Points of departure

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Figure. Optical illusion of simultaneous expansion and contraction.


The Swedish blogger Ylven recently wrote a text [in Swedish] about how clueless people are when she tries to explain what peak oil is, even though she leaves plenty of (grim) hints about what it will mean. Either people do not understand the problem at all, or they understand the problem but believe that "everything will be fine". Maybe they have eaten too many Chinese fortune cookies, because, as you may know, such cookies contain only positive messages. When I had some guests over earlier this spring, I told my guests that on my fortune cookie the surprising message was "Oil will peak and you will starve" (everyone in this particular company understood the joke). Looking at my joke in a different light, you may find the seeds of both a public educational campaign as well as a business idea which I gladly share with you - "Peak Fortune Cookies" - with messages such as "Oil will peak and your car will run out of gas", "Oil will peak and you will eat turnip and bark bread", "Oil will peak and you will lose your job", or why not "Oil will peak and you will be drafted to fight a resource war"?

I’m a university teacher and by now I have been able to sneak in some peak oil information as background to other things I talk about a couple of times. The reaction I get from the audience is usually the same as Ylven gets even though I have a "captive audience" who can not immediately stand up and leave the room. Based on a couple of these experiences, I have had to think long and hard about some of the starting points I have personally come to take for granted, and I now emphasize these in my talks in order to increase the likelihood of my point to be understood by the audience. These starting points are assumptions that I have incorporated into my own world view and also arguments that might persuade others. These assumptions are interrelated and they form a logical chain that is easy to follow but hard(er) to refute:

1 Peak oil is now. And if not exactly now, then at least very soon. But already today’s "normal" oil price is many times higher than the price a decade ago, and no one believes that the long-term trend will be broken and that the price will go down in the future. It is difficult today to imagine how we could increase oil production significantly over a longer period of time. Instead, we need to run faster and faster and chase harder- and-harder-to-find oil just to manage to remain in the same place (see the red queen). This claim can be backed up by tables and graphs.

2 Peak Oil is a predicament, not a problem. A problem can be solved, but a predicament has to be handled or countered by adopting better or worse strategies. A predicament can not once and for all be "solved" or "overcome". The fact that we will all die one day is an example of a predicament. You may extend or shorten your life (for example by eating healthy food and exercising or by smoking and taking risks in traffic), but in the end it makes no difference, for you will in any case die. You can not cheat the Reaper; he is standing somewhere, waiting to take you into his arms for the final embrace.

3 Peak oil = peak energy. Oil accounts for around 37% of global energy use and up to 95% of all transport depends on oil. When oil becomes (more) expensive it will become expensive to transport goods (globalization stops) and to transport people (travelling will become prohibitively expensive). No single type of energy and no combination of energy sources may cover up for the steady shortfall in oil production by a few percent per year. In addition, we have already picked "the lowest hanging fruit" also with regards to coal and gas, which together with oil constitute 85% of the global energy production. Furthermore and as the icing on the cake, it is said that there are some problems nowadays having to do with the climate as a result of us burning up all those non-renewable fossil fuels...

4 Peak Oil = Peak Economy. There is a strong correlation between energy consumption and economic growth. We can for sure hope for "decoupling" - to be able to have continued economic growth while maintaining or even reducing energy use - but no country has ever managed this Indian rope trick and that does not bode well. Maybe we are high on energy, listening a little to closely to the voice of intoxication, but it will unfortunately all too soon be replaced by a massive hangover.

The second point (above) is by the way an argument with unmatched know-it-all qualities. If you first explain what a predicament is by using death as an example, you may then easily move on and explain why Peak Gold (which occurred a decade ago) is a good example of a finite-resource predicament. As for the mining of gold, for each year you get less gold for the money (the investments) - from 12 grams of gold per metric ton of ore in 1950 to 3 grams of gold today. Gold is a good example of why the production of all non-renewable resources will always ultimately reach a peak and then begin to fall and/or why we have to run faster for each year to remain on the same spot (mine more ore to get the same amount of gold).

With this groundwork in place, any further objections to any of the arguments above may be rejected with a claim that the person objecting is suffering from denial and is trying to convert a Peak Oil predicament into a problem that may be fairly easily solved (with new technologies - electric vehicles, new energy sources - wind or nuclear power, redressing economic inequalities in the world or in a specific country, by mobilizing unparallelled political will, global agreements or some other miracle cure).

In any case, at around this point I usually stop bringing forward relatively cocksure claims (which if necessary may be backed up), and instead take a more humble stance. This is also where it starts to get really interesting when I further claim that:

5 The future will bring "disruptive" changes. (From Peak Fortune Cookies: "Oil will peak and you will face disruptive changes"). We will face many and big changes in the coming decades, but when haven't we in the previous decades? But the big point here is that the "direction" of these changes will be changed: Peak oil implies Big Changes. But not changes within the framework of the current system, but changes of the framework itself. Obama trump card was "change" ("Change We Can Believe In"). In the election campaign, “change” was a call full of promises, something to hope for and believe in. Unfortunately, the changes that await us will hardly be welcomed by anyone.

I imagine that somewhere during the coming decade (2010-2020), or at the latest in the decade thereafter, we will experience a shift from an expanding system (increasing amount of energy, more natural resources being exploited, increasing global population, more wealth, better welfare, people's expectations about the future being bright and so on) to a system in a state of contraction and shrinking.

We have lived with an expanding system for a few hundred years and all our economic and political structures (as well as our expectations for the future) are therefore adapted to a world of More, Better, Bigger, Faster, More Advanced, Newer, Cheaper and Two-For-The-Price-Of-One. The political challenges of distributing the material surplus of a growing cake is of course a breeze compared to the political challenges of distributing the cutbacks and austerity measures of a shrinking cake. This spring's riots in Greece has given us a foretaste of the problems we are facing. The change from the former (an expanding system) to the latter (a contracting system) will thus be "difficult". As you understand, this is a gross understatement, since (all) our current structures are ill-suited to manage this new reality.

If I allow myself to be a little bit pessimistic, I can not exclude the possibility that all of our current political structures (including a democratic government and perhaps the nation-state itself) will appear to be dysfunctional and break down as they are shown to be unable to cope with the problems we will face in the coming decades. Think of "failed states" such as Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Congo, Afghanistan etc. These are places where the state has withdrawn from many of its commitments (healthcare, education, police and judiciary, infrastructure, etc.) and where small groups/clans /regions must cope as best they can and not seldom in competition with other groups/clans/regions.

This is by all means a speculative worst-case scenario, but I in any case feel very certain about my claim that we will experience disruptive changes where the direction of the changes and societal "development" (or rather, degradation) will break off from what we and our parents have become accustomed to regard as normal (expansion and better times just around the corner).

To specify exactly what this will mean - what will happen, in what order and on what timescale - is of course an infinitely harder task. Despite the difficulties, it is these issues that interest me the most, rather than issues about production volumes and the exact time and date of peak oil, i.e. issues that Kjell Aleklett’s research group in Uppsala is mainly dealing with. What captures my interest is not "When will peak oil happen?" but rather "What happens next?". And although specific predictions are difficult or impossible to make, broad development lines are at least possible to comment or speculate on.

Some of my earlier texts have dealt with such questions about what might happen when energy becomes more expensive, for example "Energy free of charge", "Transportation free of charge" and “Death of Rationalization”.

I have some semi-developed ideas related to the text above, and I might concretize them in a follow-up to this post.
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"Is Eco Ok?" (Formas Fokuserar 2003)

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The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (Formas) publishes “Formas Fokuserar” (“Formas Focuses”) - a series of paperback books where Swedish researchers have their say and write short, simple texts on current issues. The book "Is Eco Ok? On organic farming in Sweden" (2003) was the first book, and by now Formas has published some 15 books in the series. The books are usually a few hundred pages long, but this particular book is very neat (smaller in size than a pocket book) and thin (115 pages). Nevertheless, the book contains no less than 13 texts by 18 different authors. Most of the authors have connections to (different departments at) the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU).

Although the book is aimed towards an interested general public, parts of the contents was quite unfamiliar to me, and I learned a few new things when I read the book: "Manure is composed of feces, urine, bedding straw, feed residues and water. Depending on consistency, manure is classified as liquid, semi-liquid, solid or deep litter."

I have previously written [in Swedish] about other books that deal with agriculture's dependency on oil. In this book, however, energy and oil plays a subordinate role and you have to figure out the connection yourself since none of the authors have (or barely even mention) such a perspective. Instead, the starting point of the book, as formulated in the introduction, is that "Scientists do not agree on which type of cultivation is best for human health and the environment - conventional or organic. What do they really know about the differences? That is the question this book wants to answer."

Although the book is seven years old, a debate flared up in Sweden recently pertaining to the book’s main question; which kind of agriculture is best - conventional or organic? Marit Paulsson (Swedish member of the European Parliament and mainly involved in agricultural politics) published a new book where she claimed that conventional agriculture is our only hope if we want to grow enough food for all of mankind. "Yields are lower in organic farming. The surface of the earth is not big enough to grow organic food for everyone, therefore it is not a sustainable global solution. It is more important to find pesticides that are better than the ones used today."

A week later, DN (the largest morning newspaper in Sweden) published a longer article where both critics and proponents of organic food stated their claims. The claim that organic food has smaller yields and is therefore a problem from a global perspective is only partly true. The biggest problem during the past few decades is not that there is not enough food on Earth, but that the poorest people don't have enough buying power to compete for the food that is produced.

For us living in the rich countries food has never been cheaper - we have never spent such a small fraction of our income (around 10%) on buying food as we do today. The problem is that there are no incentives to grow food for paupers who can not pay for themselves, and that we in the richer countries are not prepared to spend a whole lot of money on buying and giving away food to the poor. If the 25% poorest people on earth (living on $1.50 per day or less) were ten times richer, we would automatically (due to market mechanisms) grow more food and less bio-fuels for cars. In addition, we would grow more crops for humans and less crops for animals (meat production is inefficient). And we would throw away less food. I see hunger today more as an effect of the uneven distribution of wealth, than as a matter of an absolute and inevitable global food deficit.

The arguments for or against, and the differences between the two types of cultivation (organic and conventional) are various and multidimensional. Consequently, there are often uncertainties about the results of different studies, and there is room for different players (who have different ideological and economic interests to defend) to interpret the findings in different ways. The issue is further complicated by the fact that there may be larger differences within one type of cultivation than between the two types, depending on for example agricultural intensity, the lay of the land (landscape) and the farmer’s attitude to biodiversity. But let us start from the beginning and go through the dividing lines.

Conventional agriculture uses inorganic fertilizers and chemical pesticides. Organic agriculture instead uses alternative methods and stresses the need to harness natural processes. Organic farming in Sweden is today largely equivalent to KRAV-certified food. KRAV is an acronym for the Swedish Association for Alternative Cultivation, an organization that was founded in 1985. KRAV establishes minimum requirements that must be fulfilled for certification, and inspects the production at all KRAV farms at least once a year. Farmers may follow KRAV rules by personal conviction and/or for economic reasons.

As for fertilizers (which provides nutrients to the soil), conventional farming uses inorganic fertilizers and organic farming uses manure (animal poop :-). Neither is good in too large quantities, and since manure is a 'live' product, it is more difficult to dose.

Previously, crops and livestock were integrated on the farm and nutrients circulated naturally between them. Now the animals disappear from the mid-Swedish farms and areas for grazing are there replaced by grain production. The grain is then transported to the southern parts of Sweden where the animals are nowadays located. In order to compensate for the absence of animals in mid-Sweden, farmers have to add inorganic fertilizers. In southern Sweden, the number of farms is decreasing, but the number of animals on the remaining farms is increasing. There, large amounts of manure tends to become a waste product rather than an asset.

There is simply no incentive to take care of manure in conventional farming since inorganic fertilizer is used instead. One weakness is that excessive use of inorganic fertilizers is based on the undeniably doubtful assumption that there will always be cheap phosphorus and cheap natural gas available to produce these fertilizers in the future.

The second difference between conventional and organic farming has to do with the use of pesticides. In the old days, weeds and pests were kept under control by letting different plant species follow each other (crop rotation). These methods have been replaced by a more one-sided, high-yielding and economically profitable agriculture. You can now grow the same crops for many years in a row and solve the resulting problems (weeds and pests) by using chemical pesticides. During the first half of the 20th century, weeds were removed by hand. With the help of large mechanized farm machinery, it is now possible to fight weeds and pests at 10 kilometers per hour and 12 meters wide at a time.

Unfortunately chemical pesticides used in agriculture contain at least 140 different substances. They are sprayed directly on crops which are used as food for humans or to feed animals, and pesticides are actually poisons whose purpose is to harm living organisms. Traces of pesticides are found in the food we eat and in the water we drink, but in small quantities and below legal limits. However, little is known about possible long term effects and about the interactions between different substances. There is no evidence that the substances we use today have long-term health effects on humans, but some pesticides are persistent and could cause long-term problems which in the worst case takes a lifetime to make themselves known. Something we can be quite certain of is that pesticides have indirect effects that are quite unfavorable:

"pesticides have led to changes in flora and fauna of the agricultural landscape and is one of the reasons why biodiversity is reduced. [...] Food availability in the form of insects, spiders and weeds is reduced. This has caused bird life to decline greatly since the 1970's. An important aspect of plant protection is that the pest's natural enemies are disfavored by the chemical substances, which in turn may lead to an increased need for pesticides. "

Biological diversity may in this context be viewed as an insurance. If the environment and the climate changes, species which do not seem important today may prove to be so tomorrow. Historically, agriculture has led to increased biodiversity. However, during the past 60 years, with agriculture developing towards more specialized and large-scale farms, biodiversity has instead decreased. Biodiversity benefits from that which characterizes organic and conventional agriculture - the absence of pesticides, grazing animals that add organic manure to the ground, crop rotation, micro-climates/small habitats in the landscape etc.

Large-scale farming has also reduced the genetic diversity of cultivated crops and animals in recent decades. Globalized breeding and processing of crops is accelerating this trend and threatens to replace the more local varieties with high yielding animals and genetically modified crops (GMOs). By optimizing on a single factor - such as economic efficiency – one must always sacrifice on other factors - such as biological efficiency. Reduced genetic variation and larger production units makes the food system more vulnerable, for example by increasing the risk that a disease will have a huge impact on the global food production system.

The equivalent of pesticides for animals is the routine deworming with chemical substances that is used in conventional agriculture. Organic farming has not been able to develop alternative methods that achieves the same result, although farmers in the old days knew quite a lot about how to limit the impact of parasites.

In addition to the keywords environment and health (both for animals and consumers), questions about food and agriculture seem to revolve less around facts about specific sub-issues than around perceptions of the whole. An example is the fact that consumer perceptions are not always consistent with what is actually best for the animals. We navigate a wide range of perceptions and forces encompassing ideology, ethics, lifestyles, environment and profitability, and we judge things based on ideological, utopian, scientific and pragmatic ideas.

A perspective that is sparsely represented in this book is the question of how sustainable current agricultural practices are based on their dependence on oil. A very good (50 minutes long) documentary from the BBC, "A farm for the future", is all about this. The book mentions in a few places that a lot of fossil energy is needed to produce inorganic fertilizers and that organic farming uses less energy than conventional farming. These facts are not emphasized though since the knowledge of a near-term peak in global oil productions and an understanding of the implications thereof did/does not yet exist in the minds of the man-on-the-street (or the run-of-the-mill researcher in the ivory tower of academia).

It is frighteningly clear - from a peak oil perspective - that conventional farming won't be conventional for that much longer. Unlike Marit Paulsen, I would argue that it is conventional agriculture that is not sustainable in the long run. An fossil-free organic farm is sustainable – but it may unfortunately prove to be the case that what is unsustainable is 6.7 billion persons on Earth (and counting...). That organic farming does not use chemical fertilizers and pesticides is a necessary but not sufficient condition for sustainability in the long run. Today, we face the challenge of finding alternatives to mechanized, oil-consuming farming, and simultaneously produce enough food for everyone. Food is likely to become more expensive in the future, and what does that mean for the poor people of the world who do have no access to land in the urbanized present?
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Yemen's Insoluble Problems

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Image: For how long will he stay happy?


In my previous text about Yemen, I wrote about how we in recent years have been able to watch this poor country slowly run out of its only significant export product - oil. While this is bad enough, it is not, unfortunately, the only problem facing Yemen. In this second and final text about Yemen, I describe the cavalcade of problems facing the country besides falling oil production and dwindling oil exports.

If Yemeni oil is running short, what else can a poor, overpopulated country with few natural resources export? Besides oil, the main exports have been agricultural products and cheap manpower to richer neighbors (who send money home, known as "remittance"). Since Yemen’s problems are so numerous and large, this text could be very long. I have tried to keep the length down by listing some additional challenges that Yemen faces in bullets:

- The unemployment rate is between 20 and 40 percent. Despite this, a few thousand refugees from Somalia arrive every month. These refugees now amount to at least 150-200 000 persons and they further increasing competition for jobs, and, presumably, social tension.

- 20 years ago, a relatively large number of tourists visited Yemen. The numbers have declined and fell further when the Al-Qaeda began to attack tourists in 2007. Today, tourism has fallen by at least 90% compared to the peak years. Many of those who now visit the country are Yemenis living abroad traveling home to see their families.

- Yemen has high military expenditures and is fighting against Al-Qaeda in the east, separatists in the south and, especially, (possibly Iranian-backed) rebel clans in the north. The rebels in the north threaten to draw Saudi Arabia into an armed conflict. For Al-Qaeda, Yemen has become an important country (they thrive in collapsing states). For strategic and geopolitical reasons, the United States are also being drawn into Yemen, which may become “the next Afghanistan". 'An impoverished country that is strategically located on one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, Yemen has declared war on Al-Qaeda under pressure from Washington and Saudi Arabia. " In January this year, Obama said "So as president, I've made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government".

- If Yemen advances from being a "failing state" to become a full-fledged "failed state" (they are currently in 18th place on the 'failed state index"), stability in the region will deteriorate further. With increased rebel, pirate and terrorist activities, it may be difficult for oil tankers and container ships to pass through one of the world’s most important sea lanes (with Yemen in the north and the "failed state winner" Somalia in the south) on their way to the Suez. Needless to say, traveling around Africa is a long and costly detour.

- The country has a very high rate of malnutrition - over one third of the population is undernourished (which is comparable to the poorest countries in Africa). Nearly half of the children between two and five years old are undernourished and show signs of stunted growth:

“[The boy] is 18 months old and severely undernourished. In an effort to save his life, his parents traveled a long way to the therapeutic feeding centre here in Taez Town, leaving behind another seven children, all under the age of 15. […] The baby […] had hardly eaten in days. He looked miserable, with sunken eyes and a dry mouth. When [he] did not show signs of improvement, his desperate family – facing a huge hospital expense – took him home. “We decided to take him back to where he belongs and trust God for his salvation,” said the boy’s mother.”

- In addition to oil, agriculture has been an important part of Yemen’s economy. But deforestation, soil erosion and expanding deserts make it difficult to maintain production. However, the biggest problem is the dry climate and water scarcity which has been "resolved" by (illegal) drilling of new wells to pump up groundwater. Over time, traditional crops which do not need much rain have been replaced by fruits and vegetables requireing irrigation.

- 50 years ago, an estimated 50 000 people lived in the capital Sana’a. To provide today's two million inhabitants with water is an enormous challenge, not least because the city is located 2,000 meters above sea level. Sana’a’s own groundwater is on the decline and is expected to run out completely in a few years. There have been talks about moving the capital as the situation is changing from bad to untenable.

- Did I mention the endemic corruption? The heavy administration? That the current President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been in office for more than 30 years (first in North Yemen and during the last 20 years in the united Yemen)? No? I may come back to that later ... if I get a small gift "under the table".

If you scrape on the surface, you will find many more other problems that could be highlighted. One historical example is how Yemen just two months after unification in 1990 bet on the wrong horse by supporting Iraq in the Gulf War - despite the fact that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (until then) had provided important financial assistance to the country. As an effect of this gaffe, Saudi Arabia took the opportunity to expel almost one million Yemeni guest workers.

A contemporary example shows how several of the factors above interact. A camp with refugees from the unrest in the north houses 10 000 refugees. They people are poor and the children are undernourished. "Few of the displaced are used to washing regularly because water is scarce in Yemen, and few use toilets, preferring to leave waste in the open." This presents a problem when 10 000 people live close together and there are now fears of outbreaks of cholera in the camp.

In addition to geo-political and humanitarian problems that follow from reduced oil exports, a large and growing population, extreme poverty, internal strife and political instability, there is another major concern - perhaps the greatest of them all – which I would like to shed some light on, namely food and water.

"Yemen's water share per capita is less than 100 cubic meters a year, compared to the water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters.” World average is 2500 m3 of water per person per year.

There is a shortage of water in large parts of the Middle East, but poverty and lawlessness makes the problem more difficult to address in Yemen than in most other places. Unlike wealthier neighbors, Yemen can not afford to build desalination plants, and tribal flare-ups and civil unrest makes it dangerous for engineers and hydrologists to travel to many parts of the country. Even water purification is difficult in Yemen. Existing facilities are poorly managed and some priests "have declared the reuse of wastewater to be a violation of Islamic principles".

Wells are drying up and the price of water has quadrupled in less than five years. The government is trying to prevent farmers from drilling new wells to the (rapidly receding) underground aquifers, but has little power – especially far away from the capital. It is easy to see a vicious circle with water scarcity and rising violence as its two main components.

A special problem for Yemen in particular is the strong cultural position of the mildly narcotic plant qat (khat). Most Yemeni men (and some women and even children) chew qat daily (some men can chew qat for 5-10 hours or more per day - see the picture above). "By 4 in the afternoon, most men walking the streets of Sana'a are high, or about to get high." Since qat reduces appetite, it contributes to malnutrition. In 2007, the World Bank noted that

"Qat […] drains the family budget; has adverse health effects; negatively affects work performance and thus contributes to poverty. Weaning consumers from the qat habit will be difficult, because its production accounts for some 6 percent of GDP and 14 percent of total employment. Qat consumption requires around 10 percent of the household budget of all income groups, which comes at the expense of basic food, education and health."

I have seen other (official) reports that almost half (!) of the money in some households is spent on buying qat. In addition, qat is a very thirsty plant that grows better when it gets more water. Different data indicate that between one quarter and one half (!) of all the water in this dry and thirsty country is used for growing qat. The output of qat has been growing every year, not the least because it is an easy plant to grow and because farmers earn much more by growing qat than by growing food. According to some reports, qat cultivation has increased 10-fold between 1970 and 2000 and has continued to grow explosively during the last 10 years. Like so many other things, qat cultivation is interconnected with other problems in a seemingly insoluble cluster:

"Despite the danger, Yemen isn't about to go cold turkey anytime soon. Not only are most of the country's leaders landowners deeply involved in khat production, the leaf may be one of the few things still holding Yemen together. [...] "Khat plays a big role in keeping people calm, and keeping them off the streets. But it's also delaying change. It's hard to convince people to act now."

It is hard to finish these two texts about Yemen with a "happy chapter" about how everything, despite all the problems, will be fine in the end for the 25 million people living in the country today (or the 60 million who are "estimated" to live there in 2050 - how that could ever happen). The best I can think of is to point out that Yemen, as far as I know, has not been affected by AIDS – in contrast to many poor countries in Africa...

But even without AIDS, Yemen is a dry, overpopulated, poor and violent country that lives on borrowed time. It is difficult to see how even very generous loans and assistance could keep an increasing societal disintegration at bay even during the next few years. Likely effects of a societal disintegration are migration, famine, growing lawlessness and more. We can expect to read more about Yemen in the newspapers in the near future (just as there are reports today about trouble in and around Somalia). A foretaste of what’s to come was given on Christmas Day, when the "underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed attempt to blow up an American passenger plane put the perpetrator’s Yemeni Al-Qaeda training in the spotlight.


Here is a recent text that does not really add much to my two texts about Yemen, but that still supports these texts by describing the interconnected problems of water, violence, qat, al-Qaeda and the fact that the Yemeni capital Sana’a may become a ghost town within a decade or two. "Yemeni water trader Mohammed al-Tawwa runs his diesel pumps day and night, but gets less and less from his well in Sana’a, which experts say could become the world's first capital city to run dry".
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Yemen's Big Concern

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Almost a year ago I wrote a text [in Swedish] about Mexico's problems with oil production dropping dramatically. The past summer, BP Statistical Review of World Energy was published for the 58th time, and Mexico was the country whose oil production decreased the most in absolute numbers during 2008. The decrease, compared to the previous year, was more than 300 000 barrels of oil per day. That is more than 9% of Mexico's entire production, but only slightly more than 0.3% of global oil production. However, I placed the text about Mexico in a larger context; which countries are more, and which countries are less vulnerable to the changes that peak oil will bring?

Here I choose to continue with that theme - "countries that will have a hard time after peak oil" - and look closer at the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabian Peninsula is dominated by Saudi Arabia, and there has been some "fuss" about Dubai fairly recently, but here I focus on Saudi Arabia's smaller and much poorer neighbor to the south, Yemen. Where both Saudi Arabia and Yemen are facing similar challenges (large populations in relation to food production and availability of water), the countries have significantly different abilities to deal with these challenges since Saudi Arabia is a very rich country whereas Yemen is very poor. But first a little detour.

Before a trip to Morocco 10 years ago I read a travelogue about "Arabia". The book, "Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition of 1761-67", was about a scientific expedition to Yemen, where a disciple of the Swedish botanist Linnaeus, the talented Peter Forsskål, participated. The expedition started in 1761, and two and a half years later Forsskål died of malaria in the city of Jerim. Conditions on the expedition were tough to say the least, and only one of five expedition members returned to Europe six years after the expedition started. My memories of the book are now somewhat vague, but I remember that the image of "Yemen" (southern Arabian Peninsula) was not very attractive. Sparsely populated, very poor already then and with an unbearable climate:

"The climate is very hot and humid along the coast, temperate in the western mountain region with monsoon rains, extremely hot and dry desert climate in the interior of the country. There are significant differences in temperature, particularly between day and night. In the summer, daytime temperatures may reach 40 degrees [Celsius], in the winter the temperature at night may reach below freezing."

When South Yemen and North Yemen were unified and became Yemen in 1990, the new country was one of the poorest in the world, and it is still the poorest of all countries in the Arab world (GDP per capita is below U.S. $1,000/year). Approximately 40% of the population lives on less than $2 per day. Only 50% of the women are literate. The society is strongly patriarchal with polygamy and a high rate of infant mortality.

Demographic trends in this barren and resource-poor country, despite, or perhaps because of poverty and patriarchal traditions, have been explosive; in just 50 years the population has quadrupled! The average family size is seven people and two-thirds of the population is under 24 years of age. On a surface that is only slightly larger than Sweden, but considerably less hospitable, almost 25 million people live. Since the birth rate even today is the fourth largest in the world, population is expected to rise to 40 million by 2030 and 60 million by 2050. I am skeptical that this will actually happen, because Yemen has Very Big Concerns.

Yemen is not a very well known country, and since some Arab countries have huge oil reserves and others do not, it might not be easy to place a country on the world oil map. Yemen is a country that has oil, albeit in small quantities. And the oil reserves are shrinking rapidly. If Mexico was the country whose oil production fell the most in absolute terms in 2008, Yemen was the country whose production decreased the most in relative terms - the oil production fell by a whopping 11.6%.

It is difficult to know how to illustrate a country's oil production, but in an attempt to understand the figures one could compare Yemen with the fellow oil producing countries Denmark and Norway. All three countries reached their peak oil production in the first half of the previous decade (2001-2004). At its peak,Yemen's produced 457 000 barrels of oil per day (165 million barrels in 2002). That is almost 20% more than Denmark's maximum oil production (in 2004) and 1/8 of Norway's maximum oil production (in 2001). According to BP's figures for 2008, oil production in all three countries has since have decreased by between 26% (Denmark) and 33% (Yemen).

Mexico has "only" reduced its oil production by 17% since its peak in 2004, and Yemen also beats Mexico hands down in another respect. Whereas oil revenues account for 40% of the Mexican state budget, they account for more than 70% of Yemen's national budget! Moreover, oil accounts for almost 90% of the value of Yemen’s exports and as much as 30% of Yemen's total GDP. The figures for the entire year of 2009 are not yet ready, but the figures for the first 10 months of the year look disastrous. It was a bit difficult for me to get all the figures together, but some detective work from various sources yielded the following:

In 2002,Yemen’s oil production peaked at more than 450 000 barrels of oil per day. A few years later, in 2006, Yemen produced almost 390 000 barrels of oil per day (140 million barrels annually). Of this oil, 55 million barrels (40% of the production) were used by Yemen itself, and the rest – 85 million barrels – was exported.

Two years later, in 2008, Yemen produced only 305 000 barrels of oil per day (110 million barrels annually), and during the first 10 months of the year almost 40 million barrels were exported. If we assume that the country managed to export 50 million barrels in total throughout the year (which is doubtful, since oil production was declining), domestic consumption has risen from 55 million barrels to 60 million barrels (55% of the production) in two years. This is in line with figures indicating that domestic consumption rose by another 2.5 million barrels from 2008 to 2009.

This trend illustrates well the so-called "Export Land Model". The model states that exports from an oil-producing country may drop very quickly if the country chooses to increase (or maintain) its domestic consumption while production falls. And the domestic oil consumption actually has increased in Yemen. According to some data (from a good analysis which largely overlap with this text), domestic (subsidized) oil consumption increased by as much as 50% from 2001 to 2009, that is, during the same period that oil production declined by more than 30%. Consequently, from 2001 to 2009, oil exports declined by more than 50%!

The figures from the first 10 months of 2009 indicate that Yemen only managed to export slightly less than 25 million barrels (which implies at the most 30 million barrels for the whole year). Thus it looks like the domestic oil consumption during a period of four years from 2006 to 2009 has risen each year, while oil exports - the country’s largest, total dominant and almost only source of income – has fallen by a shocking two-thirds during that same period of only a few short years (from 85 to almost 30 million barrels). The trend is clear – oil exports have fallen by around 20 million barrels per year during the last three years and if nothing drastic happens, Yemen already would, at some point during 2011, have to import oil to meet domestic needs. But with what money?

In addition to the domestic oil consumption "stealing" oil which could be exported for much-needed revenue, the government spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to subsidize the domestic (increasing) energy consumption. Already in 2005, various subsidies were the single largest item in the state budget, and subsidies of fuel amounted to nearly 25% of total government expenditure. Despite demands from the World Bank, Yemen has failed to reduce its subsidies on oil and electricity (all electricity in Yemen is generated by oil-fueled power plants). When the government actually tried to reduce these subsidies in 2005, the result was riots. Because of the failure, the World Bank reduced its contributions to Yemen by a third.

From 2008 to 2009, in addition to a dramatic reduction in oil exports by one third, the average price of oil dropped from 107 to 60 dollars/barrel. This resulted in a decline in oil export revenues from more than 4 billion U.S. dollars to less than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars for the first 10 months of the year (an amazing decrease of two thirds from one year to the next!). Yemen’s oil production is projected to continue to decrease every year and may be a closed chapter within 10 years. Previous years' upward trend in oil prices did until 2009 mask Yemen’s problem of declining production and declining exports, but now the problems appear terrifyingly clear.

It is appropriate to point out that Yemen has recently started to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), "Production of LNG began in October 2009. The Yemeni government expects the LNG project to add U.S. $ 350 million to its budget." That this would fully compensate for the decline in oil production is, however, an impossibility; "Yemen has done little planning for a post-petroleum economy, and most analysts doubt state expectations that natural gas will be able to fill the void left by oil."

This text will be followed by a second and final text about Yemen’s problems (yes, Yemen has many more problems than "only" that the dwindling oil production). Already after this text one may conclude that Yemen is smoldering – and it gets worse...
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"The last days of economic growth" by Forsberg (2007)

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In the preface to "The last days of economic growth: Green clash over worldviews" (2007), Björn Forsberg describes how the book emerged from thoughts and ideas that did not fit his Ph.d. thesis in political science. The whole book, but especially the first few chapters, are written without any trace of mercy as Forsberg pummels his ideological opponent. Even if the environmental and climate challenges are central to the book, Forsberg’s furious accusations are primarily addressed at the "root of evil" – a society based on the idea of endless economic growth. This book is the fourth book I write about in this blog and it so happens to be the first book that is written in (and only accessible in) Swedish. It is probably pretty safe for me to state that this is the only place where you can learn anything about this book unless you happen to know Swedish.

Forsberg is very aware of peak oil, and behind his criticism of the growth cult there stands a man with an eye on the global and national energy situation, and with full knowledge of the fact that we will move towards more and more expensive energy in the coming decades. I happen to agree with Forsberg about much of what he writes, and when I read the book it felt like he had managed to beautifully formulate what I myself - with peak oil as a starting point - tentatively had begun to write about elsewhere. Therefore, this text will basically be an abstract of Forsberg’s book, even though I basically only treat selected parts of the book.

The cover photo (above) shows a picture of Las Vegas, an impossible city that may also serve as a metaphor for an impossible society and an unsustainable civilization. Las Vegas shines, flashes, beeps and sounds 24/7. A completely artificial environment where nifty watchmakers have even managed to "stop time" in order to entice guests to stay and gamble some more. And no one is cheated as all actors willingly play their roles on the Las Vegas scene while at the same time, this city in the middle of the desert, is a fragile colossus on clay feet, a city that could not exist without enormous subsidies of energy, food and water.

According to the prevalent green rhetoric, there is today consensus about the environmental objectives of [Swedish] society – because “we all want what is good for the environment". In addition and according to the same "narrative", we don't any longer only think the environment is important, but actually prioritize the environment in our actions.

Forsberg rejects these two "truths" utterly and completely, and his whole book treats the fundamental conflict between the environment and the (growth-based) economy. Forsberg assumes that economic growth necessarily ("demonstrably") means increased pressure on ecosystem resources, and argues convincingly that economic growth is always given priority when it comes in conflict with concerns about the environment. New technologies with significant economic potential, such as genetically modified crops or 3G phone networks always take precedence over the principle of precaution and over considerations about possible adverse health effects. Forsberg illustrates the problem with an example that is so obvious that it does not really merit any further comments:

"During only five years, from 2001 to 2006, the amount of electronic waste in Sweden tripled. [...] According to business professionals, part of the explanation is the sales boom for flat-screen television sets [...] and the trend towards an ever-shorter life span of consumer electronics products, white goods and other household technologies. That spells bad news for the environment, but, as we all know, it also means growth."

The conflict between the environment and the economy, and the systematic subordination of the environment vis-à-vis growth, leads to a situation where measures to improve the environment are possible and acceptable only if all of the following conditions are fulfilled:

1) Measures are not perceived as troublesome, as something that requires sacrifices.
2) Measures are not financially burdensome.
3) Measures do not threaten economic growth.

These conditions alone make many actions impossible, including the most effective ones, like reduced consumption of energy, transportation and goods. The basic problem is simply that it is impossible in our growth based society to cope with, or win legitimacy for measures that threaten economic growth. The measures a growth based society can cope with, and which today's environmental policies focuses on, instead meet one of the following four criteria:

- The measure is beyond the economy's vital interests and are not associated with any major expenses. Thus it is acceptable to protect remote and inaccessible nature reserves with low economic potential (note: the protection status of a nature reserve may be reviewed at the same moment it is discovered that the area contains some exploitable, economically valuable resource).

- The measure has a relatively marginal cost. It is possible to prohibit specific, particularly hazardous chemicals (DDT, PCBs, CFCs, etc.), since such regulations are limited to few products and the negative economic impact is only borne by a small number of firms and industries (note: serious efforts to try to limit CO2 or other greenhouse gas emissions would affect many sectors and companies negatively and the costs are thus perceived as too high).

- The measure is obviously necessary to protect long-term economic interests. The introduction of fishing quotas in order to prevent fish stocks from collapsing is an example of this (note: the fishing industry is routinely protesting loudly about such limitations).

- The measure creates a lot of goodwill and economic growth. If an environmental protection measure has the potential to become an engine of growth for the environmental technology industry (so-called "cleantech" or "greentech"), and lead to increased export incomes, an irresistible "win-win" situation may occur (note: if an environment protection measure does not imply opportunities for (future) economic gains, or even restricts the industries' profit opportunities, it is relegated to the dunce’s corner).

In the rare cases where a (relatively radical) proposal for regulation (finally) is presented, powerful forces are immediately mobilized and will - with mechanical precision - claim that competition will be distorted, that the Swedish industry will risk collapsing, that the government should not interfere with the free market, and so on.

Forsberg's conclusion is that environmental issues nowadays have a prominent position in speeches, in policy statements and in political moves - but that this only gives the appearance of action, since the political will to actually back up these fancy words does not exist. What we have in abundance is an important but rarely noticed difference between what is said and what is actually done.

What is actually done is to commission a steady stream of environmental inquiries whose findings, conclusions and recommendations are then scrupulously ignored. Inquiries and investigations pile up and their ample existence as measured by the number of pages written provide an alibi and a semblance of national mobilization for the environment. Forsberg himself has participated in several such inquiries and questions the usefulness of his contributions to "the mountain of infrequently read and negligibly influential reports which are the harsh reality of environmental commissions".

Responsibility for this pitiful situation does not all fall on the shoulders of our politicians. On the contrary, no one is without blame, and apparently it is perfectly fine for me as an individual to demand “solutions” from politicians while at the same time refusing to accept environmental reforms which will have any direct consequences for me and my lifestyle! In summary, there is a "barrier of individual comfort, powerful special interests, economic short-sightedness and other layers of resistance that prevents a transformation of society."

Another blameworthy actor is the mainstream media. The supposedly serious morning papers have difficulties rising above their daily time horizon. The built-in dramaturgy of news media simply does not allow for long-term monitoring of complex issues. Sudden crises and disasters (like a couple of recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile) are better at driving sales, and thus get a higher coverage. Current events spread across multiple pages, while decisive trends are dealt with in short paragraphs near the bottom of the reader's attention span.

As readers we are lulled into a feeling that everything is (more or less) in order. Accidents certainly happen on a regular basis (usually at a comfortable distance), but we do not have to be confronted with stories that compel us to reconsider our way of living here and now. I propose that 9/11 and Katrina created such a trauma for Americans precisely because it was, for the American public, something that happened to "us" instead of (only) to "them". Forsberg gives an example of media's miserable coverage of important issues in the context of a two-day seminar in 2006 about how Sweden could cope with a future without oil:

"A participating economy reporter from the TV channel 4 honestly explained that the subject of our seminar was too ‘long- term’ for the evening economy news. The workshop could only become a news story for TV if we could also comment on short-term winners and losers of the increase in oil prices that happened to take place the previous day. The issue of long-term consequences of increased scarcity of oil [...] on the other hand, was not perceived as an economically relevant issue in the editors evaluation of economic news."

Forsberg’s conclusion is that (commercial) media only conveys messages that do not come into conflict with the current economic system and with powerful economic interests (advertisers). Maybe the editors of the evening newspaper do not even notice the contradiction between asking what politicians are doing about climate change and, on the same spread, encouraging readers to fly to Rome for 200 Swedish Crowns (less than 30 USD). Forsberg states that if a newspaper claims to take the climate issue seriously, while at the same time encouraging readers to fly on weekend trips or participate in "petrol revolts" (tame Swedish protests against the petrol taxes - usually involving nothing more than signing your, or a fake, name to a list - no Tea Party protests hereabouts) - then the newspaper is not a credible actor and it is a part of the problem rather than the solution.

Furthermore, society is permeated by a newspeak which tends to lead us astray, reduce the problems and mentally bind us to an ecologically destructive social order:

- A detergent is marketed as environmentally friendly, when it in reality is actually only less environmentally unfriendly. If the detergent was really environmentally friendly, then it ought to improve the environment, so that we would like to pour as much of it as possible into the Baltic Sea (compare this jargon with the term "green car").

- When people talk about "accessibility" in relations to traffic, what they actually mean is accessibility for cars. The car is implicitly, but at the same time exceedingly clearly, the very model for how we "should" move around in society. Accessibility for cyclists or pedestrians is a subject that is most often ignored, and cyclists are by default treated as obstacles for (the cars’) mobility.

- Glass, newspapers and materials that can be composted are described as "garbage" or "waste" rather than "resources".

- In the midst of the Swedish election campaign in 2006, one of the biggest Swedish newspapers proclaimed that "The Green party harbors most eco-villains". The explanation behind this blown-up claim was that Green party voters on the average owned old cars than voters for other political parties. Being environmentally friendly was thus unproblematically defined as "owning a new car". But it is not unlikely that Green party sympathisers to a greater extent than others do not own a car at all (overlooked perspective). Nor is it unlikely that cars often play a smaller role in the lives of Green party voters’, making the voters drive less and therefore on average have older cars (overlooked perspective). Moreover, it is obviously better for the environment to lovingly maintain and use a car as long as possible before buying a new one (overlooked perspective). The claim could (should) just as well have been "Green party has the most eco-heroes".

- When fundamentally psychopathic companies locate their operations to countries that offer the best conditions (that is, countries that have the lowest social and environmental requirements), it is considered perfectly normal and a sign of "sound business strategies". On characteristics of psychopaths (equally applicable to companies?):

Psychopaths [...] do not experience shame, guilt, or remorse for their action. Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior [...] Psychopaths also lack empathy towards others in general [...] Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions"

The framework for public debate and for our very thinking is formed in these and similar manners. To talk about limits to growth is regarded as character traits of a narrow-minded, fundamentalistic, reactionary person. Anyone who persists is dismissed and not allowed to participate in the "serious" public debate. Furthermore, he/she runs the risk of being labeled "eco-religious" or of being an "environmental Taliban". But, Forsberg asks, when was the last time you experienced an economist, business leader or growth-oriented politicians being called "growth religious" or a "growth fundamentalist"?

Gold Medal in newspeak, however, is awarded to the astroturfing company-funded networks and organizations that are responsible for promoting a growth agenda and obstructing and keeping the environmental issues away from public debate - but that gives the impression of working for the environment with names like "Information Council on the Environment" and "The Climate Coalition.” The former was funded by, among others, the National Coal Association, and in the list of members of the latter organization, you could find some of the world's largest oil companies (Exxon, Shell, Texaco, BP) and car manufacturers (Ford, GM, DaimlerChrysler). Forsberg quotes author Andrew Rowell:

"Since its inception in 1983, the Citizens for Sensible Control of Acid Rain has spent over $7.5 million attempting to defeat acid rain legislation, without a sensible citizen in sight, just some large electricity companies."

Forsberg's book addresses many other issues, such as the problems (the growth-oriented thinking) of the green movement and of the Left, the problems with a debate climate shaped by Right-wing growth worshiping think tanks and "lomborgians" (after the discredited Danish environmental skeptic Bjørn Lomborg), the problem of "ecomodernism" (the popular and politically viable idea that sustainable development and economic development go hand in hand and that environmental problems may be viewed as the next economic growth engine), the personal problems trying to decrease your environmental footprint in a society that is configured for a high-and-increasing level of consumption, and, the problems for a researcher to obtain funding for research that is non-growth-oriented or even critical of economic growth (for example relating to peak oil).

Forsberg’s thoughts and suggestions for possible solutions are mainly about localization (the opposite of globalization). Forsberg advocates "an economy guided by proximity and transparency", which is nurtured by positive social visions of a sustainable society. It is not possible to do justice to these ideas in a few short sentences and it is a pity the book has not been translated into English!

My only complaint is that the book sometimes feels slightly "messy". The sources to some of what I have written about above (media, newspeak) are found in at least two or perhaps three different places in the book. A text that has grown organically during a period of five years would have benefited from more help from an editor with a firm hand and an eye towards making the text better structured. Beyond that complaint I advice anyone (the few of you read this text and who can also read Swedish) to buy the book and read it for yourselves.
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"The Plan" by Black (2008)

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Author Edwin Black's niche is to, assisted by dozens of volunteers, sieve through libraries and archives and write extremely well-researched books. He usually spends a couple of years doing research before he cranks out a new book, but he made an exception for the sleek, no more than 130 pages long "The Plan: How to rescue society when the oil stops - or the day before" (2008).

A little more than a year ago, I wrote [in Swedish - not yet translated to English] about his first oil-related book, "Internal Combustion: How corporations and governments addicted the world to oil and derailed the alternatives" (2006). Here I review the 2008 "sequel".

The book's starting point is America's (in)ability to cope with an acute fuel crisis. It does thus not start off with the “ordinary” peak oil scenario based on a relatively slow decline in global production but rather takes as its starting point a rather sudden change for the worse. "Oil will ’peak‘ [...] the very hour a person cannot pump a gallon of gas or buy bread on an unstocked supermarket shelf because someone thousands of miles away has cut the lines of supply".

Although the book does not primarily deal with what exactly caused this sudden decline, it starts by giving an overview of how dependent and vulnerable the U.S. is if the daily supply of oil from neighboring and more distant countries would suddenly decline (the three largest exporters of oil to the United States are Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia).

When it comes to Saudi Arabia, Black points out that the oil from the world's largest oil field, Ghawar, must pass through three vulnerable choke points on its journey to the U.S. and other export markets. At Abqaiq, two thirds of Saudi Arabia's oil is processed and prepared for shipment by tankers before the oil is sent to the port of Ras Tanura. Subsequently, all oil tankers have to travel through the 50 kilometers narrow Strait of Hormuz in order to reach the oceans. Of all the oil in the world that is transported by sea, approximately 40% has to traverse the narrow Strait of Hormuz, and Black calls these three choke points "the solar plexus of the planet." If any of these three sites were to be knocked out, the world would immediately go down for count.

In 2006, an attack by al-Qaeda against Abqaiq was averted, and Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz if the country is invaded by the United States or Israel. For Black, the question is not if, but when a collapse of the oil supply (of some kind) takes place.

What then constitutes an acute oil crisis? At a 5% decrease in the oil volumes that are accessible to the Western world, the U.S. President may give permission to release oil from the strategic oil reserve. A decrease of 7% would trigger an "international crisis under emergency treaties", and a decrease of 10% would be a disaster which, according to an energy expert, would be "so off the chart that we cannot even model it". That does not sound very reassuring, does it? “The Plan” is Black's answer to what the U.S. needs to do to cope with a prolonged (more than 30 days long) reduction in the availability of oil by 5-10%.

After stating that some (few) Western countries have plans for how to handle such a situation, Black makes a point of the fact that the United States Does Not Have a Plan - beyond letting the (marvelous, magical, miraculous) market handle such a never-occurred-before situation. To Black, his own book is right now the plan - the manual - for how to face such a crisis. In fact, the book is partly written as a manual, and therefore in places tends to become a rather dry read. The book's longest chapter is structured in the form of 18 regulations, and each regulation is followed by a discussion of the necessity and consequences of the regulation in question. Some of the regulations are quite formally written - ready to be immediately implemented in a real crisis:

"Regulation 15: Marine Restrictions on yachts, speed boats and non-commercial pleasure craft. Within one week of an oil supply emergency declaration, all non-commercial marine craft, including but not limited to private yachts, speed boats, recreational vessels and personal watercraft, shall be unable to refuel in the Continental United States, except in an emergency, until retrofitted to accept alternative fuel or propulsion system."

These 18 regulations govern everything from prices and rules about the sales of refined petroleum products, to how to deal with the strategic oil reserve, carpooling, speed limits (55 mph or 90 km/h, except "in the countryside"), idling, public transportation (very cheap or free), trailers, the black market and so on. Petrol price are set to a predetermined level that does not price the poor out of the market - since everyone must have the chance to get to a hospital or to work (for example as a cleaner in a hospital). The price of petrol will thus remain "reasonable", but the amount you will be able to buy will be rationed.

One of the regulations states that a car’s fuel economy will determine how often the car may be driven; if a car cannot be driven at least 15 miles per gallon (mpg) - 6.3 kilometers per liter of gasoline – it may not be driven at all before it has been rebuilt/retrofitted. Cars with a fuel economy of up to 25 mpg may be driven one day per week, up to 35 mpg may be driven every second day, and for cars that have a fuel economy of 36 mpg or better (15 kilometers/liter) there will be no restrictions.

All these regulations are short term measures which are to be implemented during the very first week. Eventually, all cars and other vehicles must be rebuilt so that they may be driven on fuel other than petrol. Regarding alternative fuels Black is agnostic – he thinks that people should use whatever works best in different parts of the United States and lists the available options: hydrogen, ammonia, alcohol (e.g. ethanol), biofuels, compressed natural gas (CNG) or electricity. Unfortunately, in the U.S. today it is very difficult to get around the rules and "upgrade" a car to drink other beverages than gasoline, so the starting position for the future growth industry if retrofitting cars is poor. The rigid rules of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have prevented the commercialization of alternatives to gasoline, thus nurturing a small (illegal) underground culture where people upgrade their cars at their own risk and using equipment from abroad.

Who is to blame for the vulnerable situation that the United States and the rest of the Western world now finds itself in? Black identifies four main culprits:

- OPEC bears some responsibility but gets off lightly; it was the West who invaded their territories after the First World War and created vassal states which supplied cheap oil, and, it was also the West who voluntarily made themselves dependent on OPEC’s oil.

- The second scapegoat is the public and their (spineless) representatives among politicians.

- Oil companies (Big Oil) are according to Black more blameworthy than OPEC and the general public. They have enriched themselves while they have made society more dependent on oil, and have at the same time delayed and discouraged all possible alternatives. In the second quarter of 2008, America's largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, made an astronomical profit of 11 680 million dollars. If you remove all oil companies from the list of America's 500 largest companies (Fortune 500), Exxon earned more money than all the other companies combined during that period.

- Black though reserves the greatest blame for Detroit and the American car companies. Already in the childhood of the automobile, the nascent automotive industry sabotaged and manipulated the alternative, better solution - the electric car. From a long history of "subversive activities", Detroit becomes the main scapegoat for its recent 35 year long campaign of obstruction and foolish decisions. The automotive industry has repeatedly made the wrong turn ever since the first oil crisis in 1973 made it clear that the U.S. was vulnerable due to its dependence on oil. Despite this obvious vulnerability, Detroit has since then built, sold and exported many millions of gas-thirsty cars which have exacerbated and already-bad situation. Actor Alex Baldwin (no kidding) reflects on Detroit's burden of debt:

"The heads of [US automakers] did not spend the last thirty years lying in bed each night, sleepless. They did not turn their spouses in the wee hours and say, "How do I serve the automotive needs of the American public and better protect their health and safety AND help them conserve energy?" [...] Instead, they spent billions of dollars attempting to bribe the Congress to avoid putting in seat belts and air bags, installing catalytic converters and reaching more ambitious fuel efficiency standards. For the most part, they succeeded."

Based on all of this, Black concludes in his 18th and final regulation that the oil and automotive industries must absolutely not be involved in any discussions about how to solve the oil crisis:

”Iowa corn producers, Detroit carmakers, oil companies and other forces of petroaddiction must be kept out of the fix. They will destroy it, dilute it, distract it, dismantle it, or divert it. […] if lobbyists are not excluded from the rescue plan, then any plan will be doomed.”

Right now, two out of the three major American car companies are down for count (General Motors and Chrysler). In a way, they have thus been "punished" for their sins. But from another perspective, they have instead been absolved and have left their sins behind them, because it is no longer possible to claim compensation from them - and especially so if the compensation should be proportional to the harm these companies more or less deliberately have inflicted upon society.

In some ways Black may come acress as extreme. His answer would be that a major threat must be countered with measures that (to some) may seem extreme (today). In other ways, however, he is moderate in his approaches and assumptions. Something I find to be a weakness is that he never criticizes or even reflects upon fundamental assumptions about the American way of life based on cars and long distance transportation, despite the fact that he clearly makes an effort to think about the ‘real’ price of gasoline:

”The true price of every gallon of gasoline, adding in expenditures for tax subsidies and government programs, harm to our health as a result of toxic emissions, environmental damage and military operations to protect the supply, is almost impossible to reliably calculate […] But some of the most quoted and informed studies conclude the true cost of oil to be more than $15 per gallon”

The claim that oil and gasoline actually cost much more than what you pay at the petrol pump is in line with the contents of a report ("Powering America's Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security") from the military think tank CNA. The report, written by CNA's military advisory board (consisting of 12 retired generals and admirals) states that the real cost of providing U.S. military with fuel is between 15 and hundreds of dollars per gallon (!), depending on the need for security and logistics to ensure that the fuel is in the right place at the right time. These prices for example include costs to protect maritime transports and to station troops and maintain numerous military bases abroad.

A concrete example is a specific study from Iraq, where only 10% of the fuel for ground troops is used by tanks and other vehicles that "deliver lethal force". The remaining 90% is used by armored vehicles, trucks and helicopters that deliver and protect fuel and troops. Another example is the estimated cost of $42/gallon for aerial refueling of fighters. Of course, these calculations do not include "softer" aspects such as pollution of the environment or poor health among military and other personnel mentioned by Black above.

When the gasoline price skyrocketed in 2008 and many Americans were brought to their knees, the price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. reached unheard-of levels of $4 per gallon. This price is not at all high from a Swedish perspective where we have to go back to the end of the 1980's to find such "bargain" prices! But, a $4 per gallon price tag on gas in the U.S. is two to three times as much as the price during the period 1990-2004. Today, in the midst of a raging recession, the price of gasoline is slightly higher than $2.50 per gallon, and already that price is too much for many (un- or underemployed) Americans.

Although The Plan is a crisis plan, Black would prefer for it to be implemented already before a major crisis arises. A nice thought, but don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen – the ideas are far too rational to be taken seriously.
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The energy consumption of avatars

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Are virtual worlds environmentally sustainable? Based on such thoughts, Nicholas Carr wrote a blog post some three years ago, in December 2006, about how much power we use when we use virtual worlds. It provoked strong reactions, not the least because the title of his text was "Avatars consume as much electricity as Brazilians". Still three years laters, texts (such as this one :-) about avatars, eletricity, climate impact and Brazilians show up like a jack-in-the-box. I will here go through Nick’s line of reasoning and the criticism he encountered before I go on and analyze the ways in which we can think about these issues. I recently wrote about the energy footprint of Google searches and will eventually come around and write about the power consumption and carbon footprint of PCs and data centers. Computer servers consume one percent or so of the world electricity supply. That might not sound like much, but their power consumption grows by 15-20% per year (which is equivalent to a fivefold increase in 10 years). 



At the time when Nick Carr posted is question, the virtual world Second Life was visited by somewhere between 10 000 and 15 000 avatars at any one time. To run it all, no less than 4000 servers were required. In the absence of actual figures as to the electricity consumption of the company that runs Second Life - Linden Lab - Nick made a few assumptions: 
- Each server in Linden Lab’s data center burns through 200 watts and then uses an additional 50 watts to cool the data center. 
- Every home computer that is connected to Second Life uses 120 watts. 



This would mean that the 4 000 servers in question use (4 000 servers) x (250 watts) x (24 hours) = 24 000 kWh (kilowatt hours) each day. Additionally, the power consumption of all home computers is (12 500 PCs on average) x (120 watts) x (24 hours) = 36 000 kWh each day. Altogether these computers and servers would thus use 60 000 kWh per day and if we divide this electricity consumption between 12 500 avatars, each of them would use 4.8 kWh for each 24 hours of existence in the game/virtual world Second Life. 



How much is 4.8 kWh per day then? Well, it adds up over the days and months and becomes 1750 kWh per year which is comparable with the electricity consumption per capita in Brazil (according to the 2003 data that Nick had access to).



In the ensuing discussion, Nick was quickly corrected by a person who was employed by Linden Lab. Previously, each computer server ran a "region" in the game but now, a server may run up to four "regions". The correct figures for Linden Lab’s electricity consumption is therefore (1 000 servers) x (225 watts) x (24 hours) = 5 400 kWh per day - that is, less than 1/4 of the original estimate (which, however was based on a fuzzy statement by the CEO of Linden Lab). The new figures gives that an avatar consumes approximately 1 200 kWh per year instead of 1 750 kWh, and that Linden Lab’s servers account for a relatively small part of that power consumption while the home computers account for more than 85% of the total power consumption. 



Almost six months later (May 2007), Nick is once more corrected when a new, better-informed (?) employee from Linden Lab presents new figures. To begin with, the average number of avatars are now 30 000, and the number of servers has risen to 2 000. In addition, both servers and home PCs draw significantly more power when the run Second Life. Now, Linden Lab’s power consumption is instead (2 000 servers) x (500 watts) x (24 hours) = 24 000 kWh. The rule of thumb is that for every watt that a server uses, the same amount of energy is needed to cool the data center where the server is housed. Power consumption at home is estimated to be (30 000 computers) x (250 watts) x (24 hours) = 180 000 kWh per day. In total, these 204 000 kWh divided into 30 000 avatars becomes 6.8 kWh per day. That is equivalent to 2 500 kWh per year and the home computer accounts for almost 90% of the total power consumption. Latvia, Romania and Argentina are a few countries that had a power consumption in the neighborhood of 2 500 kWh per capita in 2005. In Sweden, we used more than 15 000 kWh per person in 2005.



Taking all of this conflict (and constantly changing) information into account, what conculsions can be drawn so far?



- The Internet changes constantly. To get current figures is like chasing a moving target. What are the figures for Second Life right now? According to the latest figures (Jan 2010) there are currently 18 million accounts (avatars) registered in Second Life, but only 750 000 of them (5%) log in to Second Life each month. These avatars spent a total of 118 million hours (!) in Second Life during the third quarter of 2009.



- Information about the number of servers and their power consumption varies widely and therefore seems not be that reliable (see above). Power consumption can obviously not have been one of the heavier costs when running virtual worlds - or they would have kept better track of the figures. The same has probably been true also for other companies that rely on data centers such as Google, Flickr, Blizzard etc., but things might be changing now as the energy prices have been marching upwards during the last couple of years.



- A computer at work uses 120-150 watts, but a computer that runs Second Life (or World of Warcraft or any other computer games) can use up to twice as much power as these applications make use of your computer's capabilities to the max. Data center use a lot of power, but you home computer that utilizes these services draw a lot more and get less work (computer cycles) done per unit of energy used.



- It is difficult to determine the usefulness (or damage) of using virtual worlds. On the one hand, you use a lot less energy (and generate considerably less pollution) if you cancel a trip and instead meet in a virtual world. But a computer uses a lot of electricity - if the option is an electricity-free activity (take a walk, talk to a neighbor, help your children do their homework). 



- Ideas are hard to kill. Although Nick’s figures were refuted and modified immediately, the "meme" about Second Life and the electricity consumption of Brazilians remains alive and pops up now and then to the chagrin of some.



The main objections raised against Nick’s argument above was that no real person is connected to Second Life 24 hours a day and that Second Life actually had 700 000 "active user" (whatever that means) at the time. So the power consumption of each person who used Second Life would have been just a 50th of Nick’s original calculation. Furthermore, any computer that is used for 24 hours a day 365 days per year uses more energy than the average Brazilians whatever that computer is used for (playing Second Life or doing something entirely different). 



Both ways of looking at this problem is correct, but these different perspectives choses to focus on slightly different things. Any individual physical person who plays Second Life did that for less than an hour a day on average and thus uses a moderate amount of energy. But each avatar in Second Life has the same (or higher) power consumption (per hour, per day or per year) as many people on earth have. 



I think Nicholas perspective is interesting, not the least because some information technology pundits sometimes tend to completely ignore that computers are physical objects that have required resources (raw materials, energy) for their manufacture, that consume electricity throughout their lifetime, and that one day will be scrapped/recycled. Computers obviously have an ecological footprint and the size of that footprint should naturally be explored further. This is a topic I will come back to later.

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