Blog entry

Quote Of The Day: Oil "Just Too Hard To Find"

Bill Scher — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:58:53 -0400

In a story about fluctuating oil prices, The New York Times quotes Carrizo Oil and Gas CEO Chip Johnson:

I can’t see oil getting cheap again ever. It’s just too hard to find, and too many people want to use it.

That's the bottom line. If we want an energy policy to increase supply and lower energy prices, we need to increase renewable supply. Because we have literally gone to the oil well too many times.

What's Missing from the Nuclear Power Debate?

Sara Robinson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 07:59:29 -0400

Ah, you optimistic soul. Did you really think the nuclear power debate died after Three Mile Island brought the reality of its dangers home to insurers, investors and utility companies?

Think again. As both the rhetoric and the reality of global warming heat up in the years ahead, nuclear power is about to rise from the grave like a reanimated zombie. And the bad news is: It looks like we're going to have a harder and harder time escaping some very brain-dead discussion about it.

There's danger here—but it's not what you probably think it is. As the new battle lines are being drawn, we're at serious risk of having the wrong conversation—and, perhaps, fighting the wrong battles as a result. Americans on both sides of the issue are already positioning themselves take up the same positions they abandoned in the early 1990s, with one side presenting the same old technology solutions and the other side countering with the same old arguments. Neither side seems to be even remotely aware of emerging second-generation nuclear technologies, all of which are being developed overseas, that pretty much render every argument on either side absolutely wrong.

Meet Sara Robinson

Sara Robinson will be appearing Saturday evening, July 12, in a panel discussion titled, "Peak Oil and the Media: How Bad Can The News Get?" at the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive in Vancouver, British Columbia. For more information, click here.

This week, I'd like to take a quick look at where nuclear power is headed, and why we might want to keep an open mind about it in the future. That said, I'd like to make a couple of things clear. First, I am in no way suggesting that old-fashioned first-generation nuclear reactors have any place at all in a carbon-free future. We've been there, done that, got the Chernobyl and TMI tee-shirts and the glow-in-the-dark three-eyed frogs. Nobody—not even Wall Street— wants to go back there.

Second, I'm not even convinced personally that second-gen nukes will, in the end, live up to their initial billing. (Few things ever do.) But they are different enough that we need to take them on their own terms. That means keeping our minds open to the new possibilities they might offer. It also means that arguing them down using the same old talking points is only going to make it easy for the industry to portray us as out-of-date and irrational—and probably deservedly so.

So: if we're going to have this conversation again, we need to have it on the basis of the facts as they are in 2008, and not as we recall them being in 1988. Unless you've been paying unusually close attention the past few years, when it comes to the future of nukes, it's quite possible that everything you think you know is wrong.

Not Your Father's Nukes

The game-changing technology is the pebble-bed reactor. They're actually a very old reactor design, predating the rod-based designs that eventually prevailed because Admiral Hyman Rickover chose that design for America's nuclear sub fleet —thus committing the country to what was, even then, a particularly dirty and dangerous form of reactor. But they're on their way back now —especially in South Africa, where PBMR plans to have a fully-operational prototype reactor on line within the next year or two; and China, which is pouring more funding into pebble-bed research than any other nation, and also has its first reactor in the works. Both countries consider PBRs a critical investment in exportable technology for the future.

The "pebbles" in pebble-bed reactors have a core filled with tiny sand-like granules of fissible material. A pea-sized pile of these grains is encased in four layers of specialized ceramics and graphite until the entire unit is the size of a tennis ball. The shell keeps most of the radioactivity inside: you don't want to walk around with a pebble in your backpack, but they can be safely handled by people in standard radioactive hazmat suits. About 360,000 pebbles are stacked up in the reactor core, creating a hot pile. Helium is circulated around the pebbles, conveying the heat to the turbines.

It's a very simple design, and one that offers a multitude of advantages:

Safety: PBRs operate at temperatures of about 1,500 degrees—nothing remotely close to the surface-of-the-sun heat generated by rod-based reactors. If it gets too hot, the reaction stops naturally, with no human intervention. This makes meltdowns impossible.

An early PBR experiment in Germany did result in an atmospheric radiation release in 1988 (which pretty much put an end to that country's research into PBRs). The accident was due to a pebble that got caught and crushed in machinery—a problem that should be fixable in future designs.

Other safety concerns include the lack of a containment building (which allows for air cooling), which could leave the reactor more exposed to terrorism; and possible failures of a pebble's ceramic outer coating, which could allow the inner graphite shell to burn. Again, these are problems that may yield to further research. It should go without saying that PBRs shouldn't be part of our carbon-free energy solution unless problems like these can be definitively resolved.

Expense: Their safety makes PBRs vastly cheaper to build, since they don't require the extreme level of containment and fail-safe equipment of traditional reactors. Furthermore, they're designed to be modular —small enough that an average town can afford to buy a little one, then add another and another over time as demand grows.

Efficiency: One of the strongest criticisms of traditional nukes is that we're likely to run out of uranium not too long after we run out of oil. Current PBRs are many times more efficient at turning radiation into electricity, which means we could stretch the current known 80-year supply for several centuries—or more, as the technology matures and even more efficient reactors are perfected.

Sole-Sourcing Risks: Current PBR designs can run on a variety of fissible materials, including thorium and plutonium. If the supply of one is disrupted, you simply switch to another.

Spent Fuel Handling: PBRs don't solve this problem entirely—the spent fuel still needs to be stored—but it does make it considerably less complicated and dangerous than the nightmare we've already been through. The graphite composite shells are designed to remain intact for a million years, outlasting even plutonium's radioactive lifespan. Transporting the pebbles, while still a dangerous proposition, carries far more manageable risks: even a bad truck or train accident won't contaminate a large area, and it can be far more thoroughly and reliably cleaned up. (The South African facility at Pelindaba can store 80 years of fuel onsite, which means they won't be moving any for a long, long time.) The volume of the shells means that the pebbles take up about the same amount of storage space per watt generated as current systems—but since most of that volume is graphite and ceramics and the overall radioactivity is vastly lower, it's far, far safer for us, and for future generations.

Nobody wants to generate—let alone transport or store—more nuclear waste. But as the threat of climate change looms, the way we weight that equation may change. (Create a few noxious waste storage sites around the globe, or let the whole planet cook? Hmm. Choices, choices....) Having a safer way to move and store the waste doesn't eliminate the hazard, but it may well change the way we reckon the risks.

Weaponization: One serious problem with spent rods is that they can be recycled into fuel for nuclear weapons. But PBR pebbles' greater efficiency means that the fuel is burned more completely—which means there's not much left to weaponize. Furthermore, it's not worth cracking through the heavy shell just to get at that little bit of fuel. As a result, there's no real incentive for countries to go mucking around in each other's spent fuel depots looking for nuclear weapons fuel.

Desalinization: Fifteen hundred degrees is a convenient temperature for distilling very large quantities of seawater—which means PBRs may become a cheap, simple solution for the world's looming potable water crisis. South Africa's PBMR is rumored to have designed systems that use the waste heat generated by the reactor to distill seawater for city taps.

Cooling: Unlike traditional nukes, PBRs are cooled by helium, not water; so there's no hot water discharge that might disrupt ecosystems in neighboring waterways.

You can see why this technology is intriguing enough to merit a fair look.

The Politics of PBRs

Pebble-bed reactors haven't yet entered the American nuclear conversation for a variety of reasons. One is that it's been experimental technology for the past decade, and we're still a good five years from having anything saleable on the world market. Another, of course, money: Our government, plus quite a few corporations, have invested heavily over the decades in first-generation nukes, and aren't ready to abandon those sunk costs to move over to something new. (However, they're not out of the game entirely: Westinghouse and MIT are among the U.S. companies and research institutions that are participating in the South African and Chinese projects; and the Department of Energy has issued a $3 million grant to kick off home-grown PBR research in Idaho.) Another is the intensely nuke-hostile cultural climate of the past 25 years, which has made it harder to generate R&D funds to explore other kinds of nuclear energy.

A couple of weeks ago, I described a scenario in which the United States is eclipsed by another nation—one that emerges to offer the world an energy regime that's more efficient and versatile than oil was. The prospect of a new Chinese empire rising on pebble-bed reactors is one extremely plausible direction this scenario could take. In a 2004 article in Wired, Spencer Reiss notes:

The Future of Nuclear Power, a 2003 study by a blue-ribbon commission headed by former CIA director John Deutch, concludes that by 2050 the PRC could require the equivalent of 200 full-scale nuke plants. A team of Chinese scientists advising the Beijing leadership puts the figure even higher: 300 gigawatts of nuclear output, not much less than the 350 gigawatts produced worldwide today.

Taking the long view, the Chinese are not staking their future on coal and oil. By mid-century, they could well be the world's leader in building and using PBRs. And as I noted in that earlier article, nations that dominate the world's power supply tend to end up dominating the world politically and economically as well.

This is why allowing our nuclear conversation to stay stuck in the '80s is so dangerous. We have a choice: We can re-hash the old arguments based on "facts" that are no longer true; or we can ask our own nuclear industry leaders why they're trying to sell us 60-year-old technology instead of looking ahead more aggressively to see what the next generation of nuclear power might bring us. We can also ask them why they're allowing the Chinese to open such a wide lead in the race to the next energy regime—a lead that may well be decisive in China's eventual emergence as the world's next superpower. At the very least, it makes no sense at all to spend a single dollar building even one more old-style plant when something with so much better potential looms so very near in the future.

As I said: second-generation nuclear power will, no doubt, have problems of its own. (There is no such thing as a free lunch, ever.) Furthermore, there is no question whatsoever that the fastest, best way to cut carbon emissions is by increasing the efficiency of our lifestyles.

But, faced with the increasing likelihood that whatever we do will not in the end be enough, it is wise for us to soberly, critically re-consider the nuclear option. Compared to the old technology, 21st-century nuclear power is such a quantum improvement that it deserves to be explored and discussed on its own terms. And Americans—both environmentalists and nuclear scientists—need to approach that conversation with fresh questions and fresh answers, mindful that those little graphite pebbles may well be the start of a whole new ballgame.

Lame Duck Agency Gifts to Corporate Donors Officially Begin

David Sirota — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:16:57 -0400

Per the reporting I've done for my book and for the New York Times magazine on Western populism and energy politics, check this out this story from the Associated Press. Basically, the Bush Bureau of Land Management looks like it is trying to crush progressives state and local efforts to better regulate oil and gas drilling in the Rocky Mountain West.

This smells like one of those lame-duck, industry gifts that presidents try to give corporate donors on the way out of office - not sure it will work, but the shenanigans have officially started.

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.

Uprising Against Oil & Gas Drilling Intensifies In the West

David Sirota — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:24:38 -0400

ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis archway, which I visited yesterday, may bill itself as the gateway to the West, but the real gateway this election to the West for Democrats could be through oil and gas politics.

A few weeks back, I wrote a New York Times magazine story on the prairie populist backlash to unbridled oil and gas drilling in key swing regions of the Rocky Mountain West that could be decisive in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections. This is a big theme in my book, THE UPRISING.

Today, Democracy Now! has something of a follow-up report, looking more deeply at just how much drilling is going on. Goodman's report coincides with the raucous fight in Colorado to tighten rules regulating oil and gas drilling.

Goodman is a great journalist, and though her show is often ignored in the blogosphere, it is an essential part of the growing progressive media infrastructure (and I differentiate the progressive media infrastructure from the partisan media noise machine). She was kind enough to have me on her show a few weeks back - and this report on the politics of oil and gas is terrific.

Check out Goodman's report - it offers more examples of local conservative constituencies fighting back against the national Republican Party's efforts to turn the Rocky Mountain region into an energy colony. If Democrats stand tall against the right's "drill at all cost" mantra, they could indeed win over a wide swath of independent and GOP voters who know the gas price profiteering crisis we face has nothing to do with a crude oil supply shortage - and that the "drill" mantra is a slogan to help pad oil industry profits.

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.

The Facts on Drilling Slowly Surface

Bill Scher — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:24:50 -0400

After a big PR push to exploit public frustration with high gas prices and open up our coastlines to more oil drilling, the facts on how little drilling can help are starting to surface.

Recall that last week, President George Bush said coastal drilling was part of the "short run" answer to high gas prices. As noted here previously, that is false. The oil would take years to get out the ocean floor and into our cars. More importantly, there is too little oil off the coasts to make a serious dent in the price gas twenty years from now, let alone this year.

And yesterday, White House spokesperson Dana Perino admitted it (via Think Progress).

Asked by the reporter about the logic of trying to lower gas prices today with "oil that can't be gathered for another 10 years," Perino conceded the point:

...there's not a real good short-term answer. And we've been very explicit about that from the beginning...

...So the important thing that we need to do is continue on -- to continue the conservation measures, work on a way to send a signal to the market that we're serious about increasing domestic production here in environmentally sensitive ways, and in addition to that, find ways that we can continually express to the American people not to expect a short-term response. There's not going to be a short-term response, and it would be irresponsible for anybody to suggest there would be.

Apparently, that means President Bush is being "irresponsible." But at least now it's indisputable. The White House acknowledges that lifting the coastal drilling ban will not do anything to lower gas prices "in the short run."

That isn't stopping Sen. John McCain, who today reiterated his support for ending the coastal drilling moratorium off the coast of Santa Barbara -- the site of the infamous 1969 oil spill that enraged the public and forced the passage of a series on environmental protection legislation.

(That cracker McCain campaign staff, always thinking!)

But even at a staged event, McCain couldn't avoid hearing the truth.

McCain was joined for a roundtable discussion by Michael Feeney of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, who lambasted the coastal drilling plan. From MSNBC's First Read:

Feeney ... took issue with McCain's controversial proposal to lift the moratorium on offshore oil exploration: "It makes me nervous to think about those who are proposing to drain America's offshore oil and gas reserves as quickly as possible in the hopes of driving down the price of gasoline, because I think when you look at the good sources of information, were we to open up the California coast or the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, it would be 12, 15, maybe 20 years before those resources came online and got to full productions."

Adding that some research shows that drilling in ANWR would only "reduce our dependence on foreign oil from 70% to 67%," Feeney added, "I'm not sure most Americans would think that's really worth the price of admission."

At least you can't say McCain's events are scripted.

While the facts on the impotent effect of coastal drilling become more known, conservatives pushers of drilling continue to cling to recent polls as a security blanket.

Conservative political consultant Dan Schnur argues at the NY Times Campaign Stops blog that McCain's newfound support for coastal drilling is politically astute because "national voters have adjusted their thinking on oil exploration. A Rasmussen poll released last week showed that two-thirds of Americans want to see the offshore ban rescinded." Newt Gringrich's "American Solutions" blog hyped the same poll last week in support of its dishonestly named "Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less." campaign.

But the Rasmussen poll asked (emphasis added) "In order to reduce the price of gas, should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?"

After being misinformed that drilling would lower the price of gas, it's not surprising that voters would express support.

But what do you think the results would be if an accurate question was offered, such as: should drilling be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states, even though it would NOT lower the price of gas in the next several years?

The mistake that politicians in support of the gas tax holiday made was taking comfort in polls that did not factor in what would happen after all the facts were laid out.

The facts on coastal drilling are coming out. Poll-driven politicians, beware.

Weekend Watchdog Wrap-up

Terrance Heath — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:08:22 -0400

This Sunday was a real head-scratcher for the Watchdog. Depending on how you look a it we 0-for-3, because none of our questions were asked. On the other hand, maybe we 2-for-3, since two of our questions were answered even though they weren't asked.

On ABC's This Week George Stephanopolous turned to Red Markey, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, during the debate about offshore drilling. But instead of asking our question, George asked about exploration and drilling on public lands, giving Markey a chance to pooh-pooh the idea. Ironically, doing so, Markey underscored that exploration comes before drilling, and we don't find oil everywhere we look.

MARKEY: … Let me give you an example. Over half the leases in the Gulf of Mexico are Out in the deep water. We drilled 296 Wells in deep water. Only 21% ended up having any commercially available [oil].

It then fell to economist Jeffrey Sachs to remind the panel that any talk about offshore drilling is really a distraction from the problem Americans are facing today.

SACHS: That's why this is a distraction. It's 10 to 12 years off. A small amount compared to the world balance. … My point is that if we're going to get serious about this we have to do the arithmetic, and the President got us distracted in a useless debate about the offshore, continental shelf. This is a tiny part of the puzzle.

On Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer didn't get around to asking McCain advisor Carly Fiorina our question about whether offshore drilling will really impact gas prices, but Gov. Bill Richardson answered it anyway.

Gov. RICHARDSON: Well, I was energy secretary and I can tell you that every bipartisan administration has opposed offshore drilling for pristine reasons, the ecosystem, but also the fact that you're not going to get any of this oil out offshore for the next 10 years and prices won't go down till the year 2030 according to the Energy Information Agency, which is part of the Department of Energy.

Now, secondly, what we have here is Senator McCain is basically following the policies of George Bush: drill, drill, drill. Now, the oil companies have millions of acres of leases in America and continental US that they need to drill in, but we lead a long-term solution and face the facts, and that is renewable energy, that is fuel conservation, 50 miles per gallon fuel efficiency. We need dramatic efforts to promote conservation, we need dramatic efforts to generate new technology in the areas of solar wind and biomass. The solution is not drill, drill…

Fox News Sunday was the one unquestionable disappointment, since our question to Tom Daschle didnt' get asked or answered. But two out of three ain't bad at all, depending on wheher we're talking questions or answers.

The Week In Blog: Coastal Drilling

Bill Scher — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:27:28 -0400

The latest Bloggingheads.tv installment of The Week In Blog features myself and The Next Right's Jon Henke discussing the Bush-McCain plan to allow oil drilling all across America's coastlines. Check it out below.

One Final Solid For Big Oil

Bill Scher — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:36:37 -0400

If Washington conservatives are worried about the upcoming federal elections, then you can bet Big Oil is worried too.

Sure, at the moment, Senate conservatives can filibuster legislation that would repeal oil subsidies, implement tax policy that prods oil companies to invest in renewable energy and refinery expansion, and crack down on oil speculators.

But with a big shift in Congress, that filibuster firewall may crumble after November.

So the Bush administration appears to be trying lock in whatever goodies it can for Big Oil before it exits, stage far right.

First, a last ditch attempt to exploit high gas prices to make a bogus case for lifting the federal moratorium on coastal drilling.

And today we learn from the New York Times that American and European oil companies are about to get no-bid contracts in Iraq, squeezing out Russian, Chinese and Indian companies that don't have US-based executives bankrolling conservative politicians. And as the Chicago Tribune reports, this initial move towards privatizing Iraqi oil is happening over the opposition of the Iraqi people:

These are service contracts, with Iraqi leaders insisting that they are not privatizing their oil. Yet the agreements, expected to be reached by month's end, certainly place these firms in a position for more influence down the road.

"It's been a long road, but the oil companies seem set to get much of what they have been seeking,'' writes James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum. "The Iraqi public is overwhelmingly opposed to this privatization of Iraqi oil, just like they are overwhelmingly opposed to the so-called security pact with the U.S. What's interesting is that the New York Times noted the historic sweep of Western oil companies in Iraq -- these are the very same companies that controlled all of Iraq's oil 80 years ago."

Secretary of State Condi Rice is insisting that the Bush administration has nothing to do with the deal. Please. Iraq is occupied territory, with a pseudo-democratic government propped up by American troops.

The International Herald Tribune's Daniel Altman (via The Carpetbagger Report) finds the deal "peculiar:"

Imagine. At the precise moment when demand for oil was the highest in history, a recently democratized country with enormous reserves had the chance to sell extraction contracts to the highest bidder. This was a country that desperately needed the revenue to help rebuild its schools, power grid and water supply after a long internal conflict. So why did it hand out the contracts with no auction at all?

As Andrew Kramer writes, Iraq has handed out no-bid contracts to the same companies that used to profit from its oil before Saddam Hussein came to power. They have short-term contracts not only to extract oil but to raise production by half a million barrels a day, or about 20 percent of Iraq’s current output. If the Iraqis do auction off extraction rights once those contracts expire, this may turn out to have been a good idea. But you have to wonder if these were the only oil companies that could have done the job.

But those are the companies that will do the job. Because the contracts will be signed, and the goodies will be delivered, before change can come to Washington.

Did Bush Just Lose Colorado For McCain?

Bill Scher — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:48:05 -0400

Much of the political discussion surrounding the call from President George Bush and Senator John McCain for more coastal drilling centers on Florida, a crucial swing state that has long protected its coastline to keep its tourism industry thriving. With Obama inching ahead in Florida, McCain's new stance carries major political risk.

But Bush's address yesterday may cause a different, inland state to swing: Colorado.

Why? Because Bush called for the exploration of oil shale, specifically citing "the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming."

This is highly controversial in Colorado. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, covering the western area of Colorado that would be affected, editorialized last month against the "shale sham:"

There is no need to accelerate leasing of federal land for commercial oil shale production. The notion that the one-year moratorium on commercial leasing approved by Congress last year is somehow a barrier to commercial development is nonsense. If anything, that moratorium should be extended.

The real barriers to commercial oil shale production are technological, environmental and financial.

The Denver Post editorial board joined in on the criticism this month:

In recent days, some politicians have loudly demanded immediate leasing of massive oil shale reserves in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah as a way to swiftly lower gasoline prices.

The idea is ludicrous, and goes directly against the advice of the very energy companies that are actively researching how to tap the enormous but economically elusive oil shale reserves.

Both papers endorsed Bush for president in 2004, by the way.

The New Republic's Josh Patashnik offers more detail on why the oil shale scheme will go bust:

Unfortunately, the idea ... has a number of other problems. For one thing, nobody really knows to how to do it well: Bob Loucks, a former oil shale production manager, told Environmental Science and Technology that "Despite all the attempts to develop a shale-oil industry in the U.S. over the past 100 years, the fact remains that no proven method exists for efficiently removing the oil from the rock." And whereas oil companies say they can drill for conventional oil in environmentally sensitive areas without disturbing the environment, no one even bothers making that claim when it comes to oil shale development, which by its very nature requires disturbing huge tracts of land. It also produces a fair amount of groundwater pollution--which, if it winds up in the Green River, could contaminate the rest of the Colorado basin. Suffice it to say that there are lots of people in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Diego who would not be pleased.

And then there are greenhouse gases: If you're a fan of regular fossil-fuel carbon emissions, you'll love oil shale.

Bush's speech kicked up the Colorado debate another notch, drawing the attention of area media.

My colleague David Sirota recently published a New York Times Magazine piece on how energy debates in the interior West may be, in a major political shift, hurting Republicans. And it's well known that the Obama campaign plans a maximum effort to turn Colorado blue for the first time since 1992 (when Bill Clinton won with just 40% of the vote.)

McCain apparently has not yet taken a position on oil shale exploration. But it's worth watching how Colorado reacts to Bush's stance, and how McCain reacts to Colorado.

Decline and Fall of America's Energy Empire

Sara Robinson — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:21:49 -0400

The current debate over offshore oil leases has put America's gargantuan energy appetite back on the discussion table this week. I've tried to stay out of it so far for two reasons.

The first is that (here comes the full disclosure) I married into a family that's been making its modest fortune in the oil patches of the American West for over a century, so there's some personal interest at stake here. (The upside: I've got a box seat from which to report on at least some of the festivities.) The second is that as a futurist — trained in America's oil center, Houston, no less — I take a much longer and systemic view of the situation. And that view gives my thinking about our energy future a rather different shape and direction.

For the bigger context on what's happening, we need to think in centuries, not just decades. There's a lot to this view — this article admittedly oversimplifies a lot, and bypasses a few important issues entirely — but that just means there's plenty more to discuss in future posts. For now, some basics.

Energy and Empire

The bottom line is this: All empires are built on vast amounts of energy. And no great empire in history has ever come to power without controlling and dominating the market in whatever the current preferred energy resource was at the time.

University of Toronto futurist Thomas Homer-Dixon lays out the argument in The Upside of Down, which I recommend to anyone seeking to understand the cause-and-effect relationship between energy and economic and political power. He carefully builds the argument that Rome rose on its ability to harness vast amounts of Mediterranean sunshine, turn it into food, and then reliably move that food around the empire to feed vast numbers of soldiers, builders, and horses and thus consolidate its regime. When that system failed, the empire crumbled.

Likewise, the Dutch built their short-lived empire on the ability to supply oil for Europe's lanterns. They were supplanted by England, which was able to supply better, cheaper fuel out of its vast coal resources. British dominance lasted until a rising America turned out to have unimaginable amounts of coal, which allowed it to undercut the British pound as the world's most stable currency — and outperform the UK economically.

And then came oil, which was soon preferred to coal because it proved to be a far more efficient (hence, cleaner and cheaper) and versatile fuel. You could get far more energy output from a smaller unit (coal's comparative inefficiency made it impractical for small vehicles like cars, for example) and with far less effort; and you could turn it into far more different kinds of products -- not just fuel, but plastics, fertilizers, wonder drugs, and much more.

As the world moved toward oil at the beginning of the last century, the UK — eager not to lose out again — made an early bid for the oil fields of Arabia. But North America counted among its original blessings more oil reserves than any other continent on the planet; and that, argues Homer-Dixon, was decisive. Unable to compete, the British Empire faded, and the American Century began.

But controlling the energy taps isn't the whole equation. To build the boon into a full-fledged empire, a country needs to create and export a whole infrastructure, a new and more productive way of life, based on the energy resources they control. The English built the first coal-fired railroads, ignited the Industrial Revolution with coal furnaces and steam power, and built a fleet of great ships that ran on coal oil. These, in turn, powered their global trading network and their military. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain developed a complex and tightly interrelated technological, political, and economic system that established the pound as the global currency standard, and the Brits as lords of everything they touched.

In the 20th century, America repeated the feat. We built oil-fueled cars, power plants, farms and factories; and then exported that technology to client states all over the world. The American dollar, backed by control of both the world's oil and most of the technology that made it useful, became the global currency standard. Powered by oil, we became the richest nation in history — so permeated with the stuff that very few of us can even see the degree to which we're soaking in it, let alone really grasp the fact that almost all of the wealth we have originally flowed out of the ground as crude.

Regime Change Begins At Home

Homer-Dixon also points out another, more sober lesson. It's never happened that an empire that built its wealth on one energy resource also succeeded in dominating the next resource that supplanted it. Human nature being what it is, societies that are deeply invested in the current energy regime tend to fall into denial when that regime comes to its natural end — either because it simply runs out, or because it's superceded by something even more efficient and versatile. People can't believe things won't go on as they always have, or imagine that life could be any different. They shut their eyes to looming trouble, ignore the signs of impending doom, and refuse to make any reasonable plans to navigate the coming changes.

In the meantime, as old system falls apart, someone hungrier and more nimble finds a way to capitalize on a new, more efficient energy resource. And so old empires die, and new ones rise to take their places.

Put it in this perspective, and it becomes obvious that when we talk about running out of oil, we're not just talking about higher prices or low-carbon lifestyles or making an easy transition to something else that America (we like to think) will also dominate. When we fully grasp the foundational role oil played in securing America's wealth and global power, it becomes obvious that when we talk about moving off oil, we're really talking about nothing less than the demise of American power throughout the world, and the end of the American Way of Life as we've known it for generations.

That's serious stuff. But it's the truth that provides the backdrop for everything else that's going on right now. Against this larger process, it's easier to see that the dollar is weakening because our control over the whole oil economy that has supported its value for the past century is in serious trouble — and that we won't be out of financial danger until we can base on the dollar's value on something other than oil. Our political stature is tanking because the world doesn't need to kiss up to us anymore to keep the cars running and the lights on — and it won't rise again until we find something else of equally high value to offer. Our standard of living is falling because it always floated on a sea of oil — and that sea is drying up. Oil prices are high not because of market manipulations and oil company profit-taking (though plenty of oil economists are sure that's part of the story, too); they're high because the whole system is destabilizing, heading for a major tipping point.

There may be brief reprieves, rallies, and respites over the next few years; but over the long haul, we shouldn't assume that "normal" as we've known it will ever be coming back.

Even before 9/11, the Bush Administration has always had a sense of panicked desperation about it — a desperation we've usually attributed to conservative revolutionary zeal, religious fanaticism, or free-market fundamentalism. But it's also plausible to interpret some of this as the desperation of people who were tasked with protecting the American empire by keeping the oil taps open and under control at any cost — and who know, deep in their guts, that time is running out.

The Project for a New American Century's stated strategy for maintaining the American superpower in the face of a rising China was to invade and dominate the Middle East, and thus control China's access to oil for the next several decades. That was the intended long-term payoff of the Iraq War: control the oil, and thus control the world. In their minds, if we have to bankrupt the country, tear up the Constitution, and piss off every other country in the world along the way, it's worth it — since they know we're not worth a damn economically or politically without the oil anyway. Sure, the means are ugly; but according to their view of the ends, there's simply no alternative — and no other possible future worth discussing. They don't care if we hate them now, because they're convinced we'll thank them in 20 years for having the statesmanlike foresight to do what had to be done.

(Blame it on too much time in the oil patch. That toxic elixer of crude and money so easily goes to one's head....)

This perspective also provides some extra context for why locally-based power generation, like on-site or community wind and solar, are political non-starters for energy execs and their government minions. It's obvious that they hate it because they can't take profit from it; but they also know that America's global hegemony depends on keeping the world dependent on energy supplies they control. Since nobody can capture a monopoly on the wind or the sun, there's no way to build the next global empire on them. And therefore, renewables simply aren't very interesting to people whose first priority is geopolitical dominance and stratospheric profit.

The Long View

From this 10,000-foot view, it's easy to interpret the political spats and economic machinations and deal-making and climate debates and regional wars — the whole parade that dominates the news now — as simply opening acts in a long transition that could end up taking most of this century. Unless a) we discover vast new reserves on a globe that's been already explored from pole to pole (unlikely) and b) we come up with dramatic new evidence proving conclusively that climate change isn't a problem after all (even less likely), then the hard fact is: We will be spending the next several decades moving off oil.

It's going to be the most important work of this century. And Americans can either get out in front of this change and come out of it at the century's end with much of their greatness intact — or continue to fight it, and end up as another of history's has-beens.

Meeting this challenge means we're going to have to get very smart, very fast, about a lot of things.

• First, we need to accept that this change is happening, and start having serious conversations about how we're going to handle it. The Bush Administration's denial has already cost us eight valuable years. It's an understatement to say that the longer we avoid the issue, the worse the transition will be.

• Second, we need to stay mindful of the horrific pitfalls. The unimaginable grimness of the worst-case scenarios alone should be enough motivation to get and keep us talking.

Even the most-likely-case scenarios are disturbingly short on sunshine and roses. Historically, energy transitions (involving, as they do, the collapse of vast economic and political systems) have never happened smoothly. Rome fell so hard that it took a thousand years for anything like it to rise again. The stable world order held together by the British coal empire shattered apart in two vast world wars and another dozen colonial revolutions (some of which still aren't resolved decades later). It's not unreasonable to expect similar disruptions as the American oil empire begins to unravel. It's not going to be pretty.

When complex economic systems fail, they almost always fail catastrophically, leaving vast numbers of displaced, disoriented and righteously angry people in their wake. Bad economic and environmental decisions get made. Critical issues are ignored, or abandoned due to lack of resources. If folks get desperate enough for security, it's entirely likely that they'll reorganize into feudal kingdoms or even warlord-run clans, as has already happened in too many Middle Eastern countries in the wake of war. Restoring these lost democracies can take generations. Much of that risk can be averted — but only if we're aware of the potential for trouble, and start figuring out how to deal with it now.

• Third, an important part of that planning will involve taking stock of the carbon-based resources remaining to us, and figure out how to best invest them to smooth the way to the next era. We can use that remaining margin of oil to rebuild walkable cities, construct next-generation energy infrastructure, and install electric transit. We can leverage it to repave the world with agrichar, restoring millions of acres of arable land, creating a vast new carbon sink, and eliminating the need for petroleum-based fertilizers in the bargain. We will still be able to afford to run oil-fueled bulldozers and trucks and ships for a while yet. Let's use them wisely while we can.

• Fourth, "globalization" may take on a whole new meaning, one that's more about global governance than global trade. Executing transition plans necessarily means empowering planet-wide organizations that have the ability to make and enforce the rules. We've already done this on a limited scale in the CFC treaties, international non-proliferation efforts, and so on. But navigating a transition of this magnitude is going to force us to take the whole idea of global government to the next level. (Can't you hear the far right howling about this already?)

Creating these new powers will raise all kinds of hard questions about national sovereignty and the rights of the global collective. In the end, we may revisit the meaning and purpose of government, and perhaps create entirely new forms of government that better balance local needs against global goals.

What's Next?

Over the next decade, some of the most heated political battles of all will be pitched over questions like: Who wins the next round? What new energy regime will rise in place of oil? What countries will take the lead? What price will they exact? What corporations will profit? How do we make sure that the new energy order is more sustainable, just, and humane than the one that's soon to be past?

We can discuss possible answers to those questions in other posts. (This one's already long enough.) In general, I'm keeping an open mind. James Kunstler says that we're looking at the inevitable End Of The World As We Know it — but I see that as an absolute worst-case scenario, and far from the most likely one. The people who say we'll invent our way out of it have a somewhat better claim. We're well aware by now that all technologies come with a cost; but there are also a great many promising ideas already floating around out there, and we've barely started looking. Who knows what we'll find when we get serious about the search?

But the evidence is now overwhelmingly supporting the idea that the Age of Oil — and an American empire built on oil — is coming to an end, and there is no turning back. The small debates we're having today are the opening strains of a change process that most of us probably won't live to see the end of; but the choices we make now will have long-term reverberations down the century as that process unfolds.

And the conservatives who continue to distract us from that reality and commit atrocities in the name of maintaining an unsustainable status quo and "securing our future" are, in fact, setting us up for a decline of historic proportions. The future they want for us is no longer possible — or even desirable. When the century is over, we may not be an empire anymore -- but do have the choice to become a different kind of force for good in the world. The sooner we recognize that the 20th Century is over and that the 21st Century will demand different things of us, the sooner we can get on with remaking ourselves to fit the new era ahead.