Hey Folks,
I recently saw a documentary that talks about declining energy reserves. My
writeup is below.
Jennifer
R E P O R T O N T H E D O C U M E N T A R Y
T H E E N D O F S U B U R B I A
This "book report" summarizes the concepts offered by the docu-
mentary, The End Of Suburbia. Ideas from other sources are also
included.
We are running out of fossil fuel, notably natural gas and crude
oil. Production in an area starts slow, builds up to a peak, then
declines as the remaining fraction of fuel in existing wells
becomes harder to extract (and as new discoveries become less
frequent). U.S. production has peaked in the 1970's, and world
production is now peaking in the 2000's (2000 - 2009).
We will probably not run OUT of fossil fuels in our lifetimes.
However, declining production will result in a TAPERING OFF of
available supply, meaning LESS available and at considerably
HIGHER prices. As this comes to pass, the energy-intensive
lifestyle of the United States will no longer be sustainable.
Much of this energy-intensiveness comes from the fact that
energy was cheap for so long. We have not built for conservation
because we have not had to. As energy becomes more expensive,
we will finally have the incentive to conserve, but too late:
much of what we need to do cannot be a quick fix, but must be
built into our infrastructure over the long term. Instead, we
will be compelled to look to more aggressive solutions such as
using our military to secure our access to an increasing frac-
tion of the world's dwindling energy supply.
A good portion of the reason for our heavy dependence on energy
is the growth of the suburbs, which accelerated after World War
II. People eager to escape the crowded, polluted, noisy cities
flocked to the outskirts which promised the good life of living
out where nature is. The promise of the suburbs has never been
fully realized, however. The countryside has been bulldozed into
subdivisions, often named for the very thing that USED to be
there: a place called Quail Run may have had quail living there
BEFORE they were displaced by private homes.
The very design of modern suburbia precludes energy efficiency.
Any thing you do outside the home is apt to be miles away. Hous-
ing is not quite dense enough to support public transit; there-
fore private cars are essential to live in the suburbs. As long
as gas was cheap, this was not a problem; now that the price of
energy is rising, it is too late to redesign things because you
can't push the houses closer together.
Traditional "village" design put homes, shopping, schools, and
workplaces together in a tightly knit economic unit. Everything
was close by; in some European communities, people often get
around by bicycle. In the typical American suburb, nothing is
close by; everything requires a trip by car. Even corner stores
are too far away to get to without using up precious fuel. As
people don't form tightly knit local economic communities with
their neighbors, they often don't get to know their neighbors at
all.
The building of public transit systems, particularly rail systems,
has been discouraged in America. In the 1920's a trio of corpor-
ations (General Motors, Firestone, and Standard Oil) conspired to
eliminate public transit in an attempt to boost their own profits
through the sale and servicing of private cars. (This is actually
well documented in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.) Also the
building of a road system has been well subsidized by the govern-
ment, making driving to get there the more attractive option for
many.
While a nice, new suburb is a better place to live then a declining
inner city, it often offers less than a "nice" place in the city
does. Fewer cultural opportunities, for example. Some teens
turn to drugs because they consider life in the suburbs "boring".
Since everything you do outside the home is done somewhere else,
suburbs have a tendency to become mere dormitories.
In theory, a life in the 'burbs can save money. In a traditional
family where the father commutes to the city to work, and the wife
and kids stay local, the added expense of commuting is offset by
the fact that not all the family members need to commute. With
the rise of the two-income household, and the fact that even
schools are often a car trip away, this savings is diminished.
The best thing that can be said about suburbia is that housing
is more affordable. This is undenyably advantageous, as long as
cheap housing is not offset by the rising cost of gasoline needed
to function there. As the cost of oil goes up, life there will
no longer be viable except as an enclave for the poor.
Many people feel entitled to continue living as they always have
in the suburbs. They don't want their cost of living to go up,
they don't want to give up their convienience and freedom of move-
ment, and they don't want the values of their homes to plummet for
lack of sustainability. The only short-term solution is to keep
cheap energy flowing. People would prefer to believe that a
foreign conspiracy, not their own selfishness, is to blame. The
pressure for a military solution will be subtle but broad-based.
The opinions of the many worried about how they're going to pay
to fill up their SUV's will outweigh the protests of the few
crying "no blood for oil".
Some look to emerging technologies to replace the petroleum that
is running out. Hydrogen fuel cells can make a car run, but to
produce the hydrogen in the first place, more fossil fuels must
be used than would be saved as the car is being driven. And fuel
cells are expensive to manufacture. (Hydrogen does have the ad-
vantage of being nonpolluting. But using petroleum to produce
the hydrogen causes pollution at the plant. So in this case
pollution is merely moved from the tailpipe to the smokestack.)
Biomass is another emerging technology, but it too uses up more
energy than it replaces. Additional nuclear power is politically
unacceptable, all the good hydroelectric sites are spoken for,
and wind and solar power are but a drop in the bucket.
In conclusion, life is the suburbs, as we have known it, cannot
be sustained. We will soon no longer be able to afford a drive-
everywhere lifestyle. The inertia of the system makes a quick
adaptation impossible, however. The demand for the continued
availability of cheap energy as supplies run low will inevitably
become a major threat to world peace.
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