Kunstler and the Looming Energy Crisis

My good friend James Howard Kunstler is both right and wrong about the looming energy crisis the world faces. Kunstler is right to assume that the present electric grid and America’s car centered lifestyle are unsustainable with present technologies. He is wrong to think this un-sustainability will lead to the collapse of modern civilization and a return to a 19^th century lifestyle.

Kunstler’s scenario which he calls the Long Emergency is based upon the presumption that technological innovation will cease. It is obviously wrong to assume that innovation and invention can be grown like flowers in a garden. Yet it is equally incorrect to assume that technological innovation will cease.

A more likely scenario is that we will move from dependence on the grid to smaller sources of energy. We’re already seeing this on a small scale with the widespread adoption of wind mills, solar panels and small hydro for electric generation and the use of wood for heat. It also looks highly probable that practical fuel cells and cold fusion are available.

Italian-American inventor Andrea Rossi claims to have a working nickel energy cold fusion device that can produce enough power to provide heat and electricity for the average home. The Greek company Defkalion plans to being producing and marketing it later this years. Rossi is also working on a larger device that can power small factories or office buildings.

In Britain, the gas company is testing fuel cells and Stirling engines that can generate both heat and electricity from natural gas. There are other inventions such as the Bloom Box. I might also add that thousands of inventors are working on energy breakthroughs.

Furnace that produces electricity now available in Britain

Now Kunstler is right to point out that much of the so-called “green technology” is a dead end. Much of it such as wind mills is an attempt to sustain the electric grid which is probably unsustainable. The work done at the National Renewable Laboratory and the US Department of Energy appears to be designed to keep the traditional energy industry going rather than to replace it.

This isn’t saying that there is not a lot of good research and innovation going on. There is, it just isn’t going on at places like NREL, the US military, the Navy in particular is doing a lot of work on cold fusion. So has NASA. Individual inventors like Andrea Rossi have also done a lot of exciting work.

My guess is what we will see is a collapse of the electric grid, which won’t bring down civilization. Instead people will simply adopt other energy sources not dependent on the grid. We will also see a movement away from the automobile, or at least the individually owned automobile. Many big corporations in the US are already quietly installing their own generating systems that operate outside the grid. Their public relations departments say that is being done to reduce green house gases, but what they’re really afraid of is large scale shortages of electricity.

This would probably include a large scale revival of rail and bus travel. Many people would also abandon individually owned cars for rental vehicles or some sort of cab service. How this will look or work I don’t know it is still developing.

Now Kunstler is correct in his thesis that the suburban experiment in the United States is over. The market has spoken and 20^th century style suburbia is dead no matter what steps politicians take to sustain it. “Home ownership” has fallen back to 1965 levels and it will continue to fall. The only area of residential construction that is growing in the US is apartment construction. The only real growth in property values in the US is in land in urban centers and farmland.

What will replace it is an urban landscape that looks like that in Japan or parts of Europe. Lots of high density areas surrounded by empty land and connected mass transit systems. Kunstler probably won’t like it because there will be fewer horses around. People won’t be able to afford them. I also expect some more local agriculture but Kunstler won’t like that either. It’ll probably be hydroponics agriculture run by cold fusion reactors or fuel cells.

I also predict we’ll see less government and more capitalism. Especially when corporations can provide things people need such as food, energy and transportation when government can’t or won’t.