Empty Cookie Jar

I want to discuss a few of these problems, not to trouble the Bushies further, but to point out what's ahead for United States' residents. Short of a miracle or catastrophe or super-human efforts, I don't think any of these problems are susceptible of solution:

1. The world supply of oil is limited, and is probably peaking out in this decade. After 2020, severe shortages are likely on account of Asian economic growth.
2. Global climate change is in progress, and may be at least partially irreversible.
3. Baby Boomer retirements are likely to sap the US economy for decades.

Oil Limit

Unless major new oil fields are found, the amount of oil capable of production is well estimated. It appears unlikely any new oil reservoirs will be found. What is happening lately, is the reduction of oil reserve estimates; for example, by Royal Dutch Shell.

There is already a natural gas shortage in North America, which will only get worse and worse. That's because there is only so much natural gas, most of which is associated with oil fields. Major energy companies plan to overcome this problem by importing LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) from gas-rich places, like Saudi Arabia.

Despite Jeremy Rifkin's, The Hydrogen Economy, there is no short-term solution to the long-term energy shortage. In order to convert to hydrogen, for example, a massive supply of hydrogen must be created. Hydrogen is the secondary product of expensive, energy-intensive production processes. It could be extracted from water by electrolysis, or from oil and natural gas by chemical means. It takes far more power to make hydrogen than to mine coal, or pump gas and oil.

Perversely, hydrogen is the most abundant element in our Universe. It just doesn't exist, ready to use, on our planet or any of our nearby planetary neighbors. It may be feasible to mine hydrogen sources, which will still require conversion, in the asteroid belt or on the moons of Jupiter.

Drilling for more oil in ANWR and places like that won't solve the problem. There just isn't enough oil to make a difference. It will also take at least a decade to bring that oil to market.

There are significant oil sources in tar sands and shales. These are expensive to develop, but are in production in Canada. Coal, an abundant carbon source, can be combined with steam to make natural gas by a well known process. However, this costs a lot more than burning coal or oil.

Nuclear reactors are a substitute for natural gas and oil in generating baseline electrical power. They are extensively used in Japan and France, which also have 100% fuel reprocessing programs. It would help to restart US nuclear generation programs, but currently it takes almost 20 years to get a plant built. Environmentalists and others opposed to nuclear power have effectively halted this possibility.

Also, there is only a 250 year supply of nuclear fuel (yellowcake) for existing reactors on this planet. Building more nuclear plants would drain the resource very quickly.

Solving the nuclear fusion problem - an engineering problem, not a basic research question - could allow generation of huge amounts of electricity with minimal environmental impact. This electricity is likely to cost more than our present sources initially, but is also likely to have long-term lower costs. Thermo-nuclear fusion power could be used to create the hydrogen economy from water, and also create clean water from sea water.

The Canadians, Japanese and Russians are trying to keep thermo-nuclear power programs alive. The Clinton Administration killed most of the US programs, and the Bush Administration has done little to revive them. Alas, the American political left and right are not interested in fusion research or development. Most Americans have no idea what this is all about.

Result: stalemate. The energy problem is insoluble, not for lack of science, but for lack of clear thinking and political will.

Global Climate Change

Burning carbon-based fuels results in liberating CO₂ and H₂O into the atmosphere. Both of these are potent greenhouse gases, which cause the sun's radiation to be trapped as heat in the lower atmosphere (troposphere). Basically, we are living on the rotating tray in a microwave oven. If we stay there long enough, we get cooked.

There is little doubt among climate scientists that we are undergoing global warming - meaning a rise in the global average air temperature. There is also little doubt that the warming results from human activities since the start of the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago.

The few "authorities" who challenge those conclusions are, for the most part, employed by businesses (such as gas and oil corporations) with a vested interest in contrary conclusions. A few academic scientists have raised objections to the global climate change scenario, but they have generally eccentric views about a number of things. (There is almost always a naysayer, no matter what the subject.) The overwhelming majority of experts could be wrong, but it is not likely.

The Kyoto Treaty would have barely scratched the surface of what is required to stop further climate change. What most people do not know or understand is how far things have gone. It will take a century or more to stop climate change, even if almost all greenhouse gas production stopped today. Again, as matters stand, there will be more climate warming for at least another century, maybe 2-3 centuries. Unless we escape into space, we are going to get hotter and hotter.

Let us be clear about one thing: carbon-based fuels are made out of carbon. That includes wood, coal, oil, natural gas, plastics, and so-called renewables. Whenever carbon is heated enough to react with atmospheric oxygen, carbon oxides and other carbon compounds are produced.

It does not matter if the stuff burned is "renewable;" burning carbon always has the same result. (In fact, renewables are often polluting in addition to producing greenhouse gases, because of their high sulfur and nitrogen content.) The best that burning renewable materials does is maintain the present balance, presumably because they are naturally recycled.

When carbon-based fuels combust, carbon and oxygen are removed from the future combustible pool (unless naturally regenerated). Thus, the total combustible amount is eventually limited by available oxygen and carbon. That amount is huge, and is probably what was present on Earth near the beginning - about 4 billion years ago. That's because all of the available oxygen was, and still is, created by plants. The point is, sooner or later carbon burning will stop either because we asphyxiate ourselves or the planet becomes incapable of supporting our species.

Global climate change is not uniform: some places get hotter and others colder. What happens in any locale depends on a huge number of variables. Still, there is a global climate system which has certain well studied features. The present climate system is not the only possible one: the world's climate could be structured in a different way. The present system stays the way it is, because it would take a lot of energy to transform it into something else.

It is very likely the climate system is metastable, a term often used to describe chemical and biological reactions and systems. A metastable system is one that doesn't go anywhere, even when pushed hither and thither - up to a point. The common example is a marble resting on a piece of cheesecloth. The weight of the marble will create a depression in the cloth, which will "encourage" the marble to roll to the center of the cloth. That is, the interaction of the marble and cloth will result in the marble arriving at the gravitational "low point" of the system. If you push the marble away, it rolls back to that center.

If, however, the marble is pushed hard enough, it will fly off the cheesecloth into altogether new terrain. When that happens, it is largely unpredictable exactly where the marble will come to rest or what the shape of the system will be.

Because there is the possibility of a different configuration than the original one, such a system is called "metastable." Climate systems are thought to be like the marble, which brings us to the ominous problem of global climate change. It is helpful to remember a children's rhyme:

What happens when we push the marble real hard, and it flies off the cheesecloth? What then?

Too Many People

My parents and their cohort - the so-called Greatest Generation - created a disaster by spending too much time in their bedrooms having sex, and the inevitable result, children. Now, half a century later, we are faced with the results of their unthinking pleasures.

The Baby Boomers will start retiring in increasing numbers during the next 4 years. This means they will stop working, and start drawing. As we all know, there aren't enough younger workers to pay for their retirement, unless taxes are increased.

Since I discussed this tragedy recently in another commentary, I won't go into all the details. The simple fact is, paying for the Baby Boomers will create an incredible strain on the American economy.

Of course, this problem could have been ameliorated, if the Bush Administration had not lowered taxes and created a budgetary deficit nightmare. But, that's water under the bridge: the Bushies did it and we're stuck with it. In consequence, paying for Social Security and Medicare will be a problem for decades.

Unlike the foregoing problems, there are two solutions, two ways out of this financial and demographic disaster.

But, a majority of Americans are Nativists. They oppose immigration, especially of people from Mexico and Asia. And, a majority haven't thought through the economics of the machine; they just want a job.

Conclusion

Things did not have to be this way, but they are. We did it to ourselves.