Major kudos to Ailee Slater for her column about Peak Oil (“A ‘peak’ into oil’s future,” ODE May 16). This issue is the most underreported story out there, and I was elated to see the Emerald get the issue out.
Ailee’s column fell tragically short, though, of presenting the full scope of peak oil’s ramifications.
The most predictable result is what will happen to our globalized,
oil-based economy when declining oil supplies shoot gasoline prices to $5, $7 and even $10 per gallon. How will goods get from China? How do we get to work, school or the store in this reality? Further consider that the U.S. dollar’s strength is largely contingent on cheap, widely available petroleum.
Our food supplies are also in real trouble as this progresses. Consider that the average food item travels 1500 miles, and it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel for every one calorie of food produced. Pesticides, fertilizers, tractors and semis — all are based on petroleum. Recent increases in oil costs have bumped costs for farmers to
10 percent — consider what happens when oil doubles or triples in price in the coming decade.
Hydrogen to the rescue? Sorry — hydrogen is an energy medium, not an energy source. You’ve got to burn something (oil, coal, nuclear material) to get hydrogen. Hydrogen will not save us.
The only alternative, as Professor Richard Heinberg and others have done well to demonstrate, is to power down. We must use less energy if we ever hope to adequately weather this imminent crisis. Ride your bike. Live closer to work and school. Buy local food; grow some of it yourself. Advocate for measures to stop sprawl. As peak oil demands that our globalized economy be relocalized, we must be sober in our response. We must stop chasing the American Dream and live on less, if we can hope to live at all.

Brandon Rhodes
Senior