[All] Peak Oil: The Need for a Long-Term Energy Strategy

[Peter Kofler]

Excellent column on the peak oil conundrum, seen from the American perspective, but essentially not much different from our own country:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/peak-oil-perspective/
This is an unprecedented challenge in that the preemptive long-term national level energy transition planning required to avert riding the nonrenewable energy depletion curve into the ground, so to speak, exceeds the federal political cycle (4-6 years) by a factor of at least 2 or 3. Our federal politicians will not solve this problem unless the electorate insists on it, and there is no precedent for this in modern history. And, similar to the energy efficiency challenge, relatively unfettered markets will tend to produce "economically optimal" yet proactively insufficient solutions which are virtually guaranteed to, again, ride the depletion curve into the ground before renewable energy infrastructure buildout is complete.
In the author's words:
We tend to have self-confidence in our ability to solve any problem. But
we have no historical analog to the peak of fossil fuels, without a clear (and
superior) replacement on the horizon. As a result of our fossil fuel binge, we
have unprecedented problems in population, water, agriculture, fisheries,
pollution, climate change, and so on. Our moment in history is rather special.
It is dangerous to assume that we’ll gracefully handle problems at this scale,
because such assumptions amount to dismissals and concomitant inaction.
Unacceptable.


It bothers me that we don’t have a plan. It scares me that
we (collectively) don’t think we even need a plan. Faith in the market
to solve the problem represents a high-stakes gamble. We can and should do
better. 		 	   		  
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