The Oil Drum

Love him or hate him, I doubt many Peak Oil adherents think that Jim Kunstler is wrong about the unsustainability and gloomy future of America's sprawl culture.

View It And Weep -- Figure 1

It started for me this week when National Public Radio did a series of stories about Phoenix Grows and Grows (audio) which according to the latest US Census Bureau statistics, is now the fifth largest city in America. But we're not talking about suburban sprawl. The hottest new demographic is the growth of Exurbia, the suburbs beyond the suburbs.

When the secretaries of Energy and Interior went up to Capitol Hill last week, they were asked about energy reliability particularly as it relates to keeping the power supplied to refineries. Senator Domenici began

I would think there should be some possibilities for us to prevent the shutdown of the oil and gas industry. The problem seems not to be physical impacts from the storms, but making sure there's still electricity to keep these facilities running."

 Earlier, Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) asked the two secretaries if they knew of any changes that would be made in electricity transmission systems along the Gulf Coast as a result of the two storms.

 "I don't have specific recommendations," Bodman replied. "I'm assuming that when the transmission lines are reconstructed in western Louisiana, they will be built to higher codes."

 Landrieu wasn't satisfied. "This is a very integrated energy system. You can have the most sophisticated production platforms, pipeline systems, and refineries," she observed. "But if we haven't spent two minutes considering how we get electricity to them during and following an emergency, we can't expect them to continue functioning reliably."

 One thing that was apparent down there was that in cases where the power lines started to fall, the weight of one collapse brought down the rest, like a row of dominoes. There was one place we saw where the burn scar ran for probably two or three blocks.