"My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a plane. His son will ride a camel." That's an old - well, actually current - Saudi saying related by Rochester resident Norm Erickson during a talk in Spring Valley recently.
Erickson, a retired IBM engineer, uses various calculations and models to predict that we are on the downward side of the peak oil boom. If he's right, Saudi Arabians will go back to riding camels and our society may look more like the Amish community than the jet-setting, cosmopolitan culture that seems to be a given as we look ahead.
"Our future is not going to be a bigger and better replication of our past," Erickson explains.
His talk is convincing as he bases his research on facts and figures from many sources, including mainstream government reports. His conclusion is that our oil reserves are nearly depleted or are at least on the downward curve of production. For the last quarter century, we have used more oil each year than we have found. New finds will likely be hard-to-extract sources that will be costly to produce.
The $3-plus gas price is just the first sign of a very changed future staring us down. His curve of oil supplies shows that the downward slope will be much steeper than the gradual climb as more and more oil reserves were discovered in the middle of the 20th century.
Erickson says there is no silver bullet to allow us to live life as we enjoy now since the luxuries of our modern society are almost entirely enabled by cheap fuel. Adapting to a future without cheap oil will mean 1,000 changes to our lifestyles.
Instead of manicuring lawns, we will be gardening because trucking in fresh produce from thousands of miles away will be too costly. Instead of making spontaneous runs to the store, we will be planning our infrequent shopping trips, even if they are just to stores on the other side of town. Plane trips will be rare - and expensive - as airlines suffer. Energy will become more decentralized with solar and other alternative systems in homes and biofuels made of locally grown crops on farms.
Erickson isn't all talk. He is moving to Lake City where he will grow hazelnuts, which is as an energy source far more efficient than soybeans while also being renewable as the nuts grow on the same tree each year. He also has plans for a year-round greenhouse powered by solar and geothermal heat. His home will use passive and active solar energy.
Erickson provides a jolt to our sense of what the future will look like. We are already seeing many signs today. Although I am still a believer in American know-how and technological progress that may someday produce that magic silver bullet, it does appear given the reality of today that we can't sustain a lifestyle based on cheap energy forever. As Erickson says, it's a matter of geology, not political philosophy.
I doubt my grandson will be going back to the horse and buggy days, but his life will be very different than mine. I always thought it was because his life would look more like the space-age fantasies with people jetting all over the world. Instead, his life may look more like that of our pioneers with their self-sufficiency and community spirit.
