$8 per Gallon and $10 per Gallon

Yesterday I posted about the beginning of Christopher Steiner's $20 per Gallon (here is the original post). I've since finished 2 more chapters, which I'll summarize below.

Chapter $8 is titled "The Skies Will Empty," and it mostly focuses on how this price threshold will be the breaking point for many airlines. Apparently, a lot of the airlines in the U.S. haven't been doing all that great for years now, but have managed to limp along anyways. Eventually, only 2 or 3 major airlines will remain in the U.S., and the author realistically notes that this will be a massive blow to the economy, resulting in the loss of many jobs. A silver lining, however, is that certain business (the chapter opens with an introduction to the owner of an airplane scrapyard) will thrive in that environment. Another healthy dose of realism: distant parts of the country simply won't be as accessible as they once were, with plane tickets hovering around $1,000. The author predicts the people will stay closer to home, being less likely to seriously consider jobs and colleges across the country. Personally, I predict that even this consequence won't be so bad, assuming our country starts to develop the infrastructure for a light rail system. I recently watched Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea, and if people managed to travel from the east coast to Yellowstone by train around the turn of the 20th century, then we can do that again (but with faster, more efficient trains). Sure, with fewer cars on the road the number of frivolous trips will be reduced, but certainly the empty skies won't prevent families from vacationing in other parts of the country. The author does predict, however, that mega-resorts and Las Vegas will be hit hard, but as far as I'm concerned good riddance! Especially in the case of tropical beach resorts which, quite frankly, are too numerous and too gaudy.

In Chapter $10 the author moves away from airplanes, returning to the subject of cars (the chapter is titled "The Car Diminished but Reborn"). He spends most of this chapter discussing alternative fuel sources, though interestingly enough biofuels are not mentioned at all. Hmm. Quite disappointing. Not that I support using corn-derived ethanol as a fuel, which would simply eat up more land for agriculture as we try to fuel our cars and feed ourselves and our livestock. No, crop-based biofuels are a dead end, but ALGAE PONDS are NOT!! Algae can be grown in vertical cells (saving a ton of space) in land that is marginal for agricultural production, such as in deserts or even in the ocean. And algae produces biofuel a lot more efficiently than corn! Anyways, this isn't the place to discuss algae ponds so I'll end that tangent by saying "just wait," because it will be a big deal in the coming years and I'm very surprised that Steiner didn't cover it.

Compressed air powered vehicles are discussed (they'll likely show up, but only as a short range, niche vehicle), and Hydrogen Fuel Cells are dismissed (and rightly so), as being too unrealistic due to the energy required to extract hydrogen (from petroleum no less, as Steiner points out). So what does that leave for Steiner's predicted mainstream vehicle? Electric cars. I must say, in the example presented he's got the infrastructure down (actually, it's an idea formulated by Shai Agassi, the founder of Better Place); at fueling stations near-drained batteries would simply be replaced with fully charged batteries in less than 5 minutes (because actually charging a battery would take hours), and batteries would be constantly charged at the refueling station. Onboard computers would control charging at the home, namely communicating with a central system and partitioning recharge times for people on the same block, for example, so that their transformers don't explode. These ideas are interesting starts, but ultimately I don't see this being a viable solution once everyone has an electric car. Furthermore, Steiner notes that there will be a transition period which will be very tough on the lower income members of the populace. Gas cars will be prohibitively expensive to fuel, but the initial price of electric cars will be out of the price range for many people (especially those who normally buy used cars). I must admit, this could potentially be a huge crisis, and the best solution that I can think of would be for public transportation to step up. This will also signal the beginning of the end for suburbia as well, since it will make much more economic sense for people to live in cities, closer to where they work. Hopefully, this will result in a decrease in the rate of urban (suburban) expansion and development.

Other points that were made toward the end of this chapter were that recreational vehicles (snowmobiles, dirt bikes, jet skis, and motor boats) will decline significantly. Yep, I definitely see this as a good thing! Sailboats, kayaks, canoes, and rowboats will become more popular, and hikers crosscountry skiers, and snowshoers will enjoy more tranquility without the constant buzz of ATV and snowmobile motors. Finally, the production of bioplastics will expand. This actually really blew my mind: essentially, plastic can be made from bacteria. The process wasn't explained in detail, but it sounded like by tweaking gene expression and diet, the plastics could be given different properties (shelf life, malleability, durability, etc.), much like petroleum based plastics are today. Best of all, bioplastics are completely biodegradeable! Currently, bioplastics are only used for environmentally sensitive applications where biodegradeability is a major consideration, but once the price of oil brings petroleum based plastics up to the same production price as bioplastics, the industry will boom. Honestly, the ubiquity of plastics has always been a major concern of mine, as there are certain technologies and products that simply wouldn't exist without them (the computer that I'm typing on, despite being a Macbook with an aluminum casing, still contains a fair amount of plastics in the innards that make it tick). Learning about the existence of bioplastics has alleviated my concern that with the decline in oil will come a decline in the availability of technology.

So that's where I'm at right now. I'll likely continue to summarize chapters as I read through this book, because I feel that the subject matter is of general interest to most people. While I'm already finding parts of Steiner's "visions of the future" to be flawed, overall the book offers mostly plausible, common-sense-based consequences of the decline in petroleum after the zenith of peak oil (which he asserts has already occurred in 2006, keep in mind). It's biggest value is the fact that the vast majority of Americans likely don't think about such things, so hopefully this will get their mental gears turning (and preparing).