[lit-ideas] Fossil Fuel Depletion: doomsday
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:44:16 -0700
I watched one of Irene's doom-and-gloom fossil fuel depletion programs on
the History or Discovery channel. Two or three doom-and-gloom authors were
being interviewed while their views were being dramatized. Someone had done
an animation of Saudi Arabia's oil fields being blown up by terrorists for
example. I didn't take any notes and don't recall the authors' names since
a little doom-and-gloom goes a long way with me. Right before I turned it
off they began talking about possible solutions - so I continued watching.
Brazil's ethanol solution was mentioned but one of the authors ruled that
out because the processing was dirty, i.e., not environmentally friendly.
Still, ethanol is being explored. One company or agency is trying to get
the production cost down to $2.00 a gallon. At present they can produce it
for $3.50 a gallon; which could be competitive if the cost of gas keeps
going up.
One of the authors said that fossil fuel will last for about 100 years but
that won't help us because the demand will exceed the supply by 2012. We
need to do something by then. That year, another program recently told us,
is the Mayan date for the end of the world.
The hybrids sound pretty good. Batteries will take you 40 mines before your
gasoline engine will have to kick in. Thus, if you worked only 20 miles
away, you could go back and forth and never have to use any gas, but one of
the authors says that won't really solve the problem because we don't have
enough electricity to charge all those batteries. Wind and solar power
supply only 1% of our need. Nuclear power supplies another 25%. That
leaves 74% to be supplied by coal which is harmful to the environment.
One of the doom-and-gloom authors predicted that war might very well ensue
over competition for the remaining oil. China and India are going to need
more and more and the U.S. isn't going to be willing to take less. Wars
have been fought for lesser reasons than that, the author tells us. The
animators depicted ships, supertankers perhaps, being blown up by airplanes.
One of the authors said we need to find more and more oil just so we can
stay in the same place - and we are finding it. New technology is giving us
access to oil that was inaccessible a few years ago. But this new oil we
are finding won't keep up with demand. Doomsday is coming in 2012.
Shoot, that's only four years away. I'll be 77 and may not have the energy
(so to speak) to handle another doomsday. The first one I remember was when
I was 13. My mother listened to Dr. Clem Davies on the Radio and he
predicted doomsday was a particular Saturday; so before it arrived, I cashed
in my paper-route savings, bought some doomsday-type equipment like a
canteen and a BB gun, made up a sack full of peanut-butter sandwiches and
went out to my fort (made of old 2x4s and cardboard) between the garages and
waited. I talked a buddy into waiting with me. But about dinner time he
got hungry for more than peanut butter and deserted me.
Another doomsday I prepared for occurred in the 60s. It was only a matter
of a few years before we were going to fun out of fossil fuel and I figured
I needed to figure out a way to keep feeding my family. I was already able
to keep our freezer filled with fish, but maybe I needed to expand my
fishing range. No point in buying a boat needing a gas engine since those
wouldn't be around very long; so I bought a sail boat and learned to sail.
I used it as a diving platform. I would sail it out and anchor and then
free-dive for fish. But then time passed. My kids grew up, I got a
divorce. I sold my boat and got a larger one. My wife got sick and
couldn't go sailing. I didn't like sailing by myself; so I sold my other
boat and moved out here to San Jacinto when I retired.
But I get ahead of myself. About 1979 my second wife and I had been married
a couple of years and there was a "gas crunch." Gas became scarce and we,
when we got married, both drove Ford Pintos. Actually I didn't pick the
Pinto out, I hasten to add. My first wife did and I somehow ended up with
it after the divorce, she taking the car I picked out. Anyway, we sold one
of the Pintos and got a very economical motorcycle which got 80 miles to the
gallon. We drove back and forth down between the lanes of the San Diego
Freeway, between the drivers who were not as concerned about Fossil Fuel
Depletion as we were. But then we got tired of riding that uncomfortable
motorcycle and traded it in on one that got only 60 miles to the gallon but
was a bit more comfortable. Eventually for one that got 45 miles to the
gallon. Not too many people thought I was being environmentally friendly
in those days. My fellow workers accused me of having a death wish. The
life of an environmentally friendly engineer is never easy. I drove my
motorcycle until I retired. Now I have a Jeep that is supposed to get 17
miles to the gallon but I don't think it does that well. But that's okay
since I don't drive it back and forth to work. I've only put 23,500 miles
on it since I bought it in 2002. But I can be alarmed again, I suppose.
When my Jeep wears out, if it ever does, I could be talked into a hybrid if
they made one with four wheel drive. I take my Jeep into some rugged areas,
park it, and let my dogs run loose.
Wait a minute, some suspicious doom-and-gloomer will say. Are you saying we
have nothing to worry about? No, Irene. I'm not saying that. We have to
worry. We can't help it. It is our nature to worry about the future. But
some of the "solutions" mentioned in last night's program sounded pretty
good, and we have the technology now. The authors dismissed them because
they were "dirty," that is they were harmful to the environment, but some
people were working on making them less dirty. If we can get batteries to
take us 100 miles, we could use even less oil. If we built a few more
nuclear powerplants, which the authors conceded were not harmful to the
environment we could get all the electricity we needed to keep our
battery-powered cars rolling along. Can we do all that by 2012? Maybe
not, but maybe the Mayans were wrong.
Lawrence Helm
Assuming a posture like Rodin's statue
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