ISBN 978-1926837-11-6. "The Impending World Energy Mess - what
it is and what it means to YOU!" written by Robert L Hirsch, Roger H Bezdek and
Robert M Wendling and published by Apogee Prime in 2010. The review copy is a
first edition but is a paperback with dustcover (unusual!). For your money you
get 251 pages boasting Preface, Foreword by James Schlesinger, Introduction,
eighteen chapters, Postscript, References and Index. Those of us who have been
following the peak oil story for a few years (about seven years in the
reviewer's case) will be familiar with the work of this writing team. They were
responsible for a 2005 report for the US Department of Energy called "Peaking of
World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management". In it the team
developed scenarios for crash programs to mitigate the risks arising from peak
oil. They famously concluded that it would take around 20 years to adjust to
peak oil hence we had better start earlier rather than later. Of course nothing
happened. The report was of little interest to the US DOE. They buried it and it
took a subsequent Freedom on Information request for it to emerge in to the
public domain. The report has become a legend in its own lunchtime - so much so
that it has become one of the corner stones of peakist folklore. Between the
work of Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell we had all we needed to launch a
million paranoia's. From it the entire Transition movement was born as well as
Post-Carbon Living.
However, one has to wonder: just how many of us ever read this report or know much about these authors? Well, you can read the 2005 report here. As for the authors, they are all highly qualified and have frequented many Washington think tanks. Given this pedigree you may well come to expect something pretty definitive. However, we have to urge caution; this is a massively disappointing work. It has Washington authority maybe, but it is from a very different planet. Certainly a place unfamiliar to many who see peak oil and climate change as an enormous socio-economic opportunity to create a sustainable future and a better world. To put it mildly, these authors do NOT believe in the better world that you and I may dream of.
Anyone familiar with our book reviews in general, and Post-Carbon Living specifically, will know that we have no time for head-in-the-cloud environmentalists and dreamers. We have read broadly and done our homework. It may only be our humble opinion but we are pretty sure that peak oil is a long term challenge for our entire way of life. However, let us for a second invert our own cosy assumptions and ask ourselves this question: what if right-wing/Republican/GOP/Tea Party believed in peak oil and what if THEY were to write a book about it? This may be a disturbing idea to many but hold on a second - this is more-or-less what you have in this book. One would assume that if you believe in peak oil you believe in natural limits and hence the limits to growth. It is with astonishment to find that there is an alternative point of view that is so tortuous that it requires and Orwellian belief in 2 + 2 = 5. Yes, that's right, this is a peak oil book by climate change deniers.
Now we have been generous and kind to climate change sceptics and deniers in the past. We have reached out to them to try and understand. It is for these reasons that we present our choices in a Realpolitik kind-of-way free of the dreaming spires of environmentalists. It ain't about the birds and the bees anymore - it is about building a sustainable culture. So we have read the books and taken an interest. But, at the end of the day, the denier claims have always been flimsy and ideologically inspired. The work of sceptics is valuable but rarely of such great significance so as to over-turn the vast weight of evidence. However, even to people as open minded us as at Post-Carbon Living we found ourselves gagging at the utter crap the authors of "World Energy Mess" throw at us.
This is not to say that they haven't done their homework. All that time in think-tanks has certainly taught them something. However it looks like these kids grew up in a very sheltered environment. We don't suspect they got out much. This book is for redneck Americans by redneck Americans. Scary. You have to remind yourself that those nice people at the Post-Carbon Institute are Americans just to calm your nerves. In fact the very NEXT book I started to read was by Richard Heinberg - if only to restore my faith in the folks over the pond. So what is it that we have taken such offence by? Well, where to start?! Firstly it is one of the central tenets of peak oil theory that it will impact the entire globalisation project and our very way of life. Our first impression of "World Energy Mess" is that it will be a problem for Americans in their cars.
Hmmm... Well, you can see where that is going. Nowhere. It is one of the first things we tell people about peak oil: a) it isn't about running out of oil and b) it isn't about your darn car. Now, to be fair to the authors of this work they do recognise some of the wider problems but they mention impacts upon farming just ONCE in the entire book (ignoring pages devoted to biofuels). However this is counter-productive and illogical. One can only assume that they subscribe to the George Bush myth of the American way-of-life. It is not up for negotiation hence Americans must never be told that it will end. Even to mention the very idea that they might have to give up cars is so toxic inside the American myth that the Washington think tank posse cannot even mention it. Given this point the authors DO tell American what Peak Oil means to them. And this normally means investing all of their cash in Gold and running to the hills. As we say, a different planet. They don't have a plan and their only constructive suggestions can only lead to the rapid implosion of American culture. If Americans accepted the truth for one second their world would fall apart. The myth is enduring. Thank God that myth is unique to them. When you read THIS book from a European or Asian perspective you are left amazed at how short-sighted it is.
Let us give an example: running vehicles off natural gas or LPG ("liquid petroleum gas" or "autogas"). This is relatively normal in the UK and other European countries. The refueling points are widespread and the market penetration good (largely due to significant tax breaks). However, to read this book, you would be lead to believe that this was a non-starter. It is a non-starter in the USA precisely because they are twenty years behind the rest of the world in energy policy. They have never invested in the use of gas as a motor-vehicle fuel. Hence they have no infrastructure. Which is the very excuse these authors use for dismissing it as a technology. In fact they dismiss all green technologies. They dismiss solar. They dump on wind power. So what do they believe in? Well, they like nuclear and they are open minded about fracking.
One of our favourite quotes from the book is this one about fracking: "New York State imposed restrictions on shale gas drilling over drinking water safety. For these cities, the restrictions amount to a de facto ban on hydraulic fracturing, and environmentalists are seeking a blanket ban on shale gas drilling in all watershed." [Emphasis ours.] Got that? It is OK for people to ban fracking for fear of having their water poisoned but to stop the poisoning of water generally it takes the work of "environmentalists". This can only be true if "environmentalists" are people who like to live and not be poisoned. By that definition we are ALL environmentalists. So you kinda see where these guys are coming from.... They devote an entire chapter (probably the most boring ever) on examining the best way to ration petrol for cars. (Do they get ANYTHING right? Well maybe their view of biofuels and a good chapter on energy return on energy invested (EROEI) lifts this work a little. But very little.)
OK, you want some more examples of the rubbish these guys can write? How about page 20 where wind turbines are dismissed because "Windmills produce electricity, not liquid fuels." D'uh. How could the rest of the World be so stupid so as to invest in wind energy? It is there to grind a bit of corn and look pretty because cars can't run on electricity can they? Well, they can't in the U.S. of A. whose energy policy has been so shortsighted for so long. The authors believe the end of oil will cause severe hardship and this will over ride the "sentiment among environmentalists and people concerned about climate change" (page 131). Wind and other renewable energy solutions cannot be taken seriously because the sun and wind are "intermittent" requiring 100% fossil fuel backup. (This has already been proven to be untrue in countries which already lead the world in renewable energy such as Germany and Denmark.) Although the authors consider joining together multiple renewable systems across wide geographical areas (as per the European plan) they then dismiss this as too difficult on the American continent because American will never agree to it. It is just too difficult a problem to solve - whereas digging up more oil is somehow easier. These things are only a problem in North America. Dear North Americans: the rest of the world is so far ahead of you that you can't see us for dust.
Anyway, a few more words about right-wing dogma. When discussing the management of oil resources the authors praise Saudi Arabia (America's official friends) but pour scorn upon the perceived mismanagement of the Venezuelans (official bad guys). Nuclear proliferation is mentioned in the assessment of nuclear energy. In this assessment North Korea and Iran are the bad guys, India and Pakistan the good guys. There is no mention of terrorism as a threat to nuclear power plants. However in a later section on wind energy the authors (seriously and solemnly) tell us that joining up renewable resources across diverse geographic zones is not possible because terrorists would attack the electricity cables (page 193). Are they serious? Yup. It gets worse. On page 200 the authors tell us that integrating photovoltaics into the grid is "in effect a tax upon all other electrical power users because solar cell power is poaching on the electrical grid that already exists" - yeah, in the same way that other electricity users are poaching more zero-carbon power when I am exporting it to run THEIR air-conditioning systems! Frustrating isn't it?
On page 234 the authors tell us that renewable energy is "insufficient to satisfy our overall energy needs, let alone our liquid fuel needs". They seem to miss the obvious conclusion that the way of life they promote is henceforth about to end... On the same page the authors go onto argue that support for renewable energy is raising the cost of energy for consumers. This ignores the obvious investment argument subsequently used by the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change during July 2011 when wrote an unprecedented Press Release showing that reform of the Electricity market now would eventually save electricity consumers' money in years to come. Hirsch & co have the entire argument upside down and condemn their fellow Americans to even higher prices in future. On page 212 (in the climate change denial chapter) the authors try to tell Americans that any country reducing its carbon footprint could "severely disadvantage their economies and their position international trade". If Americans keep telling themselves that a post-carbon world is a poor one then their economy will fail because they won't keep up. Meanwhile the rest of us are building tomorrow so we can be winners. "Thinking about how the world could change [...] is emotionally and intellectually very difficult." - "...most people's first reaction [..] is one of disbelief and mental shutdown" conclude the authors by page 225. They lack the irony to see that they are talking about their own inability to understand renewable energy and the climate change aspect of the debate.
So if you want
a reasonably up-to-date book on peak oil without the frills then this is the
book for you. It may well be the most recent and most authoritative. However, by
all other measures, this ranks as the worst book about peak oil we have ever
read. And we have read some stinkers. And do you know what the authors' solution
to peak oil is? Guess. Yup. More oil. Drill baby drill! Burn baby burn!! Drill
everywhere for whatever shitty low grade oil you can extract. (The options are
thus; fuel efficient transport, oil sands, coal-to-liquids, enhanced oil
recovery and gas-to-liquids. They discount shale oil, biomass, nuclear, wind,
photovoltaics, electrified railways, a dash-for-gas in electrical generation,
and building heating.) Americans believe that they will need liquid fuels
because they will ALWAYS need to drive SUVs around suburbia and their way of
life is never to be messed with. Minor inconvenient truths like climate change
are swept aside. They may have got it right on bio-fuels but their assessment of
both wind and solar is wrong that it could have been written by the coal lobby.
Oh yes, and they like coal. This book is littered with tired old right-wing
American dogma that it will make you splutter in disbelief. The largest and most
powerful nation on earth may well have been a shining beacon on the hill at one
time but, if this is the best plan their brightest and best can
come up with, then they have lost their way. At time of writing the US had lost
its AAA credit rating and had been downgraded by Standard & Poor to AA+
(August 2011). It says it all.
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