Recently I have begun to see a curious wave of interest in peak oil. I have been aware of the coming oil peak for nearly 40 years, beginning in 1966 when I encountered Bucky Fuller; for over 30 years I have kept tabs on the Forrester/Meadows group that was originally sponsored by the Club of Rome. I have been actively sounding the alarm for the past 16 years, beginning with my presentation of Non-Oil, Power-Exporting Communities ("NOPEC") at Solar 1989 in Denver. I have had many setbacks and experienced discouragement when people discounted or dismissed the warnings. So it is surprising when the back to nature community and high roller entrepreneurs from the fringes of the oil industry get together, sandals and suits in the same room.
This talk of peak oil is becoming fashionable, and with it we are seeing a new wave of snake oil vendors emerge. You can tune into promises of liberating solutions ranging from zero-point energy (a perhaps legitimate term to describe observable phenomena but also a deceptive term for con artists promoting perpetual motion by some other name), cold fusion, hydrogen-as-though-it-were-an-energy-source, biodiesel and even nuclear fusion.
Sailing with us on this ship of fools are those who would convert our declining non-conventional oil reserves and coal into cumbustible fuels with the rationale that market forces will dictate what needs to be adjusted; Adam Smith's famous invisible hand will save the economy as conventional oil "production" goes into decline. Unfortunately, in the process, invisible winds stirred by global warming will have very tangible consequences. The economy in New Orleans may be booming but only at the expense of millions who have suffered great loss and taxpayers around the country who are inadvertently sharing in the burden of reconstruction. Somehow it seems unlikely that Adam Smith knew how to incorporate global warming into his calculations of free market economics. Speaking of things invisible, is it possible that Adam Smith's self-proclaimed disciples have some hidden agendas?
Consistent with the theme of rescuing our automotive fleet from dying of thirst by concocting brews of foul liquids at low net energy and high carbon emissions is a convincing argument that solar energy is diffuse, weak, and intermittent -- in all ways ill-suited for serious use. Even if some concede that photovoltaics or windpower might make sense to produce electricity, it is deemed inadequate for meeting the enormous needs of the transportation sector.
Intimidated by this accusation, some members of the renewable energy community have apparently suggested that we sacrifice our planet's soils and fresh water to preserve our freedom (of mobility, that is) with bio-fuels -- sunlight in a bottle. America's non-negotiable life-style can be maintained, even if it means starvation for millions living outside the boundaries of western civilization, as our soils are transformed from food crops to more lucrative fuel crops.
A well-publicized debate continues on the relative energetic merits of biofuels. While Brazil fuels a large portion of its vehicle fleet with alcohol from sugar cane residues, ethanol from corn is deemed energetically impractical for the USA, according to Professor David Pimentel of Cornell and Professor Patzek of UC Berkeley: they claim that more fossil fuel inputs are needed to extract the biomass than the energy recovered in the form of ethanol.
You can see where this is leading. We are being presented with two untenable options, and the public's mind-share has been so usurped by these competing interests that the third and only viable alternative is being considered by only a few lonesome EV die-hards.
The confusion around the allegedly poor energetics surrounding the diffuse nature of renewables is either pure hype or gross misunderstanding. Hydroelectric, windpower and thin-film photovoltaics all rely upon the non-tangible field characteristic of natural fluxes such as the hydrological cycle, wind currents and sunlight. In the bargain, these technologies produce energy with a compatible field quality, namely, electricity.
If there is something invisible in our future, it is not Adam Smith's market forces; it is electricity. Once it is discovered that the incredible energetic yields of PV and windpower match the yields of oil fields from 100 years ago, the bonanza of electric transport will be upon us. In the bargain, we will get pollution-free and congestion-free mobility.
This is not to suggest that liquid fuels can or should be eliminated altogether. (We aren't likely to see electric airplanes anytime soon.) Even if Pimentel and Patzek miss the mark, they are at least pointing in the right direction. Biofuels are energetically inferior to electricity from renewables by at least a factor of 10, and have limited application only where other options do not yet exist.
In this light, solar-produced hydrogen might also have a role, as long as its use is kept in perspective, as an energetically expensive but useful storage medium.
But one thing is for sure. The pure electric vehicle will reappear, possibly in a fixed rail format (PRT), and it will come to dominate transport. Energetically, it is our only option.