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Petrocollapse Round-Up: Dr. John Darnell

Posted by Glenn on October 6, 2005 - 9:56pm in The Oil Drum: Local

Dr. John Darnell PhD., Roscoe Bartlett's energy advisor, gave a 35 minute presentation on adaptation lessons from the Apollo 13 mission that we could apply to the problem of peak oil. Overall he struck me as being the most optimistic person that spoke at the conference and that's not saying much since in any other room, he would be considered an alarmist. His style was low-key and less dramatic than Kunstler, but no less effective at conveying the magnitude of the problem and the need to take immediate action to reduce demand.

His proposal is to reduce demand is a controlled annual 5% reduction (worldwide I assume) ahead of the geological decline rate to provide a hydrocarbon cushion for the future to help transition to a low energy economy and give time for alternatives to ramp up. He gave several examples of an energy self sufficient house, a 300 mpg car and other ways of reducing energy consumption.

More about the Apollo analogy and what he told us about Roscoe's meeting with President Bush below the fold.

Dr. Darnell explained how Jim Lovell, the other two Apollo 13 astronauts and mission control adapted to new circumstances after a malfunction aborted their attempted Moon landing mission by:

  1. Recognizing the problem and switching course - aiming to slingshot around the Moon to save fuel instead of attempting to land on it. That means we need to alter our energy consumption course and start understanding what type of course is feasible within the limits of our circumstance.

  2. Once they had changed course the next step was surviving the trip. They faced an immediate shortage of electrical power and oxygen unless they severely cut back power use and got into the Lunar Expedition Module (LEM) which served as a temporary lifeboat during much of the journey home, until they prepared for maneuver to land on Earth.

  3. Work Cooperatively both in the Apollo spaceship as well as mission control to figure out creative solutions to make it through the crisis and land safely on Earth. Only through close collaboration, experimentation and good communication did they find all the right answers to get home safely.

After the conference, a small group of folks including one of the volunteers (Mitch) and Michael Kane (another speaker) asked him about the awareness at the highest levels of government. As many of you know, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett met with President Bush on June 29th. Basically Roscoe asked the President what his legacy will be given the war in Iraq is not going well, the deficit is high, Social Security reform is on the backburner of the Republican Congress and his popularity is getting lower. Rep. Bartlett basically proposed a crash program of preparing America for the implications of peak oil as soon as possible. While Dr. Darnell (you can call him John when he has a pint in his hand) says that the highest levels of government is aware of the peak oil problem, he says that they are afraid of creating a panic prematurely. He added that local government is probably not very aware of the problem being as imminent.

Personally, I think that's exactly why we need to get in front of our local community organizations and explain to them how we need to start preparing for the worst case scenario now.

One trick he recommended that you do when you write to a local paper: Include your local representative's name in the letter. That way their staff will have to read it and usually pass it on to the representative themselves.

Petrocollapse Round-Up: Dr. John Darnell

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4 comments

apsmith on October 6, 2005 - 10:25pm Permalink | Comments top
I was definitely most impressed with Darnell - I don't know if he or Bartlett himself (who has a medical background) is the main force behind the work; perhaps they work closely together on it. The Apollo-13 analogy is one Bartlett himself used at his recent Maryland conference, and I expect the viewgraphs are the same or similar... Also they referred to some recent numbers from John Howe (author of "Last Chance for Sustainability" or something like that?), who spoke at Bartlett's conference.

I think the 5%/year plan is from Howe in fact. It's a good idea, but I can't imagine how you would implement it unless through some sort of rationing scheme (which of course was one of the signs of the apocalypse from Ruppert...)

Darnell's discussion of policy choices was interesting. He put up a couple of X-Y plots, one with "time/cost" on one axis and "savings" on the other - and solutions ranging from voluntary (lower left) to monetary incentives, retrofits, and new technologies at the upper right. Another of these had "short term private interest" (positive or negative) and "long term public interest" (positive or negative) as the two axes; the top half (what's in short term private interest) is what the free market gives you; the right side (long term public interest) should be what good government can do. And it's those things in the lower right corner that are impossible to do without good government... one of the best brief arguments I've seen for government action.

One example here was LED's or compact fluorescents for lighting. These cost much more than incandescent bulbs up front, but last longer and use tremendously less electric energy over time, so it's to everybody's benefit to subsidize that up-front cost somehow.

Darnell also showed a conceptual plot of working toward a solution he called "reverse engineering a vision of a sustainable future" - we figure out what the sustainable world we want is going to need, and work backward from there. That basically eliminates bio-fuels (Pimentel's point), but there are many other technology options; Darnell seemed to be almost pleading for help in picking the right ones.

Overall I thought very very encouraging, that somebody with at least some voice in our highest levels of government has a good sense of what needs to be done. Whether this can actually sustain itself to a solution, well, maybe we can help make that happen...

Glenn on October 6, 2005 - 10:53pm Permalink | Parent | Comments top
Yes, all of those elements were in his speech / presentation - thank you for mentioning them. I would love to get some of his visuals - they were very compelling ideas.
helium3 on October 9, 2005 - 1:22am Permalink | Parent | Comments top
Darnell also showed a conceptual plot of working toward a solution he called "reverse engineering a vision of a sustainable future" - we figure out what the sustainable world we want is going to need, and work backward from there. That basically eliminates bio-fuels (Pimentel's point), but there are many other technology options; Darnell seemed to be almost pleading for help in picking the right ones.

That's the way to do it.

Yosemite Sam on October 7, 2005 - 11:20pm Permalink | Comments top
I was fortunate enough to sit next to John Darnell at the conference at Yellow Springs.  I was very impressed even though he did not speak.

John, if you are reading this, get Rep. Bartlett to run for President!  He is too conservative in many ways, but I might even vote for somebody who is a truth teller.

The one thing that John said several times was that Bartlett could be pursuaded to change his mind because of his scientific background.

Petrocollapse Round-Up: Dr. John Darnell

PDF version

4 comments