What I find intriguing about both the Kunstlerian and Heinbergian points of view is that they describe the sickening and absurd excesses of our consumer society, and then posit that it will all simply collapse without the possibility of say reducing everyone's consumption to a sane level (sorry... only 2 brands of detergent at the store, food from only 100 miles away and in season, no $200 flights to Cabo, etc.).

The discrepancy between the situation described by these two Casssandras and say the Economist is so stark (3 years to oil peak versus 25), that I wonder if the real time frame isn't in  the middle. If its 10 years, consumers and business might quickly readjust their consumption and resourse efficiency. If its 3, then its "Katie... bar the door and pass the ammunition!"

Kunstler posits a final outcome of a sort of agrarian paradise (at least, it sounds like paradise to a young small town farmer, and it sounds from the interview like he would hold the same position).  I think it is instructive to compare our current situation to major crises of the recent past (The Black Death doesn't count).  During the Great Depression, there was large scale unrest and poverty.  Many people's lives changed dramatically, some even died of starvation... but the US reacted to strengthen its democratic institutions and forge a new social contract to try to limit the scale of future economic swings.  Germany, in contrast, reacted by electing an ultra-nationalist (Hitler) whose solution was state centralization, blaming the Jews (and others) for everything, and invading neighborhing countries.  
Given recent developments, I am not that optomistic about the American people's ability to repeat the electoral sanity of the 1930s.  However, I think it is important for those who are worried about peak oil to look beyond simple fear, or material survival, and work to insure that our democratic institutions continue to be sound.  Civic engagement...

Howard Kunstler, like the few among his clique, has added to the short list of truth-telling exposures to the industrial world's future.  There is no cure for the alcoholic in denial and, aren't we all in denial about the calamity we older ones have set up for our children.

Yes, the "debates" on the end-of-oil, climate change, US federal deficits, private debt (add your favorite) are going to play out for some time to come.  But, nowhere have I heard the right or the left convince me the outcome for any of these dramas will be satisfying for me and certainly not for my children.

Wind and solar energy and increased energy use efficiency are the topics and tasks we busy environmentalists toil at.  We cling to the hope they will give us time, bail us out, come to the rescue and prove us right.  

I have been an environmental activist and believer for thirty five years.  And, I have been programmed to believe environmental organizations are credible and altruistic.  Watching the near-haphazard way we/us have squandered those thirty-plus years to the point we are now toothless social clubs instead of a powerful political movement sickens me to the core and makes me feel complicitous.  The national Sierra Club sent out some 741,000 ballots last year to its members to elect its Board of Directors.  Maryland has half as many SUVs registered.  Folks the enviros are not matched to the task of averting what Mr. Kunstler projects.

When pessimism becomes reality it is too late to organize the deck chairs.  Like it or not the non-denialists among us are ready to encourage some very bold ideas such as getting off our duffs and marching to proclaim the rights of our children to have as good a life as we have enjoyed.  And, if that means they can have access to things they might truly need such as next-generation nuclear power I say lets be certain they have that option.

Dr. Caldicott aside, our aloofness about real energy decisions in America has wasted precious time and our children will pay the price.  Bio-diesel and the cult or renewables are boutique energy sources meant for remote villages and civilizations.

We cannot wish the world to be the way we want it to be.  Climate change-wise, it is the way it is because the population of Rhode Island exceeds the number of card-carrying environmentalists.  GE and WRI may have the money and luxury to partner in a new world of E-magination but it will take more than glitz to give our children a chance for a future.  It will take trillions of dollars of investment in base-load, non-carbon emitting power generation stations here and there and everywhere.

John McC

Kunstler predicts "the collapse of the airline industry, the electricity grid, highway infrastructure, agribusiness, big-box retail stores, and suburbia itself?"

End of suburbia itself?  Say it isn't true!

Kunstler offers little data for his predictions, so I'll offer no data for mine: we give up our SUVs, our sedans, maybe even our airconditioned houses and heat pumps.  But, collapse of civilization?  I doubt it.

Harper's just published an article called "The Cuban Diet" that lays out how Cuban society changed over the past couple of decades, since the collapse of the Soviet Union shut them out of the global economy, and Cubans had to shift to an economy not unlike that which Kunstler describes.

The transition sounds like it was difficult, but what emerged at the other end sounds, at least in some ways, not so bad.

I find it compelling that 70% of Grist readers voted for the "doomsday" scenario in the poll associated with the Kuntsler article. A major factor that, ironically, was not discussed in the interview is the condition we have put the planet in, let alone the fact that cheap oil is on the way out. Over the past 100 years, humans have not only depleted resources, but have done irreparable damage to natural ecosystems that make the earth's closed system operate. A dramatic reduction in the burning of fossil fuels may help mitigate global warming, but some studies and scenarios suggest that we may already be too far down the road toward catastrophic feedback mechanisms that could produce anything from another ice age to even more widespread droughts and wildfires. Religious fanatics secretly throw up their hands and say, "Oh well, Armageddon may be upon us, but if so, it is God's will, there's nothing I can do about it except pray for salvation."  That kind of pervasive mentality, along with the fact that many of us are running out of steam from banging our heads against the wall trying to make real changes in lifestyle and attitudes, is what the Long Journey is really about.

And the sooner it becomes extinct, the better!

Nice ecomagination neoconman talking point you slipped in there.  Hehehey.

Committed activist?  For GE?  

To amazingdrx,

I scrolled your blog page and found lots of intriguing numbers, suggestions and ideas for America's energy future.  My instinct tells me not to reply to your above comment.  But, it might serve you and visitors to your page to reflect on some real numbers.

Wind and solar?  Yes!  Wind and solar replacing coal and backing out nukes?  Wouldn't that be a blessing!  

Truth is, America's housing stock is going horizontal and residential electric demand is going vertical.  Instant and prolonged power blackouts are driving the sale of polluting, on-site diesel generators for backup so integrity of the electric grid is paramount.

Intermittant sources of electric power in a land of two AC interconnects and a DC island (TX, wouldn't you know) make your wind and solar mega-plans impossible.  Fossil backup serves the auxilliary power requirements of any power source accessing the grid.  That is how the lights stay on nearly all of the time. As expensive stand-bys, they add to the cost of wind power.

Now, here is the real gorilla -- growth in electric power demand from 2003 to 2004:

total net gen.  2003 = 3,883,185,000,000 kwhr.

total net gen.  2004 = 3,953,407,000,000 kwhr.

one yr. growth in demand = 94,955,000,000 kwhr (about 2.4% growth rate).

Assuming a 40% availability (high end in real world) of a 1.5 megawatt wind tower, that state of the art turbine would yield 5,256,000 kwhr/yr.

Relying only on wind (and I admit you do not expressly make that proposal) to make up the electric demand growth since 2003 would require the installation of 18,066 wind towers at a cost of $27.1 billion (assuming $1 million/megawatt of installed capacity).

18,066 x 1.5MW 27,099MW x $1MM/MW$27.1 billion

Lots of wind not all the time and, in some cases, blowing in remote or pristine locations.  So, lets get busy and build wind towers where we can.  

For the rest of the grid demand, I suggest we face reality and work with engineers, scientists, nuclear non-proliferation specialists to craft a next-generation nuclear power industry that our children just might have to call upon to maintain their standard of living such as that will be -- given the mess we are leaving them.

I use compact flourescent lamps in my house and turn out lights whenever my family members don't object.  It is tough lifting for me to be so committed to not wasting electricity in a world that thinks I'm an obsessive pain in the neck.  

I enjoy your characaterization of Karl Rove.  We need more of that wherever the opportunity presents itself.  

I am not GE and not a neocon.  And, I am more concerned about abrupt thermohaline circulation change than about the X-thousands of years of nuclear waste storage costs.  Pebble bed reactors deal with the waste problem in a most constructive way.  It needs more enlightened, curious readers.  Look into the pebble bed technology and tell us what you learned.

 Thanks.  John McC

I want to correct my above posting.  The population of Rhode Island is a bit more than a million persons.  National Wildlife Federation may have several million members, though I do not have current information. I meant to type "Sierra Club" when I referred to 'card-carrying environmentalists'.  John McC

I have just finished reading HIGH NOON FOR NATURAL GAS which also presents a scenario in which we have peaked in oil and soon will in natural gas even as the economy builds off shore LNG docks.  The drop-off for natural gas, he says, will be sudden as gas tends to drop sharply when the field is depleting.  He covers the options of natural gas also: coal bed methane, methane hydrate, etc., and still predicts an early demise of the oil/gas based economy.  He also advocated a return to community-based economies.  Well worth a read.  Without the natural gas, there never will be a hydrogen economy on a global scale.

Polite, rational, accurate.

Already have john.  That ceramic coating better be perfect.  Can anyone guarantee it won't crack?

How would one prove it?  Decades of testing?  That maybe too late.

A reactor that uses superheated hydrogen as a cooling element and propellant for the turbine?  No one ever questions that aspect of the design.

One infitesimal leak of that high pressure, superheated gas and its all over, those pebbles will be dust, scattered all over 3 states.

I'm proposing 20 megawatt 1000 foot wind machines located on the high wind regions of the northern midwestern great plains.  

Enough capacity to equal the present generating capacity of the US.  30,000 machines, all connected into an upgraded and extended national power grid, regulated by the government to prevent monopoly manipulation (as happened in California) or power blackouts.  This upgrade is sorely needed.

It would be a project on the scale of the Tennesse Valley Authority or the Hoover Dam projects in the depression era.  A way to get the US manufacturing base back.

You are at the very least playing into the hands of the neo-conservatives backing nuclear power.

A comprehensive plan involving wind, solar, wave and tidal current, biofuel, and plugin hybrid vehicles would be affordable, eliminate imported oil, and revive the US economy providing good jobs for US familes.

Nuclear power is unsafe, way too expensive, and  is another monopoly controlled source of power like oil, coal, and natural gas.

I had seen descriptions of pebble bed designs using ceramic coated fuel, the ceramic was designed to resist the maximum heat that could theoretically be created by the pellets.  This temperature was theoretically fixed since the pebbles automatically kept the fuel at a minimum separation distance.

Graphite is what made Chernobyl happen.  Definitely not a safe idea.  And helium as the coolant/propellant?  That's a new one, I had heard it was to be hydrogen.

This notion of controlling temperature by circulating the pebbles is really frightening.  If any blockage occurs?  Yikes.

What these folks touting next genersation nukes forget is that we already have the leaking, dangerous rad waste from the first generation to deal with.  and all indications are that this will cost arpound a dollar per kwh generated by nukes to dispose of and watch over for 20,000 years or more.

Is the public supposed to trust the nuclear industry again with nothing but faithbased neoconman propaganda?  Or should we demand real proof of this new technology operating safely for decades.

If that is needed, why not just go with renewables...the clean, cost effective, p[roven alternative.  Wind is proven to be 3.5 cents per kwh in the latest installations.

The cost will drop to 500 bucks per kw of generating capacity in the huge 20 megawatt machines.

The actual cost of new nukes, if they could be sited, would be  more like 5000 bucks per kw of generating capacity.

Accurate, rational it was not.

It was classic sophistry of the figures don't lie category...

That phrase "next generation nuclear power" is right out of a talking points memo.

Ask john how much the equivalent in nukes would cost to cover that growth in electric power use.

Try up to 5 times that 27 billion, if and when NIMBY lawsuits could be overcome someday.

Those big wide great plains are waiting for wind machines right now!  No NIMBY because there are hardly any people.

Variability is far less serious when the generating capacity is spread over a large are connected into a grid designed to stabilize the supply.  And when solar, wave and ocean tidal current is added in.

Hydroelectric is the perfect "battery" for wind power, since the water behind a dam can be held up when wind is strong and then released when the wind slows.

But the real permanent solution to energy fluctuation is superconducting energy storage rings.

When we started WW 2 who though that the atom bomb could be byuilt or that huge aircraft carriers would be ready to go to wat, or that the millions of trucks, planes, ships, tanks, bombs...  could be supplied to win that war?

We are in a series of energy/oil wars. The one in Iraq is 300 billion so far, projected to be 500 billion?  We cannot afford to try to win these oil wars this way.

Let US spend that money on a 10 year energy plan instead.  eliminate imported oil in 10 years.  Eliminate reliance on fossil fuel and nulkes a few years after that.  

I always appreciate amazingdrx's anti-nuke comments, but I also oppose destroying the plains or any other natural area with windmills or powerlines.  We need to reduce our consumption of electricity so that it can all be generated locally.  The basic fallacies here are caused by trying to determine how to reduce ecological and environmental destruction in order to provide for selfish luxuries like electricity, instead of trying to determine how to live in harmony with the Earth by using as little electricity as possible and requiring that the sources be from the least harmful technologies.

For a start, no single-family home should be allowed to use more electricity than it generates with its windmill and/or solar collectors.  Business should be forced to drastically reduce their use of electricity (all office buildings must have functioning windows and cannot use air conditioning, all lights off at night except in rooms being cleaned, no lighted advertising, etc.).  If these ideas are not sufficient to reduce consumption so that we don't need extremely harmful sources of power like coal or nukes, we must reduce further until that goal is acheived.

As to John McC's comment that we "face reality" and cause further extreme harm to the Earth by mining and processing uranium, and creating plutonium and nuclear waste that lasts virtually forever, just so that today's children can continue our gluttonous and highly destructive lifestyles:  The reality is that our current lifestyles are nowhere near being sustainable, let alone in harmony with nature, which is what we should really be aiming for.  I suggest that those who oppose drastic reductions in (especially American) consumption face that reality!

"We need to reduce our consumption of electricity so that it can all be generated locally."

That is a great goal, homes that generate all the energy they need, as well as small businesses.  It is achievable with inovative design and building, solar, wind, and biofuel power.

I believe that a home or farm can also generate all the biofuel for family transportation needed too, with extra input of waste products into biofuel equipment if needed.

I think we can get there, I am trying this on a small scale family level.

But to replace the electric power now generated by nukes and fossil fuel that is needed to feed industry and government needs, and to replace imported oil with biofuel plugin hybrids, we will still need a lot of green electric power.

Wind can get it without destruction.  A 50 foot diameter area for the base of these towers and buried generators and transmission lines will not destroy anything.  

These systems leave no waste behind.  when they are obsolete, in say 50 years or so, when better solutions are available, the whole system can be recycled and the land restored to original condition.

But I completely agree with the principle of low impact, low consumption life, humankind living symbiotically with nature.  Relying on homes and buildings that follow organic architecture into a new realm.  The living symbiotic home.

Wright and Fuller showed the way...now we need to apply the illumination they provided.  It's a fantastic challenge and adventure!

Quality of life over quantity of possesions and consumption, those are our family values.  The family of humankind on this living spaceship earth.

Author William Irwin Thompson and Fellows of the Lindisfarne Institute started in 1973 to carry fourth work based on the profound vision of the end of Industrial civilization and the transition to "Planetization". Projections of energy disaster based on the work of Donella Meadows were making a big impact then. Since then, well, anyone who has been alive in the past 10,20 years knows the recent history. There was a lot of optimism at the first United Nations Conference On the Environment in the early 90's. Maybe,we need  a new work to bring added scholarly documentation to
James Kunstlers work, proclaim that profound changes are upon us and recognize it.
My hope is placed in small institutes
Like THE NATURE INSTITUTE, and Julie and Paul Mankiewicz' GAIA INSTITUTE, already
implementing the kinds of creative solutions
and steps in the direction of "Planetization".
Regarding energy: were new biological energy sources ever mentioned? Things such as biological energy cells? And also, I have made "Bioglass" in my kitchen out of gelatin
and glycerin as a sample of "Biodegradable Plastics".I know there are issues & problems to be resolved, but perhaps this could be an
example of the kind of "cottage industry" envisioned, in a rudimentary way now, of course.
Lastly, at the risk of being mis-understood and
placed in the "New Age" box, I propose simple
meditation as an essential element, or at least that the element of an "inner life" be an ingredient. A final thought is that has anyone
proposed tying in the issue of "Reparations"
to Afro-Americans as an essential step for
a transition to a new civilization?

>Without the natural gas, there never will be
>a hydrogen economy on a global scale.

I don't understand.  Surely you are not proposing making hydrogen from methane (natural gas?)  Methane is a clean fuel, it can be produced from biological sources, is easy to transport/store/use, is already distributed via nationwide pipelines, and we already have vehicles that use it.  To change it to hydrogen - a gas that is harder to store, distribute, and use - makes little sense.

I have long held the belief that mankind was adversely affecting their chances of having a healthy, productive lifestyle for the furture generations.  Mr.Kunstler has provided the information that everyone needs to understand the extent of the problem, not just the current political "hot potato".  I am beginning to realize that it will take an educated public and people who are willing to risk a great deal to push communities into taking action that might fly in the face of political folly.  The need for more communities to say "No" to developers of housing developments, and to agrabusinesses offering the moon and delivering mud.  I live in an area of Arizona that is currently under attack by housing developers who are offering riduculous prices for farm land, making huge proifts, and encouraging city and county officials to believe that commutes of 70 to 100 miles is prefectly acceptable for future residents so that no land is set aside in county development planning for the next 10 years for industrial or agricultural growth.  I am trying to work to encourage local residents to refuse to sell farm land to developers, but rather to turn it from cotton and hay to other agricultural products that can be grown organically to renew the land, and open up the local markets for their products.  I would also like to get people to demand that new housing be built with greywater systems, personal wind or solar power systems with grid tie-in as the back-up, and the use of alternative building materials such as strawbale to reduce heating and cooling requirements.  

The reason I am trying to do this?  I beleive that if small communities such as those in my county start setting a line that will not be crossed, start setting living examples of what can be done, and insist that the developers meet the standards set by the communities residents rather than setting their own rules which are forced on residents, we can maybe begin to make a shift towards the sanity that Washington has thrown out the window. If small communities concentrate on the development of economic bases that meet the needs of the communities, such as "green" industries that provide jobs close by, agricultural development that is more organic and healthy, and central retail areas that use alternative building and energy resources,then these communities can establish viable economic models that can be used to sustain arguments in legislative hearings to change rules and policies.  

I agree with Mr. Kunstler that the affects of our dependence on oil will begin to be felt within the next three years.  Not only will the oil related collapse be prolonged, but coupled with the financial disaster looming with the withdrawl of "baby boomer" investments from the financial markets within the next 12 years, the collapse of our economy and the world's economy will lead to a depression unlike anything we have seen in history.  Mr. Kunstler presents a very pessimistic picture of the next 10 or more years, and unfortunately, he is probably right.  We may not be able to stave off this decline, but if we work at creating some regional models now, we may be able to speed up the recovery.  It will not be a paradise, but it can be a healthier, more sane way of living that will benefit everyone.

I have also read with interest several postings by  JohnMcC.  This gentleman has not only presented some very technical information, but also information that makes me wonder if he is perhaps more in touch with the political decisionmakers than most of us.  He has expressed concerns that many people here in Arizona are being forced to look at as we see our population exploding with the influx of California investment money and retirees.  I would hope that his information is being used productively to create solutions for the area in which he lives and to help in the desinging of legislation for his commuity that could become part of the national discussion by setting working viable solutions.

Good luck to us all if we do not heed the words of the "Cassandras" as one person posted.  In mythology, Cassandra was cursed not with false prophecy, but with the gift of true prophecy which no one would believe.  If Mr. Kunstler is a "Cassandra" then maybe we need to pay closer attention and start changing today, because he is speaking the truth.

To djnoll:

I emailed you separately to respond to your welcome comment.  You replied and agreed to share a suggestion to GRIST that it open a page for youth to speak out on issues of environment, energy, climate change and most important and paramount, how they view their future in a world of our making.

The following is an invitation to GRIST contributors to join this appeal to the GRIST folk in the hope they can advertise this opportunity to the youth of America and give them an audience of grownups who are failing to give them the opportunities we have so richly enjoyed.

From John McC
To  djnoll

Thank you for the kind words.

I found your February comment also and thought it best to reply directly and not on the Grist blog.  I must confess, I am skeptical of the real value of blogging.  Earlier attempts to start a valid and accountable discussion of America's energy use and options our children may need to select have generated  some replies not worth reading. I am reluctant to encourage ranters.

Your February comment deserves a reply and with it a suggestion  that might ripple into a substantive Grist discussion others might join because  it does not address our egos; it is about and for our children and  grandchildren.

You have grandchildren and I hope I will one day.  As parents, we  share that unwritten responsibility governing our entire lives -- we must  live and do for our children until they are able to do for themselves.   With that goes the
life list of means and opportunities we want to provide them  and coax, nudge, badger and do whatever it takes to get them to utilize the  values, smarts, and whatever else we can offer them as tools to become healthy,  happy and
loved offspring.  Sounds lyrical but all parents have their own  ways to express what and how we want to give to our children.  

Most of us  struggle to just get them into college and out of trouble; a 24-7 task to which  too many of us devote less time than we should.

That said, I am beginning to see my teen age son as a victim of my generation and not a benefactor.  When I talk with Danko about the world he  is rapidly growing into, it is a challenge to hold back the scary details as I  see them because children need hope as well.  That does not mean he is not  aware of the shrinking future out there for him and his class mates.  He  just doesn't have an avenue to voice how he sees the world around  him (the real world) and the impressions he has about the future.   Schools do not encourage students to
go outside of the test-track and when he  gets together with his buddies, they want to do what I did, play sports and more  sports.

Here is a thought: invite GRIST to open a young people page and encourage youth to describe to us how they see the path we are leading them down.  

I want to end this note here because anything else I can say would be redundant.

If you think this is a worthy proposal, we could post a shared comment and see what is the response.

Peace,

John McC

This is from DJNoll

I agree with you that our children should have a voice in how we continue to move forward on this planet of ours.  I believe that many of our children have lost hope for a better world, and until they have a voice again, and we listen, there will be not renewal of the environmental movement.  Perhaps renewal is the wrong word - I should say regeneration or re-energization.  Our children do need to be invited to the table and I think your idea of a young people's page is fantastic.  Our children have amazing imaginations that can generate ideas so fast that it is absolutely amazing what they may be able to see as ways to improve the future.  I will happily join you in making such a suggestion to GRIST.  If you wish, please attach this e-mail to GRIST, and submit it as a suggestion that is supported by other GRIST readers.

May we all find Peace in the Beauty that surrounds us,  DJNoll