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| Oil shale Mountain Western Colorado |
Excerpt, editing by
Carolyn Bennett
Michael Klare appeared today on a segment of KPFA’s “Upfront”
program and talked about ideas laid out in his article “The Third Carbon Age.”
It was my introduction to the professor and I found in his concerns mine.
Professor Michael Klare is credited with having coined the
concept “extreme energy” to describe “a range of techniques for the production
of energy from unconventional resources which share characteristics of being
environmentally damaging or risky.”
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| Professor Klare |
E.g., exploitation of oil sands and
shale oil, deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing, mountaintop removal
mining, petroleum exploration in the Arctic, and natural gas hydrates.
Michael T. Klare is Five Colleges Professor of peace and
world security studies (PAWSS) and director of the Five College Program in
Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS). Based at Hampshire College, Klare also
teaches at Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the
University of Massachusetts Amherst. Among his most recent books are Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences
of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (2004); Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New
Geopolitics of Energy (2008); The
Race for What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources
(2012). He holds graduate degrees from Columbia
University (M.A.) and Union Institute (Ph.D.) and has written widely on U.S.
military policy, international peace and security affairs, the global arms
trade, and global resource politics.
These are some notes edited from his article “The Third
Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re Heading for an Era of Renewable
Energy.
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| Coal mining |
Empire, Wealth, War: BRITAIN
First Carbon Era: Coal
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| Empire Over-reach |
The first carbon era began in the late eighteenth century,
with the introduction of coal-powered steam engines and their widespread
application to all manner of industrial enterprises. Initially used to power
textile mills and industrial plants, coal was also employed in transportation
(steam-powered ships and railroads), mining, and the large-scale production of
iron. What we now call the
Industrial Revolution was largely comprised of the widening application of coal
and steam power to productive activities.
Eventually, coal would also be used to generate electricity, a field in
which it remains dominant today.
This was the era in which vast armies of hard-pressed
workers built continent-spanning railroads and mammoth textile mills as factory
towns proliferated and cities grew. It
was the era, above all, of the expansion of the British Empire. For a time, Great Britain was the biggest
producer and consumer of coal, the world’s leading manufacturer, its top
industrial innovator, and its dominant power -- and all of these attributes
were inextricably connected. By
mastering the technology of coal, a small island off the coast of Europe was
able to accumulate vast wealth, develop the world’s most advanced weaponry, and
control the global sea-lanes.
War, Wealth, Global expansion: USA
Second Carbon Era: Black Gold
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| Mountaintop Removal |
The Oil Age began in 1859 and before 1940, it was important
in illumination and lubrication but after the Second World War “oil became the
world’s principal source of energy. Ten 10
million barrels daily in 1950 rose to 77 million daily global-consumption barrels
in 2000.
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| Mountaintop Removal |
As coal had risen to prominence by fueling steam engines, oil
rose to prominence fueling the world’s growing fleets of cars, trucks, planes,
trains, and ships; and in 2013, petroleum supplies an estimated 97 percent of
all energy used in transportation worldwide.
Agriculture and warfare drove the prominence of oil. In a relatively
short period of time
On farms around the world oil-powered
tractors and other agricultural machines replaced animals as the primary source
of power
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| Oil spill |
On the modern battlefield
oil-powered tanks and planes replaced the cavalry as the main source of
offensive power.
Post World War II years saw mass automobile ownership,
continent-spanning highways, endless suburbs, giant malls, cheap flights,
mechanized agriculture, artificial fibers, and -- above all else -- the global
expansion of American power.
The United States rose as the richest, most powerful country
of the twenty-first century because it “possessed mammoth reserves of oil, was
the first to master the technology of oil extraction and refining, and was most
successful at using petroleum in transportation, manufacturing, agriculture,
and war.”
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| Oil spill |
Oil technology allowed the United States ─
…to accumulate staggering levels of
wealth,
…to deploy armies and military
bases on every continent, and
…to control the global air space
and sea-lanes – thus extending its power to every corner of the planet.
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But “
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…As Britain experienced negative consequences from its
excessive reliance on coal, so the United States -- and the rest of the world
-- has suffered in various ways from its reliance on oil.”
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| Shale |
More War, more Global expansion, Wealth ltd: USA
Third Carbon Age
Age of Unconventional Oil and Gas
In contemporary times, humanity is not entering an Age of
Renewables but “the third great carbon era, the Age of Unconventional Oil and
Gas.” This a reality that should alarm all of us, Michael Klare writes.
“Hydro-fracking -- the use of high-pressure water columns to
shatter underground shale formations and liberate the oil and natural gas
supplies trapped within them -- is being undertaken in ever more regions of the
United States and in a growing number of foreign countries.” In Canada, Venezuela and elsewhere “the
exploitation of carbon-dirty heavy oil and tar sands formations is accelerating.”
In a world where conventional oil and gas supply is rapidly disappearing
and global demand for fossil fuels is rising and the world’s energy supply is
increasingly provided by unconventional fuels, “one thing is guaranteed,” Klare
says:
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| Water scarcity |
…global carbon emissions will soar
far beyond our current worst-case assumptions, meaning intense heat waves will
become commonplace and our few remaining wilderness areas will be eviscerated.
Planet Earth will be a far harsher,
possibly unimaginably harsher and more blistering place.
As the global supplies of conventional gas and conventional
oil shrink, “we are becoming increasingly dependent on unconventional sources
of supply -- especially from the Arctic, the deep oceans, and shale rock via
hydraulic fracturing.
In 2011, the International Energy
Agency predicted that production of unconventional oil, mostly from heavy oil
or oil sands in Venezuela and Canada, will reach 10 million barrels a day by
2035. [Wikipedia]
“In certain ways,” Klare says, “unconventional hydrocarbons
are akin to conventional fuels but they are largely composed of hydrogen and
carbon and can be burned to produce heat and energy. And in time, the differences between conventional and
unconventional oil and gas will make a greater and greater difference to us.
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| Hydraulic fracturing site |
Unconventional fuels -- especially
heavy oils and tar sands -- tend to possess a higher proportion of carbon to
hydrogen than conventional oil …and so release more carbon dioxide
when burned.
Arctic and deep-offshore oil
require more energy to extract, and so produce higher carbon emissions in their
very production.
Unconventional fuels’ most worrisome consequence ─ that is, the
distinctive nature of these fuels ─ is their extreme impact on the
environment.
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| U.S. Over-reach |
Because they are often
characterized by higher ratios of carbon to hydrogen, and generally require
more energy to extract and to be converted into usable materials, they produce
more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy released.
Many scientists believe the process
that produces shale gas (hailed as a ‘clean’ fossil fuel) causes widespread
releases of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.
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| Water scarcity Drought |
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As consumption of fossil fuels grows, increasing not
decreasing amounts of CO2 and methane will be released into the atmosphere. Instead
of slowing global warming this consumption will speed up global warming.
Production of unconventional oil and gas requires vast
amounts of water (for fracking operations, to extract tar sands and extra-heavy
oil, and to facilitate the transport and refining of such fuels) thus creating a
growing threat of water contamination, especially in areas of intense fracking
and tar sands production. In addition to water contamination is the problem of systemic
disruption because of for-profit competition among drillers, farmers, municipal
water authorities and others. As climate
change intensifies, drought becomes the norm and competition becomes more vicious. | |
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Character of War (brute force) inside and out: domestic and foreign
“U.S. and Canadian companies are playing a decisive role in
the development of many of the vital new unconventional fossil-fuel
technologies [and] some of the world’s largest unconventional oil and gas
reserves are located in North America” thus effecting a reinforcement of U.S.
global power at the expense of rival energy producing countries such as Russia
and Venezuela and energy-importing states such as China and India that lack the
resources and technology to produce unconventional fuels.
“Washington,” Klare says, “appears more inclined to counter
the rise of China by seeking to dominate global sea lanes and bolster U.S. military
ties with regional allies like Australia, India, Japan, the Philippines, and
South Korea.”
What to do
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H
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umanity’s survival, “before we burn ourselves off this
planet,” Klare says, depends on our becoming “much smarter about the new kind
of energy” and taking necessary steps to constrict the third carbon era and with
haste usher in “the Age of Renewables.”
Shorten era, avert outcomes: What is required, Klare says,
is “a systemic drive to identify and resist those responsible for our growing
reliance on unconventional fuels.
“…Calling for greater investment in green energy is
essential but insufficient at a
moment when the powers that be are emphasizing the development of
unconventional fuels.
“Campaigning for curbs on carbon emissions is necessary but will undoubtedly prove
problematic, given an increasingly deeply embedded institutional bias
toward unconventional energy.”
Together with calling for greater green-energy investment
and campaigning for curbs on carbon emissions ─ though some actions are underway,
such as student-initiated campaigns to persuade or compel college and
university trustees to disinvest from fossil-fuel companies, they fall short of
a systemic drive to identify and resist those responsible for our growing
reliance on unconventional fuels ─ more is needed, he says.
There must be “a
drive to expose the distinctiveness and the dangers of unconventional energy
and to demonize those who choose to invest in these fuels rather than their
green alternatives.”
Sources and notes
“The Third Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re
Heading for an Era of Renewable Energy” (by Michael T. Klare), August 6, 2013, Tomgram:
“Michael Klare, How to Fry a Planet,” Posted by Michael Klare at 8:17am, August
8, 2013, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175734/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_how_to_fry_a_planet
Michael T. Klare biographical notes at:
TomDispatch, http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/michaelklare/
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Klare
Hampshire College, http://www.hampshire.edu/faculty/mklare.htm
“Upfront” at Pacifica’s KPFA, August 22, 2013, http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/94580
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a production-boosting
technique in which large amounts of water, sand and chemicals are injected into
shale (fissile rock) formations to force hydrocarbon fuels to the surface.
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