Chapter 10 The Science Lifeboat.
Whenever there is any discussion regarding the possible future shortages of non-replaceable resources the suggestion is usually made that science and technology will solve the problem. Certainly in the past century we have seen many new and novel technologies develop and many have totally changed the way that we live. Consider the way that steam ships eliminated the uncertainty of sailing vessels and helped to dramatically bring the peoples of the world closer together. The steam engine brought into being the railroads, and was the primary tool that promoted the fast development of the then empty Western territories. The internal combustion engine in turn eventually replaced the steam engine. This completely changed our lifestyle and the airplane and the automobile now provide a very large proportion of our travel needs. In the constantly growing population of this world, travel has become a major industry. The telegraph, radio, and now the computer have each in turn dramatically improved our ability to communicate quickly and easily. The readily available transport of people, goods and ideas has also fueled the worldwide industrial growth.
However we must never forget that in approximately 40 years there will be no more oil remaining in the world’s reserves or at least the supply will be drastically reduced. Where will we then obtain the fuel to operate our airplanes and automobiles? When I have asked this question, the usual answer is "Oh they will come up with something". When I ask the second part of the question, "Who are ‘they’ and what might be the something", the answers become somewhat less assured. "Oh, science and industry will find some way, they’ll probably be able to make alcohol from corn, or hydrogen from water, or make solar powered cars; they’ll find something".
But if we honestly look at this subject in a totally practical manner, we quickly find that this answer is not backed up by facts. Indeed it is obvious that if the population of this world continues to grow at the present rate, we will need all the available corn for food. Imagine the outcry if 50% of the US corn crop is destined for the production of alcohol fuel for automobiles while people in other countries are dying of starvation. In any case if our population continues to expand, then 50% of our corn crop will not produce enough fuel for our needs. The idea of using hydrogen from the splitting of water sounds a wonderful idea, but then we have to ask where the tremendous amount of electricity will come from that will be required to break down the water. How many cities will cut their use of electricity so that the few who can afford hydrogen-powered cars can still operate their automobiles? Consider the power that will be required to manufacture, store and handle liquid hydrogen including the tremendous amount of energy used by the refrigeration and pumping systems for the compression and storage of this fuel.
When we cut out all of the wishful thinking and the "science fiction" solutions, three indisputable facts stand out as clear as crystal.
We have been given more than a hundred years of almost free energy in the form of our oil supplies that have made it possible to tremendously advance our civilization.
We have not made good use of the time that this wonderful gift has given us.
This free non-replaceable energy is almost finished and it will be impossible to retain our personal automobiles and our air services when the oil supply comes to an end.
Of course the pressure from rising costs will arrive very much earlier, indeed they are already with us. We hear explanations for the ever increasing cost of gasoline such as "The additives the government requires in the gasoline cost more", or "The refineries were busy making heating oil" and so on. The fact remains that the raw oil at the well head costs little more to produce today than it did 50 years ago. However in a competitive society the shortage of any commodity instantly triggers a rising cost. This is not to criticize the oil companies; they have a perfect right under our capitalist system to make as much money as they can while the supply lasts.
There are almost certain to be a few presently unknown reserves of oil that will be tapped, but nothing that can compare with what we have already used. The end of the supply of oil is inevitable. There are still unused sources of coal, and it may well be that we will be able make much more use of coal, including producing liquid fuel, until it too comes to an end. Of course that will demand new methods of burning coal to reduce the pollution to acceptable levels. There is potentially a large amount of electrical energy that can be made available from atomic power and there is no doubt that the cries against this form of power generation will quickly become silenced when shortages of electricity occur. This form of energy will undoubtedly provide the major source of electricity during the next century. However when we look at the long-term situation the only replaceable sources of energy, as we have already mentioned, are from waterpower, wind, geothermal energy and possibly from the tides although past experiments with this source have not proved very practical.
These replaceable energy sources can clearly only supply a fixed amount of energy. This energy will be perfectly adequate for a particular life style for a certain world population. We therefore have to first decide what standard of civilization and life style we want and can afford in terms of renewable resources. Then we have to decide the population figure that can be maintained at that life style and stabilize the world’s population at that figure.
There is no magical source of energy that can be mysteriously tapped when others run short. In the past science has answered many of our questions and solved many of our problems, but now even before we ask the question the answer is perfectly clear. Science can show us how to use our renewable resources as efficiently as possible, but science cannot break the rules of nature, and science cannot produce energy from nothing.
We may be able to collect solar energy in a more efficient manner, we can certainly build massive wind farms, but even here the supply has limitations. Geo thermal energy has proved difficult to collect and control, but improvements may well enable us to generate an increasing amount of energy from this source. However no matter how smart we are in developing these energy systems they all have finite limitations. One of the more critical is the vast amounts of power that will be required to manufacture the equipment and routing systems to handle, store and distribute the energy. Wind, water and tidal energy are not constant and some methods will be required to store the power generated during periods of excess, to be able to handle the shortages that will inevitably occur.
Forget about the "science-fiction" devices that are exciting to talk about but we all know will never happen. Perpetual motion machines that run forever without using any fuel, or the wonderful automobile engine that runs on water and gets 250 miles per gallon of fuel. These all make very fascinating fiction but in reality they will never exist.
In a similar vein we have to recognize that the stories of mining materials on the moon or on Mars are purely fiction. Even if our technology ever became good enough to make this possible, it would require so much energy to transport these materials that they would cost us more in non replaceable resources that they can provide. This is not a feasible source of energy or materials. The same comments apply to the often-touted idea of colonizing some of the outer planets, or moving the world’s population to another "earth". First of all we have never identified a single planet with an environment conducive to life, let alone visited such a possible home for mankind. Second we do not have the technology to convey large loads great distances into space, and finally we do not have limitless resources to develop these requirements.
Science and technology can help us to make the most of our remaining non-replaceable resources, and enable us to use our replaceable resources to their best advantage. Science cannot and will not be able to produce materials and energy out of nothing. The more people we have in the world to share the non-replaceable resources, the sooner they will be exhausted. The replaceable resources are strictly limited and can only support a fixed population. The more people who have to share these resources the lower will be the standard of living for us all.
This is not to suggest that we should ignore the services of science, but we should be putting them to practical use while we still have non-replaceable resources available. The present space program is exciting and has produced many new and novel materials and processes. However it is doubtful if operating the space station or sending probes to Mars are anything more than an intellectual exercise, that consume a considerable amount of our resources. Science already has several immediate problems to tackle that will affect the world’s future, such as pollution and clean water and this is where the resources should be used. One of the more important is to catalog our presently depleted non-replaceable resources and decide just how long they will last. This will tell us the time available to develop alternative life styles before they are totally depleted. It appears that power and transport are probably the most important items that demand immediate planning for the future at this time.
Then we need to develop a scenario for the next century.
What life style do we desire for the next two or three generations, as the world population is stabilized?
How many people can the world’s renewable resources maintain and still provide the required life style?
What is the life span of each of our major resources, such as metals?
What will we use when they are depleted?
Science therefore must begin now to develop a clearly defined plan for the future of mankind, based solely on what can be scientifically proven to be possible, not some pseudo scientific wishful thinking. Of course in time science may be able to overcome some problems that at present appear insoluble, but we do not have much time left. We are at present totally dependant on oil to maintain our way of life, we know the supplies are limited yet to date we have not begun to develop any alternative fuels.
The problems caused by the coming end of the oil supply are already affecting our lives. Although this is generally far into the future we will eventually see the end of our supplies of metals and other non-replaceable resources and we must begin to plan for those days. By careful re-cycling we can push this time well into the coming centuries.