Richard Heinberg has been fairly specific about the dimensions of the challenge. He estimates that due to fossil fuel depletion and decreasing exports we could easily see a 25-40% decline in available energy over the next two or three decades. He calculates that in but a very few nations probably no more than 25% of the energy currently being consumed could be replaced by alternative/renewable sources by 2030. So for fossil fuel importing nations like the U.S., says Heinberg, it would be prudent to anticipate and plan for at least a 25% decline in total energy by that time. That would certainly change the face of modern society!


But with the energy revolution green-shooting all over the planet, won’t alternative sources of energy quickly replace the oil we’re using? No, suggest scientists at Stanford Research Institute, who noted that the 83 million or so barrels of oil we’re burning every day to run the world adds up to just about one cubic mile of oil (CMO) per year. An enormous amount of energy is embedded in all that black liquid!

So what would it take to replace the oil we currently use? The SRI researchers say that to finally achieve that much energy output, every year for fifty years in a row we’d need to build the equivalent of four Three Gorges Dams (still the largest construction project in human history). Or bring 52 nuclear power plants online every year for fifty years. Or launch 104 coal-fired power plants every year for fifty years. Or, if you’d prefer a “cleaner” approach, we’d need to install 91 million solar panels or 33,000 wind turbines a year for fifty years in a row.

From this perspective we can say that certainly there will be alternatives to oil, but they are not likely to come on stream quickly enough or at large enough scale to maintain our current way of life. Gulp!