Prosperity killed the Roman Empire, the Mayan Empire, and the limbic systems of generations of young Americans, devoid of any stimulation by their survival instinct that had sharpened the wits of their ancestors for millions of years. Our evolutionary history has endowed us with a drive to manipulate and control our environment. Prosperity killed this drive. The technological drive to manipulate our environment has been redirected to designing video games, alternative reality computer spaces, internet shopping, next generation entertainment systems, etc. There are no world wars, Manhattan Projects, Apollo Space Programs, revolutionary life changing technologies to propel us to heightened levels of creativity. The industrial revolution died 100 years ago.

I’m thankful for the oil crisis! Yes I know there are huge costs. Unfortunately, human nature is such that change often requires the motivation of a major crisis. Paradoxically, one of the big advantages Japan has is that its infrastructure was destroyed in WW II. Its new production facilities with the latest technology captured our steel industry. There was a huge cost in replacing their infrastructure, but it motivated people to do the impossible. Sony gained the early transistor radio business away from the US out of the ashes of WW II because they were hungrier for this business. They ate us up.

The oil crisis fuels my fellow lunatics on the fringe who pound away at their keyboards at all hours, ranting about how their neighbors and politicians, are oblivious to the coming disaster and how oil and American auto company executives are only motivated by greed and the dark side. It inspires brilliant engineers/physicists from Stanford who are developing the nanotechnology Lithium Fe batteries at A123 Systems, prods researchers/engineers working on alternative energy technologies and motivates everyday folk who will have to drastically adjust their lives to the economics of $200/barrel oil, a devalued dollar, and the escalating prices of commodities.

It motivates wild-eyed early adopters to buy overpriced, cramped, marginal, fragile shelled vehicle with marginal A/C and heating, 350 pound $5,000 battery pack modules that @50% charge will replace one gallon of gasoline, toy tires that will get stuck in mud and snow, and model number 1.0 designs that will be worth a fortune on Ebay 30 years from now, but won’t be reliable and won’t have volume production pricing until model 3.01 comes out. God love ‘em.

Engineering and Technical schools will create new courses to meet the demand for the new alternative energy professions spawned by leading edge companies. Companies will offer new services for charge stations, chips with tweaked motor control programs, ads will appear in the backs of magazines for secret magnetic black boxes that will double your battery charge range, with claims that their secret has been suppressed by the all powerful battery companies.

There is a fundamental limit imposed on a civilization by the Second Law of thermodynamics: entropy of a closed system can never decrease. (Corollaries: Pollution always increases. Murphy’s Law.) We are in competition with our planet for the irreversible exploitation of its natural resources. There are three basic ways to deal with the Second Law: time, energy, and information. Let’s look at some technological options.

Time: We can do things slower. Speed costs money and energy. For transportation, a 55 mph speed limit saves oil. Slowing down is a quality of living option most of us don’t want to give up. An adiabatic/irreversible process requires an infinite amount of time to implement.

Energy/Fossil Fuel: Game theory gives two choices for the issue: “evolutionary stable strategy” cooperation or environmental Jihad. Since these are political/strategy and not technical issues, we won’t discuss these.

Information: The Second Law is a statistical law. Its consequences can be ameliorated by optimizing the use of information. Living processes in a closed system (e.g. DNA, Krebs cycle, writing) conserve information. All physical processes involve the motion of particles: electrons, atoms, photons, etc. An internal combustion, steam, or compressed air engine loses a lot of information by the random/irreversible expansion of hot gas over a large volume.

We believe that the oil crisis, for reasons we all know well, will force adoption of the BEV (fuel cell and hydrogen advocates, write your own article). The reaction in a battery cell occurs at ambient temperature and is approximately reversible for 150,000 miles. Losses in a Traction Converter and motor are primarily due to small switching losses in the converter and resistance of the battery and motor windings. This is an entropy optimized, ~90% efficient operation. It has a minimal impact on the environment when combined with the best power grid generation technologies. Oil will be left in the ground rather than burned. Entropy is conserved when petroleum is formed into the shape of a plastic product rather than being burned. As shown above, EV related technologies minimize entropy death and conserve resources. Long live the oil crisis! :D

(Please don’t fault this article for marginalizing the effects of the oil crisis on the economics of ICE companies and third world countries. There are always negative consequences to change. Progress is a process of the interplay of creation and destruction.)

Tom, Nice post! I'm also a fan of entropy. ;) I was thinking just yesterday how the economies of the world are now based on currency which will then turn to energy and finally on to the greatest resource of all - the human mind. Just think how efficient the brain system is. For the price of a banana someone like Einstein can create formulas that change the world and provide the potential to generate enormous amounts of value. I think you touched on that in your information paragraph. My question was how does that effect the order of things? It's like mechanical advantage only multiplied by an almost infinite scale.

Also I consider the earth not to be a closed system. Almost but it does receive an amazing amount of energy from the sun and through gravitational forces (orbiting moon). When we more fully utilize this resource we will be able to control many of the issues you brought up. This energy will eventually enable us to control all of our resources should we decide to achieve the goal of sustainability.

Are we yeast about to expand our survival time (delay extinction) or are we doomed to follow the civilizations you mentioned due to increasing amounts of prosperity. Will there ever be a point where there is no motivation to invent or improve things? From where we stand now I cannot imagine that ever happening. I look at some of the most evolved minds of our time and do not see them sitting back and enjoying their genius but only becoming more passionate to improve things. Perhaps when us humans shed the demotivating events in our lives (crime, war, poverty, incompetence, governmental control, etc.) we will become more motivated and passionate to improve our greatest gift - life.


P.S. I also am excited about the changes the oil crisis will bring out. It's unfortunate that the wealth of the poor is being so quickly transferred to the rich and that the world's population as a whole could be in for quite a difficult time (that's a gross understatement) but maybe it's an important step to our next evolutionary stage - beyond yeast

Great post.



ads will appear in the backs of magazines for secret magnetic black boxes that will double your battery charge range, with claims that their secret has been suppressed by the all powerful battery companies.

It's already begun...there are already rumors of Chevron buying up battery technology for the specific reason to keep it off the market. It's in a vault next to the magic carbuerators...

Texas,

My boss (PhD physicist) is of the opinion that we are mearly here to facilitate the development of the next, more advanced creatures; silicon based life forms. :)

You know, no need for oxygen or water. Can handle the light years required to navigate space and spread beyond the solar system. No food required, only energy.

His question usually is, "when will they enevitably decide we are a drag and decide to stomp on us".

Actually, all this discussion is after a few beers, though. But I notice it takes less and less all the time to get him started. :)

It actually is a little disturbing.

Texas,

My boss (PhD physicist) is of the opinion that we are mearly here to facilitate the development of the next, more advanced creatures; silicon based life forms. :)

You know, no need for oxygen or water. Can handle the light years required to navigate space and spread beyond the solar system. No food required, only energy.

His question usually is, "when will they enevitably decide we are a drag and decide to stomp on us".

Actually, all this discussion is after a few beers, though. But I notice it takes less and less all the time to get him started. :)

It actually is a little disturbing.

Ha! I think he's warming you up for the big talk... He is about to tell you that not only did he create a silicon based girlfriend but that he has fallen in love.

My boss (PhD physicist) is of the opinion that we are mearly here to facilitate the development of the next, more advanced creatures; silicon based life forms. :)
...
It actually is a little disturbing.

Terminator overload, no need to worry.


Tom,

Most excellent, insightful, sensible post. Obviously, there are pratical limitations for today's BEV technology to overcome but I am sooo relieved that that the legacy car companie's and other newcomers are finally making "real" traction (HA!).

I am another who is very excited to see the technological advances this oil crisis is going to inevitably bring about. Being average middle class stock (active duty military married to active duty military, both enlisted, so we don't exactly make a lot of money), it is going to be painful for a while. We HAVE to drive, so we HAVE to buy gas/diesel to do so at this point. We're doing what we can to get ahead (no credit card debt in about 60 days, the countdown has begun!) but we will still have our mortgage (no sub prime crap here!), one vehicle payment, and our utility bills. The big question I'm having is, should we rush to pay off the one vehicle we have a loan on, or put the "extra" money into building a PV system for the house to help on the monthly bills. These are the kinds of questions everyone should be asking themselves. And to make the oil crisis as painless as possible, people need to burn their credit cards, pay them off, and start living within their means. Hunker down everyone, we have at least a few years of financial pain, but I wholeheartedly believe that we will rise out of this stronger and more independent than we've ever been.

I am another who is very excited to see the technological advances this oil crisis is going to inevitably bring about. Being average middle class stock (active duty military married to active duty military, both enlisted, so we don't exactly make a lot of money), it is going to be painful for a while. We HAVE to drive, so we HAVE to buy gas/diesel to do so at this point. We're doing what we can to get ahead (no credit card debt in about 60 days, the countdown has begun!) but we will still have our mortgage (no sub prime crap here!), one vehicle payment, and our utility bills. The big question I'm having is, should we rush to pay off the one vehicle we have a loan on, or put the "extra" money into building a PV system for the house to help on the monthly bills. These are the kinds of questions everyone should be asking themselves. And to make the oil crisis as painless as possible, people need to burn their credit cards, pay them off, and start living within their means. Hunker down everyone, we have at least a few years of financial pain, but I wholeheartedly believe that we will rise out of this stronger and more independent than we've ever been.

Well said! The good thing about hard times is that it gets people to think about their spending habits. One of the best pieces of advice I was given many years ago was to always try to have at least 2 years of savings tucked away that would allow you to live at your current standard of living. This can seem like an impossibility to some people but when you achieve it you gain a strong sense of security. It gives people breathing room.

Many people in America live pay check to pay check and if something happens they are forced to foreclose on their houses, sell their cars and other belongings at a loss, etc. Unfortunately, the culture in America is to spend like there's no tomorrow. If you talk to people that have went though very tough times (like war, extended hardships, etc.) you will immediately tell how much they value financial security. Knowing what I know now I would rather live in a tiny apartment with my whole family and ride a bike and take the bus but have two years worth of security in the bank then to live in a huge house with a BMW but only able to pay off the required minimum balance on my credit cards each month. Believe it or not the later is how a huge percentage of our population lives. I understand how it happens but It makes me cringe.

Texas,

My boss (PhD physicist) is of the opinion that we are mearly here to facilitate the development of the next, more advanced creatures; silicon based life forms. :)

You know, no need for oxygen or water. Can handle the light years required to navigate space and spread beyond the solar system. No food required, only energy.

His question usually is, "when will they enevitably decide we are a drag and decide to stomp on us".

Actually, all this discussion is after a few beers, though. But I notice it takes less and less all the time to get him started. :)

It actually is a little disturbing.

Ahh...he assumes we are not all participating in some sort of simulation program already...analogous to school for the soul...but alas...that’s another philosophical “what if” conversation that’s a lot more fun over a few beers.

I’m thankful for the oil crisis!
I'm thankful for the crisis as well.
Cheap gas prices and living high on the hog while so many others in the world had to do without.
I'm not a hippie, nor am I anti American, but the days of cheap gas are over; get used to it.

I hear so many people talking about this reason or that reason for the oil prices. Folks, it doesn't matter what the reason is. There is just one simple basic fact that has to be dealt with. Please imagine time stopping this instant. What would we have? A world population of many billions of people living with 83 million barrels of oil per day. That's about all the petroleum we will ever have. Yes, we may get another 5 million barrels of oil per day or so above that but that's our reality. If one person in China buys a new car that is one person somewhere else that has to give up their car. It's basic energy. Population follows energy. It is the only currency that matters.

If we cannot find substitutes as either demand grows or supply falls than there will be economic consequences. The first thing that will happen is demand will fall as people try to stop their wasteful ways as far as they can. Once that is milked as far as practical given short time periods people will have to wheel and deal for the remaining energy. If you want more lights, take someone else’s. We have to learn to live in a sustainable way with a flat oil production curve for at least the next 10 years (if we are lucky!). If populations stopped growing and people were satisfied with their current standard of living we may be alright. Any economy that is based on projected growth will be in trouble (yes, that means us). It's a whole new game until we can figure out viable energy substitutes for oil in large enough quantities. It's doesn't look very good but I'm optimistic, if we start to take the problem seriously and get working on it. Otherwise we are walking straight into a minefield. Many people know we are in that direction and are screaming for us to turn but the masses are unaware and prod along. I wonder how this will all play out...

I'm thankful for the crisis as well.
Cheap gas prices and living high on the hog while so many others in the world had to do without.
I'm not a hippie, nor am I anti American, but the days of cheap gas are over; get used to it.

There is something in the tone of this post I find distasteful. Perhaps it reminds me of "Eat all of the food on your plate! There are starving children in (x)"

There are always going to be haves and have-nots in this world. Decreasing my standard of living doesn't automatically increase someone else's. It's too darned bad that the third-world countries have such poor governments, infrastructure, etc., etc. Do you propose that we force a "solution" down their throats? Sounds like trying to force democracy onto cultures that lack the historic underpinnings for such a system (e.g., Iraq).

I would like to have a vehicle that ultimately sends as little money as possible to the Big Oil companies and the Mid-East. Although I'm not a "believer" of the anthropogenic global warming theory, I approve of the reduced pollution these vehicles will produce.

If the rising price of fuel acts as a catalyst for alternative energy technologies, that's fine with me. Maybe I just don't like having someone whip a "get used to it" in my face.

Or, maybe I just need another cup of coffee. . .