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Tuesday, 26 December 2006 14:33 |
 | | Carl S. Milsted, Jr. |
New Yearës Eve is coming: a night of drunken revelry ¨?ÇƒÓ and drunken drivers. Which brings me to the subject of Peak Oil.
According to the Peak Oil theorists, we are rapidly approaching the halfway point of world oil consumption. Since the second half of the worldës oil supply is harder to get to than the first half, we can expect production to taper off long before the oil runs out. If the Peak Oil folks are right, the tapering off could begin any day now.
And
this is where things get silly. Many in the Peak Oil community are
saying that the drop in oil production will cause civilization to
collapse, that we not only wonët be able to drive, but we wonët have
plastics, medicines, or even coal (since oil burning machines are used
to mine coal).
On the other
hand, the fear-mongers are correct in noting that many of the proposed
alternatives to fossil based oil are inadequate. The "hydrogen economy"
is very impractical, dangerous and expensive. Running our massive auto
fleet on ethanol from corn would be devastating to the environment.
Upgrading our public transportation system to European standards would
be a gigantic capital expense for a bankrupt government and would make
this country more vulnerable to terrorists to boot.
There are easier solutions.
Consider the
typical American car. It is three to four thousand pounds of steel with
a power plant capable of accelerating all that steel to interstate
highway speeds in less than ten seconds. This is incredible overkill
for propelling one or two people down a city street. Under city
conditions, the giant power plant is barely running above idle; most of
the energy burned is just for keeping the engine running.
For someone
living inside a city, the performance characteristics of a modern
automobile are unnecessary 90-plus percent of the time. A vehicle with
Model T capabilities would be quite adequate. There is no need to
surpass 30 mph on a city street.
Now, imagine
building a car with Model T performance using modern materials ÇƒÓ say, a
tubular aluminum frame with a fabric covering ÇƒÓ and a modern, efficient
small engine. Such a vehicle could be propelled with ethanol or
vegetable oil without over-farming the planet.
But who would
buy such a vehicle today? You would still need another vehicle for
highway driving, or carrying more passengers and/or cargo. Shared
ownership or rent-as-needed would work, but they are hardly worth the
inconvenience when gasoline is under $3 per gallon.
This brings me
back to the subject of New Yearës Eve. It is rather dangerous putting a
drunk behind the wheel of a 3,000-pound car powered by 200 horses. But
what about putting that drunk behind the wheel of a vehicle that is
one-fifth the weight, and capable of going no faster than half
interstate speed? This is a 20-fold reduction in kinetic energy! We
could even equip our city cars with crushable foam bumpers or exterior
air bags.
To make such
vehicles popular now, we need a separate licensing class. Make the
vehicles illegal for highway use, but legal in the hands of those we
donët trust with a full-featured automobile: the drunk, the reckless
and the aged.
So remember this
New Yearës Eve that there is hope for the future, despite the dire
predictions of Peak Oil. That hope is staring you right in the face,
albeit blurrily.
ï
Carl Milsted Jr. is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County.
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