Peak oil, fearism, and our future

Consider this article: Energy refugee fleeing $100-a-barrel oil .. "Around the time of the first oil shock in 1973, columnist Art Buchwald penned a satirical column about what life without cheap oil would be like in the 1990s. One day, a father and son go out for their first drive in weeks because fuel costs $8.50 a gallon. 'I feel like a steak,' says the father to his son. And the boy asks, 'Dad, what's a steak?' ... To many Americans, the approaching petroleum calamity remains invisible, but not to my pal John P. Like so many others, he rolled into Arizona from the Midwest a few decades ago bent on fleeing an assortment of ecological and environmental abuses in favor of adventure, clean air, cheap energy and abundant water.... 'You might say that I was an environmental refugee,' the steely-eyed, onetime congressional candidate and former big-time river guide said as he sipped some simple black coffee on the outskirts of Sedona not far from his hideaway in Rim Rock.... 'I always figured that I'd stay here until the managed-care guys came to take me away.'... But my pal has changed his mind. 'See that price?' he said, pointing to a gas station sign advertising fuel for $2.50 a gallon. 'There have been warnings galore, but we've to fix the energy levees, so to speak. That's the last time you'll see it that low; denial about our oil addiction trumps any 12-step program. We are out of here because here in the red rocks and in so many other places, inconvenient facts about energy and water are taboo; oil is headed for $100-a-barrel oil, just the least shock will do it: a tanker blown in the Persian Gulf, a refinery sabotaged.'..." And with that he's planning to move to Idaho to escape the coming fuel catastrophe.

This kind of story just reminds me of one thing. Survivalists. In the 1990's they were escaping the y2k problem. Earlier they were escaping nuclear war. Today there's scares about bird flu, terrorists, peak oil, etc.

Now, I'm very interested in this peak oil scenario. This scenario certainly looks very realistic and I am very concerned about when will it happen.

But ... let's consider the psychological/emotional/spiritual component to this.

What we have is a scary story. People like John P quoted above are taking the fear in that story, and living that fear as if its true, taking drastic actions out of fear.

Ask yourself, if you are having fear, if you are in so much fear you're terrified of the future, how does that affect the range of actions you can take? Doesn't this trigger the fight or flight reflex, causing it to become a survival issue? And, sure enough, there is a lot of evidence with the peak oil scenario that make it look like the survival of our society is at stake.

One of the things that is true about fear is it limits your vision. Your limited vision can see fewer possible solutions.

For example John P is missing out on all sorts of solutions being developed in the world. Instead he's escaping to Idaho expecting the world he knows to collapse into bloodshed. No doubt he's going to stockpile food and guns and be prepared to be killing anybody who wants to take his survival, represented by the food and guns, away from him.

But what about the development of biofuels, of better solar energy systems, better wind energy systems, more reliable nuclear systems, vehicles available from the car companies that can burn non-fossil fuels, and more. He's not seeing them, because the fear doesn't allow it.

If you find yourself in fear, what can you do? There's a range of possibilities.

For example if you're unaware of your fear, you have little ability to navigate out of the fear. Instead it's more likely you'll take rash actions based on the limited vision your fear allows you to have.

The key is to learn to be aware when you are in fear, and to recognize the effects to yourself that come from being in fear.

Next, having the awareness of the fear and the effects is when you can choose differently. What I recommend is a prayer I've learned from Ron Roth: Peace to my thoughts, peace to my emotions, peace to my body, peace to the world. You can also meditate upon the divine presence such as repeating to yourself, and embodying, "come holy spirit, divine holy spirit".

Those practices are not the only ones which will help you come out of fear. They are what I do for myself.

Another thing I've learned is there are many problems, such as the peak oil issue, where my conscious mind, my ego, has no clue how to solve the problem. However, the divine mind does know the answer. The divine, or if you prefer the name 'God', created this universe and surely must have an idea or two of how we in this culture at this time on this planet can resolve the problems facing us.

I don't know what that answer is, but I do know that whatever it is has to happen through us. For 'God' to act in the world 'we' must take actions, because we are God's agents in the world.

What this leads to is an idea. Taking the prayer concept I described above, here's how you might apply it to a world situation like the peak oil scenario, the Iraq war, the impending war in Iran, etc.

First spend some time meditating upon the divine as I described above. Then shift to a prayer like "come holy spirit, peace to the people of Iraq, peace to the soldiers in Iraq, peace to the countries surrounding Iraq, peace to the leaders in Iraq, ...". It helps to visualize inside yourself peace flooding through Iraq.

Now, I should point out that true peace is not the cessation of war. I think of true peace as it is exemplified by forests. A forest has a life of its own which manifests and protects the systemic organization that is the forest. Stuff happens in forests, there are animals hunting for meals, they sometimes kill one another, there are ant colonies having wars with each other, etc. All that stuff is going on, but whatever it is the life of the forest is completely intertwined with all that stuff that's going on. Anything that happens is swallowed by the life force of the forest.

Which was a long way of saying, you can pray for something but let go of attachment to a specific result. Your ego mind may have brilliantly come up with the supposedly perfect solution, but God may have a completely different idea. As the old saying goes, if you want to hear God laugh tell her your plans.

Carbon impurity with biofuels

There's a growing movement towards biofuels which may turn into a real strong adoption of them by our society. Theoretically that's a good thing, as the fuel is derived from renewable plant sources. But there's room for many unexpected problems buried in the details. Often it seems we solve one problem and create 10 others.

Carbon cloud over a green fuel An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol.

The story is that some of the ethanol refineries in Iowa are using Coal for part of the refining process. Ah, it's a refinery, and that generally means heating and distilling liquids. The article discusses how it's usual for the refinery to use natural gas, but some of them are using coal. Either way they're relying on some fossil fuel for production of the biofuel.

In effect the biofuel carries along with it some carbon burden from the fossil fuel.

Another issue is how this shows we haven't completely weaned ourselves from fossil fuel, even with biofuels.

Ethanol is used widely in Brazil

In the State of the Union speech, GW Bush mentioned Ethanol as a resource "we" should develop. There's been a big scramble towards Ethanol since. Ethanol has some interesting characteristics, in that it's a liquid fuel that's very compatible with gasoline. Unlike biodiesel, ethanol can be readily burned in a gasoline engine and, in fact, ethanol is widely used today in the U.S. Just watch for a sticker on the pump saying "This gasoline may contain ethanol".

Brazil leading effort to boost ethanol use discusses ethanol production and use in Brazil. During the 1970's the "military dictators" then ruling the country pushed for ethanol production and mandated its use in vehicles. That has turned into a golden spot in the Brazillian economy, and they use ethanol rather than gasoline in nearly half of domestic passenger fuel demand.

Brazil has an interesting advantage with all those sugar canes, in that it's sugar which produces alcohol.

This means the U.S. can't directly replicate what they're doing, we don't have domestic sugar cane production to any great degree. Further, when you mention Ethanol, the corn farmers in Iowa get dollar signs in their eyes, and the corn producer lobbiests have been controlling debate around ethanol.

But I want to gather up some details from the article, so here goes.

The article focuses on one plant that works "around the clock" that is distilling 92,500 gallons of ethanol daily that is trucked away for immediate sale at the pumps. But it can only do this during the sugar cane season, apparently (March to November). This means to cover the period outside that season they'll need fuel storage facilities.

This at the end seems to be a critical point:

In Sao Tome, the cooperative that owns the ethanol distillery is betting on its best profits since it bought the operation in 1993. Cocamar's production cost is $1.10 per gallon, and wholesalers are buying the fuel for $2.68 - up from $1.44 last year.

About the only thing that could hurt Brazil's ethanol industry now would be an almost unimaginable plunge in international crude oil prices, currently trading above $60 per barrel, said Almir Hawthorne, the distillery's industrial manager.

"Oil could drop to $35 or $40 per barrel, and ethanol producers would still make money."

They're making $1.24 per gallon more profit than last year, due entirely it would seem to the high price for oil. If oil prices did drop again it's clear their threshold for gaining a profit is around $40 per barrel. But I wonder if, at that price, they'll make enough profit to get the excitement that's circling around them.

That's been the sticker for most of the alternative fuels, whether their price per unit is less than the price for fossil fuel.

It seems every time the price for oil goes high, the makers of alternatives are in the limelight. Today that's ethanol (of several kinds), fuel cells, biodiesel, wind turbines, etc. Unfortunately when the price of oil drops again, the alternatives become less attractive.

This is simple economics, with the market (in its short sighted decision making) going to the source with the least cost. Another factoid in the article is that Brazil invested years of subsidies in its ethanol production industry. It's paying off now, and in the future Brazil will remain fueled even when the peak oil phenomena hits and oil is no longer available.

The point to that is in the energy industry it takes a very long time to develop alternatives. Brazil is an example, where it took years before their ethanol industry was self sustaining.

If the U.S. decisioning is based largely on the short sighted approach of "oh, the market will take care of it", well, I think the market moves too quickly for the development of new energy resources.

When they say "the market will take care of it" the scenario is that oil supply becomes tight, and the oil price rises, and then people start scrambling for alternatives that are cheaper. And, we're seeing this effect going on today. But when the real oil peak hits the supply is supposed to drop off very rapidly from the peak. That should cause a rapid rise in prices which would trigger the market to search for alternatives. But if it's going to take years to develop the alternatives, and in the meantime oil supply drops precipitously, "we" won't have those years.

I believe the current high oil prices are not the true oil peak, but instead based on the war(s) brewing in the Persian Gulf. Especially with the war we are threatening against Iran.

The current high oil price is making for an interesting training ground, inspiring the people go through the steps of finding an alternative to burning fossil fuels. Last year people were dumping their SUV's and motorcycles were becoming popular. This year they may be looking for ethanol.

I suppose if the oil prices stay high long enough, like they are now, the makers of the alternatives will have a long enough window to establish themselves. Here's hoping.

Green Car Congress: ADM to Invest $2.3 Billion Before 2009 to Expand Production of Biofuels and Plastics

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plans to invest about $2.3 billion before 2009 to expand its capacity for the production of ethanol and other biofuels and on the development of PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate, a biodegradebable plastic made from plant sugar). See more here: ADM to Invest $2.3 Billion Before 2009 to Expand Production of Biofuels and Plastics

The talk around biofuels, whether it's biodiesel or ethanol, tends to make one think it will help the small family farm to survive. Biofuels means someone has to grow the biological material that go into creating the fuel. That means greater demand for biological material, which will mean higher prices for biological material, and eventually trickle down to more money flowing to farmers. Supposedly.

Or is it only going to enrich the likes of Archer Daniels Midland?

WWF and palm oil industry join forces in Malaysia

Malaysia is going for biodiesel production in a big way. They are building many palm oil plantations and building biodiesel production plants. I have previous coverage here, here, and here.

One issue with Malaysia's plans is they're cutting down their rain forest to build these palm plantations. That, in turn, means new threats to rare species and a reduction of biodiversity. In other words, in the process of solving one environmental problem (environmental degradation from burning fossil fuel) they're creating a different environmental problem (reduced biodiversity).

WWF and palm oil industry join forces covers work by the World Wildlife Foundation to do something in cooperation with the palm oil industry. Through their Forest Conversion Initiative and the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) to develop Better Management Practices for the Malaysian oil palm industry to safeguard high conservation value forests (HCVF) in the country.

This sounds nice ... if some action is going to cause an environmental problem, it's nice there's an environmental protection organization they can partner with to mitigate the problem.

But ... in my mind is another thought. I wonder if this partnership is meant to whitewash the problem? Is this partnership only meant to give the appearance of solving the problem? Or is this partnership taking actions which are truly useful?

RenewableEnergyAccess.com | Plant Science Advances U.S. Potential for Ethanol from Biomass

As I look at the issues around energy supplies and resources, I'm coming over to the picture in this article: Plant Science Advances U.S. Potential for Ethanol from Biomass ... American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) President Michael Thomashow is quoted discussing how plant science is showing a way towards winning independance from fossil fuels. With plant science you can create organisms which readily produce the same substances which the earth turned into fossil fuels, but you can do it in hours rather than having it take millions of years.

RenewableEnergyAccess.com | Anaerobic Digestion Found to Produce Renewable Energy

Here's another article on anerobic digesters, giving some details of operation: Anaerobic Digestion Found to Produce Renewable Energy

Green Car Congress: Denmark To Build Worlds Largest Biogas Plant

Denmark To Build World’s Largest Biogas Plant discusses an anerobic digester plant being built in Jutland. It's sized large enough for electricity to 800 homes and heat to 200.

James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years

James Lovelock is an independant scientist who has been nurturing the Gaia model of understanding the earth. He's published a string of books claiming the planet we call Earth is a living being he names Gaia. e.g. Gaia : A New Look at Life on Earth He began this work as a space scientist advising NASA on how would they determine whether there was "life" on other planets, such as Mars. That is, given the sparse set of instruments we can send to Mars, which ones should be sent to make the measurements required to determine whether "life" exists there. The question sent him to pondering life on this planet, leading him to recognize the planet as a whole being a living organism.

I say this to help give context to an article he has written fortelling a disastrous change in Gaia. The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years He's saying that the global warming phenemona is Gaia developing a "fever", that the historical record of this planet shows several fevers which occurred, and that in the past those fevers took 100,000 years to heal.

When earth has a "fever" it undergoes a climate change with an expansion of desert lands, the heat around the equator becoming unbearable for most life (including humans) and that as a result he expects billions of humans to die.

This may very well be what will occur. We are beginning to see alarming signs such as the melting of the permafrost in the arctic.

However in the recent few days I've heard a couple spiritual teachers talking about the apocalypse period described in the Book of Revelations. That book is a set of visions an early prophet received about the future of humanity. It's a rather disturbing part of the Bible since it describes a horrible war, disease, famine, environmental problems, and more. But the book also ends with a great deal of hope, with a "New Heaven and New Earth". The book is also hard to interpret and understand.

These two teachers, Ron Roth and Gregg Braden, have both studied the ancient writings of a wide range of traditions. They both said a similar thing about the Revelations. First, that many of the predictions in it have already come to pass. e.g. The Ukranian name for Chernobyl means "Wormwood" which, in Revelations, was a star that burned on the earth, which is essentially what happened at Chernobyl.

They both teach about the power of prayer, in an authentic form of prayer practiced by ancient mystics. Both, especially Gregg Braden, talk about the cycles of history recorded in the ancient texts and how the ancient teachings talk about a cataclysmic time which will happen about now. It's not just the book of Revelations, but other ancient traditions predicted apocalypse. But they all suggested prayer as the way humanity could avoid the fate.

It's not too late.

Green Car Congress: Russia Turns the Natural Gas Screws on Ukraine, Europe Feels Effect

Green Car Congress has a report about a crisis in natural gas supply between Russia, Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Apparently Russia has jacked up Ukraine's prices, and the resulting dispute has interrupted natural gas supply to Ukraine. Russia Turns the Natural Gas Screws on Ukraine, Europe Feels Effect (Green Car Congress, 2 January 2006)

One of the comments on GCC is "Ukraine has to pay market price, so US can't object to capitalism. This is direct result of Ukraine's orange revolution." to which I say... your nuts. It isn't capitalism to jack up prices just because of a change in government. That's manipulation. Russia was on the losing side of the Orange Revolution event, and I suppose now they want to use the cold of winter to create a heating crisis and maybe anger the people of Ukraine enough to topple the government. That is not capitalism at work.

Some interesting factoids in the article -- Russia has the largest Natural Gas reserves in the world, followed by Iran. The three major fields, Urengoy, Yamburg, and Medvezh’ye, are in Siberia and the Russian Gas company, Gazprom, admits these fields are in decline and there will be "steep" declines in output between 2008-2020.

That makes part of this episode looking to the future of the peak for natural gas having been reached.

The "peak oil" effect also applies to other natural resources. The model is that there is a fixed amount of each resource on the planet. And humans have a given ability to tap those resources. Between usage of the resource, the resulting depletion of the resource, and the ease/difficulty of tapping the resource, a peak will be reached in production capacity. For example the U.S. reached its peak of oil production capacity in 1970. The world is projected to reach its peak of oil production capacity, well, any day now, if not already.

Try as you might, after the peak is reached you can't increase production because the resources are heading towards depletion.

The US and Iran: Is Washington Planning a Military Strike? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

There's been a continuing confrontation between the U.S., the E.U. and Iran over Iran's nuclear power program. Iran has been building nuclear reactors, some of which weren't initially disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Commission, and whose designs could be used to build weapons grade nuclear material. They've promised up and down, those reactors were purely for "peaceful" purposes, but then why would they choose a nuclear reaction that produces weapons grade material if they had a peaceful purpose? Especially as they hid the existance of the reactors?

Coincidentally Iran's plan helps justify the neocon plan to rearrange the political map of the Middle East. So it shouldn't be surprising the Bush administration has been taking a hardline stance towards Iran. The neocon agenda is to create a war against Iran, and taking a hardline stance is the way to gaurantee a war. It worked in Iraq didn't it?

This has been developing for awhile, and as I've posted before it appears to be following the same pattern as was used to cook up justification to attack Iraq. Pressure has been kept hard on Iran, and the Bush Administration rhetoric has been that "all options are on the table" just as they said with Iraq.

In the case of the attack on Iraq, all the justifications given by the administration have been proven to be false. And it's clear that the administration knew the falsity of most of their statements while they were claiming up and down it was all true. In other words, they were lying. And lots of people around the world, including the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, have said the war in Iraq is illegal etc.

On the other hand the allegations against Iran are largely true. Iran itself has admitted to having this nuclear program. And it is a worry to have nuclear weapon capabilities proliferate beyond the set of countries that currently have that capability. So it's a puzzle where to stand. The Bush Administration has a very poor track record, and are obviously holding an agenda dating back to the mid-90's (or further) to destroy Iran's government.

In any case, right now there are some serious rumors being published in Germany saying the U.S. is clearly planning to launch an attack on Iran.

Here's some pointers to discussion:

The US and Iran: Is Washington Planning a Military Strike? (December 30, 2005, Der SPIEGEL ONLINE)

US planning strike against Iran (Dec. 31, 2005 19:33, By JPOST.COM STAFF)

Rumors Of War (January 01, 2006, Past Peak blog)

Attacking Iran (December 31, 2005, John Robb's weblog)

The source is an article in the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel. I don't have a link to that article (and no doubt it's in German) but the Der Spiegel article is a good substitute:

In a report published on Wednesday, the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel also cited NATO intelligence sources claiming that Washington's western allies had been informed that the United States is currently investigating all possibilities of bringing the mullah-led regime into line, including military options. Of course, Bush has publicly stated for months that he would not take the possibility of a military strike off the table. What's new here, however, is that Washington appears to be dispatching high-level officials to prepare its allies for a possible attack rather than merely implying the possibility as it has repeatedly done during the past year.

... According to DDP, during his trip to Turkey, CIA chief Goss reportedly handed over three dossiers to Turkish security officials that purportedly contained evidence that Tehran is cooperating with Islamic terror network al-Qaida. A further dossier is said to contain information about the current status of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program. Sources in German security circles told the DDP reporter that Goss had ensured Ankara that the Turkish government would be informed of any possible air strikes against Iran a few hours before they happened. The Turkish government has also been given the "green light" to strike camps of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iran on the day in question.

... But the string of visits by high-profile US politicians to Turkey and surrounding reports are drawing new attention to the issue. In recent weeks, the number of American and NATO security officials heading to Ankara has increased dramatically. Within a matter of only days, the FBI chief, then the CIA chief and, most recently, NATO General Secretary Jaap De Hoop Scheffer visited the Turkish capital. During her visit to Europe earlier this month, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also traveled to Turkey after a stopover in Berlin.

Leading the chorus of speculation are Turkish newspapers, which have also sought to connect these visits to plans for an attack on Iran. But so far none of the speculation has been based on hard facts. Writing about the meeting between Porter Goss and Tayyip Erdogan, the left-nationalist newspaper Cumhuriyet wrote: "Now It's Iran's Turn." But the paper didn't offer any evidence to corroborate the claims.

So the Der Spiegel article is not claiming outright there's a war being prepared. But it points to evidence something is going on, even if it's being kept secret enough we aren't knowing what it's about. The Jerusalem Post article is, then, overhyping the truth for some reason. Perhaps the people in Israel are more alarmed by Iran, because the President of Iran has made repeated speeches recently calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, claiming the Holocaust was a hoax, etc.

Iran rejects Russia nuclear plan (Jan 1, 2006, BBC): Russia apparently proposed doing nuclear processing on their terroritory, so that Iran wouldn't be doing the processing. I think the worry is about the expansion of the number of countries who have nuclear weapons capability. In the Der Spiegel article it quoted some General saying that the time to act is "now" because if we wait too long Iran will have their nuclear capability and it will be too late. But Iran rejected the Russian plan.

Iran vows 'crushing response' to attack by U.S., Israel (Haaretz): Tough talk between Iran and Israel just proving they don't like each other. The article provides an interesting overview of the tensions.

US planning to strike Iran's nuke facilities: Report (January 01, 2006 19:36 IST, rediff.com): Describes the proposed attack on Iran as just to destroy the nuclear facilities, rather than an all-out war. I suppose they might be hoping for something like Israel's 80's attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities. But in todays Middle East I suspect it would only fan the flames further, seeing the U.S. as an occupying power.

A 2006 U.S. plan to attack Iran detailed (12/31/2005 10:20:00 PM GMT, aljazeera.com): Details the same story as above, but adds to it a statement by Cheney in Jan 2005. He made a vague statement to MSNBC that Israel might be doing the dirty work (bombing Iran's nuclear facilities) leaving the rest of the international community to clean up the consequences later. Hurm.

We partied like it was 1999

Okay, today is December 31, 2005. A posting on Scripting News had a pointer to five years ago and I suddenly remembered what that day was like. The big concern? Remember Y2K? The fear that come midnight that night, that the whole mechanised world around us would come crashing to a halt?

I remember being in San Francisco that night and passing by someone on the street shortly after midnight, and we exchanged the observation "Well, it all seems to still be working".

Before then I'd attended a talk by my old spiritual teacher. He's one of those who study on and on about conspiracy theories, and who has moved out to the country. At his place in the country they are offering it as a community place for like-minded folk to live. The phrase "intentional community" is common in the spiritual communities, and that's the phrase he uses as well. At this talk in, oh, I think it was in 1998, he was talking about having bought a huge quantity of canned food rations, and put aside other survival supplies. And he was talking about his experience at a gasoline station, where the power suddenly went out and the station owners had to chase everybody away. The computerised store could not be operated without power, and that was the perfect analogy for what might happen in 1999 when the computers fail.

During the talk he turned to me, since he knows I'm a serious geek, and asked my professional opinion. I had to say that the scenario was certainly possible. And, it was, because it wasn't known how wide spread any computer outages might be, and what the consequences would be. However I knew very well that the computer and IT industries had been doing a lot of Y2K related work to fix the systems.

It wasn't too surprising when computer failures failed to materialize. First, there'd been a lot of Y2K work which had served to strengthen computer system reliability across the spectrum. It's not like this problem was a surprise to the computer industry, because "we" had known about it since the 1980's.

But, it's worth pondering the general issue. The Y2K nemesis did not occur, but that doesn't mean we've escaped unscathed.

First, the Unix systems that are widely spread have a 2036 problem, in that their system clocks will roll over that year. That's far enough into the future we don't have to worry about it, right? But that's what the computer industry thought in the 1980's, and then the latter part of the 1990's was a scramble to handle Y2K issues. Human nature will be to push problems off until it's a crisis.

But even more generally think about how computers have woven their way into crucial roles in society. What if there were a massive failure? Suppose it were widespread enough to prevent food or water from being shipped? Today our food comes from so far away, and in most cities there's no local farming. It wouldn't take much to cause mass starvation. But it would have to be a very interesting sort of widespread failure. The failure would have to prevent shipping for long enough that local warehouses would empty, and the few local farms would be overrun by demand.

It's a little hard to imagine what kind of failure it would have to be. Here's a few possibilities that come to mind:

Power outage: This is the most obvious, and there is a looming issue with energy resources anyway. The Peak Oil warning is that fossil fuels derived from oil will have a peak in production after which there is an inexorable decline. If the world reaches the Oil Peak and hasn't developed an alternative to fossil fuel, then shipping will be impossible. If you want an example of the result, let me remind you have the Mad Max movies.

Computer virus: It would be difficult today for a computer virus to make a widespread outage happen. There are so many entities involved with shipping food etc, that it would be hard to knock them all out. One entity might have their computers knocked out, but the others would be okay. However it's always possible the virus authors will score a big hit and knock out most computer systems in one blow. The computer virus's do show an ability to spread deeply inside corporations, even behind firewalls, and I suspect the security of systems inside firewalls isn't as secure as one might like.

A cure for this problem is to ensure there's a wide variety of computer systems in use. There is a biological analogy at play, in that the multitude of biological species means that each virus or other biological attack can damage only a few species. Each species has different vulnerabilities, and each biological agent targets a small number of vulnerabilities. There's a similar principle for computer systems, in that each computer system has specific vulnerabilities. That's partly why virus's on Windows computers can spread so quickly, is that there are so many Windows computers each having the same vulnerabilities.

Food virus: Writing about biological diversity reminded me of a threat. The farmers are specializing towards a smaller and smaller number of food species, because that's what the seed industry is providing. What if this went to a logical conclusion, and there were only one species of corn being grown, and then a virulent crop blight were to pounce on that once species? It could wipe out a whole growing season around the country, if not around the world. Eek.

The cure for that problem is to diversify food crops.

Not to worry: In general these scenarios are worst case nightmares, rather than likely events. That is, except for the Peak Oil situation which is barrelling towards us like an out of control unchecked freight train. So long as the government is hiding their head in the sand, we the people are stuck on the tracks not even aware there's danger coming around the bend.

For most sorts of events ingenuity will kick in, relief supplies will flow, and there'll be a lot of serious sounding coverage on CNN. For most disastrous events we survive, because that's what humans do.

But when the oil production peaks, if nothing has changed between now and then, well, Mad Max might look tame.