The Unintended Consequences of Critical Advocacy

Criticism or opposition increases the credibility of, and support for, that opposed.

That attack tells others that what you are opposing is important enough, enough of a threat, at least to you, to warrant attention. If it were not so you would simply ignore it. Then it would, perhaps, just sit there like a dead fish garnering nobody's attention. But that would, of course, simply give free reign to that opposition.

The fact that you criticize, attack or openly oppose something attracts people's attention to it. In so doing you may find that others agree with your criticism but you may also find that they disagree with you and decide that they must, perhaps because of your opposition, support that which you are criticizing. In other words, in your opposition you run a fifty-fifty risk, or higher, of garnering new supporters for that which you are attacking. This would, in turn, make it more threatening to you and make it more worthy of your opposition. It has the potential for a never-ending confrontation.

Most often that opposition elicits a response from the person(s) at the core of that which you are attacking. If it is important enough for you to criticize, after all, it is even more important to defend for those who have a part of themselves vested in it. If it's worth attacking it is worth defending. With the additional supporters to their cause that your opposition garners for them your continued attacks simply makes an ever-stronger, ever-more-threatening adversary.

When two opposing camps are in a position of constantly criticizing and attacking each other, the formula changes only slightly. The stronger of the two camps, generally, (or the one with the more appealing, people-friendly message) will generally maintain it's advantage for a considerable length of time, partly thanks to your opposition. When the weaker camp gains some momentum eventually, if maintained, that momentum may allow the growth in support to exceed the growth in support for the stronger side. Over time, as long as both sides are able to maintain their confrontation, that weaker camp may eventually gain the upper hand. But the battle to get to that point will, generally, be long and difficult.

This is the current reality for the peak oil movement. Our constant criticism of the business-as-usual oil industry mentality, our incessant demands that our politicians and leaders address the peak oil issue, are the modern day equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Our message about peak oil and the ensuing disintegration of life as we know it frightens people. It is not somewhere they want to go. It is not somewhere they can go, in their minds. What is there to support?

Our opponents in this, of course, offer a much more appealing vision of a future, however unrealistic it may be in our minds. And their job is simple. They, if you accept the gospel, offer a future of unlimited potential, wealth, growth, development, a lifestyle of your choosing. The peak oil movement offers despair, hard work, starvation, a struggle for clean water, elimination of travel, a world without cars, without electric can openers for God's sake.

Even today the majority of people in the world remain blissfully unaware of the peak oil issue and the crises facing us in the near future. Of every ten people that our constant campaigning makes aware of the issue more than half are going to reject our message and, instead, get religion and embrace the gospel according to Exxon. If they have to put their effort into something, after all - and for most their awareness and awakening all but compels them to action - then they are going to put that effort into something that promises them a benefit, a bright future, a continuation of the good life.

Our increasing membership in the peak oil movement is, for the moment, coming at a terrible price. It is growing our opposition at an even faster rate. They have the full power of the political machine, mass media, and gobs of money to use in the battle. We, on the other hand, are all too easily dismissed as crackpots, conspiracy theorists, doomsayers, as wanting the societal destruction and massive die-off that we warn about. There isn't a serious peak oil advocate who hasn't lost friends, built walls between themselves and members of their family over their advocacy. Most have simply eventually withdrawn into their own shell and, for the sake of harmony, ceased talking about peak oil among friends and family.

The more you can put your opponent in the role of criticizing you, or even defending themselves in such a way that it highlights your opposition, the more they in turn run the risk, however, of garnering additional support for you. This is often what happens at the turning point in the confrontation, at the point where the weaker opponent begins to get the upper hand.

This is a trend we are definitely starting to see in the peak oil movement. The cornucopians, the oil company executives, the paid shills, the pork-barrel politicians, the "I'll tell you whatever you want to hear" economists are increasingly in the position, while trying to defend their own stance, of having to criticize the peak oil movement, its statistics, its forecasts, its warnings of dire circumstances. In so doing, however, they are themselves increasing the visibility of the peak oil movement. They are, themselves, increasing the army of supporters for the peak oil theory/message. They are actively sowing the seeds of their own eventual defeat. And the harder they hit, the louder they yell, the more they are pushing people to the other side, into supporting the peak oil movement.

This change in conditions, however, imposes upon we in the peak oil movement a responsibility, if we are to capitalize on the changes taking place and reach enough people to form a critical mass sufficient to cause some move toward the development of a sustainable, post-peak future. It is time for us to take the high road. The cornucopians are feeling the heat. The reality of the situation is starting to bite them and everyone else in the ass. It is becoming an increasingly difficult reality to ignore or argue against. We don't need to yell anymore.

The more quietly we carry the message forward, and the louder the opposition rails against it, the more credibility it gives our message in the minds of those who have not yet joined one camp or the other. We will, with an air of quiet confidence and calmness, garner increasingly more support than the loud, critical, unrealistic opposition. It will become increasingly apparent to more and more people as the global economy implodes that the good life the other side is offering them is unachievable. With that recognition should also come the realization that preparation for a very different future is now needed. That is where the critical mass comes from.

In order to help people achieve a full understanding of the implications of peak oil, however, it is important that we continue connecting the dots, continue linking peak oil with the global oil wars, the collapsing world economy, the renewed push for nuclear energy, rising unemployment, the global freshwater crisis, the global hunger crisis, global topsoil loss, and, yes, global warming and climate change. They must be helped to see that the good life they have been pursuing and which has been promised to them has come at a price which threatens the survival of themselves and their children and grandchildren. They must finally be convinced that it is time to take the red pill.

Peak Oil and the Global Financial Crisis

I am not an economist, nor do I play one on television. Nor would I want to be one. How limiting and depressing it must be to constrain oneself to constantly viewing the beauty and wonders of this magnificent living planet through the lens of cold, hard, lifeless money, seeking nothing more from it than profit.

Economist preach the faith that money makes the world go round. And they have the charts and graphs to prove it. And therein lies the problem. We can not solve our problems, including the serious global financial crisis, by looking at the world through a dollar sign, through the same economic lens that has contributed so largely to creating that crisis.

The environment is not a part of the economy to be bought and sold for a profit. It does not conform neatly to human economic rules and laws. The economy, conversely, is just one subset of the environment. We need to look at economics through a worldview that is broad and all-encompassing, need to put it in a more realistic perspective in tune with the realities of the planet itself.

We have pushed this planet and its environment to the brink and must now place human economy in the service of protecting and preserving what is left while there is still something of it left to protect and preserve. Because sooner or later that chance will be lost. We will at some point pass the tipping point, all for the sake of profit. In fact, if we continue with the same economic mindset we will probably try to make even more profit out of the terminal scarcity that our pursuit of profit has created.

Climbing back out of any recession means increasing energy consumption. Period. Recession recovery means increasing manufacturing production, transportation, increasing mobility, increased credit, increased shipping and trade. All of this involves increases in the use of energy.

In the five years from 1930-35 U.S. energy consumption dropped by nearly 14%. In the next five years, with the onset of war manufacturing and increased trans-Atlantic trade with the western European nations who would soon be pitted against Germany in WWII, it rose by 23.3% and another 29.5% during the war years to 1945. In fact, as Michael T. Klare points out in his excellent video, Blood and Oil, "The U.S. consumed more than one third of its total oil reserves during WWII." Other periods of recovery following recessions have also been accompanied by similar measurable peaks in increased energy consumption.

But how do we know if/when we are in a recession/depression? As they unfold there is invariably a serious and increasing disconnect between the Rosy and optimistic pronouncements - as if trying to wish it away - of leading politicians and industry leaders measured against the increasingly painful realities seen and felt by people on the street, whether that be Main Street or the workers and stock-hawkers in the pits on Wall Street. This is not unlike John McCain's confident campaign-trail assertion that "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," just hours before Treasury Secretary Paulson started the ball rolling on the $700-billion financial system bailout package.

In November, 1930 Alfred P. Sloan Jr. of General Motors confidently proclaimed, "I see no reason why 1931 should not be an extremely good year." Compare that to similar "public" optimism of today's GM leaders as the company implodes and seeks merger with Chrysler, itself currently struggling and a phoenix recently arisen from the ashes of near bankruptcy. On June 9, 1931, eight years before the depression was finally ended by WWII, Dr. Julius Klein, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce, announced "The depression has ended."

We, of course, have a very different reality to deal with today than what existed in 1929. If lack of energy or the high cost of energy in any way contributes to a recession, as it very clearly has in the 2008 global recession (depression?), then climbing back out of the recession will now be very much constrained by the same factors that caused it. That energy scarcity or high energy cost will increase right along with the increase in activity in the attempted economic recovery.

In the few weeks following the first admission of a global financial crisis, spotlighted by the U.S. Treasury's request for its first $700-billion bailout package, oil prices on the world's commodity exchanges began to move uncharacteristically in lockstep with the wild swings on global stock markets. Over the previous couple of years the stock markets and oil prices had more often gone in opposite directions as investors moved their money back and forth between equities and commodities in search of the highest profits. This new tandem pattern was the clearest signal that investors were simply removing their money from the investment arena, both equities and commodities, as profit opportunities dwindled and moving it into cash or gold.

If it's not this recession it will be the next one. There isn't time (historically 10-20 years to fully recover from a deep recession) to climb back out of this recession before the next one hits (bull periods tend to be 8-15 years duration). Peak oil is either already upon us or about to hit within the next 5-10 years, depending on who you listen to.

Suddenly real people, and economists, will come to realize that it is a serious liability, not an asset, that we have a credit/debt driven economy. The proposed solutions to this crisis thus far have been to throw more credit/debt at it. Our current global economy is critically dependent on growth. That growth is critical to support the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy (now essentially practiced globally by all national reserve banks) of growing the money supply through Fractional Reserve Banking. Through fractional reserve banking each dollar on loan (debt) is treated as an asset which the bank uses as the asset base to issue up to ten more dollars of loans out of money that does not exist, and can never, in a shrinking economy, be paid back.

Growth is also critically dependent on never-ending expansion of the energy supply tp support the social activity to generate the money to repay the debts incurred under the fractional reserve banking system. If you can't increase the energy supply growth stops. If growth stops the credit/debt economy dies. A debt-based economic system ultimately incorporates the assumption of its own eventual bankruptcy.

This recession, as has become painfully clear, is global. The recovery, likewise, must be global. For one nation to try to pull itself out of the recession at the cost of other nations cannot work, or at least will not be tolerated by other nations. There is considerable fear, however, that that is exactly what will happen. There is even greater fear in the U.S. that not one but many nations will decide to take advantage of the situation and use it to destroy U.S. hegemony by taking the U.S. dollar down the toilet.

There are many side effects to the growing global financial crisis. One of the most dangerous for the industrial nations is that the JIT (Just In Time) theology is breaking down. There is no credit available to finance shipping costs, to finance an inventory buildup, especially the large retail build-up for the Christmas season. Shelves will become bare so much more quickly than in the Great Depression because nobody holds an inventory. The inventory is in the pipeline. If the pipeline is shutdown the only inventory to draw on is what is on the shelves, generally a few days or weeks of product. The financial system will not free up massive amounts of money to allow for the building up of inventory, something manufacturers and producers would clearly love. What better solution to the woes of the manufacturing sector than to suddenly have retailers abandon JIT and suddenly start stocking their shelves and backrooms with inventory.

Since oil and other energy forms are such a crucial and costly input to the exploitation of all energy sources those other forms of energy have risen in cost in tandem with the price of oil (and do not, as we constantly observe, do not drop as quickly as oil when it drops). This has, however, had an odd and now clearly unfortunate side effect.

The higher selling price of energy has encouraged the development of many higher cost alternatives necessitated by the declining availability of the preferred and less costly primary sources such as crude oil, natural gas and black coal. The Canadian tar sands, deepwater offshore oil extraction and oil extraction in landlocked countries like Azerbaijan are prime examples. If and when the price of oil declines due to demand destruction, and other forms of energy with it, financially over-extended energy projects like those mentioned, which were viable only because of the high selling price of the energy those projects produced, begin to fall on serious financial difficulties. The energy they produce no longer brings the selling price that their much higher production costs require to remain viable.

The global oil production and demand figures show very clearly that we hit a peak in global oil production in May, 2005. We may still have times over the next few years where that peak is surpassed as we bounce along on the peak oil plateau. The trend, however, shows that growth in global oil production has ceased though the terminal decline has not yet begun.

Growth in liquid fuels since that peak has come not from conventional crude but from alternatives such as tar sands, oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquid, natural gas to liquid, synthetics and biofuels, primarily from sugar cane, corn and wheat. This latter, in fact, is contributing to a serious rise in world food prices that is raising the specter of a new round of mass starvation such as we have not seen since the beginning of the green revolution.

If this recession is prolonged, which there is every indication it will be, it is unlikely, considering the global energy production statistics, that we will have the energy required to support the growth in industrial and economic activity it will take to bring it to an end. If it does end it will not be for long. We will quickly run up against the limits in the energy supply and slip yet again into a global recession, that one terminal.

Governments of the major economic nations, and their economists, are beginning to make noises about redesigning the global financial system. If that redesign does not properly take into the account the current energy limitations and future energy declines it will be very short-lived.

"The Shock Doctrine" and Political Peak Oil Denial

For several decades now, dating back to at least the Reagan-Thatcher era, the primary underpinning of U.S. foreign policy has been The Shock Doctrine. First used successfully by Augusto Pinochet in Chile and keenly observed by the U.S., this doctrine has been enthusiastically embraced by U.S. administrations ever since it was first introduced to them by Milton Friedman. The late Milton Friedman was a now well-known but generally-viewed-as-radical economist from Chicago whose teachings were responsible for turning out the soldiers at least partly responsible for Pinochet's victory and enduring success. Friedman's philosophy that became the Shock Doctrine is best and most succinctly summed up in his own words; "Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs [my words: whether by design or happenstance], the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around." Successive U.S. administrations have, with varying levels of success, put that doctrine into practice in Iraq, Afghanistan, and across the world stage. Those decades of practice, and the lessons learned in foreign arenas, have served well to equip Washington for now unleashing The Shock Doctrine in the arena for which it was ultimately intended by them, at home against America's own citizens. Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, does an excellent job tracing the history of this doctrine and it's use both in the U.S. and other nations such as Russia, Chile, Argentina and elsewhere.

No previous U.S. administration has so successfully employed the Shock Doctrine, both abroad and at home, than that of president George W. Bush and his dangerous VP, Dick Cheney. It has been used, perhaps not yet successfully, in the attempts to turn Iraq into an oil-rich puppet state from which the U.S. hopes and plans to ultimately control the vast oil reserves of the middle east. It has been used with great effect at home following the events of September 11, 2001, following hurricane Katrina, and is now being used in an attempt to change the economic landscape with the so-called $700-billion bailout resulting from the collapse of the housing market and the resultant sub-prime mortgage fiasco.

The beauty and effectiveness of using the Shock Doctrine is that you do not have to initiate or even execute the crisis event that you use for the springboard to implement your plans. You just have to be ready with those plans to capitalize on any crisis event that fits your needs. It was pretty clear that with the speed with which the Patriot Act was brought forward and passed that it had been created and was sitting in the wings just waiting for an event like 9/11. Whether or not there was foreknowledge by the members of congress is uncertain and, frankly, irrelevant because they too, like the voters they represent, have been turned into victims of the Shock Doctrine. It does not mean - and I am not passing judgement either way - that the administration was in any way complicit in the events of 9/11, despite the suspicion of guilt rising because of the whitewash job that became the 9/11 Commission Report. It does mean that the Patriot Act was planned and was sitting in abeyance, waiting for an event like 9/11. The ratcheting up of the fear factor since 9/11, the constant warnings from the administration and the compliant media, have garnered the administration an endless series of successes in implementing new legislation increasingly eroding America's civil liberties and freedoms.

In autumn 2005 I wrote an article entitled Paying the Executioner which appeared in the Online Journal Blue-Green Earth in November 2005 (http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/polemic/2005/embleton-1-2005.html). This article explained how our current rendition of capitalism with the willing complicity of government was not only picking our pockets but destroying the overall prospect of survivability for our children and grandchildren. The new erosion of American freedoms initiated since 9/11 will exact their ultimate toll not from you but from your children and grandchildren. Government and industry, hand in hand, are feeling increasingly emboldened by their successes in the use of the Shock Doctrine, in particular over this past decade. The erosion of rights and freedoms will not stop at what they have so far accomplished. Indeed the $700-billion+ bailout bill currently passed by the senate and before the house for a probable vote today has dramatically increased the price that Americans, and indeed the world, are paying for the escalation of this Shock Doctrine.

I am sure you were waiting for it so here it comes. What does this have to do with peak oil? Well, let me tell you.

One of the most frightening events that could happen to Americans in general is to have their energy taken away from them, to lose the ability to use their cars, to have to -ugh - use public transit to do their shopping, to have to car pool, to have to submit to fuel rationing, to have to pay a toll to enter the city to go to work, to have to hop on the bus or train to see America or to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner. As George Bush so admitted, "America is addicted to oil." In fact, America and the hegemonic power it enjoys on the world stage was built on oil. And America likewise is critically dependent on oil and other forms of energy in every way. Not only does the country run on oil but much of its infrastructure is built on materials derived from oil, its industrial agriculture and food production/delivery system is totally dependent on oil and other fossil fuels, the medicines the increasingly-medically-dependent population relies on are largely derived from oil and dependent on oil for their manufacture, the homes in which Americans live and the "things" with which they fill their homes are derived from oil. There are over 300,000 products in everyday use that are made from oil and its derivatives. Most importantly, however, the suburb-centric lifestyle developed in America since WWII is a totally oil dependent lifestyle. The simple fact of earning a living is dependent on being able to get from that home in the suburbs to the job somewhere else.

Do the administration and the congress and state legislatures know about peak oil? This is a subject of endless speculation and discussion on the online peak oil groups in which I participate. Of course they are aware. Bush and Cheney are ex oil men. Roscoe Bartlett has made endless - though largely ignored - presentations in the house about peak oil. One of Dick Cheney's first acts as VP was to form an Energy Task Force to brainstorm future responses to peak oil. Cheney was, while he was still with Halliburton, talking up peak oil in speeches as early as 1999. There is a growing concensus that W's invasion of Iraq was undertaken because of a growing awareness of the approach of peak oil.

Why, then, is there still a pervasive atmosphere of political denial of peak oil? Why is the phrase "Peak Oil" the words that must not be spoken in public?

The Shock Doctrine!!! But the timing is not yet right.

Peak oil is not yet the crisis they need in order to use it as the catalytic event to turn it against the populace. You couldn't sell fuel rationing yet. You couldn't yet sell compulsory car pooling, street tolls and all of the other measures that the government will undoubtedly implement as a result of peak oil. There is, admittedly, a growing sense of discomfort and pain from rising fuel prices and the downstream impact on food and goods prices. But it is not yet a sense of crisis and not close enough to one for any attempt to portray it as one to be credible. Appearances are that we have bumping along on the peak oil plateau since May 2005 but the irreversible decline in global crude oil production that will start to put pressure on the global growth society has not yet begun. When will that be? No one knows for certain but I would put my money on sooner rather than later, more likely over the next few years than 2030+ as CERA continues to suggest.

There have been lineups at gas stations in the southeast over the past few weeks but this is not a result of peak oil. This is a result of the refineries shut down by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. This is a shortage of refined fuels, not of oil. But when those lineups become general and widespread, when your gas station has only a fifty-fifty chance of having any gasoline tomorrow morning when you need it, when the store shelves start to be increasingly bare because the store can't get delivery from an increasingly undependable transportation system, when you can't get fuel oil in the middle of a cold winter, when natural gas pipelines start collapsing because they are empty, then and only then does it start to become the generally-recognized-and-understood crisis that is needed to use it to push forward the increasingly restrictive legislation that will allow government (and industry) to the control the population on the way down the downslope.

It is a mistake to interpret the lack of public discourse on peak oil as a lack of awareness. That silence, especially in the face of growing signs that peak oil is indeed upon us, should be viewed with alarm. You should be afraid of what is to come when the silence is finally broken because that is the signal that government and industry believe things have reached crisis level and they have you by the throat, or whatever other part of your anatomy you most fear being in the hands of someone wanting to destroy it.

See the following excellent videos featuring Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine:
Naomi Klein: Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein "The Shock Doctrine" & "No Logo" interview
The Take - Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis

Space Colonies, Flying Cars and Clean Coal

Great Technological Myths for the 21st Century

All of the above are promised technological marvels that never have and probably never will materialize, feel-good mental distractions pumped out by myopic techno-centric minds. But this article is only about one; clean coal or, more accurately, CCS (carbon capture and sequestration).

Carbon capture, unlike space colonies and flying cars, is a pipe-dream born out of necessity. We are so adversely impacting the life-support system of this planet that we have now forced ourselves into a position of having to correct some of our more critical damage. The article, Carbon tax no cure for climate change, claims, "Ultimately, the answer to greenhouse gas emissions in this energy-hungry world is going to come from a breakthrough on the technology side, and it won't come cheap."[12] Whether or not one accepts that technology holds the solution, it is the driving force behind industry and government in most developed and developing nations and will, therefore, dictate the direction in the corridors of power over the coming decades.

In case it appears otherwise, let me be very clear. I am not against the concept of carbon capture and sequestration. Quite the contrary. Only a small clutch of pollyannas and cornucopians any longer believes that peak oil (and peak natural gas) are not fast approaching. Ethanol and biofuels, tar sands, oil shale, methane hydrates and any other alternatives do not negate that reality. The fact that we are forced to pursue these costly and difficult alternatives, in fact, are confirmation that the reality of peak oil is sinking into the consciousness of those in the energy industry. There is unfortunately little doubt, therefore, that we will pursue coal as a primary energy option as the reality of declining oil and natural gas reserves dictates. Increasing our reliance on dirty coal - the dirtiest of all fossil fuels - without pursuing every means of preventing further destruction of the earth's environment through elevated CO2 emissions would seriously hasten the demise of the life-support capability of this planet.

My issue with carbon capture and sequestration is complex but starts with a reasonable doubt that we can develop a technology to do it soon enough. I fear that we will continue to build dirty, coal-fired power plants on the basis of an assumption that such technology will materialize and can be retrofitted to those plants. It appears that the energy drain on those facilities for CCS (up to 40% or more) will dramatically increase our global energy consumption with no net increase in energy produced. It also appears that the full energy cost of CCS, from mining of the coal through eventual sequestration, could more than double the energy consumption with no net increase in energy produced and hasten our race toward an energy cliff. I fear that we will force ourselves into a near-term reliance on nuclear energy, complete with its radioactive waste disposal problem, by creating a new energy crisis by rapidly depleting the planet's coal resources. I also fear that we will soon pursue the very dangerous alternative of mining the world's methane hydrate deposits, running the very serious risk of pushing the earth into a runaway greenhouse effect (methane is 20 times more powerful as a GHG than CO2).

Breaking CCS down, carbon capture refers to isolating and collecting the carbon dioxide created by the burning of fossil fuels. This would usually be at the point of combustion, such as in coal-fired power plants, thus preventing it entering the atmosphere. Another possibility is extracting previously emitted carbon dioxide (from, for example, automobile and aircraft emissions, factory emissions and home heating fuel emissions) from the atmosphere itself. There is current gas separation technology that can accomplish this on a limited scale.

Carbon sequestration involves the long-term storing or sequestering of that CO2 in either gaseous or liquid form underground, usually in formations such as depleted oil or natural gas wells (there are some efforts to use injected CO2 to increase the well-head pressure and flow rate of operating oil wells[3]) or abandoned mines, or in liquid form at the bottom of the deeper parts of the ocean where it is hoped the massive pressure of water above the CO2 deposit would hold it in place. There is also research ongoing into chemically reacting the carbon dioxide with substances like sandstone or certain chemicals like carbon hydroxide and transforming it permanently into other substances like rock (see Carbon sequestration rocks! Literally[9]) or sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda (see Baking Soda: Removes stains, odors, and combats Global Warming[22]).

In between carbon capture and carbon sequestration will have to be some means of transport, such as tanker trucks, trains, ships or, most likely, pipelines, to get the carbon dioxide from point of extraction or capture to the site of sequestration. The CO2 transport aspect has, thus far, received very little attention or funding. In a presentation to the US senate of a proposed new bill, Senator Coleman pointed out (see Sen. Coleman testifies before Senate Committee about carbon dioxide capture and transport) "While considerable progress has been made on the first [capture] and third [sequestration] steps, [this] bill begins the process of determining how best to get the CO2 from the point of creation to the point of storage."[28]

Simple, right? Not!

It's definitely not as easy as the constant headlines announcing new projects (globally 20 in 2007) would have us believe. Despite those constant announcements nothing gets done, except a lot of your tax money going into the coffers of organizations mounting government-funded research programs. Coming up with a workable, scalable, cost effective CCS technology will not be simple and will not be fast. “People don’t understand the magnitude of the problem,” said Howard Herzog, principal research engineer for M.I.T.’s Carbon Capture and Sequestration Program. “How can we do hundreds of these plants by 2050 - and that’s what we’ll need - if we can’t even do one?”[32]

Everything about carbon capture and sequestration is future, theoretical, of unknown cost but of great promise. Wise supervisors vote unanimous support for power plant, a typical article announcing a new coal-fired power plant, says, "Robbins said the resolution makes note of support for the “best available, advanced and futuristic technology for carbon capture” Dominion is urged to incorporate as that technology becomes available. ..... Adkins said he believes Dominion’s Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center will become a “world model” for the development of carbon capture and sequestration technology in the future.[emphasis mine]"[15]

Carbon capture and sequestration, if it ever ultimately materializes which is by no means certain, will be very energetically expensive. There is much debate about both the technical parameters and potential future viability of carbon capture and sequestration. The article, New coal fired power station gets go ahead points out, "The notion of cleaned coal is an oxymoron, with environmentalists and scientists disagreeing over the viability of any capture / cleaning / sequestration technology. It will take years and seems a high gamble to rely on a technology in the future."[5] This sentiment is echoed in the article, Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future, which states, "But scientists and environmentalists say "clean coal" does not exist; it is a misnomer and an oxymoron. "[16]

As to the energy requirement, according to the article, Carbon capture faces cost challenge, "Carbon capture costs represent up to 80 per cent of the total costs of carbon capture and storage, between $66 to $110 a tonne, according to preliminary research by the CO2 network."[26] Estimates are, in fact, that carbon capture in coal-fired power plants could consume from 20-40% as much energy as is being generated, and that the total energy costs from capture to sequestration, including the energy for mining and transporting the coal, could require 60% as much energy or more as the energy being generated in the power plant. Quite simply this means that power generation incorporating carbon capture and sequestration will require up to 60% more fuel to generate the same amount of energy as that being produced without CCS. With peak oil, peak natural gas and peak coal all set to materialize over the next few decades that is a disheartening statistic. And that 60% more fuel will also generate and emit carbon dioxide which, in turn, has to be captured and sequestered.

In a global economy addicted to perpetual growth and massive profits no industry is going to voluntarily adopt, at their own expense, a new technology that is going to add 60 percent to their fuel bill, especially an industry like power generation where fuel cost is their largest single operating expense. The article Energy at the crossroads: Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution suggests, "There are simply too many unknowns to commit enormous investments to an undertaking whose results could be obtained in many more preferable ways."[3] The article suggests, for example, that, ".....we could cut our energy use by more than 60 percent without diminishing our lifestyle in any way -- and arguably it would be enhanced,". The article claims, ".....the U.S. requires 7 tons of oil equivalent (toe) per person per year to maintain our present lifestyle. But ..... a top-notch lifestyle [such as that in Europe] requires no more than 2.6 toe and arguably even a bit less."[3] Despite the highly political assurances of the current White House administration to the contrary, sooner or later the American way of life has to become negotiable, and the sooner the better.

In order to soften the economic blow the largest industrial CO2 polluters/emitters would face implementing CCS, various forms of cap-and-trade systems have been proposed by different industrial governments. Most of these programs are broken into multiple phases where phase 1 involves giving the first allocation of carbon certificates to the major CO2 emitters. Subsequent phases would require emitters to purchase additional certificates at auction. The intent of the phasing is to encourage CO2 emitters to, over time, reduce their emissions (and their costs) to acceptable levels, either through adoption of CCS technology or other means.

Many of these schemes, however, do not have the teeth, possibly by intent (".....industry officials continue to talk up the greatness of carbon capture and sequestration "potential" yet refuse to implement a carbon tax or some equivalent that, from a market perspective, is the only sure way of getting the ball rolling beyond mere discussion and promises."[27]), to generate the needed CO2 reductions. The article, The European emission trading scheme: lessons for Ontario, points out, "The more allocations granted[in the EU], the cheaper carbon permits became, and the less incentive coal-fired power companies had to deviate from business-as-usual and actually reduce emissions."[4] If the cap-and-trade system does not encourage/(force?) the needed CO2 reductions there is reason to question the societal value of the system. The article, Carbon Trading: The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?, spells out the most prevalent criticism. ".....critics say buying carbon offsets does little to change how carbon-addicted companies operate. "It's like the medieval practice of buying papal indulgences," complains Frank O'Donnell, president of the not-for-profit Clean Air Watch. "If sinners throw a few bucks into the pot, they can go back to sinning.""[8]

But companies and industries do what they do. Whenever possible they will find a way to turn a profit, even in cleaning up their own mess. Carbon offsets are already being tackled as a good new profit-making venture. The above report indicates, "In 2006, trading volume of carbon offsets, such as Carbon Financial Instruments and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), jumped 200 percent in the voluntary markets (primarily the United States). Observers believe that market is now worth at least $100 million. Privately, those same observers talk about a $4 billion carbon-trading market once federal caps are approved."[8]

If tackling carbon dioxide emissions and atmospheric CO2 levels is limited to the capture of CO2 at large, single-point generation facilities such as power plants which are responsible for less than half our CO2 emissions, it is unlikely that sufficient levels of atmospheric CO2 reductions will result to have the needed impact on mitigating global warming. As the report, Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars, points out, "Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters - automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators)."[36] But governments like to throw your tax money at the big, visible projects like power plants, especially at election time. Research into other methods is primarily being left to private, non-funded projects like this. ".....The Georgia Tech team outlines an economically feasible strategy for processing fossil or synthetic, carbon-containing liquid fuels that allows for the capture and recycling of carbon at the point of emission. .....onboard fuel processor designed to separate the hydrogen in the fuel from the carbon. Hydrogen is then used to power the vehicle, while the carbon is stored on board the vehicle in a liquid form until it is disposed [of] at a refueling station."[36]

Environmentalist largely argue that no new fossil-fuel-fired power plants should be built without functioning carbon capture built in. Industry and most western governments argue against that position. Banks are caught in the middle, uncertain about the wisdom of the financial risk of granting investment funds for construction of a plant dependent on a technology that might never materialize in a political climate that is daily giving birth to new legislation demanding ever-tighter environmental controls. In the article, Banks won't slow plans for coal plant, the dilemma is spelled out, "But waiting until sequestration technology is perfected before building a plant would leave the state and ..... customers without reliable and low-cost sources of electricity....."[35] Anne Woiwode, state director for the Michigan Sierra Club, disagrees. Woiwode says "it doesn't make sense for utilities to build coal plants knowing federal regulations are coming, and that someday they might have to retrofit existing plants with carbon sequestration technology. She is worried utilities will pass along those costs to rate payers."[35] If they do not, either directly in customer power rates or indirectly through government subsidies, free carbon certificates or exemptions, I am not sure who she expects will pick up that cost. Certainly not the utility.

But the question is a fair one. Shouldn't the corporations, governments and nations that have financially benefited from the burning of cheap fossil fuels be responsible for the cost of cleaning up the present and their future environmental damages inflicted by those practices? This argument is put in sharp relief in the article, Carbon capture Canada's best hope to meet Kyoto targets. "But an excellent case can be made that Alberta should pick up the lion's share of the tab to create this tidbit of technology. After all, Wild Rose Country is in danger of growing out of sync economically with other provinces, developing a fatcat reputation as it continues to be the prime beneficiary of Canada's oil industry as well as the largest contributor among provinces to the greenhouse gas emissions problem."[34] And the article, Carbon capture faces cost challenge, adds this. ""Just for pure sequestration, the value is derived from not having CO2 in the atmosphere," Charles Szmulo, with Enbridge Inc. says. "That doesn't pay revenue, it's more of an avoided societal cost. The question is who's going to pay for that societal cost."[26] The inference in that statement is that it certainly will not be the polluter. Some take their skepticism a little further, as suggested in Banks Get Smarter On Cleaner Coal. "And given that the technology to capture and store carbon from coal plants isn’t expected to be viable for at least a decade, anything built between now and then will likely only come with the promise of carbon capture technologies, not the real thing. If you’re a skeptic, like climate scientist James Hansen, then you doubt that utilities are planning on implementing carbon capture technology, even when it becomes available."[33]

Our present giddy enthusiasm for carbon capture as a means of mitigating greenhouse gas build-up in the atmosphere runs, unfortunately, the distinct risk of achieving quite the opposite. Carbon dioxide is not the only atmospheric toxin and greenhouse gas going up the smokestack of our factories and power plants. There is sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, and a host of other toxins, as well as the particulate matter in the smoke itself. With the increased parasitic energy demand on emission sources equipped with carbon capture technology (and this without even allowing for the reduced energy intensity of the poorer grades of brown coal that will have to be used when the higher grade coals are gone in the next few years) we may reduce the CO2 being released into the earth's atmosphere but will significantly increase the emissions of these other toxins and greenhouse gases.

We may reduce CO2 levels but increase the incidence of particulate matter (e.g. smoke, dust and ash) in the atmosphere that is responsible for the global dimming that has arguably neutralized the global warming impact being brought on by the increased greenhouse gases. Rather than balance the earth's temperature by reducing our human-generated greenhouse gases we may end up causing a precipitous drop in the average global temperature with the serious potential of pushing us into another ice age.

We have an unfortunate tendency of developing tunnel-vision when we are looking for solutions to problems, even those of our own making. We like to put all our eggs in one basket, our faith in that one grand solution. This is based on an ardent belief that what "small" problems are generated by the solution can, in turn, be solved by the application of yet more technology. But what is the solution when the technology itself is the problem?
=============================================
1) Climate change and the purpose of growth
2) Earlier start for clean coal power
3) Energy at the crossroads: Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution
4) The European emission trading scheme: lessons for Ontario
5) New coal fired power station gets go ahead
6) Earth2Tech Maps: Coal Power Plant Deathwatch
7) FAQ: Carbon Capture & Sequestration
8) Carbon Trading: The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?
9) Carbon sequestration rocks! Literally. We try to capture the debate on putting carbon where it won't hurt anything
10) The wind, the sun-and the atom
11) Climate scientist criticizes coal-fired power plant plans
12) Carbon tax no cure for climate change
13) Where Do The Candidates Stand On Energy Sources?
14) Scientists Protest Geoengineering to Capture CO2
15) Wise supervisors vote unanimous support for power plant
16) Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future
17) There is a silver-bullet solution to global warming
18) Europe's CO2 Capture Conundrum
19) Discover The Future Of Carbon Capture And Storage
20) Climate fraud, carbon profits
21) Masdar and Hydrogen Energy plan clean energy plant in Abu Dhabi
22) Baking Soda: Removes stains, odors, and combats Global Warming
23) Aker to invest in pioneering carbon capture facility
24) Greenpeace condemns Alberta climate change plan
25) Brussels' CO2 permits expected to cost Drax its independence
26) Carbon capture faces cost challenge
27) Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns
28) Sen. Coleman testifies before Senate Committee about carbon dioxide capture and transport
29) Will Canada Save Clean Coal?
30) Clean Coal?
31) Natural Systems Solutions to Global Warming
32) Clean coal: FutureGen goes on the rocks
33) Banks Get Smarter On Cleaner Coal
34) Carbon capture Canada's best hope to meet Kyoto targets
35) Banks won't slow plans for coal plant
36) Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars

CCS: Cure or CurSe?

Three factors are converging to put Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) at the forefront of the global energy picture and discussion.

* Pollution from our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels to power global industrial society has pushed the planet's environment beyond it's ability to absorb our abuses and maintain temperature equilibrium. Global warming/climate change is on the march as the build-up of GHGs (both carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane but also others such as sulfur dioxide) in the atmosphere continues.
* The two fossil fuels that largely powered the 20th century's industrial and technological growth, oil and natural gas, are both at or nearing their peak and other alternatives are already being leaned on to fill the gap. The only two possible alternatives that can possibly carry much of the burden of energy-hungry human population are coal and nuclear (though China, India, Japan and others are already investigating the possible foolhardy exploitation of methane hydrates (methane is a GHG twenty times more powerful than CO2), a carbohydrate fuel source potentially more abundant than all the other fossil fuels combined) and there is still a large mistrust of nuclear as the foundation of the global energy strategy.
* It is increasingly clear that industry-driven governments throughout the world are intent on pursuing business as usual until nature and geology absolutely refuse to cooperate and force us to face the reality of a planet in overall energy decline. To a large extent they have little choice. We have a global economy and global society built on debt and an ever-increasing money supply. That increasing money supply is based on a very shaky assumption of continued population, resource and GDP growth, all of which are threatened even in the short term by the approaching disasters.

With those three factors coming together, and despite strong and growing environmental opposition, we have left ourselves little alternative in the short term but to turn to coal. Other than the much dreaded and avoided nuclear it is the only fuel source that can be scaled up in the near term to the level to satisfy an appreciable portion of a business-as-usual energy demand. The total potential and technology-dependent wind, solar, tidal and geothermal energy could not make a serious attempt to replace the loss of energy coming with the decline of global oil and natural gas supplies. Even if technologically, environmentally and economically feasible, broad-based methane hydrate exploitation is still potentially decades away. It is unlikely, also, that the problem of disposal or long-term storage of radioactive nuclear waste will be solved satisfactorily. Without that the widespread discomfort with the nuclear option is unlikely to dissipate unless nuclear is the absolute last option open to us in which case that opposition will be ignored out of "necessity". Which may be the case soon enough at any rate as, according to some knowledgeable observers like Chris Skrebowski, tar sands may peak as early as 2015 and, according to the Energy Watch group in Germany, coal should peak as early as 2025 but before 2015 the predominant source of coal will be dirty, brown coal, not the "cleaner" black coals that have dominated to date.

An increased dependence on coal, especially as an increasingly dominant source of energy, means big-time problems on the global warming/climate change issue. The only possible way to lessen that impact would be with broad-based carbon capture and sequestration, not just of the emissions from coal-fired power plants but atmospheric CO2 from, for example, automobile and aircraft emissions and natural gas-fired power plants.

Will Carbon Capture and Sequestration be implemented early enough and on a sufficient scale to prevent the environmental disaster that looms before us as we pass peak oil? It will, by most estimates, take at least a decade to develop workable and scalable CCS technology and infrastructure. Most CCS plans and projects, however, involve the building of new coal-fired power plants with CCS built into the design. There is very little viable research ongoing for technology that can be retrofitted across a broad spectrum of existing power plants, not only coal fired but natural gas and oil fired as well.

Whether the technology is developed and implemented early enough to have any impact on the growing environmental crisis depends largely on how quickly we increase the burning of coal on a global scale without carbon capture built in. As oil and natural gas supplies decline, if CCS technology is not available or not efficient enough will we wait until it is available or proceed with opening new coal-fired power plants while hoping the technology will still be developed and can be retrofitted? If history is any measure we will proceed and hope for the best.

China and India (and other nations) continue opening new coal-fired power plants today on a massive scale (China's power demands are increasing by as much as 20% per year), all without CCS technology built in, most without design considerations for later retrofitting. China and India particularly (but also other 3rd world countries) have habitually disdained design safety and necessary routine maintenance in their attempt to produce "cheap" power, despite the fact that design technology exists to satisfy both, but at a cost. If CCS adds significant cost, either built in or retrofitted, it is likely that all manner of excuses will be found for not implementing it. Third world countries are not alone. The "cheap" energy demands of industry have always trumped public and even government environmental concerns. We must keep the wheels of industry rolling. If the need for energy is there but CCS is not ready or not economically acceptable to industry, it is likely those "cheap" energy needs will be met, whatever the cost or consequences.

If there is, alternatively, any "doubt" about the CCS technology that doubt will be used as a convenient excuse (can you spell "red herring"?) not to implement it. As we have seen repeatedly in western nations, particularly in the US, where there is no doubt industry lobbies will work very hard to manufacture doubt in order to create an excuse for not pursuing a policy contrary to their dominant profit motive. When it comes to something as serious as the potential destruction of the planet's environment doubt should be a cause for extreme caution, but industry does not see it that way, nor do the governments they have bought and paid for. Doubt is consistently used as the basis for not addressing environmental issues and similar "costly" measures. When it comes to doing the right thing and being good corporate citizens, it seems that an absolutely certainty of, of course, profitability is required.

Carbon capture and sequestration comes at a cost, not just economically but also in terms of energy consumption and collateral environmental damage. Carbon capture reduces fuel efficiency by 20-40% meaning 20-40% more coal (of lower grade) or other energy must be burned to get the same energy output, meaning 20-40% more CO2 must be captured and sequestered because of the carbon capture. But CO2 is not the only "toxin" and greenhouse gas produced in burning coal and other fossil fuels. Sulfur Dioxide, lead and other emissions are also part of the mix. 20-40% more of these emissions will also result from the implementation of CCS. The potential increase in damage from soil toxification and acidification of freshwater supplies may be greater than the environmental benefits from the reduction of CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere. The carbon capture aspect will also employ a large volume of various chemicals to scrub the CO2 from the smokestack emissions, more chemicals that the environment has to cope with.

The sequestration of the captured carbon is also not without problems. The two primary plans for carbon sequestration are 1) to inject it into deep mines and exhausted oil fields or 2) injection deep into the oceans for sequestration at the ocean bottom. The long-term feasibility of land based sequestration in old mines and exhausted oil fields is by no means certain. The geological structure required to "contain" the injected CO2 (probably liquid rather than gaseous) is reasonably understood. But the actual geological structure of the sites into which sequestration is planned is not. Geology changes over time and the serious potential risk of a catastrophic re-release of the sequestered CO2 in time is very high. Fractures and stresses in the "cap" that holds the CO2 in place can readily develop allowing long-term slow re-release of the sequestered CO2. There is also a serious potential that sequestered CO2 can seep into stressed groundwater aquifers contaminating and acidifying those increasingly critical sources of water.

Deep ocean CO2 sequestration is almost certain to increase, over time, the acidification of the seawater above the sequestered CO2. The more acidic water becomes the less capable it is of supporting life. Additionally, the more the water absorbs CO2 from that sequestered on the ocean bottom the less capable that water becomes of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. The risk becomes very great that the planet's greatest CO2 sink, the oceans, would completely lose their ability to absorb atmospheric CO2, pushing the atmosphere into a runaway greenhouse effect.

There are far greater questions to consider in the carbon capture and sequestration debate than simply our ability to develop the technology to achieve it. The health and life-support capability of the planetary environment is at stake, as is the future survivability of life on earth, man included. We have an unfortunate tendency of creating more problems with our solutions than the problems the solutions answer. We are far too close to the edge to be creating more problems with our solutions. Maybe it is time for governments and industry to consider whether business-as-usual is a viable strategy any longer. Maybe it is time for them finally to consider that we have to drastically cut back our global energy consumption and seriously change the way in which our species interacts with the environment, while there is still a livable environment to interact with.

==========================================
1) United Nations Climate Change Conference: Bali: An Initial Balance Sheet
2) The Climate Crisis is a political crisis
3) Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future
4) Ten things you need to know about carbon capture
5) Net carbon dioxide losses of northern ecosystems in response to autumn warming
6) The Chemistry of Carbon Capture and Storage
7) Spongelike Air-Capture Gadget Scrubs Away Carbon Emissions
8) Carbon, Capture and Storage: Technology, Capacity and Limitations
9) Carbon capture gets crystal powered
10) "All We Need is Water and Pollution."
11) Carbon credit generates nearly $500,000 for Nebraska's farmers
12) Experts say candidates miss the boat on energy crunch
13) Ethical Issues Raised by Waiting for Geological Carbon Storage
14) Carbon sequestration frustration

Bubble Babble

Oh, they're having so much fuuuuuun! You'd think it was Times Square on VE-Day.

Four months to the day after oil passed $120.00 per barrel on an unstoppable climb it hit the latest - but certainly not the last - peak price of $147.27. Now, after a couple weeks of sliding it is back trading just under $120.00, a temporary respite before returning to its upward movement.

When oil first crossed the $120.00 barrier the press was full of articles about how devestating that price would be to the world economy. The world economy seemingly shrugged it off and adjusted to continuing rises in the price. The articles and headlines about the serious economic impact continued however.

When the price of oil dipped back under $120.00 a little over four months after it rose above that level for the first time the headlines were declaring that the good times had returned, that the bubble had burst, the stock markets climbed, the US dollar rebounded, we were on our way back down to oil prices of double digits, all was right with the world.... at a price that was considered the deathblow to the world economy just four short months ago.

Some writers were even so bold as to claim that peak oil was history, that peak oil had peaked, that the peak oil wing-nuts should crawl back into their caves. Clearly the market is in control of oil, not geology. I guess if you don't understand geology, don't bother to learn even the basics of geology, take all of your cues and information from economists and financiasl analysts you would have that point of view.

Those who understand oil geology, those who have studied the oil supply demand picture, those who have bothered to educate themselves in the underlying foundations of peak oil theory, those who know that M. King Hubbert and Mother Hubbard are not related, know that this is just a dip in the ongoing oscilation in price on the ever-upward trend in price that will accompany and follow the peak in global oil production. The prospect of $200.00 oil before year's end is still on the table. The likelihood if sub $100.00 oil is slim.

So to all of those who believe that $120.00 oil signals a return to the good old days, go out and check the tire pressure on your SUV, check the oil, check the battery, fill up the gas tank and get out there on the highway and have a rip-roaring good time. Enjoy the good times...... while they last.

Waiting for those Benevolent Aliens............

One of the prevalent and pernicious variations on the belief that technology will save us is the belief that we will soon make contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species that will teach us magical secrets and technological wonders that we will use to avert the disasters looming ahead of us. And like all variations on the belief in salvation through technology this simply is not likely to happen. If we bank on that, like mid-lifers planning our retirement around winning the lottery, we are planning on having to live through the worst case scenario of all these future crises.

I am by no means challenging the assumption of other intelligent life in the universe. In fact I fervently adhere to that belief. For some it takes a fundamental refocusing of their belief system to step away from the belief that man is the center of the universe, that man has some special dominion over all the other living species on this planet, that man can do with this planet, and any other part of the universe we manage to reach, whatever we wish. Our species has no special place in the overall scheme of things. Our sun is a minor star in a remote corner of an unspectacular galaxy, one of billions in the vast universe. A growing array of mathematical models suggest that life is probably ubiquitous throughout that universe, possibly existing on billions of planets. We still have not disproven the existence of life elsewhere in our own solar system. It is the ultimate in species chauvinism to believe that, with all of that life, we should be the only intelligent species that exists. The fact we haven't made contact with other intelligent life does not mean that it is not out there.

We are just now developing and enhancing the technology that allows us to determine from earth the chemical constituencies of distant bodies, stars, planets and moons. We are doing so in the hope that we can identify distant planets with the chemical makeup capable of supporting life. The chemical markers we will be looking for have been present on earth for billions of years for any intelligent species out there to have detected. Our sun is a relatively young star. Any intelligent life around a much older star, which is most other stars, could have reached our level of progress millions, even billions of years ago. Assuming that there must be other life and other intelligent species elsewhere in the universe our life-capable planet has in all probability already been detected long, long ago.

In just a century we have progressed from the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk to sending a Voyager spacecraft out of our home solar system to venture slowly across the galaxy. Growth in knowledge is exponential. Imagine what progress we may have made in another thousand years. Now imagine the progress an intelligent extraterrestrial species could already have accomplished if they are millions of years ahead of us in intellectual development.

If we were to receive from outer space a signal that we could clearly identify as being of intelligent origin, whether or not we could understand that signal, it is critical to remember that that signal could have left its planet of origin as much as millions of years ago (the distance in light years from earth to the point of origin of that signal). The species that sent it, whether intentional or accidental, were already at the stage of technological development we achieved in the early 20th century, a short century ago, as long ago as that signal was transmitted.

Radio signals have been leaving earth now for a century. That means that any potential intelligent species on any planet within 100 lightyears distance is able to receive those signals, just as we are constantly monitoring the sky with SETI. They know that we are here, even if they do not understand those signals.

Soon after the development of radio the ability was developed to jam radio signals. The use of this technology has helped dictatorial governments prevent their citizens from receiving radio and television signals from outside the country in order to control the information their populace receives. Once it was understood that radio signals were leaving our planet and emanating out into space an interest developed in using jamming-type technology to block or mask those radio signals leaving earth in order to control what messages extraterrestrial intelligent life might intercept.

It is probable that any intelligent species elsewhere in the universe that develops radio technology will sooner or later want to and eventually succeed in blocking radio signals escaping from their planet's surface. This probably means a period of a century or less when accidental, uncontrolled radio signals would be released into space from any species going through a process of technological development. Once the ability to jam or control outbound radio signals is developed that species may or may not decide to allow any signals to exit their home planet and those allowed are probably going to be designed to be heard by prying ears.

A century of unblocked radio signals may seem like a very long time, significantly longer than the average human lifespan. But it is the blink of an eye in astronomical terms. The potential for us to receive uncontrolled or accidental radio signals from an extraterrestrial intelligent species will depend heavily on a number of lucky factors. The most important of these is that such a species must be in that period of social evolution and technological development where radio transmission has recently been developed. But they must have been at that stage of development at a point in our past equivalent to the distance in lightyears their planet is from earth. For us to receive such a signal today from a planet 1 million light years away that species must have been at a level of technological development equivalent to 20th century earth 1 million years ago.

Any extraterrestrial intelligent species that went through the development of radio longer ago than that will have likely already developed the technological ability to block and control those radio signals before we ever began listening for extraterrestrial radio signals. That does not mean that we will not receive a radio signal from them. What it does mean is that any signal received will be controlled and intentional.

It should not be difficult, relatively speaking, to determine if any extraterrestrial signal received is accidental or intentional. The accidental will clearly stand out as a radio signal but may prove impossible to interpret and understand, like an early broadcast of Amos and Andy or an evening news broadcast. The intentional signal, on the other hand, just like the plaque attached to Voyager, will be meant to be understood by alien species outside the planet of origin. It is likely to be pictorial and/or scientific in nature. If it is not directed at an alien species known to exist but rather meant for any intelligent species that might receive it, it will probably contain information that is believed by its senders to be universal, information like the periodic table, universal physical laws, astronomical data, etc.

If, on the other hand, it is directed at a know alien species, a species from which the originating species has already detected radio signals, any message directed at them will probably be designed to be understood by that species alone. It may echo back information they have gleaned from previous radio signals from that species, very possibly in the language and context of that species to whom their message is directed. In other words, if there is an intelligent species out there that has picked up radio signals originating from here on earth, any directed response they would transmit toward us may very well come back to us in English, or French or Russian or any of the other earth languages that have left this planet as radio signals. They may transmit back to us, as Carl Sagan suggested in Contact, the first television image that left this planet, that being Adolf Hitler opening the Olympic games in 1936 Berlin.

There is another important factor for consideration, however. Trust! When we are aware or suspicious that someone is monitoring our communications and we are uncertain of their motives and intentions - such as in the case of spying whether industrial, political or military - one consistent tactic is the leaking of misinformation or disinformation. This has been done most effectively by we humans during wars, hot and cold. It should not be assumed, therefore, that any radio communication picked up from an alien species has been sent with good intentions. If they are aware we are aware of them they will want to determine our intentions and motives and decide whether we can be trusted or should be feared. They are not going to begin intentional communication with the formula for a new energy source or the blueprints for a fantastic new machine using a previously unrecognized or untapped energy source.

Any extraterrestrial species that has been monitoring radio signals (which includes television) emanating from earth will not have been seeing a very flattering picture of our species. Our news and TV programming tends to largely focus on our darker side; wars, murders, violence, crime. Should an advanced extraterrestrial species volunteer any technology or knowledge to us, and I am at a loss to understand why they would, it is not likely to be of the type that would enhance our ability to make war nor help us further destroy the environment of our planet.

It is far more likely that any intelligent species out there that has become aware of us and has been intercepting our radio signals will now be in an observe-only status, continuing to monitor our radio signals without making themselves known to us. And they are likely to stay in that mode until they determine that we have in some way resolved or lived through the current tumultuous period of human development. They will likely want to see if we can advance beyond our warlike tendencies and whether we can learn to live within the limits of our environment. It may take a very long time, centuries perhaps, before they see a satisfactory outcome of either of those.

One of the incredible ironies is that what signals any alien species may pick up from earth represent the lowest, basest picture of our species. Through that they get to see us at our worst. They are receiving what passes as entertainment and mass media, sensationalized journalism. They have no access to print media, to books that represent the highest expression of human wisdom, or to the internet with its constant search for truth and representation of and support for alternatives. They would have no way of knowing, through what communication they can intercept, that there is wisdom in our species. What a shame.

GMOs are N O T the Solution to the Current Global Food Crisis

In the current game of political football, as the world's leaders meet to discuss the means by which the current global food crisis might be solved, there seems to be a growing momentum building around support for a solution based on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The suggestion is that the world's industrial seed companies (e.g. Monsanto, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland) should develop new genetically modified strains of food crops able to produce higher yields in the face of shifting global climates brought about by global warming.

Haven't we been here before? Aren't GMOs a major part of the reason we have gotten to this point?

The Green Revolution of this past half century came about as a response to the last global food crisis. It was centered on the use of high-yield GMO seeds, the liberal use of soil and water polluting artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, large-tract, mechanized, industrial agriculture, high density irrigation using mechanical pumps and water drawn from both increasingly polluted surface water and and dangerously over extracted groundwater sources, an energy-intensive global food distribution system. It was based on the industrial production of food and the building of a global industrial dependence through the supplying of food to the world's poor, rather than supplying to them the ability to produce their own food. And ultimately it created the current global food crisis through allowing, even encouraging, a tripling of the world's population from a little more than two billion to the current 6.6 billion with a new U.S. (300 million people) added to the population every year.

So what's the problem? The problem is that the Green Revolution was and continues to be dependent on the constant availability of cheap energy, especially cheap oil. GMOs are a high-tech solution to a natural problem. And high-tech means high energy consumption.

A problem cannot be its own solution. We cannot solve the current global crisis caused by the Green Revolution by doing more of the same. Those high yields on which the Green Revolution was based come at the expense of tremendous loss of life-supporting topsoil through erosion and overcropping, and the irreversible destruction and drawdown of both surface water and groundwater (aquifers) sources. It has led to the unsustainable destruction of forests critical to the planet's ability to balance the climate, and critical to the planet's water cycle, atmospheric cycle and carbon cycle. To seek to solve those problems with even more industrial agriculture and even higher yields, which will undoubtedly require higher uses of petrochemicals and water and the higher loss of critical topsoil, is no solution at all.

Most importantly, the Green Revolution was, as mentioned above, dependent on abundant cheap energy. A key part of the reason the current crisis has developed as that the world's oil supplies are declining at a rate that has pushed us toward various alternative fuel sources. The most critical of those, of course, is biofuels which have directly contributed to the current, escalating global food crisis. To move forward into a future that will be even more deprived of the cheap abundant energy on which the Green Revolution depends with a strategy that will perpetuate that agricultural need of cheap, abundant energy is taking the crisis of today, pushing it out a couple of decades and transforming it from a crisis into a catastrophe.

The Green Revolution has already allowed - almost demanded - the global human population to push into serious overshoot. There is not enough global agricultural capacity to support the present global human population, let alone the additional human population that would result from a second Green Revolution. To attack the current global food crisis without also addressing the very sensitive and complex problem of human overpopulation and the need for global population control is to offer no solution at all.

Peak Oil Choices

Life is choices. Choices must be made. Those we do not make, those we choose not to make, those we opt to ignore, those of which we unaware, often for reasons of chosen ignorance, are often made for us, by default. Those choices we choose not to make we have no control over. The outcome is decided by someone or something else. It's like an election. The old saying is - and I am not trying to quote but to paraphrase - if you choose not to vote don't complain about the results. Your vote is your entry fee for the right to complain. You get the government you don't bother voting for.

The approach of peak oil has brought with it a wide array of choices that had to and have to be made. Most of us in the peak oil movement are well aware of many of these choices, are making them at the personal level, are involving ourselves with the process of making them at the local community level. Through key web sites and organizations like ASPO we are attempting to get those national and international choices made. But it is a tremendously difficult task, like changing the course of a runaway ocean liner or stopping a runaway train. The end result of the inaction is that many of those choices are being made by default, by nature.

The biggest problem is getting decision makers - those who have to make the right choices - to understand what peak oil really is and what the implications of peak oil are on our global society. Peak oil is many things but it is not about running out of oil. The mainstream media seem to, for some reason, be very slow (unwilling?) to understand this. They continue to define peak oil as running out of oil and, as a result, characterize peak oil pundits as fringe wackos. If, indeed, peak oilers were defining peak oil as running out of oil that would be a fair criticism. Lew Rockwell, for another example, defines peak oil as the point where all of the oil has been found and irreversible decline starts. That's a little closer but still not a clear understanding of peak oil. All in the peak oil movement understand that discoveries will continue well after peak oil but that those discoveries will be fewer, smaller and far more difficult and expensive to process. The reality is we will probably never run out of oil.

Peak oil is not about your cost of gasoline as such. We will reach a point where whatever oil is left is so energy-expensive to extract and process that it will take more energy to turn it into fuel than the energy we get from the fuel produced. At that point it will simply be left in the ground.

Peak oil is about the rate at which what oil, in its various forms, does remain can be extracted and processed. The global human population currently uses somewhat more than 86m barrels of oil or other liquid hydrocarbon fuel every day. We do not extract that amount of oil and have not done so for over three years. The difference between what oil is being extracted and what liquid hydrocarbons are being used is being made up from alternative sources such as; tar sands, oil sands, coal to liquid, gas to liquid, methane to liquid, bio-fuels and from drawing down strategic petroleum reserves.

At the moment there is still a small buffer in all liquids, being liquid crude and the alternatives listed above. But that buffer is paper thin and global consumption has, for these past three years, been growing faster than the alternatives can fill the gap. That problem has been masked so far by a small amount of demand destruction as more and more "users" are priced out of using petroleum products by the rapid run-up in prices over these past three years. This demand destruction has been most apparent and most damaging in poor third world countries, many of which can no longer afford the importation of any gasoline. A thriving black market has developed in many of these situations where fuel is smuggled into the country and sold at ridiculously high prices to those few customers who are still prepared or need to buy fuel at whatever price.

But spot shortages are starting to occur in the rich, developed countries as well, including U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia and more. Gasoline shortages in developing nations such as China and India are also common occurrences as growth in demand far outstrips the development of the infrastructure needed to satisfy this demand. The frequency of shortages will undoubtedly increase. The global liquid fuels supply, because of the paper thin buffer, is susceptible to significant disruption from previously insignificant events. Every hiccup in Nigeria, Qatar, Venezuela or any other producing and exporting nation, the falling off the exporter list by countries like Indonesia, Mexico, possibly Venezuela, Russia and others throws a major monkey wrench into the global oil market and sees a major up-tick in spot market prices which may, over the course of a week, climb by more than what the average global price of oil oil was ten years ago or less.

One of the most economically disruptive impacts of the choices not made in the face of peak oil - more often exactly the wrong choices made - will be the death of globalization. Globalization has been the driver behind economic growth and expansion throughout the developed and developing world over these past several decades. China, India and other Tiger economies have been, much to the chagrin of a large portion of the population in the older economies of the "developed" world, the greatest beneficiaries of globalization. While the older economies have remained relatively static - these economies have seen a shift from a production to a service economy rather than real growth - with "real" growth (when there is growth at all) of only a couple of percentage points, the economies of China, India and other developing economies have grown at double digit rates, often exceeding twenty percent in good years.

But the mechanics of globalization are driven by cheap oil and its derivative fuels. It depends on the massive and rapid movement of goods over thousands of miles by ships, airlines, trains and trucks, all of which run on liquid fuels derived from oil. All of these forms of transport are under serious threat from rapidly rising oil prices. Airline companies are having to take a number for the line-up at bankruptcy court. Trans-oceanic shipping is teetering on the brink with shipping costs doubling or more because of fuel costs, especially for the long list of products where energy and shipping cost are a major cost component (in many cases more than 25% of the overall product cost before the price run-ups began). Rail lines and carriers, particularly in North America, have been shrinking and consolidating for years and no longer have the financial vitality to absorb these rapidly rising fuel prices. Independent truckers, which now represents the bulk of overland transport in North America, has absorbed so much of the cost of rising fuel costs that they can no longer stay on the road (as they slide ever closer and ever quicker toward bankruptcy), even if they could charge surcharges for fuel costs.

As I detailed in Peak Oil, Deglobalization and Ecolomics many outsourced industries that are being hit hardest by rising fuel prices are beginning to repatriate their operations closer to their markets. U.S. steel imports from China have, over the past year, declined by 20% while U.S. domestic steel production is ramping back up and has increased by 10% during the same period. Much of the production and assembly of goods that had been outsourced to China and other Tiger economies is being repatriated and ramped up in Mexico, the closest source of cheap labour for the manufacture of goods for the American consumer.

But these simplified repatriation decisions that may seem to make good economic sense in a business-as-usual scenario are not, as I detailed in the above article, are not good decision or choices in the face of peak oil. They simply move the energy consumption of the manufacturing processes from one location to another but are still built around an unchanged model of centralized production of goods moved by a hopefully-viable distribution system to the markets and consumers. Moving production to Mexico is definitely not wise in the long term. Mexico's domestic oil production is plummeting, by as much as 20% or more each year, and that poor country will soon find itself a net importer of oil if there is much effort to move outsourced American industry from China to Mexico.

Repatriating outsourced industries from the developing world to the developed world and doing so without redesigning the processes to be less energy-intensive and converted to decentralized processes that produce right in the consuming market, wherever it may be, simply defers the eventual and necessary industrial response to peak oil. Very soon there will not be enough liquid fuels being produced globally, from whatever source, to satisfy total global demand. Very soon the industrial model is going to have to be changed, choices - correct choices - are going to have to be made, to cope with the reality that there is not enough fuel being produced globally to support the present model that relies on centralized, mechanized production and long distance distribution by liquid-fuel-dependant transport infrastructure.

The choices we have neglected to make, for whatever wrong-headed reason, have been made for us. We are no longer in control of the rules of the game. that's the price of choices not made.

Peak Oil, Deglobalization and Ecolomics

According to the Ecolomics website ecolomics is ".....an improved balance between inter-generational ecological objectives and more short-term economic priorities. The relationship between these two often disparate spheres is perceived as being dominated too much by the latter. .....ecolomics at the same time can facilitate more broadly the discussion, negotiation and analysis of the interaction between ecological and economical concerns. " It goes on to explain, "This is not a new subdiscipline but a political concept, somewhat similar but considerably narrower than the concepts of sustainable development and of ecopolitics."[23]

The field of ecology for the first time brought to the environmental movement, at exactly the time it was important to begin making serious inroads into reducing the degradation we were inflicting on the environment, the benefits of a disciplined scientific study of the complex interrelationships and interdependence of all living and environmental systems. This new science may have been, in large measure, responsible for the general public understanding and acceptance of environmentalism.

As we approach a serious confluence of peak oil, other resource peaks, global warming, a global freshwater crisis, a global food crisis, a global soil crisis, all exacerbated by massive human overpopulation, can ecolomics serve as the catalyst to achieve a general understanding of the catastrophes that lay ahead of us? Can it help build a momentum of public support for the programs that will be needed to mitigate the impact of these crises on human society? Will ecolomics succeed in getting people to finally realize, especially those in power, that the environment is not a servant of human economics nor can economics function independent of the environment but must be, in fact, a subset of it?

We cannot continue to treat the global environment as a human cesspool in the name of economic convenience. We cannot continue to allow travesties that threaten the future of environmental survivability such as the Canadian legislation that allows lakes to be reclassified as "tailings impoundment areas" to allow mining companies to dump their toxic effluents there which would otherwise be in clear contravention of the government's own fisheries act.[24]

The more scarce the resources become that our industrial society are built on, it seems, the further industry and government are willing to push environmental degradation to get at those resources. Much of that environmental degradation has been pushed on to poor, desperate nations under globalization, nations prepared to destroy their local environment for the sake of an influx of western capital. Under deglobalization brought on by energy scarcity, however, as we increase the push to exploit our own dwindling resources to make up for exhausted, cheap offshore supplies, all of that degradation could be brought home to roost.

For the past several decades the incessant debates over the issue of trade globalization have largely centered on the cost benefits of production efficiency through the industrial concentration of zone specialization versus the adverse downstream economic impact on the industrialized economies brought about by offshoring of manufacturing and industrial processes and the skilled jobs that go with them. This has generated an endless barrage of hand wringing such as, "Over the past half-century, the United States has seen its global dominance in dozens of industries slip away, mostly to Asia, and particularly to China and Japan, not to mention a continuing procession of tiger economies." and "Once upon a time America owned the automobile industry ..... the US no longer dominates an industry that it practically invented. "[1] and "We're talking about 4 million jobs that will be outsourced to India probably over the next ten years."[2]

Job losses and loss of the industrial base in the OECD nations, therefore, have been the core concerns. Until now that is.

The biggest issue in trade globalization over these past couple of years, and an issue that is going to grow in importance as oil demand begins to seriously outstrip oil supplies, is the rising cost of those offshored products due to the serious and incessant rises in the cost of shipping brought about by rising fuel costs, most particularly rising oil prices. Trans-oceanic shipping remains essentially fully dependant on oil as a fuel source. A recent report issued by CIBC World states, "Higher energy prices are impacting transport costs at an unprecedented rate. So much so, that the cost of moving goods, not the cost of tariffs, is the largest barrier to global trade today."[14]

Finally we are getting close to the debate being recentered on what will be the defining issue as oil scarcity following peak oil pushes us into a new era of deglobalization.

The OECD offshoring of so many industries over the past few decades has not only outsourced the jobs from those industries. It has also outsourced the demand for energy, particularly oil, that the outsourced industry and jobs would have consumed at home. In short it has had an odd effect of redistributing a significant chunk of the oil and energy usage away from the industrialized OECD countries toward the emerging industrializing countries like China, India, other Asian countries and Latin America.

UK statistics show, for example, between 1990 and 2006, a major energy use reduction in a number of key industries that is only partially, and only in some instances, accounted for by improved efficiency. Iron and steel production, for example, saw a net reduction in energy use over this period of 36,763,200 boe (barrels of oil equivalent) per year - US steel production was reduced by more than half in the same period, despite there being a marginal domestic increase in steel use during the same period. British non ferrous metals production energy use declined by 2,023,200 boe, mineral products by 9,820,800 boe, industrial engineering and related products by 6,026,400 boe, vehicle production by 2,239,200 boe and construction by 4,147,200 boe (an overall demand reduction in those industries of over 61,000,000 boe/year). This is contrasted against general increases in energy consumption and production in other industries such as textiles, food, furniture, etc. and an overall relatively flat industrial energy usage as industrial growth was offset in most industries through achievement of significant energy efficiencies during this period.

Most in western societies seem to believe - this belief largely fostered by self-serving politicians and nation-centric media - that the massive increase in oil demand in China, India and other emerging economies, is because everyone in those nations is suddenly buying and driving automobiles. You cannot view the exploding Chinese auto sales market through a North American or even European perspective. Perhaps the more appropriate is a Cuban perspective. A very large proportion of automobile purchases in China (as much as half in many cities) are made with the express intent of using the vehicle as a taxi, either one officially licensed as such or as a black market taxi - you know, the one owned by the shadowy character standing in the corner at the airport going pssst. The vast preponderance of travel in Chinese cities is by bus and other public transit, taxi, or bicycle (China has far more bicycles than any other country, including India). In recent years, however, new legislation in China's largest cities like Shanghai and Beijing is pushing rickshaws and bicycles off city streets in favour of car traffic. This is pushing more and more people into taxis. The upsurge in car sales is not necessarily an increase in private car ownership but rather car passengership. This heavy usage of automobiles as taxis, by the way, significantly distorts the Chinese national vehicle miles travelled (VMT) statistics. The VMT per vehicle is higher than in the U.S. because the ratio of taxis to personal autos is so high.

The reality is that much of the growing oil demand in China and India originates from the massive volume of construction in those countries (China and India over the past several years are using more concrete and construction steel than the rest of the world combined) and from the high energy needs of rapidly increasing industrialization. Most of that industrialization is for products for export as OECD countries offshoring the industries they once dominated continue to turn these emerging economies into their manufacturing plants, refashioning themselves as service economies in the process.

With the dramatic increases in the price of oil over these past five years, however, this trend is already beginning to be reversed. Industries are slowly being repatriated, or the last hold-outs against offshoring are finding their business volume exploding. U.S. steel imports from China have, for example, declined by 20% over the past two years while at the same time domestic steel production has increased by 10%. And the momentum is picking up as OECD nations are forced by rising energy costs to re-examine the benefits of globalization. As the paper Reinventing Globalization puts it, "The heralded increases in oil costs due to the exhaustion of reserves and global warming linked to CO2 emissions are going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise...."[18] That paper goes on to make this point; "Eight hair dryers, toasters or coffee-makers out of ten sold in the world are made in China. Is the logic of specialization by production zones tenable when the cost of energy is going to explode?"[18]

The issue, however, gets much more complicated than most seem to be thus far allowing for.

If oil prices continue to rise because of increasing supply-side issues is the repatriation of industries to the OECD countries a reasonable or even workable response? The daily barrage of financial news coverage of steadily rising oil prices assaults us with an endless litany of excuses, none of them touching on the reality that the underlying reason is declining global oil supplies. We may have already seen the global peak in oil production, as long ago as spring 2005. Increases in all liquids since that time have largely been the result of non-conventional oil like tar sands and deep water, alternatives like ethanol, coal to liquid, gas to liquid and coal bed methane. For much of this year, and in some cases earlier, countries like the U.S. have been dipping into their strategic petroleum reserves. And globally oil production and consumption have surpassed new oil discoveries since the early 1980s, global production and usage now four to five times greater than new discoveries.

There is no question that rising oil prices are starting to hurt globalization. As the report Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization? puts it, "In global shipping, the increase in ship speed over the last fifteen years has doubled fuel consumption per unit of freight. With oil prices now accounting for almost half of total freight costs, it should come as no surprise that soaring oil prices have translated directly into soaring transport costs. ..... Currently, transport costs are equivalent to an average tariff rate of more than 9%. At $150 per barrel, the tariff-equivalent rate is 11%, going back to the average tariff rates of the 1970s. And at $200 per barrel, we are back at “tariff” rates not seen since prior to the Kennedy Round GATT negotiations of the mid-1960s."[14] In the report Globalization death watch, Part I: Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs they state "The cost of shipping a 40 foot container from Shanghai to the east coast of North America has gone from $3,000 in 2000 to $8,000 because of the cost of fuel, and for many products, the Asian cost advantage has virtually disappeared. ..... But at $200 per barrel, it will soon cost $15,000 in transport costs to ship from China to the US eastern seaboard."[13]

Repatriating the industries that are generating products abroad and shipping them to countries like the U.S. does not, however, eliminate the problem. If fuel costs are rising because supply can no longer keep pace with demand, repatriating those industries and the production energy they consume is simply going to change the geographic location of that energy consumption. If there is insufficient oil to meet demand, where is the extra oil going to come from to power the industries that are being repatriated? To build the industrial infrastructure that those industries will need? To supply the transport energy for the importation of the raw materials needed by those repatriated industries? All of the industrial energy consumption that was exported through offshoring under globalization will again have to be met at home. The nations repatriating industries are going to be facing increased domestic oil and other energy demand at the same time that global oil supplies, the reason for the repatriation, are diminishing.

Yes, declining global oil production is "going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise...."[18] When we do, however, we cannot do so with a narrow point of view focused on the final product assembly, finished product shipping, and final market distribution of those products. We must examine the whole supply chain, from extraction of raw materials and their transport to a manufacturing site to the final delivery of products to retail outlets. If we do not review the whole system we will be perpetually having to readjust as we go through the transition from the globalization that has characterized the last several decades to the progressive localization and regionalization that will follow peak oil.

I have included far more references and links below than I have quoted in this article. They are included for those who wish to achieve a deeper understanding of the issues involved in the coming deglobalization.

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1) America Loses Another Industry
2) TOM'S JOURNAL
3) OUTSOURCING: India readies to state its case
4) Costly Trade With China: Millions of U.S. jobs displaced with net job loss in every state
5) UAW Kills Thousands More American Jobs
6) American Worry-Mongering About China
7) New Awakening About Free Trade
8) The Great American Jobs Scam
9) Job Repatriation?
10) Forward Slash?
11) Senate Passes Smith Repatriation Provision with JOBS Act
12) De-Globalization? Musing about Oil Prices and Trade Costs
13) Globalization death watch, Part I: Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs
14) Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization?
15) Fuel Prices Putting Globalization in Reverse?
16) The Establishment Rethinks Globalization
17) The End of Globalization - Can you Smell it Yet?
18) Reinventing Globalization
19) DEFEATING GLOBALIZATION
20) Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Steel Production in China
21) Energy-Efficiency Improvements for the U.S. Steel Industry
22) Saving One Barrel of Oil per Ton - A New Roadmap for Transformation of Steelmaking Process
23) Ecolomics website
24) Lakes across Canada face being turned into mine dump sites