― Anaïs Nin
It’s no secret that there is and continues to be a globally mounting fear of an energy crisis. You can hardly open up your newspaper or glance at the tabloid racks without seeing statements like:
“The Oil Shortage - When Will Our Joyride End?”
“Fossil Fuels - How Long Until They Fossilize Us?”
“Peak Oil - The Inevitable Doom of the Oil Industry”
I’m here to propose that none of these veiled threats are realistic. In fact, we do ourselves a disservice to even pay attention to them. Fearmongering publishers and government officials whose pensions depend on pleasing the right crowd would like you to believe that we depend on oil and that we need to subsidize it to keep the planet spinning. Oil companies are too busy counting their stacks of cash to care as long as we keep buying from them. One thing is clear: the market continues to choose oil and fossil fuels as its preferred choice of energy. But how long will that purchasing trend last? More importantly, why are we stuck with oil, when there’s so many other energy sources out there? Has the government struck a deal with oil companies to maintain a crony monopoly?
There are thousands of industries whose business model depends upon fossil fuels to succeed; they are companies whose entire way of operating is wrapped intrinsically around the useful exploitation of that wonderful black gold. Here are just a few examples:
Fossil fuels play a major role in manufacturing since hydrocarbonaceous materials are used to create the majority of plastics in plastics manufacturing. Even more prevalent than their role in producing plastics, though, is their role in the energy industry. Coal, natural gas, and petroleum sources produced 68% of the total electricity in the U.S. in 2012. The rest of the energy was created by renewable energy technologies. Perhaps the only market that eclipses the electricity generation market in its use of fossil fuels is the transportation energy market. In 2012, a whopping 95.4% of the U.S. transportation sector energy usage came from fossil fuels.2
Many detractors of the oil industry paint a picture of oil companies as nothing more than gigantic monopolies, invulnerable to any form of attack or competition from contrary market forces. What if we’ve overlooked some other energy options that are equally plausible, sometimes more so, than oil? What if the biggest competition to the oil giants is US? Not the U.S. per se, but US -- collectively. Individual, private investors owning our labor and our products, and our innovations in such a way that we can create more value for ourselves and others through the production and assimilation of alternative fuels?
It’s only logical, then, that US, the U.S., the collective labor of individual forces centralized in the United States, apply ourselves to our energy problem in productive ways wherein we can benefit as individuals, while also benefiting the nation as a whole. There may be more economically, ecologically, and nationally favorable methods of energy storage, distribution, transportation, and production than oil already available to us than what we are currently using.
Since we are a nation of the people, created by the people, and run for the people, why shouldn’t the people be able to choose their methods of transportation? Is it fair that the people are stuck using technology that is a hundred years old, when there’s so many people who want to advance to better automotive technologies, and energy based technologies?
It’s possible that the forces that shaped, and continue to shape these markets, are crony corruption. Cronyism is the solicitation of government favors from corporations with lots of money to contribute to campaigns, causes, or other means of legislative gain. Politicians can also blackmail companies by writing compromising legislation and forestalling projects that would otherwise benefit a company, or even writing laws that go directly against the specific interests of that company.
If it can be shown that the automobile industry as we know it, the energy industry as we know it, and the power industry as we know it have been shaped by crony corruption, it’s possible to negate, frustrate, even wholly dismantle the stranglehold that oil and fossil fuels have on the economy. That may be the first step in taking action, that is, making ourselves aware of the problem.
First, I’d like to take a look at the problem, as stated by those who are skeptical of the ability of fossil fuel to continue to provide a reliable, global source of energy. I’ll look into how a shortage of available energy in the oil, gas, and fossil fuel industry could affect communities, individuals, industries, and nations as a whole.
Next I’ll assess what I’d like to call “The Failed Hypothesis,” the idea that energy shortages can be effectively mitigated, avoided, and delayed, through government intervention, direct subsidization of alternative industries, or taxation of less desirable industries like oil and gas.
Once I've laid this groundwork, I’d like to explain an optimistically bright and beautiful alternative. The existing energy market is perfectly capable of dealing with any shortages of fossil fuels by making use of existing technology, and even more so once we get to advanced technologies. I’ll explain this using a supply and demand curve, and compare that curve to other industries. The overall demand for energy is high, but relative to the existing supply of energy is proportionately off the charts compared to any other industry. This is why Tesla believed free energy for everyone was inevitable, because even though he wasn’t an economist, he understood intuitively that the earth, the sky, and the universe are literally brimming with energy--so much energy that it’s almost unfathomable. [The trick is directing the energy towards useful work instead of destructive work]
Lastly, I’d like to deal with some of the natural consequences of this inevitable increase in energy and answer the question “Where do we go from here?” with regard to our energy problems.
I'll continue to publish content, as I come up with more answers.
Citations:
1 "U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis." What Is U.S. Electricity Generation by Energy Source? Web. 20 May 2014. <http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3>.
2 "Fossil Fuels Archives - IER. Fossil Fuels - Encyclopedia Entry "IER. Web. 20 May 2014.
<http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/>.
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