Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World By Richard Heinberg

1. Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon WorldBy Richard Heinberg

2. The End of Cheap Energy The Problem

3. The End of Cheap Energy:Oil • A very cheap and convenient energy source. • Cheaper than bottled water. • Energy source much of our current infrastructure is based upon. • A resource with a finite supply.

4. The End of Cheap Energy:Depletion • The rate of location of new resources is dropping and is under the rate of consumption. • Rate of location of new oil peaked in US in 1930’s. • Rate of location of new oil peaked globally in the 1970’s.

5. The End of Cheap Energy:Dropping Production • United States production peaked in 1960’s. • Global oil production will hit peak soon, with estimates ranging from now to 2016. • As more oil is extracted from a field, it becomes harder to extract additional oil. • Oil and gas production from existing sources is declining at 4%-6% a year.

7. The End of Cheap Energy:Other sources of oil • There are more known sources of energy. • Less efficient. • More difficult to access and develop.

8. The End of Cheap Energy:Global Demand • Global demand for energy and oil is increasing. • China is industrializing rapidly and using increased amounts of oil. • To meet projected 2015 demand, there will be a need to find, develop, and produce a volume of oil equivalent to 8 out of 10 barrels produced today.

9. The End of Cheap Energy:The Energy Plateau • Heinberg’s energy plateau is when oil production has essentially leveled off. This is the period between growth and decline. • The only advances in energy utilization that can be made are in efficiency. • These will not be enough to make a difference.

10. The End of Cheap Energy:Natural Gas • Less polluting hydrocarbon. • Currently used to heat over 50% of homes in the US • Production peaked in 1971 • Production falling

11. The End of Cheap Energy:Uses • Natural gas is used in the manufacture of many fertilizers. • Many power plants have been converted to use natural gas. • Widely used in the extraction of some oils.

12. The End of Cheap Energy:Outlook • US production already declining. • Much more difficult to import than other hydrocarbons. • Argument that even if importation begins in a serious manner, would only extend modern energy economy by a short time.

13. The End of Cheap Energy:Long term economic effects • Our economy is based upon perpetual growth. • For growth, an energy surplus is needed. • Without oil, there will less energy. • Efficiency will not make up the shortfall. • Our economy will by necessity shrink.

14. The End of Cheap Energy:Additional points to consider • National infrastructure based upon limited resource. • Economy based upon a limited source.

15. The End of Cheap Energy:Alternative energy • Will not be able to make up the energy shortfall. • Will provide cushion for expected energy-related crash. • Will not be enough to offset oil. • A direction we need to start moving in.

16. Main Point • “Fossil fuels are the equivalent of a huge inheritance- one that we have spent quickly and none to wisely.” (Heinberg 20) • Current methods of life unsustainable. • Too much resource use. • Too many people.

17. Classroom Interaction • Describe positive methods of reducing per capita energy consumption. • Describe negative methods of reducing per capita energy consumption.

18. Heinberg’s Four Possible Scenarios • Last One Standing • Waiting for a Magic Elixir • Powerdown • Building Lifeboats

19. Last One Standing: The Way of War and Competition • Increased competition for the remaining resources (especially oil and natural gas). • Could possibly lead to the general destruction of human civilization and most of the ecological life support systems of the planet.

20. Last One Standing • Resource scarcity often leads to increased competition: • True for both animals and humans. • The scale of the violence of war increases in tandem with the size of the societies involved and the levels of their technology. • Human prehistory was dominated by wars over resources.

21. Last One Standing • Examples of historic resource-related wars: • King Philip’s War (1675-1676) • Both of the World Wars (1914-1918; 1939-1945) • The Gulf War (1990 – 1991) • The Iraq War (2003 – present)

22. Last One Standing • The Free Market cannot prevent resource wars: • The argument goes that war cannot rationally be used to control resources in a world where everything is for sale. • The global market has not prevented resource wars in the past. • Buyers and sellers enter the marketplace with unequal levels of power. • Today’s market system works to maintain and deepen inequalities of wealth. • Since World War II, wealthy industrial nations learned to dominate global trade through subtle methods.

23. Last One Standing • The Case of Iraq • Heinberg believes it is unlikely that the American and British motives were to simply commandeer Iraq oil outright. • In order to maintain its global dominance, the U.S. needs to be able to ensure stable oil imports at stable prices. • Heinberg also believes that another goal of the Iraq War is to maintain dollar hegemony, considering that OPEC is contemplating switching to Euros. • Thus far the outcome of the war does not appear encouraging for these objectives.

24. Last One Standing • Just When We Need Brilliant Leadership… • Heinberg utilizes fifteen pages to bash on Bush. • “The current administration goes far beyond the levels of corruption and incompetence that Americans have come to expect from their leaders in recent decades.” (page 67) • His main points: Neo-conservatism is dangerous and Americans have been “dumbed down” by television.

25. Last One Standing • Types of Potential Resource Wars • Those between powerful consumer nations and weaker, resource-rich nations. • Civil wars. • Those between consuming nations. • Asymmetrical war, or “terrorism.”

26. Last One Standing • The Path of Least Resistance • Resource wars are likely to be the default scenario if nothing is done to prevent them. • Conflict is the easiest political alternative. • Nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons developments make it all the more scary.

27. Waiting for the Magic Elixir: False Hopes, Wishful Thinking, and Denial • Heinberg offers critique on the commonly proposed alternative sources of energy. • He insists that the real problem is not finding a new source of energy. It is the fact that there are too many people using too many resources

28. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • Unconventional Hydrocarbon Sources • Include tar sands and methane hydrates • Tar sand is a mud-like mixture of sand and clay surrounded by a dense hydrocarbon called bitumen. • Methane hydrates are formed when marine organisms decompose and release methane. This methane becomes trapped on the ocean floor in ice crystals.

29. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • Tar Sands • Quantity of tar sands in the ground is enormous, but the rate of extraction is limited by the fact that the production process is energetically and financially expensive, as well as environmentally disastrous. • Natural gas and fresh water are required to extract the bitumen. The price of natural gas is increasing, as our supplies dwindle. • Tar sands project is “doomed to become increasingly expensive.”

30. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • Methane Hydrates • Extremely plentiful. Could power the world for centuries. • The harvesting however, constitutes “a technical problem of immense proportions.” • It’s difficult to keep the methane from escaping into the atmosphere. (Not to mention it’s a greenhouse gas). • Seabed methane hydrates already represent a serious environmental threat in the context of global warming trends. • Extracting gas hydrates could disrupt seafloor stability leading to massive tsunamis. • Extracting land-based methane hydrates will likely be just as difficult and dangerous.

31. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • High on Hydrogen • Heinberg feels that the idea of a “hydrogen economy” is hype rather than reality. • Arguments against hydrogen: • The physical and chemical properties make it unstable as an energy carrier. • “Technically simple (but politically dicey) improvements to current cars and current environmental rules would be more than 100 times cheaper than a transition to hydrogen when it comes to reducing air pollution.” (page 126) • Hydrogen is not a source of energy, just a way of storing it.

32. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • High on Hydrogen • Arguments against hydrogen continued: • Spending money on hydrogen takes away investment from primary sources such as wind and solar. • Most of the advantages of hydrogen depend on the vaunted efficiency of fuel cells. • The coal and nuclear industries look favorably on hydrogen because the demand for electricity to produce it will inevitably increase. • We need a solution now, not decades from now.

33. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • High on Hydrogen • There may be important niche applications for hydrogen. • Some positive developments have been made: • More efficient ways to make hydrogen from fossil fuels. • A method to harness the sun’s energy and use it to crack water molecules, thereby releasing hydrogen

34. Waiting for the Magic Elixir BMW’s Hydrogen 7 can use gasoline or liquid hydrogen

35. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • Why Even the Perfect Energy Source Will Not Sustain Growth Indefinitely • No single current candidate of energy replacement alternatives could provide the quantity or quality of energy necessary for economic growth. • Heinberg discusses a few other alternative energy sources: • Thermal depolymerization • Tidal system • New types of photovoltaic solar cells • “Free-Energy” machines

36. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • Why Even the Perfect Energy Source Will Not Sustain Growth Indefinitely • Heinberg suggests that we organize an educated, unbiased commission whose “job it is to evaluate all available energy alternatives across a range of transparent criteria.” (page 131). • Heinberg believes that based on the alternative energy sources, there is probably a transition strategy that could “produce as much energy as industrial societies actually need in order to supply the basic necessities of life to their current populations, at least for the next couple of decades.” (page 131-2) • We long ago exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth.

37. Waiting for the Magic Elixir • Why Even the Perfect Energy Source Will Not Sustain Growth Indefinitely • Liebig’s Law: The carrying capacity for any given species is set by the necessity in least supply. • Humans would have a really tough time at managing a fully artificial environment. • “In the end, self-limitation is the only answer that counts, but that is the answer that no one wants to hear.” (page 137).

38. Power Down The Path of Cooperation, Conservation and Sharing

39. Power Down:Sustainability • Unsustainability of industrial societies is due to socioeconomic structures, institutions and processes. • Heinberg suggest that we aim for: • The reduction of resource consumption per industrial output to ¼ its 1970 value. • The reduction of pollution per industrial and agricultural output to ¼ its 1970 value. • Local, self-sustained agriculture • Reduction in the use of chemical fertilizers

40. Power Down:Self-Limitation • Reduction of resource consumption • Modest material goals • Reduction and stabilization of human population • Limitation of industrial and economic growth • Increase the durability and repairability of industrial goods

41. Power Down:Examples of Self Limitation • Kerala, India • Low economic growth and lowest per-capita incomes • Lower birth rate, about 1.7 children per woman • Life expectancy is 10 and 15 years higher for men and women • Lower rates of infant mortality • Does not depend on economic growth and depends much less on overseas trade • More sustainable than Europe or the U. S.

42. Power Down:Examples of Self Limitation • The 1970’s saw an increase in crude oil prices. • Speed limit decreased to 55 miles per hour • More fuel efficient automobiles required • Demand for gasoline decreased for the first time in decades

43. What will happen if we continue our selfish ways? • A Picture of Societal Collapse: • Mayan civilization • Deforestation required for increased food production • Erosion and soil depletion led to decreased crop yields • Wars fought over decreasing resources • Efforts to increase the capacity of environment decreases the long-term capacity

44. Collapse of Industrial Society • Scenario for the collapse of industrial society • Energy shortages • End to global economy as energy for transport declines • Decrease in food production due to energy shortages and soil and water depletion, resulting in global famines • Clean water shortages resulting in a global increase of water-related illnesses • Wars over energy, food and water rights between and within countries • Rising sea levels and increased storm frequency and severity create greater chaos • Society decreases in complexity, reducing back to smaller regions and states, which may also collapse due to the same problems

45. Building Lifeboats: Survival in a Post-Carbon World • Who will survive • Areas without large heating and cooling energy requirements • Lower energy usage • Self-sufficient, locally-based, lifestyle • Personal survival will be dependant on community survival • Cooperation within a community to provide for all members and to prevent further resource wars.

46. Building Lifeboats: Survival in a Post-Carbon World • Survivors must deal with the disappearance of familiar cultural infrastructure • Technology communication networks • Information networks • School systems • Familiar cultural life will degrade • Survivors may become cultureless, having only memories of the past industrial society

47. Building Lifeboats: Survival in a Post-Carbon World • Cultural preservation and the “new monks” • Likened to the monasteries that preserved the Latin language, the classics and Roman technologies following the collapse • Would conserve practical information (food production and preservation, tool use, construction methods, building and operation of renewable energy systems) • Abstract information (human history) • Scientific information (ecosystem function, chemistry, geology, physics, astronomy and geography) • Social information (world religions and arts)

48. Building Lifeboats: Survival in a Post-Carbon World • Cultural Preservation and the “new monks” continued: • A great amount of information cannot be preserved • Electronically stored music and documents will be lost • Books, journals, and magazines printed on acid-bearing paper will disintegrate in a few decades • The sheer mass of information today cannot possibly all be preserved. • “New monks would have to be highly selective.

49. Conclusion • We’ve got too many people and we use too many resources. • “…we anticipate perpetual growth in a finite system.” (132) • If nothing is done civilization as we know it will collapse. • Steps must be taken to mitigate the collapse.

50. Strengths of Heinberg’s Presentation • Wide assemblage of facts. • Analysis of production charts. • Clearly states main points. • Using “fear tactics” attracts attention to the issue.