The Race Against Running Out

Anyone who has read my writing for any amount of time knows I have a fascination with futurists and those at the foremost edges of our technological development. Whether it is growing new organs, creating prosthetic limbs, genetic engineering to prevent and cure disease, a transition to sustainable energy, transhumanism (humans merging with technology; as in incorporating technology into their own bodies), or a hundred other astonishing breakthroughs of science, I am easily taken in and my imagination runs away from me.

I’ve written extensively on the subject.

I’ve recently discovered there is another group of scientists, engineers, and researchers who are working to help humanity with an entirely different future. This movement’s most common name is Peak Oil.

Before you go running off, understand, I’m not talking about the folks who make the straight to Netflix documentaries telling you to stop paying your bills and find a “bugout” shelter in the wilderness because the oil is running out next month and the world will be plunged into a Mad Maxian dystopia by 2030.

I’m talking about real scientists, engineers, and researchers. Serious, sober folks.

These folks research how much oil we are using daily, how much is being discovered each year, how much is being extracted and at what cost from existing wells. Which techniques, regulations, taxes, and natural obstacles are being imposed worldwide. These folks also study which of these are being removed and for which reasons. Such as political, corporate, populace, and personal profit. There are more factors to account for than I can list or know of.

Most of these folks believe we have already passed the point of peak oil production across the globe. According to this theory, we will be producing less and dirtier oil each year until eventually it is simply too expensive to produce. Then a long regression back to a preindustrial life for humanity.

How long will this take?

Right now, authors like John Michael Greer (The LongDescent) say two to three hundred years. According to this theory, oil becomes more and more scarce, making other sources of energy less affordable. Which other sources of energy specifically? All of them. To greater or lesser extents, solar, wind, coal, geothermal, nuclear, and hydro-electric energy all require oil to create and maintain.

As we deplete the planet’s oil reserves, all these other technologies become more expensive as well.

Peak Oil theorists maintain, Futurism and the Oil Robber Barons (my term, not theirs) are in a race. The futurists are coming up with solutions as fast as they possibly can. The oil companies are pumping petroleum out of the earth as fast as their machines can bear.

And the futurists are losing.

The main reason the futurists are losing this race against running out is because of us. We are burning, using, and discarding every petroleum derived product they come up with faster than they can come up with them. We resist every regulation on how much energy an individual or population is allowed to use.

We refuse to be made uncomfortable in any way.

Price of gasoline too high? We make our politicians pay a price for it. Let the price get beyond a certain pain point and our politicians begin losing elections.

Our favorite exotic fruit is not in season? We chew on the grocery store manager’s ear so she knows to have it in stock next week. If she doesn’t, the luxury grocery store down the street will.

See or hear a Public Service Announcement advocating turning our furnace down and putting on a sweatshirt? Or, turning up the setting on our air conditioning and wearing less? Who is the government or anyone else to tell me what to do in my own home?

On and on it goes, right?

We all do it.

And that’s the problem.

None of us wants to be the first to unilaterally go without.

The peak oil theorists aren’t all that concerned about it though. They say we will all begin to get priced out of our energy in the next decade anyway. The choice to self-regulate will be taken away from us by the natural market forces of supply and demand. (You don’t really believe the government is going to allow its bomber and fighter planes, warships, tanks, rockets, etcetera to not have enough fuel so you can be comfortable, do you?)

Will the futurists win the race against us and the oil companies?

Will we plunge ourselves into a new dark age?

Will the futurists figure it out and deliver on the promise of a glorious future where humans tap into the unlimited resources of the universe and we spread out into the stars in magical journeys even Gene Roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, and George Lucas couldn’t come up with while being aided by the most powerful psychedelic substances known to man?

I have no idea.

I do know it is always prudent to pay attention and try to be prepared for as many possible outcomes as we can.