It’s no secret that the planet is struggling with increasing energy prices. A recent book has me thinking differently about where all this is going. James Howard Kunstler, in his book, The Long Emergency, makes a compelling argument that the world has passed the peak of world oil production and that the future of petroleum extraction from the planet (all kinds) is one of declining supply, and increasing difficulty obtaining the oil, over a very short time frame. He points out the amazing evolutionary phenomenon:
that it took about 270 million years to produce and store all that organic material as petroleum. Excellent scientific research (which he extensively documents) shows that world oil discovery peaked in the 1960s and that world oil production has already reached peak. So if it took about 100 years to get to peak, then we’ve got about another 100 years left — right? Well, sort of. The problem is that the removal of oil, coal, and natural gas from here on out is going to get more and more difficult, and involve going places that are more and more dangerous, both environmentally and politically. We’re seeing that already — increased political unrest, and pressure on increasingly remote and dangerous wilderness.
So here is the human population consuming 270 million years worth of energy in about 200 years — no wonder the planet has exploded with development. The Long Emergency is the long and painful adjustment humans will be making as we run out of this unique transportable form of energy. He makes the case that even if we harness every form of alternative energy — it’s nowhere near enough to replace this incredible evolutionary accident of being able to use so much energy in such a short time. And most of the replacement energy sources are not transportable — so things we are used to now — especially air travel — will get impossibly expensive or unavailable. You can’t fly a plane on electricity from a nuclear power plant.
So his well documented thesis is that we will be forced to rely on less travel and more local resources — essentially returning to a local agrarian society, highly dependent on resources near where we live. The likely form of long distance transport would be train travel, because it works with electricity rather than a portable fluid energy source. This thesis has a big impact on how we decide where to live (what will Arizona look like?), and how we organize community resources to provide for ourselves locally.
In 1987, I designed and built a 3000 square foot post and beam passive solar house here in Manchester, Vt. We heated the house and the domestic water with solar energy. The only extra heat source for the house was 2 cords of wood a winter (about $250). It was warm and cozy. No oil, no gas, modest use of electricity (but not for heat). New England can do this — we have the technology. We also have the agricultural base to support ourselves locally, if we preserve it. We have a history of community focused culture — town meeting, local schools, farmer’s market, self sufficiency.
And the connection to the community hospital? Well, it’s another very local and very important resource. If we’re traveling less, we’ll need it more. Our community hospitals must sustain their infrastructure to be there for us. They also will need to be more integrated with a primary care health delivery system that is more robust than we have now as care moves more to the outpatient setting. We have all these elements in our local system.
Read the book, it may change how you make choices about how you use energy, and where you live, and what community resources we invest in to be ready for this inevitable change.