Dmitry Orlov's "Reinventing Collapse"

It's certainly worth reading, this new book by Peak Oil theorist and "collapse" thinker (he pointedly disavows the titles "expert" or "activist") Dmitry Orlov, a native-born Russian who witnessed first-hand the economic collapse of the Soviet Union in the late eighties and early nineties. The précis might be stated this way: the Soviet situation at the end of the USSR and the current American situation are strikingly similar. Overextended, bloated militaries; foreign wars gone wrong (Soviet: Afghanistan; American: Iraq, Afghanistan); crushing foreign debt; a declining currency; an unresponsive, incompetent central bureaucracy, etc. Add to these preconditions the looming crisis of Peak Oil, and you have an American economy set up for disaster.

Orlov's background is scientific, in engineering and computers, and he writes in a droll, frequently hilarious deadpan style about modern America. There is nothing malicious in the sometimes unfavorable comparisons he draws between the old Soviet Union and the USA, but he makes clear that there were definitely superior aspects to Soviet life which Americans, for ideological reasons, are incapable of seeing. Nevertheless, I don't think he wrote the book to settle any old scores or out of resentment, not at all. He seems like a man incapable of envy or even of much caring who has the upper hand.

The precipitating event for America's collapse (and he means this literally) is Peak Oil and its consequences. He sees the USA returning to an agrarian, atavistic society intent mainly on sheer physical survival. Orlov contends that in some ways the USA is less prepared for such a fall than the old USSR. For one main reason, the USSR was far less dependent on the private auto as a means of transportation, whereas the United States is practically helpless without it. Soviet housing and medical care were provided by the government, so that when hyperinflation hit, and the ruble became worthless, the residents were not turned out into the street or denied health care. Obviously, neither of these situations obtains in the USA. Those who do not own their own "shelter" and some modicum of arable land (at least 1,000 square feet) when disaster hits are likely to become homeless nomads.

Orlov, in common with other Peak Oil theorists I've read (such as James Kunstler), denies that "technological" fixes can save us from this future. No combination of renewable energy or conservation will rescue us. Sometimes their insistence upon disaster suggests to me that Peak Oil is cultist, in some ways, a kind of End Times dystopia, and their revulsion with the look and feel of modern America lies at the base of a destructive fantasy.

But Peak Oil is not like Y2K or waiting for the Hale-Bopp comet. If you go over to theoildrum.com and noodle around, you'll discover there's an awful lot to what Orlov is saying. For instance, the depletion rate for oil worldwide exceeds the rate of new discoveries coming on line by a factor of four. The depletion rate is defined as the downward trend of production of existing fields (as pressure is lost over time and water intrudes, the rate of extraction from a field goes downhill) plus the growth in demand. Currently, the world's oil fields are producing about 85 million barrels per day, and everyone except Saudi Arabia is pumping full-out. Some of the exporters we depend on are going to start hoarding their own supply because their fields are playing out (Mexico, e.g.). Demand at least equals supply. We're in an unstable equilibrium, and the U.S. takes a way disproportionate 20 million barrels a day, 14 million imported. The United States hit its own peak in 1970, and the Peakies say the world hit one in mid-2005. There are new fields which could be drilled, in Iraq, off the coasts of the USA and Brazil, in Alaska. The problem is that new fields are no match for the depletion rate even under best case scenarios. We're going to steadily lose ground. All that new discoveries can do is retard the onset of shortages.

None of this sounds much like Y2K, much as we would like it to. Neither does the realization that oil costs 5 times as much per barrel now as it did when Bush took office.

You know, I have to confess something here. Dmitry Orlov, while I was reading his book? He didn't seem hysterical at all. Thing is, he seemed really, really smart. He's given up the idea of motivating people to do anything, if he ever entertained the notion, because he can't see it happening. Anything which might work is politically impossible. One of those paradoxes, like the slow-as-molasses response to global warming. How can things which are crucial to survival be politically impossible?

Ken Deffeyes, the Princeton geologist and author of Hubbert's Peak - The Impending Oil Shortage Crisis, does something which Orlov does not do; he places the problem on some sort of time line. At oil's current price, fluctuating at about $130 per barrel, about 6-1/2% of the world's total domestic product is being consumed in buying petroleum. His estimate is that at $300 per barrel and about 15%, the world's economies will go into shutdown. Extrapolating from recent price rises, this might happen in 6 to 24 months. $300 per barrel oil translates to about $12 per gallon gasoline. A car with a 15 gallon tank would cost $180 for a fill-up. If you're driving a Lincoln Navigator or an Escalade and getting 15 mpg, it will cost you $12 to drive 15 miles, or 80 cents a mile. A 45 mpg Prius will allow you to drive 15 miles for four bucks. Those prices do sound crippling, and it's important to remember that if you consider the myriad applications of petroleum in agriculture and manufacturing, the cost increases are incorporated nearly everywhere you look.

The question forming in my mind is not how could this happen here, but the more ominous: why won't it? Probably what gives Peak Oil and the idea of impending disaster its air of unreality is the official silence and the lack of concern in the popular media. No blockbuster movies (okay, Road Warrior), no documentaries, no speeches by President Bush other than the occasional reference to our "addiction." How could something this dire be potentially this close with a "gas tax holiday" for the summer as the only official reaction? Dmitry would have a droll response; personally, I think mine will be to find a nice level lot with a high water table.