century. It was not a very nice ending. To that I add, we are in another experiment and it's called 'Easter Planet.'.
R. Bystrak PP_IISIFI
What's the problem? The OPEC countries - together with Russia - are in the driver's seat where world oil is concerned, and they are now aware of this fact. It took them more than 30 years to wise up, but it comes down to the same thing: regardless of what is going to be done on the buy side of the market, those countries are going to stack up big bucks because time is on their side. The interesting question now is what are they going to do with that money, and how will they 'manage' the oil price in the event of a global macroeconomic decline? Let me emphasize however that they will NOT manage it by increasing output, because they don't have any excess production capacity, nor are they in a hurry to obtain any.
The position that OPEC (and Russia) have with oil, Russia almost has with gas. In fact with its access to oil, gas, coal and all the nuclear that they think they will need, Russia is on its way out of the economic doldrums. The 'breakup' of the Soviet Union was probably the best thing that could have happened for Russia, since it left them with a smaller population but still a huge land area. Everyone doesn't understand this situation - where everyone includes a certain prominent gas economist that I listened to a few nights ago - but I hope that our political masters get the message, because if they don't...
Ferdinand E. Banks
Professor
Thank you for addressing this significant concern for the energy industry and society at large. Needless to say, I am an advocate of alternative fuels and smart growth. Still, I would point out what many of the researchers looking at peak oil have said; oil is one of the most precious energy sources we have ever known. With its versatility, transportability, and power density, it has literally fuelled our development to current standards of living. Without it, we are severely disadvantaged. With it, we leapt form the coal burning days of the industrial revolution into the modern era. So, given the finite nature of this vital resource, the question is, "When will the US government and energy leadership put serious effort into preparing for a realistic future of higher costs, lower production, and increasingly greater demand?" What most of us see instead is a rush to increase oil and coal production (and financial returns) for the short term with a "future-be-damned" attitude that i s frightening. Coal remains dirty, and will likely be so well into the future as new plants are produced without provisions for clean technologies. That doesn't stop our commercial encouragement of projects like mountain top removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains or oil extraction from the tar sands, regardless of the many layers of devastation such projects can incur. Meanwhile, common sense solutions such as planning for community-scale distributed power and commuter transportation seem to be progressing extremely slowly and only supported at the local level in a few economically strong areas. Most state and national incentives for renewable technologies remain in the dark ages. Power Engineering has been non-existent in most schools and curriculums that encourage efficient design (in buildings, mechanical systems, and vehicles as well) are only now grudgingly returning under increasing public pressure for "green"-ness.
Many others have pointed out that a national plan for renewable energy would take money out of foreign oil markets and instead put money into developing local skilled labor, science, and industry, and remove major threats to our future stability. I won't belabor the point, but it doesn't appear to be getting through to those of us who aren't thinking about this stuff all the time. The contractors I hire, the military personnel I meet, or many of my neighbors (I'll work on that a bit myself I think) seem to be unaware of the role that energy plays in their lives and how it can, and will, affect them.
This all makes me think about the multitude of financial planners who advocate planning for retirement and those of us who ignore it all because we are too busy thinking about day to day issues. It may not be an ideal analogy, but I feel a bit like asking if the United States has a retirement plan.
Thank you again for your bringing your skills to bear on these critical issues, as it is well past time for us to do some basic long-range planning.
Luke McKneally AIA, LEED AP
Solar Engineer and Architect
Solar Design Associates, Inc.
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