Moving with the times...

I headed out to the library on Tuesday to see the movie they were showing, "A Crude Awakening". The movie was interesting and thought-provoking, and I recommend it to anyone interested in questions surrounding our dependence on fossil fuels and other alternative energy sources.

In the film, they argued that the earth has reached "peak oil", and that we are about to enter a period in which the amount of available oil is dwindling, but our need for it is increasing. I have no way, really, of independently determining if they are right about the fact that we are about to run out of oil in the next 30 or so years. They make a good argument, but there are experts on both sides of the issue (perhaps on all 3 or 4 or 5 sides...) Personally, I don't think we are on the brink of running out, since the earth has been around for a very long time, and there is lots and lots of plant and animal matter that got squished in the various strata and then heated up by the earth's core and turned into oil. But even if they are wrong about WHEN we are going to run out of oil, I do think that it will eventually run out, since we don't really have the time to start making any more, and we are sucking it up out of the earth rather quickly.

More unsettling to me personally than the idea that we are about to run out of oil was the realization that none of the alternative energy sources currently available come close to being as efficient and providing near the amount of energy that we need every day. They are all a drop in the bucket, and most of them require more in fossil fuels to create than they generate in energy, making it all a bit pointless. Oh, and then there are all the bio-fuels and the unwanted consequence of a rise in food prices and various crises of food availability around the world.

The movie paints a dire picture, but doesn't leave us entirely without hope. Although we do not currently have the technology, we can start working on getting the technology for alternative energy sources, if we will only invest in the research and development, and as long as we understand that all of this will take probably 40-60 years, or more. In addition to doing that we can also continue research into better ways of locating and extracting oil (many experts believe there is a huge amount available off the coast of the U.S.; Bush and McCain want to lift the ban on offcoast drilling in the U.S.; Brazil is apparently about to start deep-sea-drilling).

But the best possible thing we can do right now is conserve energy. Here are some ways:

1) Drive as little as possible. Try to do as many of your errands as you can each time.
2) Drive more slowly -- stick to the speed limit. I know, I hate it too, but it really does save gas.
3) Make your home as energy-efficient as possible.
4) Drive a fuel-efficient car.

None of this will lower the gas prices we have right now, of course, not even finding more crude oil here in the country --- mainly because we're not actually suffering a shortage, and none of the new stuff we find (perhaps) would even be on the market for the next 10 years at least. Brazil (see note above) has already done all of their research, and even their crude oil won't be on the market until 2020. And maybe our prices shouldn't come down. After all, we're still paying 1/2 of what they pay in Europe, and the higher the prices go, the more fuel-efficient we will become. And that is a good thing.

For an interesting, and far more lucid discussion of all of the above, listen to today's edition of the Diane Rehm Show.