Unfortunately, yes there will surely be some Manhattan type project here in the U.S., and probably in the U.K. too. The result will be capital expenditures on solar and wind, when the problem is that we need liquid fuels. And the development of solar and wind will consume oil, natural gas and coal.

The price of oil will skyrocket and a wartime mobilization will be bankrupt from the start.

There is little time left now to do much except focus on risk management.

Matthew Simmons indicated in the London Times a day or two ago that global oil production is now declining, from 85 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015, while at the same time demand will increase 14%. This is like a 45% drop in 7 years.

No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand is so high that it will always be higher than production; thus the depletion rate will continue until all recoverable oil is extracted.

We are facing the collapse of the highways, that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so too does the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cable, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from "outside," and without the power grid nothing works, including home heating.

I believe one key element regarding WWII mobilization was an expectation that things would return to "normal" once the war was won. It's also important to note that a lot of people and businesses made lots of money during that period. I have known many small businessmen from that period and they thought it was the best period they ever had.

To me, the question revolves around whether it is possible to return to some form of BAU once the "mobilization" has completed its work? My own guess is no, society has changed forever.

Todd

Like the Black Death of the 14th Century, the solutions to Peak Oil and Global Warming are local. Kill the rats, do not live in your own waste. End congestion, do not live in your own wastes. They could not see microorganisms, we cannot see CO2.

Actions are pretty simple:

• Plant a garden, food miles.
• Have fewer babies.
• End congestion.
• Stop moving a ton to move a person.
• etc....

What is missing is leadership. Leadership shapes, makes relevant and personalizes the problem into actions. Wartime leaders who win, provide such leadership.

We do not have to wait for the one big answer. Small tasks relentless acted on can drive the changes needed.

Chris,
Thanks for bring our attention to a less drastic solution to peak oil/NG rather than abandoning suburbs and collapse of civilization.

We have the advantage that we have more time than was available in WWII,and we don't have to make such a big change, really accelerating production of very fuel efficient cars and later BEV or PHEV's, expanding existing wind generation capacity, replacing nuclear power generators. Expanding solar is probably the biggest short-term challenge because manufacturing is coming from such as small base.

Energy depletion,including peak oil,is only one strand of the greater problem which is sustainability.This includes climate change,population and so on.
Mobilisation is what is needed to address this larger scenario.Unfortunately it is not an easy problem to quantify in terms that the majority of the people will understand. It will be hard to muster support.There will probably be no single event,like Pearl Harbour,to draw attention to the problem.
What is needed is clear thinking,far sighted and courageous leadership.I haven't seen much sign of that for some time.
While Peak Oil is a very immediate and quantifiable phenomenon I think the people who are aware(as on TOD)need to push the big issue more - sustainability.

A large-scale mobilisation is needed urgently - however it is problematic to implement. It is not quite true that you need a "war"-like threat to trigger it, rather you need to call a state of emergency. Once a state of emergency is declared then BAU is over, and people crowd around TVs and wait to be told what to do. Then comes the speech that holds... The Answer . (que choir).

Seriously though, this is the trigger event. Once the population's perception is orientated to the fact that 1. There is an emergency 2. BAU is suspended 3. Large sacrifices are needed 4.This is survival of our nation - Then they will be begging for a plan/vision/answer for stability. Here in Aus - people are sceptical of politicians, but if the issue was framed as state of emergency, then they will immediately fall into line (IMO this is practically hardwire into humanity).

This begs the question - can politicians change their perceptual orientation to a "state of emergency" given their current mental/cultural straight-jackets - and if they can...will they declare early or will they wait until they receive a clear mandate of chaos before they act?

Peak Miley Cyrus. A bit of levity for the 'Drum.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/entertainment_scientists_warn

-CW

I am afraid a WWII style mobilization of the United States will not do.

There need to be a global mobilization that involves every major industrial power, perhaps through a broad based group like the OECD.

Every country involved has to contribute resources, and unlike WWII, rather than to fight each other, to fight the common enemy of resource depletion (narrowly defined as petroleum and natural gas for now), but over time, to more broader issues involving other resources.

A reasonable and fair amount of GDP to spend on the petroleum effort would be something like 10% of GDP for the participating countries --- not that big a sum when you consider that petroleum @$140 a bbl is roughly 7% of world GDP. (Actual is less because heavy oil sells for less than $140).

Then there need to be major programs, like the simultaneous phase out of steel based light automobile bodies (the steel unibody and body on frame standard) with far more fuel efficient, lighter, composite body vehicles.

How about a radical new global standard in rail? One global standard for high speed intercity, freight, etc. that are interoperable globally?

We need lots of new ideas....

Excellent article. I think I agree with BillJames above that most Plan B's will come from the local level. And as Kunstler says, think "profoundly local."

A plan like this would probably give the world a lot more confidence in the US economy, and would likely attract capital and boost the value of the dollar... at least for a while. It would certainly be better than BAU.

But I still think the "law of receding horizons" would catch up to us quickly. Especially when the rest of the world started competing for the same limited resources for their own "mobilizations."

Reposting something I wrote on the "McCain’s Energy Plan" thread. I don't mean to spam, honestly. It just seems proper as a comment under this heading. In brief: if we're contemplating supercharging the renewables, we should also be planning to ease the path to sustainable local enonomies:

Weighing in from Australia - and stepping way outside my field of expertise, so this will all be subject to correction by wiser heads.

I think a missing factor in energy policy is financial. A case should be made for building a regional banking sector, with government as final guarantor, having a mandate to finance local developments which would support relatively self-sufficient economic regions. That is, privilege decentralized infrastructure and productivity over national and international systems, even though the latter have better economies of scale and can accumulate capital more rapidly.

My own position is pretty far left. But I took the point of some articles by Ron Bailey on the venerable libertarian site, www.reason.com. Bailey was writing about climate change and carbon, how they seem to overwhelm every realistic mitigation scheme; and he wound up saying that the most effective use of the money would be to leave it in peoples' pockets, and let them make their own arrangements.

Something to that. Of course, people with a lot of money have a lot of choices, while those on a tight margin may find their only choices driving them from bad to worse. But what makes it especially threatening for the poor is that they don't have effective local organizations, nor entrpreneurial backgrounds, nor capital.

The local bank, serving a local community, used to fill that need. The bank was largely in the same boat as the local businesses, had to know them well, had an interest in their survival. I won't list all the pressures to amalgamate that have been working through the last century, but there's no doubt they have led to an incredibly streamlined system for disconnecting money from locality, and reattaching it to demographics, and to particular modes of saving and borrowing. And that has probably tended to optimize economic growth; but it has also tended to where productive capacity is centralized, but consumption is spread way out.

You have this maxim round here, Economize, Localize, Produce; and you've talked substantially about what this means for individuals. I've no doubt, as early adjusters, so to speak, you're way ahead of the game. But you can see how big the risks are, even with your eyes open, in making a bad call.

Surely, ELP needs to be done on the scale of a mini-economy that can look after itself, in terms of staple foods and transport, and finance. And I'd reckon that scale is substantially larger than the independent commune - more like a city with surrounding townships. That size is big enough to finance taxi fleets, light rail, wind farms, agriculture. Projects that would be Herculean for a family or commune become practical; and if there are better technologies coming, cellulose-to-ethanol etc, a regional economy can take advantage.

This picture of the mid-level is what's missing from not only Bailey's perspective, but pretty much everyone's. Neither Party apparatus in the US is thinking this way. And that's silly, because the mid-level offers a real chance for transition to a low-transport economy, while leaving in place the entrepreneurial modes and economic relations that people are used to. It's the economies of scale that have us hooked on the present levels of fuel consumption.

Wartime mobilization only addresses the needs of the ruling class. War, in any guise, is a racket.

They (the rulers) create the problem, we (peons) react, they create the solution (war). It has always been this way, and if history is any guide, will always be. Peons never learn, the rulers never flinch.

What a tragic idea to be considered so seriously on the Oil Drum.

Unfortunately, the only wartime mobilization that might happen is to fight a real war and this seems to have been the macro response from governments so far particularly US, UK, Australia. Even our military responses though have been industrialised and professionalised so many of the general populace does not have any direct family connections to the military and therfore no real sense of appreciation that sacrifice of a plasma TV, so that your son or daughter has screen to stare at as tehy are guiidng in the bombs, will largely be missing.

We have lost the very essence of what it means to have to respond to an all encomapssing emergency. We elect the polititicans not to fix anything but to write the cheques out to the industries that can. We have become accustomed to just buying our way out of problems. It may take a generation, post the Greater Depression, before we can rebuild the social and moral software of our societies, an essential pre-requisite if we are going to have to exercise self sacrifice for the sake of the greater good.

So let me see if I have this right: We, as a specie, wait until the arctic has a near ice free Summer (07) and geolocially we are at Peak oil. Ocean temperatures are rising along with fuel prices, yet now some person writes an article with a Plan B, which would take approx. 20 years to get any high level politician to even look at, let alone act on.

Is a plan B a good idea? You bet, but it's too little, too late. You can't wait to figure out something as simple as Peak oil when its peaking. No, the need to figure that out was 20 years ago. The same goes for climate change.

Here's the perfect analogy: Person A is driving along when they notice a little blue light on their dashboard. They think the car is driving just fine - all the gauges read normal - I'll just keep going another 20 miles. The Sun sets and the car lights get switched on - and the car loses power and Person A is now at the side of the road in a mini crisis situation. The blue light was an indicator light for the alternator, and without more power to the battery, the lights drained it and at some threshold there wasn't enough power to keep going.

The 20 miles is analagous to the 20 years wasted ignoring easily understandable information about an impending crisis. If one acts when one still has time, a crisis can be averted. Maybe next time in a few thousand years our specie will be more responsive.

Posting from the USA -

At peak annual expenditure rates:
World War Two was 38% GDP
the Korean War was 14% GDP
the Vietnam War was 9% GDP
The NASA peak budget for 1966 (during the Apollo Program) was 0.72% GDP
The US Military (direct, emergency, and indirect) budget for 2007 was 4.5% GDP

The words 'wartime mobilization' have been used by many (including myself) to suggest the scope of the problem facing a country that runs on imported oil as the world faces gradual oil depletion. They're not entirely appropriate, but they're the closest thing a significant fraction of the population understands to the type of sacrifice needed.

It's an indication that a Manhattan Project(call it 0.25% GDP annually for 5 years) or an Apollo Program (call it two Manhattan Projects in a row), are simply not relevant units. These are not things that Americans put effort into - while they certainly weren't background-level pork-barrel spending, nobody gave up a car, recycled every scrap of metal they used, spent four years in another country, or dumped their life savings into war bonds to pay for them. WW2 changed the way every family in the country lived, to one degree or another. So will Peak Oil.

A sufficient expenditure to satisfy me, given the threat and the probability of a worst-case ELM scenario (and the weakness already present in our way of living at the plateau), would be 5% of GDP per year for the next ten years spent specifically on creating a new energy and transportation infrastructure. In contrast, right now about 8% of GDP goes towards oil. Talks of the efficiency of a command economy cut both ways, depending on the reason for the command economy - compare weapon development spending:innovation ratio through WW2 versus weapon development spending:innovation ratio through the Iraq war. Most of that 5% of GDP cannot be created money, given the fragile nature of the economic situation. We've largely maxed out our national credit cards propping up George Bush's chapter in the history books. So private expenditure/investment will *have* to be a large part of the mobilization. Technological development *can* be encouraged efficiently even in a command economy, but it has to have a strong body functioning independently from politics. Congress's left and right hands can't tie their own shoelaces in time for the summer recess - that's why independent people like Leslie Groves, and a commitment to broad spending on any possible expedient solutions, are necessary to run a successful command-economy research bureau. Insisting on accountability and scoring political points off particular developments (eg - The Corn Ethanol Congressional Reelection Campaign) need to be verboten in such circumstances - while Congress doesn't have to write a blank check, they necessarily have to be lax about the directions the tech will go.

The simplest, most effective thing Congress could do today would be to set up such bureaus *in combination* with large free-market incentives, like a revenue-neutral fuel and energy tax.

---------------

Europe spent much more on wartime mobilizations and needs to spend much less rebuilding itself in the wake of Peak Oil - so the analogy may not be precisely the right scale for local debate. Is there some other phrase with impact that might be used?

Alcoholics Anonymous I believe, is famous for saying that the first step to solving a problem is realizing that you have one. At this point, the world has not even reached the first step. Politicians, trained as lawyers and aided and abetted by wishful thinking economists and greedy incurious businessmen, are still setting the tone. Before "Wartime Mobilization" there needs to be a "Peacetime Realization". As the single greatest testament to just how clueless we are in general on the subject, population growth, is still cherished by most - even on "Peak Oil message boards". Be it from immigration or from births exceeding deaths.

Well at least Brown has choosen the right precedent. It's not a Manhattan project or an Apollo challenge. It's everybody on the same team, pulling in the same direction to get use to a new and better place.

Alas, if only peak oil and global warming could team up and attack Hawaii... (Oh wait, maybe they will :*)
But will we be smart enough (as a political culture) to recognize it?

From UK.
British based big-oil was still selling product into Nazi Germany close to war declaration.
War was closely followed by coalition government, and drafting in of large numbers of numerate and linguistically competent academic specialists into the (a-political by constitution) civil service.
GB was 'saved' by the USA entry after Pearl Harbor.
GB changes included nearly doubling the land under the plough (GB imported more than 70 per cent food in 1939) and more than doubling fertilizer usage, under the supervision of localized War Agricultural Committees, using local industry leaders with mandatory powers.
These days switching manufacturing priorities is complicated by the recent dramatic outsourcing to economies with low labor and low relative energy costs. Essentially Britain (and US) face in the immediate term 'balance of payments' problems. There are things GB could stop doing that would at least indicate seriousness - stop the 2012 Olympics, big ticket military spend such as aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, as well as airport and motorway expansion.GB could get serious and as a 'national emergency' better insulate our dreadful GB housing. GB has a serious natural gas supply problem, (for electricity and domestic heating), perhaps more than a liquid fuel problem?
Japan's preparations (and probably Germany)probably bear watching, especially their addressing of the global markets. There are economies that will continue headlong expansion for many years, including building on the grandest possible scale, but the extent that 'they' will need 'us' to be either maintained or downsized (removed?) as economies, or indeed are able to do anything about 'us', is not at all clear.
My guess is that the immediate danger is economic collapse in US & GB economies even while total world energy is being maintained within a few percent of the all-time zenith. Rutledge's projections for peak fossil energy within about 15 years might give a prospective global timetable but that might not help US & GB cope with much earlier economic turmoil. One imagines Australia needing to work to the longer global timetable, rather than the shorter term US & GB horizon?
For especially US & GB, infra structure priorities would seem key, especially infrastructure with claims on government financing and underpinning of risk. It would be too late to wait for economic collapse.
I like Rutledge's comparison of desert concentrated solar with long term infrastructure like bridge's. Maintenance is not as difficult as new-build. More useful for USA than GB unless latter's EU partners can organize matters.
Phil

There seem to be a large no comments in TOD in regard to “alternatives”. There is going to be no “alternate vehicle” as the development and manufacture time is too short in comparison to the time when the fuel resource depletion is going to be on our doorstep. Once politicians are aware that in 10-15 years if BAU continues that he or a large no of his constituents will be starving, then the politicians minds are going to more closely focussed on the problem and are unlikely to allow any resources to be deployed in building or fuelling any “alternate vehicles”. Any “War Economy” is not going to produce “alternate vehicles”. The vehicles relied upon in a “War Economy” will be for essential users only, the rest will be smelted.
When I was a child (in Australia) we were not as wealthy as Americans in the 50’s and early 60’s. Only the wealthy or essential trades used cars, the vast majority of people used the suburban railways and tramway systems to commute to work. Recreational travel prior to the car usually involved a tram/railway trip to the beach or football on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Recreational travel was not a daily or even a weekly item. Neither was shopping, which was usually done on a Saturday morning or Friday afternoon at a local Supermarket/fruit store/butcher within walking distance from home and the goods were carried home. I walked to school 800m or ¼ mile and when I reached senior school either caught the bus or walked 3klm or 1 and ½ miles.
This is the future and it is less than 5-10 years away. The “war economy” will mean walking/bicycle or catching the bus or train. There will be a “war economy” because the only other alternative will be permanent war and that will mean extinction in short order as it will involve conflict with China/Russia/India. There is no “war scenario” that will do anything to fix the problem of resource depletion.
Governments will need to focus on 3 things;
1) TRANSITIONAL ARRANGEMENTS, that is immediate rationing of fuels/electricity (as either new or increased capacity is not likely to be available quickly) and imposing large taxes on energy consumption. Immediate, that is over a couple of years replacing the private car with firstly buses, then tramways built on existing infrastructure and as shown during the Second war it is possible to build the required transport equipment in a few years. Those that are separated by distance or complex travelling arrangements will either have to relocate their jobs or commute weekly and overnight at their jobs. By and large private vehicular travel will be ended and this will have to apply to the rich/ politicians/military as well as the populus (if the rules don’t apply to all then none will want to obey rules, a Mugabe style elite will not be tolerated and I doubt if the US military or any military in most democracies will allow this, the commanders may like to be the elite but the men will not follow).
Today’s electronic superhighway will make this transition less painful.

2) ELECTRICITY SECURITY, Raising of electricity prices via taxation. Massive regulation of efficiency standards in the consumer appliances sector and complete abolition of whole classes of consumer appliances. Compulsory installation of building insulation/double glazing, paid for by the property owners, loans provided from taxation revenue. Compulsory installation of solar and heat pump hot water systems in households at the householders cost loans provided from taxation revenue. The target set for a reduction of consumption of electricity/gas/oil in the household sector should be 50% within 10 years. Similar regulation of commercial sector and industrial sector for a reduction of energy consumption of 50% within 10 years. Conservation will have a couple of effects it will be possible for natural gas to substitute for oil in heating. Less expenditure on replacement generating capacity and distribution equipment. It will be absolutely necessary to build both solar/ wind/geothermal generating capacity to the extent that that type of infrastructure can substitute for current equipment, no matter what the cost may be (Mining coal/uranium, and transport of these commodities requires oil in vast quantities and liquid fuels in the future are going to be severely limited). In due course it may well eventuate that renewables are much cheaper than fuels, after all we built a whole society on the basis that oil would be virtually free forever but that’s not the way it finally worked out. The final cost of a coal fired power station 2400mw over 50 years could be in the region of 60-80 billion Australian dollars assuming that 8 million tonnes of coal a year is consumed and a lot more if the cost of coal rises in price at the same rate as today (wild predictions about resource pricing 20-50 years down the line are just stabs in the dark, resource prices are more likely to rise severely). The coal solution is bunkum. Then any additional capacity that cannot be supplied by renewables then Nuclear would be used.
3) TRANSPORT RESTRUCTURING, total abandonment of private vehicular transport and the aircraft industry (there will be no fuel or resources to support this and it does not really matter what the populus wants/votes for it just won’t be possible). Firstly it will involve closing down all Car/Boat/aircraft and all other fuel powered vehicle manufacture facilities and eventual collection and destruction of vehicles in existence over a 10 year period with the exception of “essential services” and conversion of the factories to produce buses (first), trams and railway equipment. All steel/concrete production would be consumed by consumed by public transport equipment (track and vehicular) or the electricity industry/conservation programs.
All Freight would be moved to ship/barge first and then railways with only truck for the final few kilometres/miles.

Such a “war economy” is going to involve the reduction of the consumer goods sector to a much smaller size that at present. The majority of the population are going to loose their careers and will have to work in industries where they are told to work with little choice, to a much older age, for much lower salaries, retirement benefits are going to be lost (either by inflation or regulation and this is a certainty). The rich and the retirement investments are going to be taxed out of existence. Large homes are going to be regulated into multiple dwellings by regulation to both save energy and construction materials. The only travel industry will be the public transport industry; walking and bicycle will be the major form of transport. The main problem remaining will be the final conversion of the agriculture industry to Fischer-Tropsch fuels. Food shortages are what Governments fear most.

Nobody fears a "real" wartime mobilization?
There is (again) a lot of talk about Iran -see S.Hersh essay in New-Yorker-, and oddly European leaders are more inline with the US on the question than they were for Iraq.
It looks to me we're going toward the old geopolitical struggles again.
Obviously at high levels there is, and has been for a while, awareness of PO although it may not be spelled that.

If some aspect of peak oil didn’t have the characteristic of ‘degradation from the bottom up’ but instead hit the potential instigators of wartime mobilisation as acuity as the lower classes we might have found a sufficient trigger.

Electricity’s binary nature, it’s either available for all or not available for anyone, could be such a trigger.

Say what? You think "the great and the good" can't figure out how to run generators, and can't afford to install PV, micro-wind or micro-CHP? You think No 10 Downing Street doesn't have a backup power supply? Plenty of people will have electricity even if the grid goes down - such as the government, the police, the military, and the rich.

I believe that Frederick The Great saved an apathetic and demoralized Prussia by declaring the whole country under a military System and then telling them all to do what had to be done.

I suspect the game was if you did your job well you were promoted, if not the firing squad was the option. It worked.

Democracy is rule by Lowest Common Denominator not Highest Common Factor. The classics tell us that Democracy usually slides into Anarchy followed by Dictatorship.

We are nearly there. Mobilizing to a military footing will allow some necessary decisions to be made. No more Lobbyists, no more political bribery. No more trivial or frivolous litigation over who has the right to destroy our planet. (lots of vacancies in the firing squad, a real growth industry)

Our Democracy is failing in all but form. Anarchy is looming. Lets get directly to Benevolent Dictatorship so we can clean house and create a sustainable future.

They Say that Mao had to kill 60 million Chinese to guarantee that nobody who remembered the "old ways" could subvert his new ways.

Just maybe China 2008 has proven him correct.

PEOPLE IN THE U.S. ARE SECRETLY STARTING TO MAKE ALCHOHOL STILLS (ETHANOL ) IN THERE BACK YARDS AND ARE BUYING FLEXIBLE FUEL VEHICLES. OR CONVERTING THERE CURRENT CARS WITH KITS FROM E-BAY AROUND $ 220.00 DOLLARS.

AND THE GAS PRICES HAVE BEEN SO HIGH THAT THE GREED THE SAUDIS HAVE FOR MONEY SHOULD BE SAVORED BY THEM. FOR IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THERE END. ( GO AHEAD AND LAUGH )

FOR IN THE END IT IS THE INGENUITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THAT THEY WILL BE DEALING WITH.

NOT ANY OF OUR POLITICAL PUPPETS THAT HOLD THE SAUDI ROYAL HANDS AND ARMS EVERYWHERE THEY WALK.
OR IGNORE THE FACT THAT ALL THE TERRORISTS FROM 911 CAME FROM SAUDI ARABIA. NOT IRAQ.

PLEASE BUY PROTECTION THE NEXT TIME KUWAIT IS ATTACKED FROM ANOTHER NATION, BECAUSE TRUTHFULLY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF DEFENDING AND LAYING DOWN THERE LIVES FOR YOUR CORRUPTION. BUT YOU CAN BELEIVE OUR PUPPETS IF YOU WANT TO.

PERSONALY I WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR RAISING THE PRICES TO THE MOON. YOU FINALLY GOT US THINKING AGAIN, BUT YOU ONLY MADE ONE FATAL ERROR ... YOU PISSED US OFF. AND THATS MUCH MUCH WORSE THAN PUSHING A BUTTON ON A NUCLEAR WEAPON.
GO AHEAD AND LAUGH AGAIN ! AND CHERISH THEM FOR ALL TIME. BECAUSE THE CLOCK IS TICKING BUT NOT IN YOUR FAVOR.

Chris,

Brown's Plan B only addresses peak oil accidentally. It is a plan to cut fossil fuel use 80% by 2020. The only rational response to peak oil alone is rationing. The market can pretty much work out a response to reduced oil availability but we need to control price so that we don't waste resources on exporing for oil that is too expensive to be useful. Plan B is a response to a civilization threatening climate crisis so the motivation for mobilization is present owing to the existential threat.

Arguing that peak oil can't trigger mobilization because the threat is not large enough misses what Plan B is about. It is not power shortages but loss of water for irrigation in China, India and California, the loss of our coastal cities, the huge refugee problem and a sharp reduction in biodiversity that motivates Plan B.

Chris

My apologies for this non-topic related posting. I am sending this from Chennai, a large city in Southern India. There have been widespread fuel shortages all over Southern India. Traffic was snarled all over the city as panicky motorists tried to look for fuel.

http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?aid=452353&sid=REG

What has happened is that fuel demand has grown so rapidly in recent years that there is very little left as an emergency buffer. In this case, the shortage was caused by the late arrival of a coastal oil tanker from the west coast. It turns out that most of the big oil refineries in India are located on the west coast. Refined products are distributed by coastal tankers. Peak oil is now the number one topic of discussion here in the city.

The effects of the shortage have been swift. Food prices have risen swiftly and many school were forced to shut down since they had no diesel for their buses. Many IT outsourcing firms were affected too since they have large bus fleets to pick up and drop off their workers.

Since I will not have access to computer later today, I'd like to request that someone post this to the July 2 drumbeat.

Sure would help with the funding.
http://greyfalcon.net/iraqvsoil.png

Who exactly are you going to ask to make this sacrifice? In the U.S. and the U.K. the national income has become so stratified that the top 1% get the plurality of income. Any mobilization will impact their income negatively, so they will do anything to prevent it. And money talks in the U.S.

And electricity outages will not motivate the rich to sacrifice, because the won't be felt by the elites. As I think westtexas has said, they'll just find local power supplies, as is happening in India now.

The only thing that might scare the respective governments into action (short of a revolution) would be a general strike. Hit them in their wallets. And history says that the gov would be just as likely to shoot the strikers as do anything positive.

Maximum Commercial Urgency

is the concept that I use. The most that people will do for money. The maximum effort that can be applied, where more $ in mean very little additional progress, just higher costs.

A good example would be Alberta tar sands development and Fort "McMoney".

People will do things and make efforts in war time that they will not do for money. Maximum Commercial Urgency is a more realistic concept IMO.

Alan

No not this time no resources left, in the 1930 & 1940 plenty

Sorry if this thought has already been mentioned; I'm at work and don't have time to scan them all. But here goes.

I was just saying this to my wife the other night: If politicians in D.C. or where ever were not insulated from the issues of peak oil & climate change (i.e. let them do their business in a non-air conditioned chamber), we'd see a lot more urgency.

As it is right now, most politicians - at least in affluent countries - simply do not have much skin in the game, so to speak. Hence, no action.

Chris,

Your point is well taken. A more apt analogy would not be to wartime mobilization, but to a political revolution, as you allude to. What do you make of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution of 1917, etc.? Aren't these classic cases of degradation followed by revolution followed by mobilization? So you get to mobilization eventually, but not by rallying people around the king.

In the meantime, mobilization is actually counter-productive. With the current elites in the U. S. A., mobilization might mean a literal war and "100 years in Iraq." Or, look at the Hirsch Report: while I admire their diagnosis of the problem, I'm not sure I'd want the country mobilized behind coal-to-oil.

The idea of wartime mobilization does successfully capture some elements of the needed approach -- its "crisis" nature and the need for concentrated effort -- but fails on the question of "for whom" it is a crisis. Only when we've changed who this "we" is that faces a crisis, can we truly mobilize . . . whoever "we" are.

Keith

The US political system is terminally dysfunctional. Whatever it ends up doing will be too little, too late, and mostly wrong and counterproductive. Orlov's term, "Boondoggles", is fitting; that is all we are likely to get, if anything. Iraq is exhibit A, corn ethanol is exhibit B, on-and-off again renewables tax credits are exhibit C; I could go on, and many more exhibits will certainly be added in the near future. It is vain to hope for anything better from the current political system, it is incapable of delivering anything better.

Wartime mobilization in the US already exists - Iraq, Afgh., and the hundreds of bases and other activities. It is more or less hidden from the public, down-played, considered normal, or ignored. It is not bringing the hoped for benefits, openings, new sources of energy, etc., plus is wildly expensive in both energy and dollars, not to mention the concurrent propping up of an ersatz economy to maintain the illusion of domination and the advantages that brings.

After ww2 everyone expected that reconstruction, a new world order (peace in the west anyway; universalist ideology; its domination in a new, economic form, abandoning the old slave type and jackboots colonialism) would not be a problem. That was correct. Everyone was keen to go and could branch out... Plenty energy, new technology, the will to do, etc. Ideological propaganda and its branches - like the today IMF - could provide...

Scarcity of resources, plus murderous competition for them has changed the picture. There will be no drive forward - though some will make money out of wind, cow farts, or electric golf carts turned into cars - because it simply is not possible, cannot be done. Some of the elites know this very well.

In the UK at least, electricity supply will be under serious pressure during the coming decade as legacy nuclear infrastructure is decommissioned, North Sea gas supplies deplete and environmental legislation threatens to close some coal-fired infrastructure.

Odds on the nuclear stations will get extensions like Hunterston B did and deals will be done in Brussels to keep the coal-fired ones going.

http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2007/12/11/Scotlands_Hunterston_B_to...

If nuclear fission technology didn't exist mankind would be up the proverbial creek without a paddle right now, but it does so personally I seriously doubt that the hippies are going to have the last laugh. There are societies like China where something similar to wartime mobilisation is already in place and where there is no environmental movement around to hinder progress:-

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news08/next-energy-news7.2.08c.html

“As the country moves forward, nuclear power will become a vital source of electricity and will help reduce China’s dependence on coal, natural gas and oil to drive its rapid growth and modernization,” said Frank Wu, Chinergy’s CEO. Currently in China, the pressurized water reactor is the priority reactor. However, plans call for the high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTRs) to be used to supplement current nuclear power generation. “This will be a significant addition to the program since the HTR’s absolute quantity is remarkably large,” he said.

...

Second, the modular design enables the plant to be assembled much quicker and cost-effectively than traditional nuclear generators. Its streamlined construction timetable is also a first for the nuclear power industry, where designing and building generators usually take decades, rather than years.

The modules are manufactured from standardized components that can be mass-produced, shipped by road or rail and assembled relatively quickly. The new plants are smaller and new modules can be added as needed. Multiple reactors can be linked around one or more turbines, all monitored from a single control room. The site of the Shidaowan project will install 18 additional modules, which will total 3,800 MWe.

...

The nuclear reactor’s byproduct will be hydrogen, a clean fuel that provides options that are less harmful to the environment. The HTR is the only reactor that can provide a nuclear heat source to produce hydrogen, Wu said.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080619/REVIE...

Roger Ebert reviews movie, Kit: An American Girl. Debuts in theatres today.

unfortunalty all I can see is that we'll have BAU because here in the UK both parties follow that stupid idea that a free market knows best .

Well, yes, for a price and stuff anything else!

so GB will wait for the "market" to provide a solution to peak oil.

and it has - highr prices and more poverty until there is no more oil, gas or coal . well maybe a few windmills for the rich of course.

Pleanty of pesants though ...... all strictly controlled by those "terrorist" laws so thoughtfully brought in...

Forbin

The focus on mobilization is on the supply side of resources. Some quantification of that side is needed.

How much is currently spent globally on energy infrastructure.

It is heading towards $2 trillion in 2015. It is over 1 trillion in 2008.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/72476-annual-infrastructure-spending-exp...

World nominal GDP is about 60 trillion in 2008 and will be about 90 trillion in 2015.
So the $2 trillion number is a little over 2%. Similar to current numbers.

Oil spending is heading up to higher percentages of GDP.

Look at the big energy picture (need to address transportation, residential energy and industrial and look at the needs of each)
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/big-energy-picture.html

Spending-
Inflatable electric cars (XP Vehicles) - could cost as little as $2500 per car
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/06/inflatable-electric-cars-could-be-cheap...
Ultracapacitor/battery combos (variety of materials would work so there would be no supply issue)

Cheap, sustainable Electric cars could be ramped up with a larger effort on the supply chain. 3 trillion dollars would enable one billion vehicles.

Relatively modest re-allocation of funds would accelerate sensible energy plans
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/04/energy-plan.html

The technologies and solutions are all in hand or within reach.
Cellusic biofuels
algae biofuels
Thermoelectrics
more desalination
More advanced nuclear
More wind and solar
More efficient industrial equipment.
Superconducting engines
More efficient residential (insulation, water heaters etc...)

If there was a need a five year effort to convert to a mostly non-fossil fuel economy could be achieved. After which there would not be a continuing crisis because the economy would be converted.

As Chris noted, there is not that level of urgency.

A cost efficient and achievable conversion over 20 years is something which is technically and politically possible.

A High temperature nuclear reactor will start in China in 2009. This will lead to factory mass produced reactors that use half of the steel and one third of the concrete and will be use the uranium more efficiently, can also use thorium. Two year construction times.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/06/worlds-first-commercial-high.html

Uranium hydride reactors are also being worked on for factory mass production by a private US firm.

I think that's why they are hyping up climate change - to prepare us for the sacrifices needed to address PO and the other problems. I don't think it will work though, people tend to react with something like "Oh, it's so bad this climate change thing, but I need my SUV because...". It will take a permanent and observable crisis environment (Katrina was forgotten in a few months) in order to mobilise all these people.

Whether we'll have it? Not in the near future. I think that in the impending crisis there is a growing chance people will never realize where the hit came from. They won't realize the underlying cause, just suffer the indirect consequences. For example I am assigning a greater than 50% probability of economy collapsing within the next decade - either in a hyperinflational or deflational spiral. Oil depletion will never be realized as an underlying cause, as it was never realized as an underlying cause of the ongoing military adventures in Iraq, and the one on the books with Iran. Only after we've been through that, and we recover and hit resource constraints again, maybe then the problem will be fully realized and addressed in a war-like effort. Not any time soon.

As you see I'm kind of a pessimist - I think that by the time the problem is fully realized the window of opportunity to get out of this without major suffering will be closed for a long time behind us.

Wow...I nearly died laughing.
The war on drugs is going gang busters.
The war on poverty was a ticker tape parade not too be
missed also.
The war on iliteracy<---SP? didnt leave a single child
behind.
The war on terror they say will last forever.
Whenever America declares war on something it seems
Americans get shot in the foot.
The Manhattan project produced really big explosions
not cheap and abundant energy.
Plumbing is thousands of years old and mans harnessing
of the atom is just a few decades.
But whats the problem with nuclear energy???
(beside the nasty radioactivity problem)
ITS THE PLUMBING!
Seems its always a matter of getting the coolant water
thru some valve that causes those nasty melt downs.
What America needs a a big fat hairy plumber bent
over on his knees giving you that verticle maximus
glutamous smile.

Okay, so what we have here is *could* a wartime mobilization save the day? Probably.

Will it? no.

The reason is simple. Division. Even here on TOD where we have a group of largely intelligent, educated peak oil aware alarmed people, all of whom *believe* that an emergency exists, major disagreement about what should be done about it exists.

There are the "conservationists" who refuse to consider any measures other than full permanently sustainable solutions like passivehaus passive solar homes, returns to agrarian society, or PV/wind electricity if at all.

There are the "industrial pushers" who advocate committing very large resource investments into nuclear power, wind power, PHEVs (with BEV down the line), and redevelopment into densified urban centers.

There are a few "advancers" who would pursue alternatives like shale oil or hydrogen, or drill drill drill or whatever.

There are 2 schools of thought on using the coal supplies for CTL to soften peak oil, some want it because we need the liquid fuels, others oppose it because it is unsustainable and GHG intensive.

There are 2 schools of thought on PV, 1 that doesn't believe that the economics and energy return are really there, the other that doesn't think that the economics matter, that sustainability is worth the premium.

There are 2 schools of thought about... Just f**king everything. And that is *here*. Until we can work out that crap, no hope exists for any form of effective response. Can someone please write up a response plan that works, is at the appropriate scale, includes elements of all the schools and we all agree to back that plan, even the portions of it we disagree with?

A wartime-like mobilization is precisely the worst thing that can happen. The issue is not Peak Oil in isolation; it is full planet - resource exhaustion and pollution of the entire enviroment. A wartime mobiliation - at least as conventionally understood - will only chew up more resources and make matters worse.

cfm in Gray, Milliways, parking cars.

It's simple:

1. PO = The Great Depression II, on steroids.

2. AGW = Extinction. Of mankind, that is.

3. The majority of answers for one (A) are also answers for the other (B). Find for the subset of shared solutions (C). Implement mobilization.

If people can be educated as to real danger of #2, the likelihood of #1 then they can be motivated to engage in #3.

Cheers

As much as I like Lester Brown, the analogy to World War II mobilization is a faulty comparison to our current situation. In essence, when the US mobilized in the 1940s it was a decision to re-direct the engineering and supply base from one-form of heavy industry, i.e. automobile manufacturing, to another like form of heavy industry, i.e. armaments. The raw materials, processes, tooling, and intellectual knowledge were readily transferrable from one end-product to another end-product. Rather than re-tool factories to produce the next year's model of automobile, US industry just re-directed the existing capability to tool for producing armaments. One example--an automobile engine is similar to an airplane engine in its design, materials, and manufacturing processes.

Unfortunately in our current situation, we will not be making this transition quite so easily. Nuclear power is a good example. Even if permits were in-place, we do not have the specialized intellectual capital of nuclear engineering which would permit rapid construction of nuclear power plants. And while it might be argued that we could simply re-train engineers, it typically takes 5-10 years before an engineer is productive in his discipline. Similarly we can't simply turn "on" producers of superalloys (e.g. Hastelloy, inconel, etc) required for nuclear pressure vessels. And while it could be argued that we could quickly re-direct these specialized skills and materials from current production of nuclear warships, this would just be a fraction of the energy supplies required for commercial power applications.

In my industry of commercial aviation, there are a limited number of suppliers for carbon-fiber, composite tooling, autoclaves, titanium billets, robotic equipment, non-destructive instrumenation, etc. Even before an airplane program is launched, there are commitments made to line-up key suppliers of industrial equipment. These key suppliers then in turn need to line up their key suppliers. For example, Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, and Bombardier all use the same suppliers for automated manufacturing equipment (MTorres, Cincinnati Milicron, Electroimpact, etc.). These subtiers cannot be tasked to simultaneously support programs from each of these airplane manufacturer.

So when we think that we can easily enact a "wartime mobilization" to transition to PHEV or PV solar power or hydrogen fuel cells, it ignores the fact that these are dissimilar technologies to what our economy currently produces and whose supply base must be built from scratch. It is for this reason that knowledgeable individuals such as Robert Hirsch raise concern that it will take 10 year lead time to avoid the severe economic dislocation associated with peak oil.

War time mobilazation???? the stupid U.S.congress can't even pass a law for consistant tax breaks for the development of alternative energy!

This is an important discussion and I've not yet had time to get far through these comments. But can I just now pose a little thought.

Much in this article is based on the concept that some people are "wealthier" than others. And that that "wealth" somehow protects them from adversities to which less wealthy persons are vulnerable.

This "wealth" largely comes from "ownership", of money, property, chattells, gold. The problem is that this "ownership" is not a physical thing like matter or energy, rather it is merely an idea in peoples' minds. And if there isn't a critical community of people respecting that idea, then the tables can turn very radically and suddenly. As they did for the "wealthy" Russian and French aristocracy. And Ceaucescu, and so on.

Most of the dominant elite have vanishingly little real, unplunderable assets in the sense of skills and practical knowledge rather than pr spin and legal deceits. It is they who are potentially the most vulnerable in a turn-down. (back later I hope)

Change your analogy, save the world.

I believe that using the USA response after the attack on Pearl Harbour as an analogy for the mobilisation required to combat Peak Oil (etc) is not the most appropriate analogy.

I think the most appropriate analogy is that of the lead up to the 22 June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union, and subsequent events in World War 2.

I see it this way: our leadership is in denial about the possibility of a massive threat from a previously trusted ally - just like Stalin was about Hitler's Nazi Germany. Our citizens will be affected by the shock of the invasion/crisis, and the apparent sell-out of our leaders.

During the German invasion, the managers of the Soviet economy then had to move large amounts of their heavy industry hundreds of kilometres out of the reach of the German armies, AND restructure their economy to produce the required tanks, trucks etc, AND while having to fight a losing battle for nearly all of 1941 and 1942.

I think that Peak Oil will be similar - we will try to restructure our economy just when it is being attacked by high oil prices.

The Pearl Harbour analogy just doesn't work for me, as the continental USA was never under serious threat of invasion, and the USA economy had the freedom to be restructured without that threat, and without the huge drain of people to fight at the frontline. The USSR analogy I think would help people to better prepare for the massive changes that are needed.

Sharon Astyk wrote an interesting analysis of the argument that our energy crisis requires a wartime mobilisation last year.