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Peak Oil And The Problem Of Infrastructure By Peter Goodchild 29 September, 2006 Most schemes for a post-oil technology are based on the misconception that
there will be an infrastructure, similar to that of the present day, which could support such future gadgetry. Modern equipment,
however, is dependent on specific methods of manufacture, transportation, maintenance, and repair. In less abstract terms,
this means machinery, motorized vehicles, and service depots or shops, all of which are generally run by fossil fuels. In
addition, one unconsciously assumes the presence of electricity, which energizes the various communications devices, such
as telephones and computers; electricity on such a large scale is only possible with fossil fuels. To believe that a non-petroleum infrastructure is possible, one would have
to imagine, for example, solar-powered machines creating equipment for the production and storage of electricity by means
of solar energy. This equipment would then be loaded on to solar-powered trucks, driven to various locations, and installed
with other solar-powered devices, and so on, _ad absurdum_ and _ad infinitum_. Such a scenario might provide material for
a work of science fiction, but not for genuine science. The sun simply does not work that way. It is not only oil that will soon be gone. Iron ore of the sort that can be
processed with primitive equipment is becoming scarce, and only the less-tractable forms will be available when the oil-powered
machinery is no longer available - a chicken-and-egg problem. Copper, aluminum, and other metals are also rapidly vanishing.
Metals were useful to mankind only because they could once be found in concentrated pockets in the earth's crust; now they
are irretrievably scattered among the world's garbage dumps. The infrastructure will no longer be in place: oil, electricity, and asphalt
roads. Partly for that reason, the social structure will also no longer be in place: intricate division of labor, large-scale
government, and high-level education. Without the infrastructure and the social structure, it will be impossible to produce
the familiar goods of industrial society. Without fossil fuels, the most that is possible is a pre-industrial infrastructure,
although one must still ignore the fact that the pre-industrial world did not fall from the sky as a prefabricated structure
but took uncountable generations of human ingenuity to develop. The next problem is that a pre-industrial blacksmith was adept
at making horseshoes, but not at making or repairing solar-energy systems. Fossil fuels, metals, and electricity are all intricately connected. Each
is inaccessible - on the modern scale - without the other two. Any two will vanish without the third. If we imagine a world
without fossil fuels, we must imagine a world without metals or electricity. What we imagine, at that point, is a society
far more primitive than the one to which we are accustomed. Note: see also Norman Church's essay, "Thinking the Unthinkable", at: He can be reached at: Joel Brown Group Contact Center |