Peak Oil - Getting Ready for the End of Oil
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This article from the Grand Rapids Press is about peak oil and me, Aaron Wissner. I've noted in red all of the things that are not 100% accurate. Please read my commentary below the article to find the correct information. I "linked up" this article: the links are blue. One thing I've learned is that working with the press is a mixed bag. Remember, red means something is not quite right or could be read in multiple ways.
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Getting Ready for the End of Oil
Grand Rapids Press (circulation 180,000)
Sunday, February 3, 2008
By Nancy Crawley
Where will you be when all the oil is gone?
How will you get your food, heat your home and get to work?
We may not be around when the last drop burns away, but a 37-year-old Wayland Middle School teacher has taken on the task of convincing us to prepare for that day.
His efforts drew the attention of The Wall Street Journal. Last weekend, the paper published a front-page story in which Wissner was the lead example of what it said is a growing movement among Americans who believe in the "peak oil" theory.
That is the idea that the world's oil production is about to peak and then head down toward zero, eventually triggering worldwide economic turmoil.
After the story ran, I called the computer teacher at his home outside Middleville.
Wissner said he encountered the theory and its stark vision of the future about 30 months ago. Since then, he has become a proponent for change.
Listening to him, you realize he is educated and articulate.
But you also wonder whether he is a 21st century version of a counter-culture survivalist or is seeing the future more clearly and -- more painfully -- than the rest of us.
He paints the future as a train wreck that is all but inevitable: Skyrocketing oil prices, hyper inflation, scarce food and fuel, the loss of electricity, banks failing, worthless money and, ultimately, global chaos.
"The only way to respond is to make this area more sustainable," he said.
That means communities that can feed, clothe, house and employ its people independently.
Wissner said he has made changes in his life, so he, his software-engineer wife and their 6-month-old son could live in their rural home less dependent on the global economy.
He insulated windows and doors, stocked up on food, stored cans of water, gasoline and heating fuel, worked on paying off debts and searched for a small used car.
"At our house, we are doing a little more gardening -- tomatoes, lettuce, corn, fruit trees and berry bushes out front. It's kind of fun and reduces food costs.
"We also have a pantry, with probably all the stuff we'd normally buy at a store for a month or two," he said, "so it's not a big deal to me if the price goes up, at least temporarily."
Wissner even began planning to build what he calls " a zero-energy home."
But he also wanted to spread the word.
Countercurrents.org carries several of his essays, including " How Peak Oil Changed My Life" and " Peak Oil and The Vision in the Mirror" -- which is how he believes the Wall Street Journal located him.
He began to attend peak oil conferences around the country, then decided to form Local Future Network and hold his own meetings here.
He got out the word with notices in the local weekly and through the Sierra Club and food groups, he said.
Last month, he drew a standing-room-only crowd of about 60 to a Middleville hall where he showed a film and talked, all documented by the Wall Street Journal.
His next session is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Middleville EMS Building when he will show the film with the not-so-cheery title, "The End of Suburbia, Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream."
He also is shooting for a larger event this spring, a conference he calls "Peak Oil and Climate Change: Paths to Sustainability."
He said he arranged to hold it in the Fine Arts Center at Calvin College May 30 through June 1.
This school teacher's vision of the future is stark -- and certainly not welcome on a wintry Sunday devoted to football watched on big-screen TVs while we await the pizza delivery man and crank up the thermostat.
But you must admit he and other peak oil adherents are asking some uncomfortable questions worth considering.
Will we have an alternative ready when oil starts to run out?
How can we blunt the impact of depleted oil fields?
And will our culture survive in any form we would recognize as ours?
Grand Rapids Press
CLARIFICATIONS from AARON WISSNER
Overall, I think Nancy Crawley did a good job the story for her business column. As a novice at press interviews, I probably stray too much from the talking points: Peak Oil, Variety of Consequences, Impacts of Current Plateau, Things to Do, Local Future Group, and International Conference.
Depending on the reader, this article could seem to overemphasize a belief that the end is nigh. If that were the case, we would have packed up and moved north two years ago, after learning about peak oil. The fact that we are still here, in the same house, driving the same cars, with a new baby, living our daily lives, is proof enough that we think of collapse as one in a range of possibilities.
I think of it as a 1 in 6 chance of such unfortunate economic consequences. This is just my gut feeling probability, based on all that I have learned about peak oil and the economy. One in six because most people understand how likely it is to roll a particular number on a single die. While collapse is not likely to happen, it is certainly possible, and certainly worth thinking about, talking about, and preparing for, even if it never ever actually comes to pass. This is very similar to the preparations that my relatives on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina might make to ensure that a hurricane would not destroy their home or their lives. (2/5 -- Talking on the phone yesterday with a film producer, he suggested a 1% or 10% chance of such badness should be plenty to get everybody ready for action.)
Most of the red words are the ones that might lead a reader to think I'm all "gloom and doom". Most of the solutions for local community education efforts come toward the bottom of the article. (2/5 -- This story was on the front page of the business section, right under a somewhat related story about a man whose business was to do energy saving home improvements.)
Let's take the clarifications in order...
1. that day -- I'm trying to convince people to prepare for both oil plateau and oil decline. I don't think anyone now living will ever see the day when the last drop of oil is pumped from the earth.
2. "peak oil" theory -- Peak oil is no more a theory than is that the sun will "go down" tonight. Oil is a finite, limited, non-renewable, rapidly depleting substance, which is found in the earth, formed in during two or three very brief periods of hyper greenhouse climate, millions of years ago. As with any such substance, it does not go from full production to all gone in one day, rather it increases for a very long time, hits a peak or plateau, and then goes into a very long decline.
3. eventually ... turmoil -- Turmoil? While it is definitely possible (1 in 6 chance), that does not make it sure. For a range of the possibilities, try Richard Heinberg's books "The Party's Over" and PowerDown".
4. counter culture survivalist -- I certainly am not a survivalist; a garden, a few gas cans, and a pantry is no different than millions of others in the U.S.A. alone, and considerably less than your average Mormon. My reasoning is just a bit different for why these things might be important.
5. all but inevitable -- I don't think that a 1 in 6 chance is "all but inevitable". If you had only one roll of the die on the game show to win the prize, would it be "all but inevitable" that you rolled the number?
6. independently -- It isn't about making individuals all independent, or even making communities independent, rather it is getting communities to a point where an oil shock is not going to cause unnecessary suffering, that could have been avoided by a bit of thoughtful planning and action in advance. We are all part of the global economic system, so we can not divorce ourselves from our dependence on oil, but we certainly can reduce it so that as oil becomes too expensive, we can adjust.
7. cans of water -- I double checked on the water. No cans. One 2 1/2 gallon store bought fridge size jug. A single one gallon jug. That's the grand total. One could count the two empty 5-gallon camp water containers, although that really doesn’t seem to be “cans of water”. I wouldn't mind putting up some more water, but I'm more interested in getting one of those fancy, ancient hand pumps for out near the garden. Unfortunately, I think the water is too deep here for that. I'll be looking in to that in the spring.
8. several of his essays -- I've submitted two articles to countercurrents.org, both were published. A nice thing about Counter Currents is that there are interesting thoughts there, and Counter Currents gets picked up by Google News, and the Counter Currents articles often get republished on other web sites, which increases readership.
9. through the Sierra Club -- Sierra Club itself did not participate in getting the word out. Some individuals, who I know to be members of Sierra Club, did forward on my announcement. I do know several Sierrans who are peak oil aware.
10. vision of the future is stark -- "Stark", actually, my vision is one of sustainability, where we all live in balance, harmony, and peace. That is the vision I'm working to make reality. It is the "stark" one in six chance that I hope we can all avoid.
11. starts to run out -- We started to run out of oil when we burned the first drop. The questions are now: how much longer will we be able to cling to this oil production plateau, when will supply begin to decline, how fast will the extraction rate decline, how can we prepare, and how will we respond. For more on oil extraction, read "My Icy Drink" below.
My Icy Drink
I love icy drinks. Slurpee, Slush Puppy, Icee, it doesn't really matter. Artificial fruit flavoring and corn-syrup sweetened goodness mixed in a slush of ice is my vision of the perfect refreshment. And, for a couple years now, I've been thinking it's an interesting analogy for the oil supply.
Imagine a bunch of people going to the amusement park, all buying their icy drinks, at different times, throughout the day. At some point during the day, the "rate of extraction", or how much tasty goodness is tickling the taste buds is going to peak. The consumption began with the first draw on the first drink of the day, and it will end as the last person walks out of the park, attempting to suck up the last rarified bit of the colored tastiness.
Each icy drink, in different sizes, is similar to an oil well, or perhaps an oil field, somewhere in the world. We are now around the peak pleasure moment of the day. While some of the drinks are mostly full, some are sinking quite low and the difficulty of getting a flavorful mouthful is increasing. While the total amount of high-energy molecules passing over our tongues has been about the same for over four years, it may indeed be the case that 98% of all the Icy sales (production finds) have been made. Now, the question is, how will we respond when those magical chemical bonds in the hydrocarbon molecules begin to collectively decline. Will this be a very unhappy afternoon?
...
As you can tell, I still need some assistance in working on this analogy, and it certainly doesn't seem perfect, but this is the type of image that might help people to understand what is going on in our world, and in the world of oil.
RELATED ARTICLES by AARON WISSNER
If you read this entire page, and want to read some more, I invite you to try:
Comments are always always read and appreciated (except for the "ad hominems", of course). No "LiveJournal" account is required. :-) Thanks for reading!
This article from the Grand Rapids Press is about peak oil and me, Aaron Wissner. I've noted in red all of the things that are not 100% accurate. Please read my commentary below the article to find the correct information. I "linked up" this article: the links are blue. One thing I've learned is that working with the press is a mixed bag. Remember, red means something is not quite right or could be read in multiple ways.
...
Getting Ready for the End of Oil
Grand Rapids Press (circulation 180,000)
Sunday, February 3, 2008
By Nancy Crawley
Where will you be when all the oil is gone?
How will you get your food, heat your home and get to work?
We may not be around when the last drop burns away, but a 37-year-old Wayland Middle School teacher has taken on the task of convincing us to prepare for that day.
His efforts drew the attention of The Wall Street Journal. Last weekend, the paper published a front-page story in which Wissner was the lead example of what it said is a growing movement among Americans who believe in the "peak oil" theory.
That is the idea that the world's oil production is about to peak and then head down toward zero, eventually triggering worldwide economic turmoil.
After the story ran, I called the computer teacher at his home outside Middleville.
Wissner said he encountered the theory and its stark vision of the future about 30 months ago. Since then, he has become a proponent for change.
Listening to him, you realize he is educated and articulate.
But you also wonder whether he is a 21st century version of a counter-culture survivalist or is seeing the future more clearly and -- more painfully -- than the rest of us.
He paints the future as a train wreck that is all but inevitable: Skyrocketing oil prices, hyper inflation, scarce food and fuel, the loss of electricity, banks failing, worthless money and, ultimately, global chaos.
"The only way to respond is to make this area more sustainable," he said.
That means communities that can feed, clothe, house and employ its people independently.
Wissner said he has made changes in his life, so he, his software-engineer wife and their 6-month-old son could live in their rural home less dependent on the global economy.
He insulated windows and doors, stocked up on food, stored cans of water, gasoline and heating fuel, worked on paying off debts and searched for a small used car.
"At our house, we are doing a little more gardening -- tomatoes, lettuce, corn, fruit trees and berry bushes out front. It's kind of fun and reduces food costs.
"We also have a pantry, with probably all the stuff we'd normally buy at a store for a month or two," he said, "so it's not a big deal to me if the price goes up, at least temporarily."
Wissner even began planning to build what he calls " a zero-energy home."
But he also wanted to spread the word.
Countercurrents.org carries several of his essays, including " How Peak Oil Changed My Life" and " Peak Oil and The Vision in the Mirror" -- which is how he believes the Wall Street Journal located him.
He began to attend peak oil conferences around the country, then decided to form Local Future Network and hold his own meetings here.
He got out the word with notices in the local weekly and through the Sierra Club and food groups, he said.
Last month, he drew a standing-room-only crowd of about 60 to a Middleville hall where he showed a film and talked, all documented by the Wall Street Journal.
His next session is set for 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Middleville EMS Building when he will show the film with the not-so-cheery title, "The End of Suburbia, Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream."
He also is shooting for a larger event this spring, a conference he calls "Peak Oil and Climate Change: Paths to Sustainability."
He said he arranged to hold it in the Fine Arts Center at Calvin College May 30 through June 1.
This school teacher's vision of the future is stark -- and certainly not welcome on a wintry Sunday devoted to football watched on big-screen TVs while we await the pizza delivery man and crank up the thermostat.
But you must admit he and other peak oil adherents are asking some uncomfortable questions worth considering.
Will we have an alternative ready when oil starts to run out?
How can we blunt the impact of depleted oil fields?
And will our culture survive in any form we would recognize as ours?
Grand Rapids Press
CLARIFICATIONS from AARON WISSNER
Overall, I think Nancy Crawley did a good job the story for her business column. As a novice at press interviews, I probably stray too much from the talking points: Peak Oil, Variety of Consequences, Impacts of Current Plateau, Things to Do, Local Future Group, and International Conference.
Depending on the reader, this article could seem to overemphasize a belief that the end is nigh. If that were the case, we would have packed up and moved north two years ago, after learning about peak oil. The fact that we are still here, in the same house, driving the same cars, with a new baby, living our daily lives, is proof enough that we think of collapse as one in a range of possibilities.
I think of it as a 1 in 6 chance of such unfortunate economic consequences. This is just my gut feeling probability, based on all that I have learned about peak oil and the economy. One in six because most people understand how likely it is to roll a particular number on a single die. While collapse is not likely to happen, it is certainly possible, and certainly worth thinking about, talking about, and preparing for, even if it never ever actually comes to pass. This is very similar to the preparations that my relatives on the Atlantic coast of North Carolina might make to ensure that a hurricane would not destroy their home or their lives. (2/5 -- Talking on the phone yesterday with a film producer, he suggested a 1% or 10% chance of such badness should be plenty to get everybody ready for action.)
Most of the red words are the ones that might lead a reader to think I'm all "gloom and doom". Most of the solutions for local community education efforts come toward the bottom of the article. (2/5 -- This story was on the front page of the business section, right under a somewhat related story about a man whose business was to do energy saving home improvements.)
Let's take the clarifications in order...
1. that day -- I'm trying to convince people to prepare for both oil plateau and oil decline. I don't think anyone now living will ever see the day when the last drop of oil is pumped from the earth.
2. "peak oil" theory -- Peak oil is no more a theory than is that the sun will "go down" tonight. Oil is a finite, limited, non-renewable, rapidly depleting substance, which is found in the earth, formed in during two or three very brief periods of hyper greenhouse climate, millions of years ago. As with any such substance, it does not go from full production to all gone in one day, rather it increases for a very long time, hits a peak or plateau, and then goes into a very long decline.
3. eventually ... turmoil -- Turmoil? While it is definitely possible (1 in 6 chance), that does not make it sure. For a range of the possibilities, try Richard Heinberg's books "The Party's Over" and PowerDown".
4. counter culture survivalist -- I certainly am not a survivalist; a garden, a few gas cans, and a pantry is no different than millions of others in the U.S.A. alone, and considerably less than your average Mormon. My reasoning is just a bit different for why these things might be important.
5. all but inevitable -- I don't think that a 1 in 6 chance is "all but inevitable". If you had only one roll of the die on the game show to win the prize, would it be "all but inevitable" that you rolled the number?
6. independently -- It isn't about making individuals all independent, or even making communities independent, rather it is getting communities to a point where an oil shock is not going to cause unnecessary suffering, that could have been avoided by a bit of thoughtful planning and action in advance. We are all part of the global economic system, so we can not divorce ourselves from our dependence on oil, but we certainly can reduce it so that as oil becomes too expensive, we can adjust.
7. cans of water -- I double checked on the water. No cans. One 2 1/2 gallon store bought fridge size jug. A single one gallon jug. That's the grand total. One could count the two empty 5-gallon camp water containers, although that really doesn’t seem to be “cans of water”. I wouldn't mind putting up some more water, but I'm more interested in getting one of those fancy, ancient hand pumps for out near the garden. Unfortunately, I think the water is too deep here for that. I'll be looking in to that in the spring.
8. several of his essays -- I've submitted two articles to countercurrents.org, both were published. A nice thing about Counter Currents is that there are interesting thoughts there, and Counter Currents gets picked up by Google News, and the Counter Currents articles often get republished on other web sites, which increases readership.
9. through the Sierra Club -- Sierra Club itself did not participate in getting the word out. Some individuals, who I know to be members of Sierra Club, did forward on my announcement. I do know several Sierrans who are peak oil aware.
10. vision of the future is stark -- "Stark", actually, my vision is one of sustainability, where we all live in balance, harmony, and peace. That is the vision I'm working to make reality. It is the "stark" one in six chance that I hope we can all avoid.
11. starts to run out -- We started to run out of oil when we burned the first drop. The questions are now: how much longer will we be able to cling to this oil production plateau, when will supply begin to decline, how fast will the extraction rate decline, how can we prepare, and how will we respond. For more on oil extraction, read "My Icy Drink" below.
My Icy Drink
I love icy drinks. Slurpee, Slush Puppy, Icee, it doesn't really matter. Artificial fruit flavoring and corn-syrup sweetened goodness mixed in a slush of ice is my vision of the perfect refreshment. And, for a couple years now, I've been thinking it's an interesting analogy for the oil supply.
Imagine a bunch of people going to the amusement park, all buying their icy drinks, at different times, throughout the day. At some point during the day, the "rate of extraction", or how much tasty goodness is tickling the taste buds is going to peak. The consumption began with the first draw on the first drink of the day, and it will end as the last person walks out of the park, attempting to suck up the last rarified bit of the colored tastiness.
Each icy drink, in different sizes, is similar to an oil well, or perhaps an oil field, somewhere in the world. We are now around the peak pleasure moment of the day. While some of the drinks are mostly full, some are sinking quite low and the difficulty of getting a flavorful mouthful is increasing. While the total amount of high-energy molecules passing over our tongues has been about the same for over four years, it may indeed be the case that 98% of all the Icy sales (production finds) have been made. Now, the question is, how will we respond when those magical chemical bonds in the hydrocarbon molecules begin to collectively decline. Will this be a very unhappy afternoon?
...
As you can tell, I still need some assistance in working on this analogy, and it certainly doesn't seem perfect, but this is the type of image that might help people to understand what is going on in our world, and in the world of oil.
RELATED ARTICLES by AARON WISSNER
If you read this entire page, and want to read some more, I invite you to try:
- Excellent Peak Oil Videos - By myself and others.
- Preparing for the Worst Oil Shock - Wall Street Jounal front page plus Analysis
- How Peak Oil Changed My Life - Written in prep for the Wall Street Journal visit
- Peak Oil and the Vision in the Mirror - My favorite deep reflection on the future.
- Mr. Peak Oil Aaron Wissner - A tongue-in-cheek look at my peak oil efforts.
- Value System: Gas Prices, Money, Peak Oil and the Future - The whole shebang, including all of my articles, with all of the nitty gritty technical detail that both right-brained and left-brained folks might enjoy.
Comments are always always read and appreciated (except for the "ad hominems", of course). No "LiveJournal" account is required. :-) Thanks for reading!