The alternative fuels struggle... but why?

It's been the topic of media speculation for some time now, but it occurred to me that every industry appears to be asking the same question: "How will our industry survive peak oil?".

Airline, car, entertainment, clothing, food, all will be affected by peak oil, so each needs a contingency plan. I understand the obvious answer is "Well of course they would, and according to your (my) blog, they need to!". This is true of course, but there is a burning question...

Why?

I understand the paradigm in which we exist, namely the "global economy", and the desire, when things look likely to change, to continue that paradigm, but a serious understanding of peak oil will beg the question, "Why bother to look?"

Peak oil means that unless every aspect of our entire global economy can make the transition to an alternative fuel at the same time (almost on the same day), then the global infrastructure crumbles in days. Once the food chain grinds to a halt due to lack of transportation, so the supermarkets don't get restocked, so populations go hungry and riot very quickly. In this instance, who wants to board a plane for "pleasure"?

Who would even be thinking about buying a new car, choosing a new TV, going to the theatre, browsing that new outfit?

The basic premise of peak oil is that very very quickly, food stops being moved around, stock markets fail, and the desire to seek alternative fuel stops. Even if we had a hydrogen economy, I have yet to find a factory that runs on hydrogen or electricity that makes new parts for cars, planes or hard drives for instance.

Plastics can only be made from oil. Oil affects every single aspect of our lives as I have said many times in the blog. So the finding of a new fuel, unless we can make spare parts for all the wonderful electric or hydrogen vehicles we will be looking forward to out of hydrogen (we can't, they all depend on oil) then it's a waste of time.

Solar Panels for example.

I see the clamour for solar panels by people within the Peak Oil community, and yet this is so short sighted for those who allegedly have a deep understanding of the situation. The search for alternative fuels is an attempt to continue the paradigm that we have today, or a semblance of it. Even in the short term, the desire is not to help save humanity, but merely a perpetuation of what we are used to.

These people don;t even consider the human or natural resurces cost in the desire for these items. And I'm not just talking about solar panels here. The natural resources needed such as copper, iron, coal, silicon, lithium, these all come from poorer nations, who employ people right at the bottom of the employment chain.

There may be a pious upturned chin at the rest of the population for shopping at Tesco, or wearing Nike trainers, but without realising it, the "transition townies" are exactly the same. But they will never see it.

They will never see that their desire to install solar panels and wind turbines is exploiting the very same poor people that sew sequins on t-shirts for a well known chain store they refuse to shop in for "ethical reasons".

They will never understand that the stock of food in the cupboard pending global collapse consists of tins of fruit that has been picked by the poorest people in the world, arguably the most exploited people in the world.

So the question is... should we not accept that until we have a balance of sustainability, we should be allowing such systems (like the food chain for instance) to collapse?

Humanity of course says that no we mustn't, because that will inevitably lead to a mass die-off of people. But that's where humanity as we know it, has it wrong. That die-off is EXACTLY what's needed. An extinction of people that, if they cannot survive without the luxury of a solar panel, deserve not to be here. If, between themselves and others they cannot form a coalition or community that is determined to live free of exploitation of others, then they deserve not to be here.

So the search for alternative energy, and the dependence on technology to "fix" the paradigm we are facing is an anomaly. The fact is that even if we found the miracle fuel, our First World and its contents is built on oil and petroleum products, so even if we could run a car on water, we certainly couldn't make the spare tyres it needs to run on out of hydrogen or solar energy.

Unfortunately, this is where 90% of the Peak Oil community fails at the first hurdle. The non-lateral thinking that is needed for the transition is not a perpetuation of business as usual (such as oodles of wind turbines or solar panels), it's an understanding that alongside science, there needs to be a humanitarian balance that says, if we cannot sustain the human population at these levels, we need to instigate a cull. The cruel thing is (or perhaps for the better), the First World won't make it. But there are a billion people that do not depend on oil at all. They have never depended on electricity or oil, so they will know no difference. They are the poorest in the world (or the richest if we look at it correctly) and yet they will make it.

So let's learn one thing from this struggle for a new energy; it won;t make any difference, and my advice would be to get used to living in the dark, or learn to make candles.