I would describe myself as a recovering energy engineer. Technology has been an integral part of my life. At one time I had viewed advancing technology as the answer to all of our problems and the only tool necessary in improving our relationship with the natural world. My own personal journey over the last several years has changed that.
That journey began about ten years ago while preparing a speech for a communications class. The topic, chosen somewhat randomly, was ecological in context and addressed population dynamics under resource constraints. Researching material for the speech was a turning point for me and made me begin to question my own techno-fix mentality.
Much soul searching was done as graduation neared and I felt I should accommodate this need to do something positive environmentally while joining the engineering ranks. What resulted was a position in the photovoltaic industry.
Alas, a downsize landed me in graduate school studying fuel cell systems. It was while investigating so many energy schemes I had an epiphany of sorts.
I came to the realization that no combination of alternative energy strategies was the messiah I had long thought. This was an emotional period in my life. This countered a long held belief, one that had been building since a solar powered heater had brought home a blue ribbon from the 7th grade science fair, one that revolved around the idea that if we only persisted in our research efforts new technologies could reconcile nature and a growing human population. That belief took its last breath at the UC-Irvine combustion lab in a cubicle decorated with pictures of snow-capped mountains and inspirational quotes.
This was a new experience for me and it went deep. My personal identity had been intrinsically tied to this mission of “inventing” our way out of the problem. Even with all that reading into population dynamics and resource depletion, I had not until just then made the idea personal enough to crack something at my core. There was some amount of time, on the order of two months, where I was, for lack of a better phrase, “freaked out”. Looking back now I can admit that I was in a scary, unfamiliar place and didn’t know what to do.
If ever I was ripe for an identity crisis or nervous breakdown this was the time. I found myself visiting school counselors and talking around the subject afraid of sounding depressed. They were programmed to help me successfully navigate mid-terms; we were not talking the same language. My girlfriend at the time showed even less literacy. Morose poetry became an obsession for a time and I stopped researching anything related to my chosen field of study. I rented a car over the Thanksgiving Day holiday, and with ample insurance coverage, proceeded to drive like a complete maniac for two days on various highways and fire roads in a coastal mountain range. The tally was one dent, one blown tire and many pissed off California motorists. It helped.
Several weeks of mild depression, anxiety, insomnia and general weirdness ended. No amount of technology was going to get us out of the spot we were in and it was time to move on. But move on to what? It was at the end of this period that I started looking outside my somewhat limited prior scope. Free of the sense of obligation towards the writings of the technical community, I discovered Psychology, Biology and Philosophy. Having just managed, however poorly, a personal episode into mental dysfunction, I had a new respect for how the mind views reality, how it can build a perspective exclusive of things that do not fit that reality.
My focus became more human and socially oriented regarding the ramifications of resource scarcity. I had completely lost interest in graduate research of an engineering nature. I returned to the Midwest to a string of odd jobs including part time work at a breeding stable and then a factory. One might think that the two job environments could not be more different but they did have one thing in common: so many factory workers were no less dependent on their regularly scheduled paychecks than the horses were on me as a stable hand, for their sustenance.
Later, I took a job with a renewable energy products wholesaler and that is when Hubbert’s Peak came into view. I began reading everything about the topic I could get my hands on. Had I not been emotionally prepared nearly a year earlier, denial would have been a real possibility and may have meant missing information I wasn’t ready for.
I have a good friend who has been an engineer working in the photovoltaic industry for many years. She is intelligent, well traveled and generally progressive and open minded. Several years ago I tried to persuade her to go skydiving. I noted the exemplary safety record and the various measures taken by the organization I had recommending in particular. I extolled the adrenaline rush and advertised that the adversity she faced in the “bored” room would pale afterwards.
She joked about the novelty of the idea at first. My persistence was met with mild resistance as she came up with various reasons as to why she couldn’t follow through. Time and money were her first lines of defense which were defeated with my proposal to pay for her jump and accommodate her busy schedule. Next would come her citation of fear of heights which I pardoned noting that it was universal to human beings and an instinctual fear to be challenged. I suggested that she would approach various other life obstacles with new vigor post plunge. At this point her tone became noticeably more irritated and defensive and with that I noted that although I thought this was just the thing she needed in her recent wrestling for direction, I valued our friendship and would capitulate. After a hiatus from the topic she surprised me by accepting.
Since then I have introduced her to the idea of Peak Oil. My early approach was data driven as I am familiar with an engineer’s need for numbers. Later discussions evolved through possible social, political and ecological events to come. We discussed the End of Suburbia DVD and, after some lobbying, I convinced her to read Powerdown by Richard Heinberg. Last summer I met her at the Solfest gathering in Hopland, California where Heinberg and Michael Ruppert were speaking. She was quite attentive but I could tell she wasn’t buying it. Given that she lives in a city that shows obvious signs of bloat my most recent advance some months ago was an economic argument predicated on the current trend in the financial and housing sectors.
I see many similarities between our progression with this topic and our venture into skydiving. There have been many ebb-and-flow periods where I push the issue only to meet with inertia, friction and agitation. Often times any dialogue from me of a Peak Oil nature had been promptly met with news of some emerging technology that would change everything or some breakthrough architectural strategy that would make the current building pattern sustainable. We now seem to be in an amicable hiatus from the topic.
Often times I would ask myself why I was spending so much effort in trying to convince her and only recently did I realize. She is standing where I once stood. She is still holding out for some technological savior.
I feel I am finally letting go of that sense of duty I had felt to doggedly educate friends and family about Peak Oil. If and when people become ready I hope I can be of help. Having to let go of so many ideas and assumptions over the last two years has been something I did not anticipate. I am still learning to let go but with it has come a certain sense of clarity.
The past year and a half has been a shifting of gears so to speak. My reading list has changed as I have moved beyond the “defining the problem” phase towards solutions. I have returned to basics in many ways studying aspects of permanent agriculture and community. Last year I visited an intentional community and have returned several times finding there a sense of people and place I haven’t known since I was a child in the rural Midwest. Last fall I took a chance, quit my job, sold my car and apprenticed on a diversified small-scale farm in upstate New York. My intent was to learn the basics of animal husbandry and get more gardening experience but I may have learned more about myself in the process. After that I was off to another apprenticeship this past spring in Oregon to help an amazing couple work their farm and market-garden with horses. Their level or awareness surprised me and again, the lessons were more personal than anticipated.
I am acutely aware of the tight grip that the techno-fix mentality can have on a person, especially those in science and engineering. In the future we will need the creativity and skill of those in the technical community who have awakened to see energy descent not as another design problem but as an opportunity to follow a path with heart. We are slowly waking up. One more engineer’s eyes have opened.
Brandon Marshall
I grew up in rural Missouri, joined the Navy and later received a BSEE. I have worked for several energy companies including an electric utility and three PV businesses. Intermixed with engineering and graduate research have been stints as a landscaper, wilderness guide, stable hand, janitor and horse farmer. I have been living without a car for nearly a year; perhaps it is a little ironic then that a recent motor vehicle accident has given me plenty of time to read, write and reflect.
The original article can be found here. Reprinted by permission of the author
About Kathy McMahon
First, it is hard not give all due respect to Brandon Marshall’s resume’as he reports it. His history in the PV industry alone is one many of us would envy! And I don’t know how serious his vehicle accident was, but we can only wish and pray him a full and speedy recovery (and hope he will continue to write however, once recovered!)
Now to his very interesting and educational essay. I want to focus on one paragraph, for the sake of brevity, because to me, it is one of great importance, and because, in my own case, I actually passed Mr. Marshall going in the opposite direction in many ways!
I quote Mr. Marshall
“I came to the realization that no combination of alternative energy strategies was the messiah I had long thought. This was an emotional period in my life. This countered a long held belief, one that had been building since a solar powered heater had brought home a blue ribbon from the 7th grade science fair, one that revolved around the idea that if we only persisted in our research efforts new technologies could reconcile nature and a growing human population.”
(aside: I built a model of a solar home in junior high school, and gave my first speech in front of an audience about solar heating. My other big high school project was a model of a hydro electric dam! Us “energy worriers” have a long history!
To Mr. Marshall’s point, someone was once asked what the biggest energy saving devices in the world would be. He answered immediately….”the birth control pill and female education and opportunity.”
This is a fascinating point, in that many of the conjectures about population growth made only a couple of decades ago have now turned out to be false. We in the boomer generation are used to the idea of growing population. But, once more, this turns out to be a self centered view if we project it into infinity:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6040427/site/newsweek/
“Across the globe, people are having fewer and fewer children. Fertility rates have dropped by half since 1972, from six children per woman to 2.9. And demographers say they’re still falling, faster than ever. The world’s population will continue to grow—from today’s 6.4 billion to around 9 billion in 2050. But after that, it will go sharply into decline. Indeed, a phenomenon that we’re destined to learn much more about—depopulation—has already begun in a number of countries.”
What this means is that many nations, and most importantly, former third world and developing nations, are not even having enough children to replace them selves. Everywhere the advanced ideas of birth control and female education touches, it has produced drops in child creation per capita. Everywhere.
But, there is a retroactive element who see this as a horrible thing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301529.html
“By not having children, people are voting against the future — their countries’ and perhaps their own. It is easy to imagine the sacrifices and disappointments of raising children. It is hard, try as people might, to imagine the intense joys and selfish pleasures. People ignore Adam Smith’s keen insight: “The chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved.” (what seems to be forgotten by Smith and more current thinkers is there are plenty of people already in the world who are horribly in need of love and companionship, let’s get this affection to them before we bring more lonely people into the world, and must then compete with them for food and sustinance)
This is why I am so careful about the idea of backing up to a prior “golden age”. This could very well have the unintended consequence of causing birth rates to go back up, and of course, the ones to suffer would be women. Where women’s choice dies, the birthrate skyrockets, and this is the first generation in world history able to artificially control birthrates. And they did it with advanced chemical technology.
It was through the 1980′s that I began to develop respect for technology. Can it cure everything? No. But the ideas of “artful product design” can greatly reduce waste, and make life bearable for our aging population, whom, even if they wanted to, could not go back to a world of brute force and labor.
We are now an old people in a young nation. I take daily two varieties of blood pressure medicine. Some would say “well, change lifestyle back to that brutal life of 500 years ago, and you wouldn’t need it!” No, I would probably already be dead and gone. My father suffers from the same condition, as does my uncle and several of my aunts. It is built right in. In my case, I must defend technology out of sheer loyalty, because it defends my life.
But Brandon Marshall’s argument MUST be well taken. Let me give you an example. During the 1980′s, automobiles began to move to digital computer control of fuel injection, valve systems, and combustion systems, and enhanced transmissions and drivetrains. The improvement in efficiency was absolutely staggering. But, sadly, the improvement in fuel economy did not follow. Why?
Because people made a CHOICE. Instead of using the improvements in auto efficiency to raise fuel economy, they made the choice to increase performance, horsepower and vehicle size. Thus, what could have been an astronomical rise in fuel efficiency was lost, not because the technology was not good, but because people made a conscious choice to side with performance at the cost of fuel. Lot’s of fuel.
But, where did the fuel come from. I don’t know if any of you read the recent news about the oil found in the Gulf of Mexico by Chevron. I am not interested in the arguments about how much good the oil will do, or the fact that if a lot of oil is there, it will still leave us with the GHG (greenhouse gas) problem from the release of all that carbon.
No, I jut want to talk about the technology that would allow the human race to even drill for oil and gas at that depth. The numbers are staggering!
“The well was drilled in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf, about 270 miles southwest of New Orleans and 175 miles off the coast.”
“the deepest well successfully tested in the Gulf of Mexico. Chevron said it was drilled to a total depth of 28,175 feet in waters that are 7,000 feet deep.”
Even if you are sure peak is right around the corner, it is hard not to have some respect for the technicians and workers who were creative and brave enough to undertake such effort.
Has it made a difference? It is hard to know. But the amount of oil and gas found continues to surprise to the upside. Colin Campbell’s early projections NEVER saw oil production getting to 85 million barrels per day worldwide. The thought was that peak would have already happened at below that, and oil production would fall from then on without ever touching that number. But, we are now at 87 million barrels a day. It is interesting to not the two big charts, in Nov. 2002 and most recently in Sept. 2006
November 2002:
https://www.peakoil.ie/downloads/newsletters/newsletter23_200211.pdf
September 2006:
https://aspo-ireland.org/Newsletter69.pdf
Now, why do the big charts looks so much different? First, the early conjectures of oil production are not high enough compared to what actually happened in that period. The difference does not appear great, but it is actually a difference of some 10% in conventional oil, this being a pretty big deal, as oil consumption grew barely over 2% yearly in that period.
But, there is a bigger difference, that makes the chart in 2006 look so huge. Natural gas. Why did the ASPO (the source on peak oil, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil) start including natural gas?
Simply this. Technology was moving so fast, that natural gas can now be easily and relatively cleanly converted to a liquid fuel, and be used to provide transportation fuel, electric generation fuel, as well as heat. The chart is confusing because it shows a gas peak at about the same time as the crude oil peak worldwide. Almost no other experts accept this to be the case, feeling that there is still a fair amount of gas in the world. The problem is geting to it, and developing and moving it.
In the end, as Mr. Marshall’s essay points out, we still MUST begin to move toward less waste, less consumption, and better design to cut the amount of oil and gas we need to live a humane life. But, this does not mean abandoning technology. It means improving it.
All this proves that it is very hard to predict when and how “peak oil” will occur. There could be a worldwide collapse, that would cause great suffering and threaten the modern world. Or, our best educated, and brightest could bring ideas to the fore that would help the world make the transition. Notice, that alternatives to oil do not have to replace ALL the oil and gas. Look at the ASPO charts.
There will be huge amounts of oil and gas for many, many years to come (for the rest of our lives) The problem is, if we waste it, no amount of oil and gas will be enough to help supply us and avoid human suffering. We need our talent to help stretch us to the changes. Heading off to the wilderness does not make sense, and if you teach your children not to respect technology, and contribute if they would like to in the assistance of their nation and the world, we will have no talent to help us.
By the way, Mr. Marshall, are you sure you wouldn’t be willing to do a bit more PV work on the side? Things are just now starting to happen, including the new thin film solar cells so light and transparent, they can collect the sun’s energy and look like a sheet of clear glass! It is going to be a great time to be alive, so throw off those blues and have some fun, at least for awhile!
Roger Conner
I should like to point out to those among us that believe that educating women and encouraging fewer children as a path toward energy descent:
Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have fewer children with much bigger “footprints” environmentally. Also, as people prosper, they start using more fossil fuels–walking to bikes, bikes to motorcycles, motorcycles to cars. And who are we to say “No, only we can enjoy this sort of prosperity.”
In a casual research that I did, to check out the argument that countries that treat woman better have a lower population growth, I did not find that to be the case. It is true in some cases, and not in others. Alas, we all want easy solutions to complicated problems, and who in the West could object to elevating the position of women?
For growth, there needs to be a feedback mechanism that reflects the demand. That is a consumption tax. The income tax is designed to encourage consumption and spending at the expense of savings, while high sales taxes do the opposite. The level of purchasing determines the demand for government services. The two should be tied directly.
Education only works if the system is oriented toward logic. Our System of systems is not. It is based on marketing and coercion of emotions. Humans are not making a ‘choice’ between Coke and Pepsi. They are simply responding to the coercion to drink some kind of sugared drink, and delude themselves into thinking they have chosen their ‘favored’ one, though the emotions that ‘decide’ favoritism are either random or manipulated by their environmental and hormonal conditions.
We are not as smart as we think we are. (“Coercion” by Douglas Rushkoff)
Technology is grand, but the problems we face are psychological, not technical. We need to sit down as a species and develop new ways to control our emotions and those who manipulate our emotions in order to ‘profit’. Any system based on profit is a system of waste. The dilemma we face is to figure out how to abandon the destructive means of production in favor of cooperative, creative ways of building and living. Ownership of property is one of those things we have to re-evaluate. Compare ourselves to Indigenous American peoples who felt they belonged to the land, not the other way around. I don’t mean they were right, just that we should consider our place in the hierarchy of the universe, and whether we are earning the resources we consume. What are we giving back? Are we building soil? Developing plants that build soil? Are we cleaning the air or making it polluted? Protecting the other species of Earth from asteroids?
What is our Net Creativity?
This is how we should view technology. Technology is not an entity of solving problems in itself. Every tool must be viewed as an extension of our self. Do I want my self to be intimitely tied to nuclear waste? Depleted uranium? Chemical fertilizer blooms? Profits at the expense of death to unknown millions of children through slow poisoning or starvation after a factory shuts down? It’s always great to say a new factory will “create jobs”, but what happens in 5, 10, 20 years when it isn’t wanted? Do we ever really want to “bring workers in” to a stable community? Do we ever really want our kids to grow up thinking they have to “move where the jobs are”? These issues can only be addressed on the regional or local level if we want to sustain a local stability.
Didn’t mean to rant. I should be out working.