coping with shortages

Date:	Fri, 27 Oct 2006 09:14:38 -0700 (PDT)
From:	"william wendt" Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by yahoo.com. Learn more
Subject:	coping shortages
To:	wholelephant@yahoo.com

COPING WITH SHORTAGES, PRESENT AND COMING

 The Americans, Professor Charles Dunbar said shortly
after the last events with which this book has dealt,
are the only people who with a light heart have
trusted to the energy of growth to insure them against
the effects of their mistakes.    
  Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America from the
Revolution to the Civil War (1957 Pulitzer Prize
winner)

 If there’s one thing you learn as a scientist, it’s
never close your mind off to things that seem  far
fetched. 
 Meenakshi Wadhwa, Curator of Meteorites, Field
Museum, Chicago,  Discover, March 2004

 A farmer once advertised a Missouri mule as doing
anything it was told to do. A man bought the mule but
came back the next day and complained the mule would
not do a thing he said. The farmer picked up a four
foot 2 x 4, cracked the mule across the nose with it,
and said, "First you got to get his attention."
 As I once had to explain to a British colleague, the
American way to spell "assume" is a-s-s-you-and-me.
 With such homely and folksy wisdom in mind, let us
examine several ideas that normally you, dear reader,
would dismiss out of hand. That is, in the absence of
dire shortages or other drastic circumstances, but
some of which have already come, with more well on the
way. But who is to say these shortages cannot happen,
certainly after Katrina? If they do come to pass, and
already have, to some extent, would it not be better
to be prepared, at least mentally?
 Unfamiliar transportation ideas often get a rough
reception, as if they were refugees from the Twilight
Zone. Hidebound mentalities in rail circles are hardly
confined to the industry itself. For some classic
examples, see the letters in the May and June 1976
TRAINS dismissing out of hand a March 1976 proposal
for a double-track railroad with 24’ wide cars. The
June issue did have two letters with constructive
criticism and the August issue had three letters
upbraiding previous writers for closed-mindedness and
illogic, blaming that for the rail industry’s
troubles.  Sometimes the familiar is simply
inadequate. Sometimes the unfamiliar forces itself
upon us. With advance preparation, at least a mental
exercise, it does not have to be totally unfamiliar.
Do we want to keep the desperation within constructive
channels? It is entirely up to you what you then
consign to the Twilight Zone.
 Some years ago I came upon a five-year old hanging
over a third floor porch rail. Suddenly, with my
beneficent, unexpected assistance and my hands firmly
around his waist, he imbibed the view from about six
inches further down. Then he did not want to go
anywhere near that porch rail. Here, then, dear
reader, is a view from six inches further down, but
without my hands firmly around your waist.

I. OIL, CAPITAL, AND WATER
 The Iranians might bomb Saudi oil facilities. Richard
Clarke, The Atlantic, January/February 2005
 Long perturbed by threats to take over their oil
fields, the Saudis have laced them not only with
explosives but dirty bombs to make human presence
impossible because of extreme radioactivity. Gerald
Posner, Secrets of the Kingdom
 The British navy converted to oil during WWI,
necessitating a presence in the Persian Gulf. Much of
WWII was fought to control Mideast oil. Oil
consumption by the developed world continues to spiral
and that by the developing world is just getting
started. World oil production is widely predicted to
peak by 2010. Mideast politics will not be any less
volatile any time soon. A gas tax ought to fund
alternative energy sources. Michael T. Klare, Blood
and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s
Growing Dependency upon Imported Petroleum
 There has been a recent spate of "oil pessimist" or
"depletionist" literature in recent years, arguing
that oil production has peaked or will peak in the
near future. Secondary points include burgeoning
demand from the developing world and that, shortly
after peaking, oil production will fall off a cliff.
Among these are Matthew Simmons, Twilight in the
Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World
Economy, Kenneth Deffeyes, Beyond Oil: The View From
Hubbert’s Peak, and Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending
World Oil Shortage, and Paul Roberts, The End of Oil:
On the Edge of a Perilous New World. Roberts concludes
it will take "serious shocks" before meaningful change
is made but urges prompt action and bridging
strategies to maximize options and to allow the most
orderly transition.
 Threatened oil shortages have been a scare tactic of
the industry since its early days, says Raymond J.
Learsy, Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil
Cartel. This is quite likely the most concise and
revealing history of oil machinations over the past
half century, not sparing OPEC, oil countries, the oil
industry, the U.S. government and both Bushes, if not
quite a full scholarly treatment. Oil production will
not fall of a cliff, but slowly taper down. If Learsy
maintains there is plenty of oil in the ground,
including vast untapped Saudi fields, his advice is
nevertheless much the same as the pessimists’, reduce
consumption as much as possible.
 Jeremy Leggett, The Empty Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air,
and the Coming Global Financial Castastrophe, is
perhaps the most comprehensive and passionate of
recent "early topper" works. In short, there is not
enough oil to meet near future demand, but there is
plenty carbon left to ruin the atmosphere, if it has
not already. He also has extensive discussion of
financial problems and solutions. His reminisces of
oil exploration and "fallen flags" in discussing oil
company history ought to find some deja vu among
railfans. The personal histories of himself and other
"early toppers," plus their objections to more
consumption, ought to asuage conspiracy theories.
 Peter Tertzakian, A Thousand Barrels a Second: The
Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an
Energy Dependent Wold, links the conversion of the
British fleet from coal to oil, much of WWI being
fought over oil, U. S. oil companies scrambling for
foreign sources after WWI without government
assistance, and eventual U.S. oil supremacy.
 If currency matters are a side topic, Learsy’s
concluding pages vividly anticipate the disruption of
a "fighting inflation" boost in interest rates by 2
points, the perfect segue for the next problem. The
financial collapse of the federal government,
predicted for decades by right-wing curmudgeons, is
now a frequent concern of the mainstream and left-wing
press, say, for one prominent example, The Atlantic,
July/August 2005.
 Imported capital, to the tune of $4 billion every
working day, was needed to finance the federal and
trade deficits in 2003. An International Monetary Fund
report lectures the United States as if it were a
banana republic. Warren Buffet, the Nebraska sage, is
betting on foreign currencies. Asia and Europe will
need their savings for their own aged before long.
Citing no less than former Secretary of the Treasury
Robert Rubin and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul
Volcker on the twin deficits, a former Secretary of
Commerce, former chairman of the New York Federal
Reserve Bank, and present chairman of the Council on
Foreign Relations offers an impeccably Establishment
but nevertheless impeccably cogent view of the
financial Katrinas ahead. Peter G. Peterson, Running
on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties
Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do
About It.
 Also citing former secretary Rubin, Paul Blustein,
And the Money Kept Rolling In (And Out): Wall Street,
The IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina, concludes
with the warning, "It could happen here." (original
emphasis) Among the consequences would be sharply
higher interest rates.
 Of paper dollars in circulation, some 80% are held by
foreigners. The United States absorbs 60% of the
world’s exports. William Bonner, Financial Reckoning
Day: Surviving the Soft Depression of the 21st
Century, pp232, 249. It also has an excellent chapter
on policies determined by unspoken beliefs and another
on current shortsighted management and investment
practices.
 Maybe it does take specialized expertise to tell if
the oil pessimists or the oil optimists are right. It
does not take specialized expertise to tell that
mideast turmoil or currency convulsions might easily
make oil difficult or impossible to import. The
expertise to prevent currency convulsions is nowhere
as common as it should be and probably would not make
that much difference at this late date. Such things
deserve at least as much consideration as did the New Orleans levees prior to Katrina.
 The next wars will not be over oil but water, goes an
increasingly more common slogan. Water problems in the
southwest were explored in the book and PBS series
Cadillac Desert.
 Is coal the answer? It has problems of its own, per
Jeff Goodell, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind
America’s Energy Future, to wit:
 "... Unless there is a revolution in the way energy
is priced and marketed (highly unlikely), all the
hidden costs of burning coal that are off-loaded to
the public- the blighted mountains and economic ruin
of many coal mining regions, the medical bills related
to heart attacks and athsma caused by air pollution,
the lost future incomes of kids adversely affected
because their mothers ate mercury-laden fish when they
were pregnant-are unlikely to be calculated into the
price of power anytime soon."
 Coming from a problem-solving Silicon Valley culture,
Goodell had his shock from the problem-avoiding coal
culture. Tbere is a fascinating chapter on coal
railroads and a couple on electric power. Would you
believe the diesel is an outstanding sleep machine or
that BNSF joined a pro-coal, pro-global warming group
while touting railroad energy conservation? Has anyone
ever fallen asleep on a moving steam locomotive?