From Salon.com

After the oil is gone
Say goodbye to your suburban house, yoke up that horse, and stand by to repel pirates! Author James Howard Kunstler talks about the dire world of his new book, "The Long Emergency."

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By Katharine Mieszkowski

May 14, 2005 | Suburbs will collapse into slums. Farmhand will be a more viable career choice than public relations executive. And avoiding starvation will replace avoiding boredom as the national pastime.

Those are just a few of the predictions that James Howard Kunstler makes in his new book. "The Long Emergency" paints a dystopic view of the United States in the wake of what Kunstler dubs the "cheap oil fiesta." It's a future the author insists is not apocalyptic. Calling it the end of the world be too easy.
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No, Kunstler believes the human race will survive as we slip down the other side of Hubbert's Oil Peak. But the high standard of living we've built by gorging on cheap oil will not. America, as a political entity, will be history too.

"The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century"

James Howard Kunstler

Atlantic Monthly Press
320 pages
Nonfiction

When will the doom begin? It already has. "There have been no significant discoveries of new oil since 2002," Kunstler says. And the Saudis have screwed up their super-giant Ghawar oil field, long a fossil-fuel font for the U.S. "They have damaged it by pumping enormous amounts of salt water into it; in fact, the field itself may be entering depletion," he says.

A former journalist turned novelist turned social critic, Kunstler is best known for his book excoriating the suburbs, "Geography of Nowhere." Now he foresees the end of the entire artifice of American life, from the suburbs to the interstate highway to Wal-Mart and the global supply chain that supports it.

In Kunstler's world, a teenager will be better off learning how to yoke up a horse-drawn buggy than how to change the oil in a car. Woodshop will be more important than computer literacy. Among Kunstler's predictions: The South will devolve into agricultural feudalism and the Pacific Northwest will be beset by a plague of pirates from Asia. Forget about sleek hydrogen-powered cars coming to the rescue. For that matter, quit tilting your hopes toward wind power.

Kunstler displays a kind of macabre wit about the unpleasantness and strife that await us all. Talking to him is like trying to argue with a prophet. His assertions have a neat way of doubling back to anticipate your critiques. If you express doubt about his views, then you may well be among the deluded masses too addicted to your McSUV and McSuburb to accept the reality that lies ahead.

Salon spoke to Kunstler at his home in upstate New York, mindful that in the future such an hour-long, cross-country telephone call, undertaken so casually, could be a remote luxury, a quaint remnant of a bygone era rich in the splendors of oil.

Plenty of analysts are confident that in coming decades we'll switch from oil to another form of energy, like Europeans switching from burning wood to burning coal when forests became scarce. Why aren't you?

That's been a pattern in the last several hundred years, but it has followed a supply of mineral resources that we've exploited to their logical end. When a society is stressed, when it comes up against things that are hard to understand, you get a lot of delusional thinking.

There are at least two major mental disturbances in the collective American mind these days that can be described with some precision. One is the Jiminy Cricket syndrome -- the idea that when you wish upon a star your dreams come true. This is largely a product of the technological achievements of the last century, which were themselves a product of cheap energy: namely, things like our trip to the moon, combined with the effects of advertising, Hollywood and pop culture.

We have now become a people who believe that wishing for things makes them happen. Unfortunately, the world just doesn't work that way. The truth is that no combination of alternative fuels or so-called renewables will allow us to run the U.S.A. -- or even a substantial fraction of it -- the way that we're running it now.

There's another mental disturbance that Americans are suffering from. It's the idea that it's possible to get something for nothing -- unearned riches, free energy, perpetual motion -- and it's exemplified by Las Vegas. Combine the Jiminy Cricket syndrome and the idea that it's possible to get something for nothing and you end up with a population that's thoroughly deluded and unable to deal with reality. That's precisely where we're at.

You point out that there are all sorts of ways that we're dependent on oil that we don't think about.

We have evolved a cheese-doodle agriculture system run by large corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, which grow immense amounts of corn by using fossil fuels to produce immense amounts of corn-based junk food. The prospects are poor that we will continue living this way. The implications are enormous. We will have to grow much more of our food closer to home.

Also, our national retail chain system -- otherwise known as Wal-Mart and Co., Wal-Mart and wannabes, Wal-Mart and imitators -- is unlikely to survive both the rising costs of oil and far more volatile price fluctuations. Their economic equation requires them to predict the cost of transport because their margins are so razor thin. And they won't be able to anymore.

Remember: These immensely hypertrophic organisms like Wal-Mart are products of the special economic growth of the late 20th century, namely an unusually long period of relative world peace and extraordinarily cheap energy. If you remove those two elements, all large-scale enterprises --corporate farming, big-box shopping, big government, professional sports -- are going to be in trouble.

So, the collapse of the cheap oil fiesta is going to...

I wouldn't call it "collapse." That's the cause of a lot of misunderstanding. What we're talking about is the process of heading down the arch of depletion, not the catastrophic cutoff of oil. Heading down the arch implies that we will not have the normal growth of industrial economies anymore. And that has tremendous implications for capital-finance instruments to produce wealth, namely securities and bonds. All the financial paper in the world is essentially based on the increasing accumulation of wealth.

You argue that we won't know we've hit the global oil peak until a few years after it's happened. There will be hangover.

The rearview-mirror effect.

What will be the first signs of the long emergency?

We're already seeing them. The two clearest signs are serious geopolitical friction and the volatility in the oil markets. A third one, which hasn't quite gotten traction, will be disruptions in the financial markets. But that could happen at any moment.

And the real estate bubble?

Absolutely. The housing bubble is a perverse form of financial behavior. It's a consequence of capital desperately seeking a way to increase in an industrial economy that has ceased to grow. America is no longer producing wealth in the conventional sense. And so the housing bubble is a way for residual capital to produce wealth. But like all bubbles, it's a delusional thing that will probably end in tears.

You write that even the educated minority in the U.S. is clueless about its role in geopolitical problems, like the family in your neighborhood that had a sign in their yard that said, "War Is Not the Answer," and two SUVs in the garage.

Or all my politically progressive friends who drove their SUVs to the peace rallies of 2003.

Why do you think that there's such a disconnect?

Because we haven't been challenged for such a long time. The last challenge we experienced was the OPEC oil disturbances of the 1970s, which thundered through our economy and caused a lot of problems. But they were short-lived and the cheap oil fiesta was able to continue because the final great discoveries of the oil age came online in the 1980s, namely the North Sea and the Alaska North Slope. And that allowed us to go back to sleep for another two decades.
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This is chilling, and not unrealistic.

In the 70s, there was a gas shortage. I can remember waiting 2+ hours in line for gas and strong pleas from the govt. to conserve energy. Americans complied with those pleas--conserving wherever possible. I think we were use to sacrifice in those days, and going through the Christmas season without outdoor lights, keeping the thermostat in winter at 62 degrees and 78 degrees (or off) in summer, turning off lights, etc., became a way of life.

I'm not sure when that ended, but gradually the word "conserve" faded and we started "gorging" on oil like never before. Now, we are facing an oil shortage and high prices at the pumps and we are still gorging. I really don't understand why we aren't hearing the Bush administration stress "conservation" and "sacrifice" when it comes energy. It appears Bush is afraid to ask us to " sacrifice", thinking that many Americans won't like giving up their SUVs, start carpooling to work, etc., especially with the upcoming 2006 elections. This is where Bush really fails on leadership, instead of running around the country spreading nonsense that SS is in crisis, he should be telling Americans that oil is our crisis and we need to act now.

It is possible, but it is certainly a worse case scenario. Every single one of these doomsday scenarios, Kunstler's included, ignores coal and nuclear as alternatives.

He writes, "The truth is that no combination of alternative fuels or so-called renewables will allow us to run the U.S.A. -- or even a substantial fraction of it -- the way that we're running it now."


The truth is you could run a substantially similar system on electricity from coal and nuclear. It will be a painful transition to get there. But it can be done.

I don't think Mr. Kunstler's story is too realistic on the electric front since we already get about 80% of the electricity from Domestic coal / North American natural gas and close to 20% from Domestic Nukes. The actual numbers are a bit smaller since wind, hydro, etc also contribute.

Look at this - It's all pictures.

Government Facts

I'm not sure how far off the mark he is on the oil thing. You know China has got lots of people as does India. Those folks are starting to buy cars. These cars are going to need fuel. More demand limited supply is supposed to mean higher prices until the supply goes up or alternatives are present.

If the supply is going down at the same time as the demand is rising, this could be bad.

I wonder how fast it will really happen. I've seen curves showing a rapid depletion, but you've got to wonder a bit about those. As the price goes up, so does opportunity for those willing to meet the demand. I just wonder if there are some capped wells that will start spewing out oil again.

Seems like a far sighted government that wants to protect its people from harsh economic shocks would start looking into this problem in a big way and build some pilot plants to make liquid fuels from coal. (Modified Fischer Tropsch) Seems like it really is a matter of national security. If they were really smart, they'd think about the global warming thing at the same time and make the best choices to help in that arena.

The fact that people are taking Mr. Kunstler seriously means that he may be onto at least a partial truth.

Don't forget oil produces plastic- just think of all the things now made from that material. Can't even imagine what we will use as substitute.

I too think he is overstating the case for disaster but we are in for some changes in this country, and in the world for that matter. I did order his book.

Many of the things now made from plastic used to be made of metal, glass or wood. For any remaining items that must be made of plastic, plastics can still be made out of coal or vegetable oil.

It's not just oil that we are running out of- coal and other minerals and metals are finite resources which one day we will deplete. Trees for wood and vegetables for oil take up land to grow the crops. As our population increases more and more farm and woodland is being converted to housing.

I saw a graph recently which charted the relationship between farmland and population growth. In the very near future we will need all of our available farmland just to feed the US. Forget being the world's breadbasket- those days are gone.

Technological advances and Yankee ingenuity will solve many of the problems - I hope.

After reading Kunstler's doom and gloom book, read Energy Disclosed: Abundant Resources and Unused Technology by Galen J. Suppes, Ph.D., P.E. and Truman S. Storvick, Ph.D., P.E.

See sample chapters here: The University of Missouri-Columbia, Department of Chemical Engineering


When the oil embargo hit us in 1973 and again in 1979 the effect was sudden. We reacted to the extreme shortage by demanding that Congress do something...

What we are experiencing now is only the discomfort of higher prices, but no shortages...

So we complain, but continue to indulge ourselves.

The so-called "end of oil" will not be a sudden loss, but a gradual increase in prices to keep supply and demand in balance. By the year 2010, $5 a gallon gas will be common, without increased gas taxes... The Saudis and Iranians will continue to pump oil for less than $5 per barrel and the money will finance their Islamic vision of the world - and a nuclear Iran.

Not because we must have oil, but because we are too self-indulgent to demand the switch from oil to the many alternatives. The two Professors from Missouri have shown that there is plenty of energy in America -- it just isn't oil.

www.AmericanEnergyIndependence.com

www.AmericanEnergyIndependence.com/biodiesel.html

www.AmericanEnergyIndependence.com/peroxide.html

www.AmericanEnergyIndependence.com/cleanhydrocarbons.html

Freedom:

I was surprised to find the cost per barrel embedded within the text of your link. Although synthetic fuels from Fischer Tropsch would not eliminate the Greenhouse gas problem. I think they would do wonders for the US economy. For that matter the algae to biodiesel would too. However, I have reservations about flooding the desert with saltwater for algae farms. Wouldn't that have some undesireable environmental drawbacks?



I think a barrel of oil was still well over $50/bbl today.

Large-scale biodeisel has several drawbacks. These ideas to cover Arizona with algae farms usin saltwater are not practical. They neglect two factors in particular.
1) The energy cost of supplying, maintaining, and gathering fuel from a network covering such a large area. Whenever something is spread over a large area, the economies of scale are lost.
2) Saltwater is extremely corrosive to almost every material. Either you must make all your pumps and pipes out of expensive non-corrosive materials, or you face a nightmare of maintenance. For this reason, many processes that "could" use saltwater still use freshwater.

I haven't seen any realistic proposals that address those issues and figures what it really would cost to build and operate. Have you?

Oil industry analysts are divided over whether it will stay above $50 or not. Most say no, at least for the next year or two. Some don't beleive in the peak oil scenario. But it that scenario came to pass, there would be a massive shift in thinking, together with a new interest in all sorts of alternatives.

I think they all accept the "concept" of peak oil, they just don't agree on "when" - some believe it is 10-20 years out, and others say it is "relative" to cost of pumping the deeper heavier oil up. As technology advances, those costs will decrease. It is estimated that there is as much oil still in the ground beneath the USA as has already been pumbed out, but it is heavy and deep. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) can help get it out, but it is costly - the EOR is being considered as a possible solution for sequestering CO2 - maybe that would help with costs.

New oil from the Caspian Sea was expected to come on line this year or next and relieve the pressure on price. Analysts believed the Caspian oil would lower price, but they underestimated the demand from China.
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspian.html

And of course the Bush admin had expected an increase in oil production from Iraq - which hasn't happened.

The figures of what it really would cost to build and operate can be found at this link:
www.AmericanEnergyIndependence.com/biodiesel.html


During the 1990's, the federal government funded the research. The program was closed down because oil was still under $30 per barrel.

The link to the University of New Hampshire has several other links to the Federal Research papers.

This concept is NOT a way to save money -- But it is a way to achieve energy independence.

As long as our soldiers' blood costs less than home grown biodiesel, we will continue to import oil.

When the American people decide that energy independence has a monetary value... more than "cheap" oil, then we will do it. Maybe after Iran develops its nuclear arsenal and gives a couple of nukes to "terrorists" than, maybe we will see that we are sending them the money to make the bombs they use against us...

Salt water corrosion is an engineering problem - the engineers can solve it.

The "economies of scale"... hey it's just farming... American farmers can solve the problems, and make an income doing it.

Eino -

Professor Suppes has estimated the cost of Fischer Tropsch fuels to be $13 per barrel - up to $28 per barrel now, using existing technology. But, he adds, the cost of federal, state and payroll taxes (and environmental controls) more than double the cost, giving imported oil an unfair advantage.

Suppes also points out that oil companies have zero incentive to obsolete their existing oil reserves - they want to profit from their oil - and their stockholders demand that they do so. So, Why do we expect oil companies to develop alternatives to oil?

In addition to that, Saudi oil can be pumped and loaded onto a tanker for less than $3 per barrel (the other $47+ is pure profit). So, if the USA develops an alternative and causes a glut of oil on the world market (if only temporarily-we will run out eventually), the Saudis will lower their price and bankrupt anyone who invested in the alternative technology (which is very expensive to develop). Unless we the people legislate/demand a market for the alternatives... kind of like mandatory seat belts in cars, right?


Much of the Southern California desert was under the ocean for millions of years; drive by the Salton Sea and look at the ancient ocean waterline high up on the mountainside... The Salton Sea is over 200 feet below sea level today.
www.AmericanEnergyIndependence.com/waterforall.html

In order for this to work, it would require a new industry to evolve. That would include processing of saltwater brine to extract dried salt and minerals, as the salt water is replaced. Also, solar desalination technology would flourish if there was cheap available salt water, because millions of acres of arid land is now undeveloped - because of lack of water.

Bring in fiber optic internet lines with the aqueducts and remote towns would have the benefits of modern telecommunications... without the density and problems of urban living.

The following link downloads a 328 page Adobe PDF produced by the U.S. Dept of Energy, titled: A Look Back at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program: Biodiesel from Algae
www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24190.pdf

This one is a 302 page Adobe PDF, titled: Biodiesel Research Progress:
1992-1997www.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/biodiesel_92-97.pdf

This is a picture of what an algae pond would look like.

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The pond would be shallow and the water would flow around the circle, making it easy to harvest the algae.