Oil, part II: Imagine a Future Without Oil - Might Not be as Wonderful as You Expect

Petroleum use: USA vs. 20 other leading nations

There is no doubt the United States is so oil dependent it's not even funny. As the chart to the right from The Economist shows, US petroleum consumption is higher than many other leading nations combined (You can click on the image to make it easier to read). Now there are several reasons for this high consumption, other than our comparatively low gasoline prices:

1) The United States is larger than most other countries and has greater travel needs. About 67% of our petroleum is used for transportation.

2) Most of the largest airlines in the world are registered in the USA, and the airline industry uses about 10% of the world's transportation fuel.

3) The US also has enormous fuel needs for its military; the US Air Force alone uses 70% of all fuel needed by the US government.

4) It's also our consumer culture; a large amount of petroleum is used for purposes other than fuel, such as plastics, medicines, food items, cleaning solvents, industrial lubricants, asphalt, and a host of personal products, like hairspray, aftershave, and Vaseline.

5) The US consumes a lot of heating fuels, for home and industry, such as heating oil, propane, butane, and ethane.

In any case, what if we were not so oil dependent? Weaning ourselves off a commodity that is used to fund a lot of terrorism would make me ecstatic. But unfortunately, the truth is the picture may not be as pretty as you might think.

The problem is, all the current contenders to replace oil cause as many (or more) problems than we already have now. The possibilities include hydrogen fuel cells, battery powered cars, hybrid cars, or switching to ethanol.

Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are, in fact, the greatest thing ever. Instead of smog, they emit water vapor! But getting the hydrogen fuel is an extremely expensive process that burns up a lot of energy itself (of course, this is greatly ironic, since hydrogen is the most common element in the Universe). So this option is not viable for awhile.

In the 1970s, all the talk was of the electric car. I saw one in 1976, when I was a boy. Someone brought one to a party to show it off, and it was wonderful. It looked futuristic, drove smoothly, and was so quiet it was eerie. Unfortunately, except for golf carts, the electric car never caught on for various reasons, some of which are the subject of great debate.

The documentary "who killed the electric car" set up one heck of a nice web site, and makes a lot of good points. But they also tread into the realm of conspiracy theories. I can accept that oil companies might have pressured the public to resist it, but the auto industry too? They claim the auto industry is "guilty" of killing the electric car because:

Not only would a successful electric car program cannibalize sales of conventional cars, but the electric car costs the auto industry in other ways: lacking an engine, it saves the driver the cost of replacement parts, motor oil, filters, and spark plugs. The EV1’s regenerative braking system, in which the car’s electronic controls handled much of the work of slowing down the car, spared the car’s mechanical brake system from wear. Brake parts and repair is a billion-plus dollar industry alone.

"Cannibalize sales"? That's not a problem if the same car company is the one making the product that's being "cannibalized"! That would be like motion picture studios refusing to make any more films because that would be "cannibalizing" sales of movies already on the market.

And how big an impact would it be on the parts market? Electric cars would still need lubricants, seats, windows, tires, windshield wipers, etc, etc. I'm just not convinced that the market for spark plugs is enough to impel the car companies to refuse to sell something that the public will buy. Besides, a great deal of these parts are not made by the manufacturers themselves. When it says that "brake parts & repair is a billion dollar industry alone", you need to factor in that much of that money goes to overhead, local brake shops, and independent manufacturers. Besides, they might have less wear, but any electric car still needs brakes!

The bottom line is that the electric car never caught on simply because the public didn't demand it. The automakers are in the business to make money, and if there was enough demand, electric cars would be everywhere.

For several years now, automakers have offered electric/gasoline hybrid vehicles and sales are lower than original expectations. Last year they accounted for only 1.5% of all vehicles sold. 1.5%!! And this is with gasoline prices at an all-time high! So you can understand why automakers are reluctant to take the full plunge and start offering fully electric-powered cars and trucks. Toyota is now developing a "plug-in" hybrid car which will depend much more on it's electric motor and get 100 miles to the gallon. If it sells, that will be wonderful, but from the public's reaction in the past, I am skeptical.

In any case, even a fully electric car cannot totally save us here. No one has been able to design a workable electric passenger plane or cargo ship, so we would still need fuel; the batteries in such a plane would be too heavy, and without the ability to "recharge" on the high seas, electric ships would be in trouble. Of course, there are many military vessels that run off electricity generated from a nuclear reactor, but no one wants to make this available to the general consumer.

So, for a very long time, we will still need fuel. Of course, the fuel could change, and that's where ethanol comes in. Various US Presidential candidates have made ethanol an issue to show they are serious about getting rid of our oil addiction.

Ethanol is essentially pure grain alcohol, usually derived from corn. But to use it on a large scale has three drawbacks: 1) Requires conversions to pipelines (ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline), pumps, and cars; 2) Crops require tremendous amounts of water; and 3) You still get pollutants in the form of greenhouse gases.

Still, many nations, including Germany, have offered subsidies to promote the use of ethanol and growth of ethanol producing crops. But in a rude reminder to people who think Europe has limitless room for immigration and population growth:

in its first major report on bioenergy, the United Nations tried to temper enthusiasm over biofuels last week, warning that the diversion of land to grow crops for fuel will increase prices for basic food commodities.

This is already happening. Switching the burden of our fuel needs from the Middle East to our own farms is taking its toll, because there is only so much farmland to go around. For example, the price of certain foodstuffs like pasta is going up, and so are things like tequila, and beer, which is certain to outrage ordinary Germans.

But if we got rid of the oil, it would be worth it right? No more dependence on Middle Eastern despots or even South American ones like Hugo Chavez... Could we then forget about the Middle East? With no more reason to interfere in their affairs, no more wars, correct?

I'll put aside for a moment that in spite of what some wrongheaded people claim, the West doesn't get involved in Middle East conflicts just to safeguard oil. But even if they did, we would still face problems. Here's the ironic but unfortunate reality that the alternative energy movement is heading toward: If we simply replaced our gasoline powered vehicles with something else, the Middle East would implode. And implode big time. In other words, if we stopped using oil, then for awhile we would have more war, not less.

The problem is, there is practically nothing else in Middle East other than oil. Buried in an interesting article at Pajamas Media, is this incredible statement:

Minus oil, the total value of the non-petroleum exports of the 22 members of the Arab League plus Iran is less than the exports of Finland. Without oil, the main exports of the Near East would be carpets, dates and honey.

Any successful alternative energy source would cause the price of oil to plummet, and so would the entire wealth of the Middle East. There is nothing else there. At all.

Convoy in Kuwait, March 2003. Nothing but dust as far as the eye can see

Those of you who have visited anywhere in the great Arabian peninsula know that there literally is nothing there but oil (and most regions don't even have that). The Arabian desert is not even like a great sandbox; a better way to describe it is as a sea of dust, almost as dry and lifeless as the surface of the moon.

To make it worse, many Arab countries are lacking not only in natural resources, but in human ones. Anywhere from one-fifth (in Saudi Arabia) to one-half (in Kuwait) of the population of wealthy Arab states are actually foreign workers; the native population is sorely lacking in knowledge in medicine, computer science, engineering, etc. According to Forbes:

Some 70% of the Saudi population is under the age of 25. At least 30% are unemployed, and even more, though it is unclear just how many, are grossly underemployed. Many spend their days hanging out in the malls, their nights at Omar's place on Palestine Street. All are disaffected, searching for something that will energize them.

Even though the Saudi government is spending 35-40% of it's budget on education, it's not doing much good. Maha Akeel, a journalist with Arab News, argues that:

young Saudis are not studying the subjects the society needs.

We cannot have 80% of our college students graduating in history, geography, Arabic literature and Islamic studies and we barely have enough students graduating in science, engineering or from the medical schools.

And of course, add to this that one half the potential work force is doing even less. Women make up 55% of college graduates, but an astoundingly low 5% of the workforce.

These same young, privileged, and unemployed Saudis are particularly vulnerable to turning toward jihad to find meaning in their lives. It's no coincidence that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. Now, imagine the oil money dries up. Serious economic downturns helped propel people like Hitler, Mussolini, and Lenin into power. How well do you think a nation of unemployed, young, Islamic men will react?

Right now, there are just no easy answers here, which coincidentally, is also true of the war in Iraq and is the subject of my next post.




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