May 30, 2006

FOSSIL FUELS AND CIVILIZATION

By Hal Mansfield

We are a fossil fuel civilization. Our homes and buildings are heated and cooled by fossil fuels or by energy derived from them. Modern agriculture is a process of converting fossil fuels into the food most humans eat, by way of powering the machinery of agriculture and through the manufacture and use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Essentially all of our transportation systems run on fossil fuels.

Every one of the fossil fuel types is a non-renewable resource. While no one knows with certainty how much the earth has in fossil fuel reserves, what we do know is that the total is finite and that the human race is using those reserves at an extraordinary rate. The readily available reserves have been discovered and are either already used up or soon will be. The more difficult to find and recover will not sustain the present use rates, let alone future growth in use.

An energy "Armageddon" of incalculable dimensions and consequences looms large on the horizon. Little of necessary substance is being done at any level to stem this inexorable rendezvous between energy shortages and civilization. As the energy use juggernaut streaks alone towards the exhaustion of fossil fuels, leaders (and their followers) at every level (government, industry, business, religion, private) continue to advocate policies, plans and programs that include the expanded use of fossil fuels.

Coal was the first fossil fuel to be used on a large-scale basis. The best estimates indicate that there are coal reserves that will last about 400 years at present usage rates. However, coal use is increasing at an increasing rate and vast plans, here in the United States and around the world, call for dramatic increases in the use of coal, which means that there are coal reserves for a few decades only at best.

The first oil wells and subsequent oil fields were drilled and development after 1859. In the decades that followed, oil became the dominant fossil fuel. Either directly or through products and by-products, oil is used in virtually every conceivable way. Estimates of the known and probable oil reserves vary widely. What is known without argument is that these reserves are finite. It is only a matter of time and of increasing usage before this vital energy "plays out" in practical terms.

It is widely believed that the discovery of new oil reserves peaked in 1962. Since then, fewer and fewer reserves have been discovered and developed and many of these are of reserves that will be difficult and expensive to bring into production. In addition, production in the United States peaked in the early 1970s. Since then, the U. S. has imported more and more of the oil it uses. World production may peak in the next few years. As world oil discoveries and its production decline, usage is growing fast and furious.

The history of the discovery and use of natural gas is closely allied to the discovery and utilization of oil. Vast reserves of natural gas exist. Historically, natural gas was treated as a "nuisance" and burned off at oil wellheads. Only slowly was its value realized and its vast potential capitalized on. However, except through pipelines, transporting natural gas from where it lies in the ground to end-user markets is difficult and expensive. Relative to its probable future role, adequate distribution is not likely. For example, it simply is not feasible to compress it into liquefied natural gas and to bring it from far-flung sources to the United States and other end-use markets. Even if that were possible, it is also a non-renewable energy resource. Increased usage will result in early exhaustion.

Since the 1950s, electric generating plants using nuclear energy have been built throughout the developed world. Early on, it was believed that electricity from nuclear plants would be so cheap that it would not pay the energy companies to bill their customers. Sadly, for a variety of technical and cultural reasons, that optimism fell short. Electricity from nuclear energy plants, generally, is more expensive than that generated at coal fired and natural gas fired plants.

Nuclear plant accidents at Three Mile Island, in Pennsylvania and at Chernobyl in the USSR alerted the world to one type of danger: Containment of the nuclear reaction. A second problem, one that has never been solved, is the safe disposal of nuclear waste. Nuclear waste material is extremely hazardous and dangerous for the environment and to human health. Vast amounts of this waste exist. Using nuclear energy to replace coal, natural gas and oil for electric generation would create humungous amounts of nuclear waste.

France and Japan derive significant amounts of their electric energy needs from nuclear plants. They have advanced nuclear plant technology, efficiency and safely. However, there have been "nuclear plants incidents." And, the nuclear waste management and disposal issues remain.

There is no solution to the fact that the non-renewable energy resources are finite and that they will become scarce. The energy "Armageddon" scenario grows ever more likely as the energy juggernaut inexorably moves onward. Civilization - as we have come to know it - will cease to exist!

Civilization for all of human history - before the advent of the industrial revolution and its attendant use of coal, oil and natural gas - relied on renewable energies, primarily human and animal muscle power, wood and other biomass, wind and water power. Perhaps it is time for the human race to re-harness the traditional forms of renewable energy, as the only reasonable way to save civilization from unthinkable disruptions.

Author Note: Hal Mansfield was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. After serving in the U. S. Army, he graduated from Colorado State University, in 1958. He received his Ph.D. from The University of Denver, in 1974. In 1993, he retired from Fort Lewis College, where he taught psychology, statistics and writing for 18 years. In addition to fiction writing, part of his retirement regimen includes researching, thinking through, and writing about critical contemporary social issues. After a "life-time" in Colorado, including the last 31 years in Durango, he recently moved to Green Valley, Arizona, but is spending the summer of 2006 in the foothills west of Loveland, Colorado with some of his extended family. Some of his writing efforts, including letters to the editor, have appeared in "The Durango Herald" since the mid-1970s, and also in "Solar Age Magazine," "crimemagazine.com" and "Crossroads: A Journal of the Southwest."