An Energy Crisis Journal: June 2008

June 3, 2008: Tuesday

(Woodland, WA) At 15:30 yesterday, I headed back to Tigard, over the Hwy 20 to Hwy 22 route. After a brilliantly sunny morning and early afternoon, if but a little cool and gusty, a dome of lenticular clouds had covered the sky and lent an ominous, closed-in, air to the drive through the deep, forested mountains. Thick snows covered the ground among dead, charred trees from massive fires of years past, ones that delayed me on a return trip from Idaho. Light rain greeted me as I crossed over the 4,800-foot summit, and slowly intensified, with the cloud deck lowering and darkening. Altostratus became stratus, with patches of scud. As I rolled through the foothills, the rain picked up to moderate in places. The trees dripped. Cars blasted spray from a wet road. The Pacific Northwest was now presenting its best June gloom.

Gas prices are phenomenal. With few exceptions, gas prices were above $4.00/gal throughout my WA and OR travel area. Most stations showed $4.10 to $4.19 a gallon for regular grade—87 octane. There is no escaping the reality that a new era of rapidly escalating energy cost has arrived.

June 9, 2008: Monday

(Vancouver, BC) Rain, yet again, is falling outside, with the temperature at Vancouver International a cool 50ºF. This could be December, save for all the green on the deciduous trees and among yards and gardens. Deep puddles stand in streets, trees drip, a low, gray and fast-moving deck of stratus hangs darkly in the sky, moving in out of the southeast. We've had rain on-and-off for much of the week, and over the weekend.

The world energy crisis clearly has stepped up a notch. I suppose some might say it is screaming an alert. On Friday, the price for a barrel of WTI jumped $10.75, to a new record close of $138.54/bbl. It briefly broke $139/bbl intraday. This jump happened after about a $5.70/bbl climb on Thursday! Many explanations have been given, including a threat by Israel that a military strike on Iran was inevitable. However, it is still quite apparent to me that the fundamental driver is the tight supply situation. World oil exports have been falling since about 2005, and at an accelerating rate. Key fields, such as Cantarell in Mexico, are experiencing production crashes at incredible rates, and this has affected imports into the United States. Due to the longer time-lines, about 3-5 days compared to 30, it takes more tankers to keep the same rate-of-flow into the Gulf of Mexico offloading ports for oil coming out of Mexico compared to the Middle East. This means more cost, as more tankers have to be hired. Right now, crude oil inventories in the Gulf of Mexico region are at critical lows, and they have been this way for several weeks now. This points to a difficulty in securing the oil at current prices. Amazing. Just one example of the impacts from a rapidly changing situation.

The average price for regular gasoline in the United States broke $4.00/gal over the weekend. On my return trip through Washington, just about all stations were at $4.19/gal and up. In Bellingham, the Chevron I usually stop at posted $4.36/gal for regular and $4.62/gal for 92 octane. Up here in Vancouver, stations are showing $1.436/liter to $1.468/liter in Canadian dollars. That's around $5.55/gal with no currency adjustments.

In any event, I sense very high tensions right now. A kind of gloom hangs in the air. The rainy, cloudy conditions that persist are very appropriate to what I'm feeling. The rapidly escalating prices worry me. My anxiety levels are up. I suspect something big is on the near horizon. Maybe in the next month or so. I certainly hope not, but it is hard not to think that some kind of world-changing event will occur soon as the various "powers that be" begin to respond to an escalating oil-production shortfall.

And, in this setting, I need to load up the car and head back into Washington.

(Olympia, WA) Surges of heavy rain greeted me in Blaine, and then further south, with the bright, blue hole shining vividly to the west. The clouds overhead, nearly charcoal black, were so low they nearly touched the ground. Streamers and plumes of scud easily stretched from the treetops to the cloud ceiling, sometimes mimicking little tornadoes. Some of these low bases took on the billowing, muffin-like appearance of mammatus, the lowest I have ever seen such a cloud feature. And, yet, the blue hole stood out, with deep convection to the southwest and far west forming the walls of the vast Olympic-downslope opening. I suppose a hurricane's eye might have a similar appearance.

And, indeed, strong wind showed up in the Bellingham area. Trees swayed dramatically. Cottonwoods lost leaves, twigs and small branches. Douglas-firs shed plumes of dark green needles. Sights that would prove common for much of the way to Olympia. Sometimes the shoulders of I-5 were covered in tree sheddings. Maple and other leaves took to the air in some of the heavy gusts, flapping around like birds and flying far above my roof. Some gusts thudded into the car, physically shaking the vehicle, slowing it down slightly. Flags few high.

As I entered the Chuckanut Mountains, the blue hole became lost, and I was thrown into a world with low, roiling cloud clamped to the hillsides. Thick scud swirled among the forests. Heavy rain thudded into my windshield. As I rounded one bend in the steep-sloped valley, a brilliant lightning bolt seared the sky right in front of me and zapped a nearby mountainside. The radio immediately went to static and the long-lasting bolt flashed from the dark heavens. This proved to be the first of many lightning discharges as I continued south, though I did not see most of them, just heard them on the radio. One lasted for an unusually long time, interfering with the radio for many seconds—long enough for me to think that perhaps the AM 710 tower had been struck and disrupted.

The drama continued through Mt. Vernon and southward, past Arlington. However, by the time I reached about 10 miles north of Everett, the clouds broke, and blue sky stood out vividly. A line of three thunderheads stood up sharply in the distant south to southwest. A mound of cumulus sat over the Cascades. Dark clouds hung over the Olympics quite ominously. An atmosphere thrown into powerful instability by the passage of an unusually strong Pacific front.

A metaphor for the energy crisis? I filled up here in Olympia and paid $4.56/gal for 92 octane. Regular was $4.28/gal. These prices, incredibly high to my American experience, are nevertheless dirt cheap compared to what is being charged up in Canada.

June 28, 2008: Saturday

(Vancouver, BC) After hovering between $132/bbl to $138/bbl for many days, WTI oil surged to new records over the past two days. The $140/bbl “barrier” fell. Yesterday, a short spike approached $143/bbl before falling back to about $140. Tapis reached at least $147.30/bbl. Looks like the next upsurge is in the works. Might take us into the $150 to $160 range. We will see. At the same time, the financial markets appear to have gone into a persistent downturn. The DJIA has fallen to 2006 levels, around 11,300. The current falls appear to be at least partially related to a growing realization that this liquid-fuels energy crisis may not be a short-term one.

An Energy Crisis Journal: May 2008

May 8, 2008: Thursday

(Vancouver, BC) Yesterday, in what I believe to be the third trading record in as many days, the price for WTI reached $123.93/bbl. Today, NYMEX trading settled on $123.69/bbl. In after-hours trading, WTI then climbed to $124.49/bbl. These are just amazing prices. And the duration of this new "rally" has been quite sustained, starting from $116/bbl on Monday. My gut feeling is that something in the market has changed. Prices are climbing faster. New record highs are being set quite often now. It's almost becoming commonplace. Many analysts, including Daniel Yergin of CERA fame, are now turning around and predicting oil in the $150 to $200 range in the relatively near term. It appears that a growing awareness of limited production is taking hold. Peak Oil is gaining much traction in the news now. It is being talked about more seriously. I have seen those two ominous words in the Vancouver Sun and other local papers on a number of occasions. I am becoming increasingly confident in the idea that 2008 will be the year in which Peak Oil becomes a central discussion world-wide. If not this year, no later than 2009. A sea-change is coming.

I filled up the tank yesterday at a local Chevron station. I paid $1.303/liter. That's Canadian dollars, of course, which are close to parity with the US dollar right now: $1 Can = $0.9831 US at this moment. At 3.875 liters per US gallon, that's $5.04 /gal in Canadian money, or $4.96 /gal in US dollars. Down in the States, prices are, of course, lower. However, a new record high average for the entire country was set today: $3.645/gal for regular unleaded. Diesel also climbed to match its recent record national-average high: $4.25 /gal.

Such is the backdrop for a summer season where I will likely be doing a fair amount of driving. I should be able to cover the costs, especially if I minimize other driving. I am seriously thinking about getting another bike. Might go back to a trike—something with a lot of utility. May place is 7.5 miles (12 km) from UBC. The exercise would be a good thing for me.

May 20, 2008: Tuesday

(Vancouver, BC) As things continue to unfold at a rapid pace, I am feeling ever more confident in using the term "crisis." Over the past few days, the futures market for oil has shifted from backwardation to contango. This has been a dramatic change, starting about a month ago, and is a different kind of contango that in previous circumstances (such as in parts of 2006). This time, the contracts are selling for ever higher prices as they go further into the future. Oil for 2016 delivery is now about $10/bbl higher than oil selling on the spot market! On The Oil Drum, this kind of potential market change has been discussed for many years now. To see it unfold is rather unnerving. It would seem that expectations were on the mark. Now, we will see if this shift holds. I suspect the contango will endure, and it could very well steepen. Contango is going to present all kinds of problems for businesses that are used to locking in lower prices for future oil deliveries. The airlines will feel this new reality bite strongly, I suspect.

The price of WTI reached another all-time high—yet again!—today: $129.60/bbl during intraday trading. At close, the price was $129.07/bbl. This is amazing. The shift to contango has occurred along with these persistent prices above $120/bbl, making the fundamental market shift even more unsettling.

Sunshine is draped warmly on the lushly foliated trees and brightly-colored buildings outside, an inviting scene that reflects not at all my worry about the near future. I think, however, I need to take another break from following the energy situation so closely. The spectacle consumes me too much. However, it is hard to put it aside, especially with so much going on at the moment. CNBC had Hirsch and Pickens on this morning giving their thoughts about the crisis. Peak Oil is beginning to show up everywhere. I think there's a clear reason for this: The crisis is starting to bite, and awareness is really beginning to spread. In a steadily growing chorus, the voices of reason are being heard ever more frequently.

May 26, 2008: Monday

(Kelowna, BC) Last week, by the way, the price of WTI reached a record $135.06/bbl. I believe this was on Wednesday morning. The price then dropped to around $131-$133 and hovered around these values until close on Friday. I don't have an internet connection here, so I don't know what's going on today. The price of gas on my trip was as high as $1.36 CDN/liter for 87 octane, and up to $1.51/liter for 94 octane.

08:36 PDT: The wireless connection is working this morning. Oil's trading around $133/bbl right now.

An Energy Crisis Journal: March and April 2008

March 11, 2008: Tuesday

(Vancouver, BC) Oil prices continue to climb, setting new records, and reached an intraday high of $109.72/barrel for WTI. Yesterday's close was at $108.21/bbl. With the knowledge I have, these prices are unnerving. When I last saw the prices at Washington gas stations, I couldn't help but get a sinking feeling. The US economy is certainly beginning to respond. It's slowing. People are spending less, traveling less. Yet prices in many sectors continue to climb. Stagflation. With each passing day, we're pushing further into Bakhtiari's "Transition 1". At some point, the world is going to seem a very strange, alien place.

April 15, 2008: Tuesday

(Seattle, WA) WTI reached at least $114.04/bbl today, the much-anticipated "triple-Yergin" on The Oil Drum. Some of this climb appears to be related to the shutdown of at least four Mexican oil terminals, supposedly due to inclement weather. Could be a cover story for rapidly diminishing oil production as Cantarell has been in decline for at least a year now. And, it appears that Russia's all-important oil production has now peaked and had gone into decline, news that appeared in many places, including the Wall Street Journal, I believe. Welcome to the Peak plateau. Peak oil now. Gas prices at the Shell station across the street jumped a dime a gallon today to $3.68/gallon. By far the highest level I've seen at this facility.

April 28, 2008: Monday

(Vancouver, BC) Average fuel prices in the United States climbed over $3.60/gal for regular unleaded today. This is still dirt cheap compared to, say here, where I paid $1.28 CAN/liter for 87 octane at a local Chevron (something like $4.85 CAN/gallon). Oil continued to trade between $118 and $119/bbl for WTI. Closure of the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland due to a strike and major pipeline disruptions in Nigeria seem to be contributing to the high prices. However, it is hard to ignore the steady, relentless climb in prices over recent years. Clearly the fundamentals are at work on the price of oil, too, and I am convinced that the supply and demand balance is the biggest part. We're on Peak Plateau. Production rates are not growing significantly, and have not since the summer of 2004. But the world's economy in total continues to grow, and it is ever-hungry for oil.

Down Hubbert's Peak: Last Phone Message

After the tone, please leave your message…

"Hi, Darling. I've been trying to reach you for hours. With this major rain and windstorm, I'm amazed that the cell phone works at all. But I'm not sure yours is working. I was immediately dumped to voicemail. Maybe you’re trying to reach me.

"You may have heard on the news about the big rockslide on I-5 here in the Siskiyous. The kids and I are fine! Don't worry. We arrived to a small backup about twenty minutes after the rock fell. I suppose a lot more drivers would be waiting if it weren't for the fuel shortages…

"The rain has been unbelievable! It reminded me of a Texas cloudburst, the kind that floods streets in just minutes. Couldn't see ahead at all. Yes, I pulled off until the rain let up--to a downpour, that is. A downpour seemed light in comparison to the deluge! All kinds of mudslides and rock-falls were triggered by the storm. I linked up with a few other drivers who had also stopped during the big rain, and we carefully picked our way through the debris until reaching the massive slide. It's a mess here. I-5 in both directions is buried under a mountain. Gone. I'm guessing days to clear at best.

"Nearly three hours have passed since we stopped at the slide. Apparently the fuel shortages have slowed the arrival of cleanup crews. Everyone is beginning to feel the pinch. Indeed, only two patrol cars have arrived on our side of the rockslide. Can't see what's happening on the north side.

"Right now, I'm just waiting to see what the officers say. Communications are sketchy. Apparently radio repeaters are out. And, as I mentioned, cell phones are a bit finicky out here. Though I have seen the police talking on their cells.

"The kids are currently playing in the car. They've found the slide pretty exciting. I wish I could share their sentiment. The whole ordeal has me stressed! They're getting bored, though. The video games are loosing their luster. I'll have to do something soon.

"I'm thinking about an alternate route. Perhaps west to 101. Maybe. Certainly the coast was pounded. I might have to go further inland, perhaps to 395, and then head north. At least it's too warm for snow!

"Hold it…

"One of the officers is approaching me. Hold on…"

Phhtt, phhtt… Thump, thump, thump…

"This is terrible. Apparently another slide went across the road to our south. We're stuck!

"There're injuries, maybe some fatalities. The officer asked if I had any medical training. Wish I did. Still my car might become an emergency shelter for the wounded. I'll have to go soon.

"The officer also mentioned the possibility of aerial extraction. They didn't know how soon it would come. With the gasoline shortages, and the intensity of the storm, I'm not optimistic. This has me worried.

"One of the police just left. Racing south…"

"Ah, the rain's picking up again. And the temperature has to be around seventy-five! Up here! This is amazing. More and more, the weather seems to be going haywire. Getting soaked… I'm heading back to the car.

Beep.

"Ah, cripes. The phone's battery is low, too. I'll have to get it charging.

Thump!

"I'm inside now. The rain's so loud on the roof, it feels like I'm going deaf! Hopefully you can hear me.

"Hold it, Brett. I'm on the phone! Play with your sister.

"Getting a map… Here we go… If an air rescue is unable to arrive, we might be able to get back to Dunsmuir on foot. You know, climb around any rockslides that might be in the way. Might have to stay there awhile. Who knows, they might be happy to have some business, so few people are traveling these days.

"Wow, Corvallis seems so far away now...

Beep.

"But I'll wait a little longer before acting on that idea. Maybe that air rescue will arrive. Let's hope!

"Just know that we're okay, Dear. I'm not alone out here. We'll put our heads together and figure something out, I'm sure.

"This world seems to be turning upside down quickly, doesn't it? It's hard to believe that just two years ago we took a fun little trip to Hawaii. Energy didn't once occupy my thoughts on that vacation. Now, energy is on my mind all the time. Each day seems to bring yet another crisis.

"The kids are listening. I probably should go. Give this phone a rest. You take care. Know that we're thinking of you. Love you..."

Hubbert's Peak: Is There More to Being Human?

The New Horizons probe, on gravity assist to Pluto, recently skirted past Jupiter's vast domain of moons, faint planetary rings and intense radiation belts. Beautiful images of a giant world draped in streaming cloud bands and swirling storms broader than the Earth were returned as the tiny probe hurtled through Jovian space. The robotic interplanetary explorer is traveling between worlds at a speed faster than any other space mission to date. With a 4 kilometer-per-second (km/s) boost from Jupiter's gravity well, the vehicle accelerated to 21 km/s relative to the gas giant and 23 km/s relative to the sun.

Even at a velocity that would take New Horizons from Los Angeles to New York in about three minutes, the probe would not reach distant Pluto until 2015. Eight years traveling through the cold, dark emptiness of the outer Solar System.

All the while, a growing energy crisis will continue to unfold back on the spacecraft's homeworld, the Earth. For industrial civilization, the energy shortfall marks a critical inflection point, like New Horizon's gravity assist via Jupiter, one triggered by the relentless decline in oil production world-wide, the so-called Hubbert's Peak in oil production. Oil, the lifeblood of industrial civilization. Oil is the "master domino" according to Dr. A. M. Samsam Bakhtiari, an Iranian energy expert. When the oil production domino is healthy, all the other dominos of civilization--important structures such as food production, health care, education and economies--thrive. When oil falls, the rest follow. Likely, space programs, with their delicate budgets, would crumble early. Save maybe for those programs that had military application.

Would anyone listen to New Horizons' signals in 2015?

What might happen to civilization world-wide over the course of the next eight years? By the middle of the next decade, world oil production will likely be dropping quickly. By 2020, it could be back to 1970-levels, with a resource-consuming human population well over twice what it was when people visited the Moon. And this projection assumes that above-ground factors such as war won't accelerate the process of oil production decline.

Oil wars began in the 20th century. The Iraq invasion of 2003 appears to be one of several, and this one appears to have been among the first that is a direct response to Hubbert's peak. How many more conflicts will unfold over the next eight years? How many lives will be lost to the body-rending violence of supersonic bullets and crushing bomb blasts? With the rapid ticking-away of kilometers as New Horizons travels between Jupiter and Pluto, people will fall. Little dominoes that helped prop up the vast business of civilization.

Potential nuclear conflict loomed. Such an eventuality could take away many humans, and much of the infrastructure of industrial civilization. The facilities to support space missions, such as NASA-Ames, the Kennedy Space Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, might be a shattered ruin. There, indeed, may be no electronic ears waiting to receive New Horizons' distant signals from Pluto.

No more space discovery. The collection of Mars rovers would sit silent and collect a coat of ruddy dust over the decades and centuries, never to be visited by future human explorers on a grand mission to colonize space--a mission that seemed so inevitable during the heyday of Apollo. The artificial satellites that surrounded the Earth would die, become increasingly pockmarked with micrometeoroid impacts and eventually plunge back to Earth as their orbits decayed. The Hubble telescope would heat to plasma temperatures as it scraped the atmosphere on its way down, a brilliant flare that would just as quickly fade, like the very era of discovery that helped put the sensitive eye into orbit. No more extrasolar planet detection. No more soul-stirring images of stellar explosions, nebulae and the process of star-formation.

The age of peering deep into the past, of uncovering the processes that led to the creation of the Earth, life, and human beings, would be over. It seemed possible that, as future centuries unfolded, much of the information gleaned by science could become lost. Forgotten during an age of conflict. A vast edifice of knowledge, crumbling away like the World Trade Center in 2001.

What did that say of humanity? In the 20th century, our species appeared to have a purpose. People were supposedly the eyes of the Universe, probing everywhere, learning how everything functioned. Like a child peering closely at her hand, humanity, an integral part of the Universe, was in the process of learning about itself every time it explored the huge, intricate and ancient environment from which the tool-using ape emerged. With technological progress exploding exponentially during the Age of Oil, humanity's eventual expansion into space seemed like destiny. Earth's precious, beautiful and amazing life would make that next leap—occupying other worlds, reaching for the stars.

Due to an almost magical nature, oil provided the fuel for god-like thinking even despite the obviously wobbly and uncertain foundation that should be expected from a structure made out of a liquid. An oil crutch. A slick and easily-obtained support that temporarily masked many of the challenges of living.

Now, as the Earth's store of oil became increasingly depleted, godhood seemed like a false promise. A dream. The energy crunch seemed to force humanity back to reality. Homo sapiens' self-proclaimed greatness appeared to be nothing more than a group hallucination brought about by an overwhelming addiction to a special, black hydrocarbon that formed over geologic timescales.

With oil depletion, it appeared increasingly obvious that human beings were just a mere animal. Of course, deep down, most people knew this. The power of oil addiction simply kept many people from considering the reality very deeply. Humans were prone to the same strengths and failings as other species. Humans are instinctual creatures, and carry within their brains a powerful program to exploit a given bounty with as much efficiency as can be mustered. This trait is critical for survival in the energy-limited environment provided by Earthly ecosystems. Generally hidden deep underground, oil's vast bounty of energy didn't play much of a role in surface-based evolutionary processes. Now, humans have stumbled across an amazing treasure. Like ants swarming a pile of sugar, people exploited this vast and accessible energy resource--oil--and used it up as quickly as possible lest someone else take the good stuff away. And, as the oil ran out, humanity now faced the challenging prospect of continuing without such a powerful form of energy to prop-up the species.

Without the support, space colonization seemed a distant dream. A fantasy. Like the fantasy of utopia offered by the creation of suburbia. It seemed people were so strongly attached to the planet that gave birth to them that they would not be leaving anytime soon, if ever.

Humanity's purpose, it seems, is something other than space colonies, or the discovery of all the secrets of the Universe. The purpose of H. sap, if there is one, is probably much more humble than such grandiose notions. Indeed, Hubbert's peak appears to be screaming to humanity that there is no purpose at all, save perhaps one: That age-old task of living in the harsh and challenging realm that envelops the Earth. Nothing more. Nothing less.

In 2015, as Pluto is scanned by distant New Horizons, symbol of an animal that has a wonderful but nevertheless bounded technological ingenuity, and follows its program to send signals back to Earth, the new information may go undetected. At that time, human minds may be focused on the much more immediate task of staying alive in an environment thrown into chaos by an oil-starved industrial revolution. The probe will sail away into the vast depths of space, soon to be forgotten. And human beings will continue the struggle of survival among the complex depths offered by Earth's living shell.

The Age of Oil closes. Reality returns.

Hubbert's Downslope: The Long Way Home

I'm not sure why I'm writing this note in my journal. I never could keep this diary up-to-date on a regular basis. In this age of increasingly limited energy supplies, will someone find this little book high up in the coastal mountains of California, and bother to read it? Probably not. If this journal is ever discovered, the person doing the discovering will probably yell out with glee and proclaim, "Toilet paper!"

Nevertheless, I feel the need to write my thoughts. Maybe that happy person will partake in reading before recycling these pages.

I just completed my last drive, I'm pretty sure. My old beat-up RAV4 won't budge another inch. Flimsy ride, anyway. Ah, well, it got me around for years, and many miles.

My hometown, Santa Rosa, simply felt too claustrophobic. I wanted something different from the usual neighborhood gathers each weekend, and all the constant discussion about ongoing life changes due to the energy crisis. Many of my neighbors are really worried about food. And this guy, a lawyer I think, showed up to one dinner gather. He kept going on and on about nuclear war. Made a persuasive argument for its eventuality, too. Aye, that was too much! I don't need to be reminded about the possibility of starving to death, or being part of a global nuclear gift exchange.

Yes, it was finally time for something different! So I jumped in the RAV, which had been sitting unused for months, and headed for the hills. A squirt of the sprayers cleared the windshield of dust, and a glance at the dashboard showed that I only had a half-tank of fuel. I didn't even bother to look for any of the gas stations on the way out. They were probably closed.

Besides, my money was tight. Unemployment checks only went so far, especially during these days of rapid inflation.

I headed north on Highway 101. With traffic eerily light, and the sound of an internal combustion engine thrumming in my ears, I easily got lost in thought about the growing crisis. Protests and near-riots had begun over fuel and food prices in some cities, even uncomfortably close in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. Certainly Santa Rosa wouldn't be immune for long. Just a matter of time. This had me worried most, but the growing drone of food shortages also nagged me endlessly. The two were linked, of course. As fear over nourishment grew, I gathered the situation could get messy rather fast.

Ukiah seemed uncannily lifeless as I rolled through. Parking lots at local shopping centers along the highway were bereft of vehicles. The road seemed like a drought-parched riverbed, one that meandered past structures with dark, hollow windows reminiscent of the sunken eyes of the starved.

Eager to get off of broad, empty 101, I took the cutoff onto Highway 20 and headed east toward Clear Lake. After a stretch, I went north to Lake Pillsbury on a lonely, windy road through beautiful, green country. Before long, I encountered the access to Hull Mountain. Some called it Mt. Hull. Guess it depended on which map you read. I'd only been to the top of the peak once, long ago, during the 1990s dot-com boom when life seemed to be going so well. You know, swimming in money and all. Now, a deepening depression covered the land with a dark pall that seemed to make even the sunniest days black.

I faced perhaps my last opportunity to see the grand view from the summit. I would do it.

Even in the great 1990s financial bonanza, I was cheap. My RAV was bare-bones and only had front-wheel drive. The only concession I made was to have AC and a CD player. I popped in an old, beat-up disc: Dead Can Dance, “Toward the Within.” One of the back speakers didn't work, but the melancholy and introspective music was still quite audible, and it fit my mood rather well. I rolled down all my windows to get that open-vehicle off-road feel that I so enjoyed when I was younger and traipsed all over the mountains, burning gas and beating my cars to death for no real purpose.

Then I took off, up Mt. Hull's vast and steep slope. The old dirt road had undergone severe erosion over the past winter. The RAV lurched over deep ruts, loose rocks and wind-broken tree branches. Dust lifted high into the air behind me. In the steepest sections, I couldn't let the car stop. There wasn't enough traction for me to resume my upwards climb. I kept the vehicle at a constant speed and left the gear in second. The RAV crashed over potholes, thudded over narrow toppled tree-trunks, ground through rocky outwashes. Some of the thuds were quite jarring. Loud. At times, I thought the car would stall. Palls of dirt sometimes swirled through the cab. Perhaps a year ago, I might have winced at this sudden abuse to my car, wishing to keep it going for as long as possible. But, today, I continued, and watched the wilderness roll by. Driving didn't seem to have much of a future.

A wonderful mix of oak trees, Bay laurel, walnut and gray pine gave way to Douglas-fir and red fir as my altitude increased. A startling number of conifer trees were dead, or dying. Some kind of disease or other stress left a brown blight on the forest. A dramatic change from the Mt. Hull I had seen years ago. Another sign of the growing crisis.

The firs, dead or alive, informed me that I neared the mountaintop. As did the grade. It had more-or-less evened out to horizontal. I continued on, eager to get to a little turn-out that I had stopped at long ago. A place that had a good view.

The RAV sputtered, jerked, and quit. I quickly popped the gear in neutral and guided the vehicle off the road, next to two massive wind-sculpted firs that hadn't given up on life just yet. The fuel gauge read empty. Damn! No surprise, really, but it was still a bit shocking to see the gauge on "E". This was it. My car was kaput!

It would be a long walk home. At least I had brought my gear. And the first leg of the trip was downhill. A big, steep downhill, but down nonetheless. Maybe, once back to Highway 20, I could get a ride back to Santa Rosa. Some folks still drove places. Including trucks hauling food and other necessities.

I wonder how many more people would do what I had just done? Maybe the top of Mt. Hull would become a vast vehicular graveyard. A funny image is brought to mind: Hundreds of rusty hulks lining a fading mountain road. Surely, not that many people were as foolish and silly as I!

I grabbed my backpack and headed for the viewpoint on foot. Birds sang. Insects flitted about. A periodic breeze rushed through the treetops, a sound that to me has a timeless sense to it. The rustling foliage brought to mind similar breezes that must have rustled the great lycopod trees of Devonian times, and the vast diversity of palm-like cycads during the Triassic. Dinosaurs must have heard the leafy rustling. Archaeopteryx, the proto-bird, must have felt the caress of such breezes. Nature's breath had washed the Earth for billions of years. The gently swaying trees remind me that life continues even as it undergoes massive change, and this makes me feel a little hopeful, or at least more at ease.

My walk wasn't very long. I found the little pull-out that I had visited a decade ago. It had changed some, but not dramatically. A fairly dense assemblage of weeds poked through the old gravel. The surrounding shrubs were thicker and taller than I remembered. A scattering of giant, old firs still sat to the north. They showed no signs of the blight that had been starkly evident on the drive up.

The view provided the same joy that I had remembered. To the west, I could see the coastal stratus rolling in like a vast tsunami on the Mendocino shore, say perhaps fifty miles distant. And, to the east, I gazed all the way across the Central Valley to the great Sierra Nevada. Mt. Lassen stood high, snow-less and pointy. The air had an amazing clarity. All the little details, from jagged rock outcrops to the sweeping forests and sharp treelines, were so easy to discern that it seemed like I could touch the distant mountains with an outstretched hand. Clean air: One blessing in a world of oil scarcity and limited driving.

Down below, to the west, I could just make out the town of Willits. Many of the residents, I knew from news reports over the years, have been busy preparing for the energy downturn. Pursuing renewable energy sources. Rebuilding their local economy. Good for them. I hope they do well. Indeed, I might migrate in that direction. Unfortunately, as my own desire to move to the region just revealed, I fear that Willits' proximity to the Bay Area could prove a big problem. The potential flood of refugees loomed large.

I looked upon the vast northern California countryside for a long, long time. Indeed, I'm still at the viewpoint, sitting on a log and writing in this book. When I pause to gather my thoughts, I drink the cool, fresh air, feel the breeze wash my face, and listen to the cheerful birdsongs. And I listen to the silence between the avian calls.

An intriguing silence. A silence, I now realize, that has been slowly returning to the neighborhoods of Santa Rosa. The drone of power lawnmowers has ceased. No more leaf blowers. And the rumble of car tires on pavement has become so rare that it is almost a novelty among children, drawing them out to watch when a vehicle rolls down the street. The sound of television and stereos, leaking from open windows on a warm day, has also lessened as rolling blackouts plague the country.

Yes, even as conflict and unrest erupt around the globe, a new kind of peace has begun to enter our lives. Some might see this as the calm before the storm. I'm not sure that this is the right analogy. The peace, I feel, will continue to grow even as humanity goes through its own self-inflicted turmoil.

It seems to me that the real crisis began long ago, with the Industrial Revolution and an attendant philosophy that places human beings in the same category as machines. This many-centuries-long emergency has unfolded in a myriad ways across the globe. The crisis for me is encapsulated in an adult life as a computer programmer who put in sixty to eighty hour weeks to finish one software project after another. I literally burned myself out even before I had reached forty. For others, the crisis is more evident in the horrors of industrialized war as the age-old battles over limited resources and political power continue to escalate. With nearly seven billion people on this planet, there seems to be an infinite number of ways in which to experience the industrial crisis. Indeed, for many of the luckiest (wealthiest), the crisis is a seemingly endless party. Tragic.

Nature had set her limits long before human beings occupied the globe. There are only so many resources available on this planet. It is clear that my species now bumps up against the boundaries. Eventually, I suspect, much of the human conflict will stop. Conflict, however, will not go completely away, for it is at the core of what it means to be alive. The fight for survival will remain as long as life exists. But the level, the noise, of conflict will ease over the years.

As human conflict finally wanes, as it must with the prospect of ever-diminishing non-renewable resources, and with a dramatic reduction in human population (a topic that simply scares me), the peace will likely get stronger. Yes, the peace that surrounds me, that special sense of life's timelessness, will continue. The thought makes me feel better. In the least, if I am fortunate enough to survive the historical transition that has clearly begun, I can look forward to a world where such peace might be easier to find. This depends on many factors, for sure. In my struggle to live, will I have the opportunity to pause, and enjoy the soul-soothing peace that surrounds me here on Hull Mountain? I don't know. But the idea offers some hope.

The sun is getting low. I should be heading back.

The walk down Mt. Hull, even with loose rock, sticks other treacherous footing, should give me ample time to enjoy the peace that I clearly sought by driving out here. A chance for me to gather myself for whatever events the energy crisis will soon bring. It is very uplifting to see that such beauty exists even amidst a great darkness.

I will place this journal under the driver's seat of the RAV. Maybe someone will find it in the years ahead. And maybe they will pause long enough to read the thoughts of a single person who is caught up in the culmination of a great crisis. Maybe the book will simply rot away as the vehicle is weathered by decades of Pacific storms. I doubt that I'll ever know.

Nevertheless, penning these words has helped me clarify my thoughts and better understand my concerns. I feel calm now. I look forward to the long walk home.

Toward Yesteryear

Dear Anna,

How long has it been since I actually wrote you a letter by hand? Years, for sure. Remember those little notes that I would send you? The ones where I would draw wildflowers and butterflies in the margins? And include uplifting thoughts to help you through your busy workday? So long ago! Before either of us had discovered e-mail. I certainly enjoyed writing those letters. As I penned those messages, I always imagined your soft face, framed by your fine brown hair, and your lively hazel eyes.

Well, Anna, it seems that life demonstrates again that it tends to flow in circles, or more accurately a long and irregular spiral. I recall all those discussions we used to have about life philosophies. Life, of course, acts. We can believe all we want that it will move forward in a certain direction, and then something comes along to remind us that it can, without advance notice, change at any moment.

Just as I hung my hands over the computer keyboard to type out a note to you, the electrical service failed. Now, I sit in the dark with two little candles flickering on my old dining table, and can't help this stark feeling that, perhaps, we're seeing the beginning of the end of the "new" way of doing things. We're entering a new era, I suspect, and we'll have to adapt to yet another "new way." And this new way looks like it may be similar to the "old way" that, currently, seems like a distant memory.

Oh, I'm sure the power will return to California at some point, Anna. We've all been through blackouts throughout our lives. And, in this case, the grid doesn't appear to be damaged. Stars fill the sky. There has been no storm to crack power poles, no earthquake to shake lines to the ground. No, Anna, this appears to be classic load-shedding. An all-too-familiar rolling blackout. I wish I knew more, but my usual source of information is, of course, down—the internet. I should try to find that emergency radio. Maybe when I'm done penning this letter.

"Load shedding?" you ask. I can still hear your voice so clearly. That sweet, soft tone that enthralled my young ears. Yes, Anna, even in the vast, powerful United States, we aren't immune from the consequences of a strained energy supply. Here in little Ukiah, I'm probably the victim of the demand from the masses who live just to the south, in the dynamic and energy-hungry San Francisco Bay Area. Perhaps this is due to an increase in heating demand from a recent cold spell. Summer has forgotten to arrive, that's for sure! I suspect that we might have a frost here, under that clear, cold sky. And with natural gas in short supply due to ever-diminishing production despite an ever-increasing number of new well-heads, the price sure has escalated. Those natural gas outages in So Cal weren't just quirks. I'm sure much of the remaining supply is being allocated to emergency services first, and other customers second. As a result, I can only guess that many people have switched to portable electric heaters. Which might have put an enormous strain on the electricity supply. Now many of us sit in the dark, and become increasingly cold.

In fact, I just donned another blanket. That beautiful cover that you made for me during our long honeymoon. The one decorated with carefully-cut fabric leaves in all shades of autumn warm--red, orange, yellow. The lively cloth foliage is hard to see in the dim light. But even with diminished presence, the promise of a toasty reprieve from the chill is reassuring. Ah, yes, Anna, I can see your wry smile. Indeed I should have bought some wood for my little fireplace, the one that has been unused for perhaps a half-decade. I recall how you loved fires. They so fit with your idea of romance. Feel free to laugh at me now, for I'm now wishing I shared your romantic sense—I should have been more sympathetic to the simple joys you found in life. I'd at least have more warmth! And from more than one source.

What an amazing, and frightening time we live in, Anna. Peak oil and peak natural gas, as they go through their uncompromising arc of depletion, have now bumped us down the comfort scale. Load shedding used to be a problem for the poor, or so-called "developing" nations, only occasionally showing up in the developed world due to very--how should I put it?--interesting circumstances. The local news agencies have been failing us over recent years, only rarely reporting the ever-increasing occurrences of power interruption in developing nations. And even more rarely portraying the situation within its broader geopolitical framework despite a strong interdependence between nations. Thus failing to show us how the problem has been spreading like a stealthy disease: South Africa, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, Colombia, to name just a few places that have been suffering increasing hardship. As the price of fossil fuels escalated since the early part of this decade, many of the poorer nations have been struggling to keep power plants in operation, and maintaining vulnerable distribution grids. Now it looks like the load-shedding problem has migrated up the international ladder of affluence and is hitting the "first world."

I had to smile after writing the above paragraph. Yes, Anna, I certainly haven't lost my enthusiasm for the subject of energy production. I recall you reminding me more than once that I often got carried away with that topic. In front of your carefully-made romantic fires, or at dinner parties, or even on evening strolls through the park, where a simple lamp alongside a path would bring to my mind thoughts of electron flow and hydroelectric dams. Sometimes you just wanted to talk about more personal things. Concrete, down-to-earth things. Like plans for our next vacation. Or events in our friends' lives. Or our recent adventures in the workplace. Vividly, I recall how the little stories I told about my childhood would keep you deeply enthralled. I was a bit of a wild-child. I now understand how my adventures would interest you, sweet Anna, the girl who always wanted to please her parents. I should have accommodated you more often, and listened to your own stories with as much care as I put into my work on energy. You always had a thoughtful approach to life. And we certainly had the ability to talk about many things when we were young. What happened? I guess we changed. Just like the world is changing before our very eyes. Or, perhaps more so, we were too busy with our extremely active progress-driven lives to pause, and explore the very things that had brought us together in the first place.

How I wish I could sit next to you now, Anna, and tell you more of those stories from my boyhood. To simply sit close to you, and feel your warmth under the pretty blanket of dancing autumn leaves. To simply hold your hand--hopefully it would be one of those times when your fingers were actually warm! How such small digits ever retained heat still amazes me to this day. Yes, Anna, with someone near, someone whom I could talk to, the dark would be much less intimidating.

As it is, I don't even have a cat! It's just me, and my tiny, old house. And your lovely blanket. I guess writing to you helps. I hope you're okay down there in Monterey. Maybe you still have electricity. I'm not sure--without a doubt the greater Bay Area's in the dark, or there wouldn't so many crisp, clear stars in the sky. In any event, I suspect the power will be up and running again sometime after sunrise. We will then resume our normal lives. Until the next hiccup. And, I'm sure, power interruptions will increase in frequency and duration over the years. At some point, what passes for normal will look quite different from what we've experienced up to the present. I hope social unrest during this critical transition doesn't cause serious problems. How people will react to fear--fear about the gigantic unknown that the energy downturn poses--is my biggest concern as we enter this uncertain time.

Feel free to send me your thoughts. I wish you well, Anna. Know that I'm thinking about you, and if you ever need assistance at this important juncture in history, I will be there for you. As you can easily tell, I've never really stopped loving you. Maybe, as the world changes, and the pace of our lives slows to a more sane level, we will discover some of that magic spark that so captured us decades ago. The end of the industrial age could very well have its perks.

May the US Postal Service continue to run for a long time.

Take care, Anna,

Your good friend, Anthony

Peak Oil: Psychological Shock Now

The impact of Peak Oil on one Oregon resident.

"No civilization can survive the physical destruction of its resource base." --Bruce Sterling

The low, dark roll-cloud passed overhead like the curl of a vast, seething wave. A burst of small hail quickly swept across the park's field and thrummed against the plastic roof of the play structure on which I stood. The cold, white spheroids, blasted under the shelter by a chilly west wind, tapped against my shoes, and stuck to my daughter's long, pink coat. With big, blue eyes, she looked at the field, which had now become partially lost to the haze created by the veil plummeting pellets of ice. Her face showed an incredible wonder for the meteorological phenomenon that had transformed our little world of play.

Production at Cantarell, Mexico's largest oil field, is crashing. Mexico provides a significant amount of crude imports to the United States.

My daughter asked, "How long would the hail last?" I glanced at the sky. The charcoal-gray cloud had shifted to the east. The band of precipitation was clearly narrow. I replied, "Only briefly." Many thoughts swirled through my mind, and distracted me from further elaboration. Peak oil. Collapse. When I went off to college, I had one of the greatest times of my life. The university offered an amazing world of learning; intellectual, social, artistic and much more. Would my daughter have a chance at the same experience? I couldn't answer that question. It didn't seem likely. I had just turned 18 when I went to college; still just a child in many ways. And here was this five-year-old standing next to me. So young, so dependent on me for her well-being. Would she even have a "normal" childhood? What would her life be like when she reached ten, twelve, fifteen? The wind's chill seemed to increase, and a shiver shot down my spine.

Wars were a likely response to resource depletion. The 20th century's world-wars appear to have been largely about who controls the flow of energy resources. WW III seems a possible outcome post-Peak-Oil.

The hail shifted over to a cold, steady rain. My daughter ran over to a little metal steering wheel built into the wall of the play structure. "We need to turn the ship around!" she exclaimed as she spun the wheel. Yes, I thought, I wish we could turn the ship around. Even more, I wished I could put my Peak Oil thoughts aside and join in the fun. I tried to do just that and stepped next to her. The frigid rain jabbed my face. "Let's get into port and out of this storm," I said, wishing I could be more enthusiastic. I spun the wheel with her. The play structure did not move.

Energy is required to do work, and more energy is required to expand the amount of available work: industrial economies, dependent on growth, will likely suffer greatly from energy scarcity. People should economize, localize and produce, ELP.

Since my own college experience, I had made many decisions in my life that, in the light of Peak Oil, I now regretted. An economic dislocation of historical--singular--proportions seemed the likely outcome of diminishing available energy. My financial decisions hadn't the best. I had assumed business-as-usual, and I acquired more debt than I probably should have. My job situation was very shaky. In the shadow of Peak Oil, I felt very vulnerable. An economic depression could crush me. And with me would go my daughter, the most important person in my life. This was the girl who had been born three weeks after 9/11. The little life that had warmed my heart the moment I first held her, and gave me hope during such a tragic, dark time. Now, I wasn't sure that I could give her any hope. There seemed to be little hope left. Hope seemed to fade along with the diminishing oil reserves. With all my education, why hadn't I encountered any serious discussion about the potential consequences of resource depletion? If I had known what I know now, I would have done many things differently. I suppose therein lay the answer to my question.

Due to the increasing internal consumption of producing countries, oil exports would likely diminish at a faster rate than oil-field production declines. From the perspective of an importing country, a slow production decline could seem like a crash.

The rain turned to mist, and the wind slowed. Spinning the metal wheel had lost its luster. "The queen bee needs some flowers," said my daughter. She leaped down a drenched slide to go pick little daisies from the green, grassy field that surrounded us. The queen bee was an imaginary monarch who liked to get lots of beautiful floral gifts. In return, the bee gave away treasure. Honey, I imagined. A nice thought. But it didn't bring a smile to me. Honeybee populations in many areas of the world appeared to be collapsing. Maybe, in some fashion, the bees' population reduction was related to my species' massive fossil fuel consumption. No one seemed to really know the real cause. But it was frightening. My daughter plucked little blossoms from the ground, smiling. I wished I could still find the ability to grin again, like my daughter who always seemed to provide that pleasant little gift with abandon. Oh, sometimes I still smiled, and laughed, but a hint of sadness, melancholy always surrounded the humor. Peak Oil was so damn serious. My society should have taken it as such three decades ago.

Ghawar, Saudi Arabia's--and the world's--largest oil field, is dying. When Ghawar's production is post-peak, the world is post-peak.

Thunder rumbled to the southeast. The storm had continued to intensify even as it passed us, and a black blotch of cumulonimbus turned the southern sky into a massive cave with a bulging, gravid ceiling. As I stared at the awesome scene, electricity seethed from the cloud. The flash left bright afterimages across my vision. Nearby house lights flickered. Would Peak-Oil-related blackouts begin in a few years? Indeed, when would electricity become unreliable? When would the internet's utility rapidly diminish? Would I be able to communicate with my family, who were scattered all over the country? During such a tumultuous future, would I ever be a dependable dad for my child? Were things as hopeless as they seemed? Thunder rumbled, and shook the plastic floor under my feet. My daughter ran toward me. Her eyes were open wide, and the smile had been replaced with a worried look. Yep, time to get inside. I made my way down the damp stairs. My little girl clamped onto my legs, and said, "I'm scared!" I held her tight. "It's okay. We'll head home." I hoped beyond hope that I could continue reassure her as the Peak Oil Maelstrom unfolded. I would try my best to be there for her. However, the future seemed so very dark.

"I seriously believe that the peaking of the global production of crude oil--commonly known as 'Peak Oil'--has occurred in 2006 and will be 'The Event' bound to dominate the history of the 21st century: one of those 'Historical Inflection Points' which abruptly change "fundamentals" in the course of World History." -- Dr. A. M. Samsam Bakhtiari.

Acknowledgements: Many thanks to Jeffrey Brown for his writings on ELP and the oil export situation on The Oil Drum.