Heavier things

There is a finite amount of petroleum in the world. Much of this oil, possibly half of it, is locked-up in the ground in such a way that there will not be a cheap way to extract it in the foreseeable future. The US Geological Survey and the Energy Information Administration conducted a study, described in a 2004 EIA report, to assess and forecast world petroleum supply and demand. The study found that there is likely something like 3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil in the world. This sounds like a very big number- indeed it is a huge number- except when compared to the rate at which oil is consumed. The study further concluded that global oil production may well peak in 30 years, and fall-off sharply, so that humans are unable to produce petroleum at current levels within about 40 years.
Again, this study predicts that oil production will likely peak around 2037 and then decline, sharply. Obviously, other capacity studies abound. Some of them are more urgent, some of them are less so. The USGS / EIA study purports to be impartial and was completed in consultation with geologists and economists from both the US government and from the petroleum industry. Regardless of when the reader may personally believe oil will run out, the fact remains that there is a limited amount of oil in the world, and humans are using huge quantities every day.

Given that petroleum is the basis of our present economy, and perhaps more so the basis of an American lifeway, this resource-sunset is a mandate for deep change. The current administration previously asserted "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
It's time to move beyond myopathy and greed and step into reality. This generation faces a problem, and like it or not, it's ours to fix. Many will ignore the problem. However, the rational solution- the one that will work in the real world- is to work toward sustainable lifeways and a sustainable economy. This means understanding where our energy, food, and other resources come from, and recognizing that financial costs are not the only costs we need to consider. This means making better choices, starting today.

An inconvenient truth about biofuels

In 2005, the US consumed about 140,407,470,000 gallons of gasoline. On average, that’s around 1.25 gallons of gasoline per day, for each man, woman, and child in the country. We use it without realizing it: the oranges we buy in February traveled a very long distance; all of those cheap clothes are only inexpensive because they were produced somewhere far enough away to have a tiny cost of labor; and of course we love to drive ourselves to work, dash to the supermarket to grab this, then later to the hardware store for that, all the while complaining about traffic and gas prices.
W has laudably suggested reducing gasoline consumption by 20% by 2017. Business interests are encouraging people to "Go Yellow". And Chevrolet is greenwashing a fleet of gas-guzzlers under the pretense that buying a flex-fuel car is in and of itself good for the environment.
Unfortunately, domestic corn-based ethanol and soybean or WVO biodiesel do not now offer, nor are they likely to offer in the foreseeable future, a tenable solution to the problem of transportation fuels. While it's true that production of biofuels has accelerated rapidly in recent years, there simply isn't enough feedstock to replace a meaningful fraction of petrofuels. Replacing the rough equivalent of 2% of the gasoline we use currently requires about 20% of our corn crop. If we stopped eating corn and feeding it to livestock- mildly absurd hypothetical actions- we'd still only cover about 10% of our current gasoline demand. Cellulosic ethanol fuel does nothing for us now, and there's no telling how long it will be until economically feasible methods of production are available. Moreover, there are a host of concerns over the cultivation of large amounts of switchgrass and genetically-modified fast-growing trees.
Research remains important; horizon technologies have a way of becoming household words in the blink of an eye. Likewise, incrementally greater production of biofuels does achieve some benefit, although it would make more sense to exploit some of the other benefits of biofuels. Rather than spreading a very thin mix of blended fuels around a large region, we should use high biofuel blends for special applications: biofuels for school buses to reduce the exposure of children to particulate pollution; biofuels for government fleet-vehicles and buses in Clean Air Act nonattainment areas; biofuels for watercraft to minimize sulfur, particulate, and synthetic-volatile pollution in waterways.
Given the finite lifespan of oil and the lack of a meaningful or reliable supply of a direct replacement, we have to consider conservation in a new way. We need to rethink communities, values, and lifeways. We need to act on this new thinking.
It grows dim in our national memory, but a little over six decades ago, a generation of Americans fought and won a massive war, and in so doing reinvented their economy and that of the world. Why can't ending a myopic addiction to oil and creating a sustainable economy be this generation's legacy?