Alternative Energy And The Pollyanna Principle

By Peter Goodchild
05 December, 2007
Countercurrents.org

The problem of explaining "peak oil" does not hinge on the issue of peak oil as such, but rather on that of "alternative energy." Most people now have some idea of the concept of peak oil, but it tends to be brushed aside in conversation because of the common incantation: "It doesn’t matter if oil runs out, because by then everything will be converted to [whatever] power." Humanity’s faith in what might be called the Pollyanna Principle — everything will work out right in the end — is eternal.

The critical missing information in such a dialogue, of course, is that "alternative energy" will do little to solve the peak-oil problem, although very few people are aware of the fact. The situation might be illustrated by a representative conversation I myself had a few months ago; the discourse might also illustrate the extent to which we are preparing the next generation for the coming decades:

P: There won’t be much gasoline left in a few years from now. Did your mother ever tell you that?

A (age 14): No, but I pretty well figured it out by myself. I guess we’ll be running cars with vegetable oil.

The Pollyanna Principle, after all, is what gets us through the day. Unfortunately, a quick glance through any standard textbook on world history would show that the principle does not apply to the many civilizations that lie buried beneath the sand. But to point at oil-production charts is to mistake a psychological problem for an engineering one: most people do not like to be pushed very far in the direction of the logical.

The main stumbling block, as noted above, is not the fact of the decline in world oil production, but the related fact of the impracticality of alternative energy. Alternative sources of energy do, of course, have certain uses, and they always have had, especially in pre-industrial societies. However, it is not possible to use non-hydrocarbon sources of energy to produce the required annual 400 to 500 quadrillion BTUs, and in a form that can be (1) stored conveniently, (2) pumped into cars, trucks, ships, and airplanes for the purpose of long-distance transportation of goods and people, (3) converted into a thousand everyday products, from asphalt to pharmaceuticals, and (4) used to run factories (which are places for machines that make machines [that make machines etc.]) — and which costs so little that it can be purchased in large quantities on a daily basis by billions of people.

There is also the question of time. The entire conversion of world industry would have to be done virtually overnight. The peak of world oil production was perhaps 2006. The more important date of peak oil production per capita was 1990. There are approximately 1 billion automobiles, and nearly 7 billion people. Throughout the 20th century, food production only barely met global needs, and in the last few years it has not even reached that level. In terms of the amount of time available, the switch from hydrocarbon energy to an alternative form of energy would stretch the bounds of even the most fanciful work of science fiction.

Contemplating the expense will also take us far into the realms of fantasy. At $10,000 per vehicle, replacing the vehicles that are now on the road would cost $10 trillion. The infrastructure — the ongoing manufacture, transportation, maintenance, and repair — would add much greater expense. The existing furnaces and air conditioning in all the world’s buildings would be obsolete. Every machine on the planet would have to be replaced, every factory redesigned. We would have to replace the asphalt on all the world’s motorways by a non-hydrocarbon substance. The money and resources simply do not exist.

It is already too late; the system has been collapsing for years. The concept of retrofitting an entire planet must have the Pharaohs (who built only pyramids) chuckling in their graves. It is perhaps fortunate that there is no politician or business leader who would be willing to initiate such a mad venture.

In actuality, the world of the future will not be crowded. Survival for a few will be possible; survival for a population of billions will not be possible. But very few people have asked the ugly question of exactly how that rapid and dramatic reduction of population is going to take place. Voluntarily?

There are two further problems with trying to educate people on these matters. The first is that any discussion of both peak oil or alternative energy requires a scientific frame of mind: an understanding of empirical research and an ability to follow statistics without being misled. A grasp of basic science is essential in order to get a balanced perspective on the data, and in order to judge between the practical and the impractical.

The second of these further problems is that the concepts of peak oil and alternative energy are extremely complicated. Although it is possible to reduce those two topics to an "ABC" form of 500 words or so, the problem with such a single-page explanation is that much of the vital information would be left out. If the document failed to mention every "and / but / or," the message would almost certainly be lost. If, on the other hand, the document were to be expanded to about 5,000 words, the writer probably lose track of the reader, since the text might exceed the latter’s attention span.

For those who are willing to make an effort to unravel the information, however, there are certainly several documents on alternative energy worth a close look. One of the best of the book-length documents is still John Gever et al., "Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades" (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger, 3rd ed., 1991). A few useful hyperlinks are:
Jay Hanson, "Energetic Limits to Growth"
Walter Youngquist, "Alternative Energy Sources"
Kevin Capp, "The End of Las Vegas"

The "alternative energy" problem can also be illuminated by an examination of similar dialogues on other topics, especially in cases where science clashes with its opposite. A discussion about astrology, for example, might entail hours of exhausting dialogue, to be terminated when the pro-astrology party raises his head, takes a deep breath, and says, "Well, I believe. . . ." A barrier has been reached, beyond which no travel is possible. When communication is in such a poor state, there is often little hope that a reader will go so far as to check citations, bibliographies, or "Further Reading," or even to do something requiring as little labor as clicking on a hyperlink on a Web page. But then the problem of being a teacher is that there is no such thing as retirement.

Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press. He can be reached at petergoodchild@interhop.net.