Are Technological Solutions to Peak Oil Possible?

October 8th, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

Honda hosted a truly excellent “thought leadership series” this week, “Race Against Time,” on the topic of our diminishing oil supply (especially relative to global demand) and how we can try to deal with this critical topic. Honda representatives asked me to respond if I had more to add to this conversation. I did have some thoughts to add to the conversation after reading the posts. The following is my first response (I am planning to write another one on EcoLocalizer next week). First, though, is a very brief summary of the first five articles.

Kathy McMahon, Psy.D., a licensed psychologist, kicked off the Race Against Time series with a discussion on how to deal with the reality of Peak Oil once it hits you that it is really going to happen (and soon) and that it is going to mean massive societal change (maybe not pleasant).

Chris Martenson followed that up with an excellent piece on how Peak Oil = “Peak Economy.”

The Oil Drum added an in-depth discussion of the fuel challenges and limited opportunities we will be faced with in the coming years.

Michael Kanellos was more hopeful than the others, it seemed, regarding the possibility that electric cars could address fuel concerns, especially if marketed correctly.

And Preston Koerner of Jetson Green got into the ways our buildings — what we use to make our buildings, how we use our buildings, where our buildings are located, and how we power our buildings — influence our oil and fuel supply and how smart solutions can lead us to a brighter future.

These were all good or even great posts, but there are some holes in them I thought I’d delve into here on Cleantechnica.

Are Technological Solutions Really Going to Solve Our Oil and Fuel Problems?

While some of the articles above imply or say outright that technological solutions to Peak Oil will never be able to solve the problem or keep us from massive societal change, others are more hopeful that with technological breakthroughs and smart decisions by humans we can alter our lives but not have to dramatically change them.

A few videos from a post I recently wrote on our sister site, Planetsave, regarding Peak Oil, Peak Coal, Peak Top Soil, etc. delve into this topic in greater detail than any of the articles above.

The takeaway points from them, as far as I can tell, are as follows:

We are not just running into Peak Oil soon. We are running into Peak Coal as well, and much more. Why?
Because exponential growth, as Chris Martenson discussed as well, is not really possible.
While we have many great clean energy solutions being developed, they also rely on finite resources….
So, perhaps we can keep innovating and using our creative abilities to maintain the lifestyles we have become accustomed to, but really this looks highly unlikely.

Here are these three videos:

If You Think There are No Technological Solutions to this Crisis, What are You Doing on a Site about Technology?

This might be the first question that comes to your mind after reading my takeaway points above.

First of all, what is a “solution” and what are the “problems” we’re facing?

We’ve already discussed the problems, right? Sort of. But really, what is the fundamental internal problem for humans? It is that our lifestyles and the way society is organized needs to change, and these changes don’t look appealing to us.

I don’t think there are “solutions” that are absolutely going to say that is not true. But, there are solutions that:

will give us much more time to make that change and to make it more smoothly, and
will perhaps open up new lifestyle and societal organization options for us.

Furthermore, while I said very simply above that innovating our way out of this oil crisis seems “highly unlikely,” I didn’t say, as some of the other authors did, that it would be impossible. I’m not big on making absolute statements like that, especially when it comes to human ingenuity.

Humans have massive unlocked potential, I believe. And while I and many experts on this subject may see no way out of this dilemma, I don’t think there is any point in saying that we can’t try. I love to read and write about amazing technology breakthroughs that no one would have imagined possible ten years ago, let alone 100 or 1000. And while I do think massive lifestyle and societal change is coming, and know that the science behind Peak Oil and other Peaks is strong (and don’t necessarily think massive change would be a bad thing anyway), I don’t really know what lies ahead.

Perhaps we are just in a race against time to solve these Peak Oil and fuel problems, and perhaps that is a race humanity really can win…

Image Credit: madaboutasia via flickr

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Tags: Honda, peak coal, peak oil, Race Against Time, society

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

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Mark

everyone seems to be overlooking the massive amounts of energy just below our feet (geothermal).

I think it’s not really a fuel or energy problem, it’s an energy storage problem.
MrEnergyCzar

I converted my home to a net-zero solar powered home as part of weaning my family off of oil and made some short videos showing people what they can do…. I attached one of them here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHmXhgBhtWk

MrEnergyCzar
darth

We can do a lot to mitigate peak oil even w/o tech breakthroughs.

First, each family can buy 1 electric car (Leaf, Volt, etc) to use for commuting.
Next, 2 person carpools effectively double MPGPP (MPG per person).

So for a 2 wage-earner house, 1 commutes in the Leaf, the other carpools.
Stu

Nope, we’ll lose, and this is why. Lets take conservation. So we all use less, even if it means lower standards of living. The result is, we cut back, that mitigates shortages, then we have plenty, so we increase our population more until we are screwed again. Efficiency, same thing, what you save, someone else will use, someone in china ir india perhaps, or someone that isn’t born yet. Your cut backs make room for more people, or other people to use more. Ramping up renewables will result in more resources going into those and thus less for other things, those resources will peak too. Technological breakthroughs always lead to increased energy consumption either by per capita increases or population increases, or both. It’s just like the family that gets a better income, there stardard of living increases to consume it. We are going to always use up whatever spare energy we have…..spare energy enables growth…and growth uses up the spare energy. So we are screwed…we will keep growing just like the bacteria in a petra dish for as long as we can…..then crash….and knowing it’s going to happen and trying to mitigate it will not change the end result at all.
- http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
  
  @Stu: you might be completely right here. heard these arguments before, and haven’t seen much (i.e. anything) to refute them.
  - Lemac the cameL
    
    In reply to both of you.
    First of all you underestimate the power of technological advances.
    Advances could outstrip demand at anytime. If you look at the increase in demand for residential power in the US for the last 60 years, you will see that it is constantly going down. At some time in the future, we may over produce energy as Vinod Khosla has predicted within ten years.
    I am using less energy now than at anytime in my adult life. I, like most of my friends will never go back to the old inefficient technologies and higher bills.
    There are other wild cards. All out war with izlam that reduces large populations or low cost space transport that changes the whole game.
    There are more scientists and engineers working on these issues than at any time in history.
    In the short term, it’s hard to say. but in the long term, the answers are obvious.
    - http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
      
      @ Lemac the cameL: However, in the long term, these kind of advances may not be possible due to limited supply of key resources.. regarding “If you look at the increase in demand for residential power in the US for the last 60 years, you will see that it is constantly going down.”: the “increase in demand” is going down? meaning there is still increasing demand, but not as much as before?
- http://www.youtube.com/progressiveaudio progressiveaudio
  
  That’s some warped Malthusian porn there. And it’d almost have a point, if exploding populations and renewables peaking (isn’t renewable infinite or almost infinite?) were an actual fact of life. Doomers crack me up.
  - http://www.zacharyshahan.com Zachary Shahan
    
    @progressiveaudio: it’s the materials needed to make the technologies that tap into “renewable” energy that is the problem
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Tom Huggan

It’s really not all that complicated. The answers are out there, but do you really want to know? Allow the peak and the collapse. Hide out with Dr. Strangelove while the starving masses duke it out in 2006 Baghdad all over the world. Let it fall down, let it fall down, let it all fall down. W was working for those who know. Christian America got pulled into a black hole. Programs designed to help people get back on their feet, and be self-supportive, have turned into a multi-generational lifestyle. Without control of the growth of dependent population, there will never be a balance. Sustainability is a dream. It’s the stinky 800 pound gorilla in the room with you.