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By Root 1983 0

How much does it cost to return the landscape to something other than a moonscape? How many barrels of oil can be produced per day by gigantic shale-oil operations? We know the vast tar sands of Canada are producing 1.4 million barrels a day--a mere 7% of current U.S. consumption of oil. Given the vast scale of these operations, is it plausible to expect shale oil producing even half of the 19 million barrels of oil the U.S. consumes every day?

The deeper our working knowledge of energy, the easier it to say, "No, it is not" with the confidence of knowledge.

Let us return to the concept of control. Control is an asset in its own category. Let's take energy production as an example.

I cannot control the future production of 100 million gallons of bacteria-derived fuel a day. I can however seek a modestly informed integrated understanding of exactly what is required for algae or bacteria to assemble hydrocarbons biologically, and the inherent difficulties of scaling up such production.

Despite all the glowing hype about hydrocarbon biofuels derived from genetically engineered algae or bacteria, production by these means is currently zero. The deeper one's working knowledge of the exact processes involved, the more daunting the project becomes. Even producing 50,000 gallons of fuel by these means is science fiction at this point, never mind a significant percentage of the 378 million gallons of gasoline the U.S. consumes every day. In 2008, the U.S. consumed 137.80 billion gallons (or 3.28 billion barrels) of gasoline. To breezily declare that a significant percentage of this stupendous quantity can be replaced by biofuels is willful ignorance or propaganda.

It's easy to make claims when working knowledge is essentially zero.

Since we cannot control global production of oil or the magical introduction of substitutes, then what can we control? We certainly control our consumption. An experiential baseline on energy use is to visit a developing country and observe how little energy the average citizen consumes.

Backpacking or car-camping to walk-in campgrounds also offers an experiential baseline. Very modest amounts of energy can make a big difference in "quality of life."

Economists place no financial value on control. Thus if electricity is currently "cheap" then "it makes no sense" to install photovoltaic solar panels because the electricity you buy from the utility is "cheaper."

But since you don't control the price or availability of the utility's electricity, then it might quickly become "expensive" or sporadic or simply unavailable at any price.

Control has great value, but it is difficult to "price."

If the utility crashes or power is rationed or sporadic, then what is the "value" of being able to generate your own power supply, however modest?

Regardless of price or cost, the geothermal system (geo-exchange system) you install to help heat and cool your house is within your control, as is a solar water heating system, photovoltaic cells and a windmill on the lower 40.

As noted earlier in this analysis, the market is ineffective in responding to depletion or permanent disruption. Oil will be "cheap" until it isn't, but due to the fact that markets are always priced on the margins then the price rise will be sudden.

In theory, a substitute will arise or be created, but this is deceptive. There are no substitutes for wild tuna or salmon once these reserves are depleted; farmed fish are not truly equivalent in genetic "wealth" or in "adding value" to a complex ecosystem. They are simulacrum substitutes which markets can falsely label "equivalents."

Oil is uniquely energy-dense and transportable. There is no equivalent, and substitutes are costly half-measures. Liquefying natural gas for transport is inherently costly, transforming shale into liquid fuel is inherently costly, and so on. Drilling 1,000 wells to capture pockets of natural gas is inherently more costly than drilling 10 wells into a supergiant under-pressure oil field.

Thus the vaunted faith that "the market will find or create substitutes" should