Life After the Oil Crash

Given the overwhelming amount of content on that site, a comprehensive response is pretty much out of the question. However, just to point to a few holes in his reasoning:

1. Oil is priced in American dollars. Given the weakness of the dollar right now, oil exporting countries need to do something to make sure they get the same value for their oil; three guesses as to what that something is. Moreover, the stampede of speculators out of the real estate market and into the commodities futures market has been identified as one of the main contributors to current oil prices. So I'm not ready to believe that current price spikes are a sign of the End Times.

2. In many instances, his figures are based on the assumption that, after Peak Oil, there is no decline whatsoever in demand for or use of fossil fuels in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world. That is quite a leap to make, and as much of a cynic as I am about governments and institutions, I'm not ready to believe any country in the world, let alone one with such tremendous availability of information, is going to unflinchingly maintain its breakneck pace through its fossil fuels once information comes to light that we're approaching the end of our supply.

In short, equating what the world "needs" and what it currently uses in terms of energy or oil is not automatically correct.

3. An even greater series of assumptions underpins the author's conclusions about the need for fossil fuels to support alternative energy infrastructure. While I won't dispute that this is true to a significant extent, I'm surprised he could honestly say with a straight face that the initial investment of fossil fuels in alternative energy sources X, Y, and Z is so massive as to not make them worthwhile. Does he honestly not see the potential for X to partially support Y, X and Y to help in establishing Z, for XYZ to offset the energy cost in creating hybrid cars, etc.? Or is he trying his darndest to scare his readers into buying that $119.00 survival knife advertised on the left side of the page?

4. His arguments against solar power are particularly lacking. He relies on the current lack of widespread solar power implementation to support his conclusion that at no point in the future could solar power ever be a viable substitute for fossil fuels, even partially. First he laments over the small amount of solar panels currently in use, and in almost the same breath, he paints an apocalyptic picture of the world after peak oil. Maybe as one situation gets worse, the other will improve. Maybe not. But to gloss over that aspect of the issue seems either hilariously short-sighted or deliberately disingenuous.

5. The author makes much of the lack of investment in alternative/renewable energy technology over the last 8 years, particularly on the part of government institutions and investment banks. He implies this is a sign that those financial players have, in their superior wisdom and simultaneous short-sighted foolishness, decided that there is no solution to peak oil and that we are all doomed. I've got another explanation for that phenomenon. The Executive branch of the U.S. government has been almost entirely co-opted by the interests of the military-industrial complex through Bush, Cheney, et. al., and is diverting trillions of dollars of government funds to security and defense markets. Private investment institutions are smart enough to realize the immense ecnomic influence that the federal government exerts and are following the government's lead.

Wait until there's a change in the presidency and we no longer have billion-dollar no-bid government contracts going to paramilitary institutions like Blackwater and we're not hemorrhaging tax revenue through the military (well, at least not as much as now). Wait until Exxon-Valdez no longer has de facto representatives everywhere in the federal government. Wait until public grants start providing some meaningful support to scientific advances related to alternative energy. See where the investors flock to then.

6. The costs associated with implementing alternative energy technology will not always be as high as he seems to assume. In its nascent stages, new technology is always much more expensive than when it's further developed. Remember how much computers cost in the early 90's? How about now? That's my point.

7. Without going into minute detail, some of his sources appeared suspect to me. For one, Michael C. Ruppert has in the past alleged that Bush and Cheney engineered 9/11. That's not to say that he needs Rhodes Scholarship to back up all of his arguments, but rather that I don't necessary accept an assertion because it's followed by a link to another website.

All that having been said, many (most) of his underlying points remain valid, at least in a general sense. Oil shortages will mean much more than driving less. Modern commerce and industry are extremely dependent on readily available fossil fuels in limitless supply. Turning to alternative energy sources will not be as easy as flipping a switch and saying "Well, now we're done with fossil fuels! Problem solved." I just take issue with some of his arguments as either not logically sound or supported by convenient assumptions and/or mischaracterizations of the facts.