We are trying to do everything.

Save the banks, save the automakers, build out a smart grid, create jobs, yet not 'be held hostage to dwindling resources'. Can this be accomplished? We need energy to do work. We need cheap energy to have growth for this many people and for those recently joining the global stage. We need growth (or at least the perception of it) to have debt in order to finance future industry, whether the industry is basic goods or more discretionary pursuits. But via receding horizons (depletion outpacing technology), energy costs will outpace energy revenues (in aggregate, declining energy surplus), and a compressed time horizon will require prioritization.

(From: Beyond Oil: the Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades; John Gever et al.; p. 225)

Though dated, the above graphic shows (green) starting early to solve the problem of transition to a world of less liquid fuel and (red) waiting until the 'market signal' (aka last moment) - the net energy available to society (due to continued energy expenditures on 'un-economic growth') passes through a period of perilous scarcity. In Matt Simmons latest presentation(pdf), he suggests the need for up to $100 trillion to upgrade the rust and aging energy delivery infrastructure - this is 2 orders of magnitude larger than the $850 billion stimulus package voted on last night, and triple the total global stock market capitalization.

Cutler Cleveland at Boston U. kindly scanned the entire 'Beyond Oil' book at the above link which is an excellent introduction to the energy choices we face -(particularly Chapter 7.)

Below the fold is a POLL on what you think is possible given our resource constraints.

This is a guest post by Sterling Smith (TOD user Sterling). This first installment of the series outlines the evolution of the energy panorama from now to 2050. A second installment will deal with technical and political aspects of the path put forward.

Sterling is a software architect who works in Silicon Valley and lives in Woodside, California. He was born in the suburbs of New York City and graduated from Dartmouth College, where he majored in physics. He has worked in the software business for 35 years, still writes code, and has been part of eleven start-ups as well as several major corporations. Sterling's wife, Deborah Metzger, PhD, MD, is a very prominent gynecologist with whom he is raising four kids.