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The Peak Oil Crisis and
Water Supply
Much is being made
about the "Peak Oil Crisis" in the media today. Gasoline and natural gas
prices are high and continue to rise. But what is the "peak oil crisis"
and how does it impact our water supply?
Peak Oil is
discussed and defined in an excellent book by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
entitled “Beyond Oil, The View from Hubbert's Peak”. As
Mr. Deffeyes notes:
"The supply of oil in the ground is not
infinite. Someday, annual world crude oil production has to reach a peak
and start to decline."
This is the crux of
"peak oil." However, we have always thought that this peak oil
decline is in the future sometime, to be dealt with by future
generations like many of our other problems.
Mr. Deffeyes goes
on:
"It is my opinion that the peak will
occur in late 2005 or in the first few months of 2006."
About the United
States, he continues:
"I nominate Thanksgiving Day, November
24, 2005 as World Oil Peak Day. We can pause and give thanks for the
years 1901 to 2005 when abundant oil and natural gas fueled enormous
changes in our society. At the same time, we have to face up to reality:
World oil production is going to decline, slowly at first and then more
rapidly."
If this is true,
then we can not leave the problem to future generations. People around
the world and the leaders of the world's countries need to take action.
This is particularly true of the leading energy using countries like the
United States, China and India, as well as the countries of the European
Union.
The real issue is
energy, which goes beyond oil supplies. Much of our energy is supplied
directly or indirectly by the use of oil and natural gas. Energy in the
form of hydrocarbons and electricity fuels our world today. Essentially
declining oil supplies mean less energy available to fuel our world.
This means less gasoline and electricity as well as less food, plastic,
steel, concrete, lumber and asphalt paving to name a few.
How does this impact
our water supplies?
How are water and
energy linked? In my book “Understanding
Water and Terrorism”, I note that two of our nation's critical
infrastructures are the water supply systems and the electrical grid. A
third major infrastructure is the transportation system.
Simply put, without
energy most of our nation's water supply would cease to work. Energy in
the form of electricity, diesel and natural gas is used to pump and
process our raw water into clean drinking water. Chemicals and supplies
for our water treatment plants and our water distribution systems are
transported by truck, air and rail.
"But I am in a
rural community or live on a farm, far from the large city water
supplies," you say. Your community still has to pump the water into the
distribution lines and maintain line pressure. If you live on a farm or
in a rural setting, you probably have a pump for your well, which uses
energy.
Another issue is
fire protection. One of the main uses of water is to fight fires,
whether building fires or wildfires. A good example of the problem was
the lack of water for fire protection after Hurricane Katrina in New
Orleans. Part of New Orleans was burned because there were no pumps,
electricity, water or water pressure to fight the fires.
Water and
agriculture around the world is very closely linked. We can not grow
food without water. Water is critical to our food supply. Much of the
water used to irrigate our crops is pumped from the ground, or pumped
from rivers and lakes onto fields. In California, water is pumped
through long irrigation canals stretching hundreds of miles from the
Colorado River to the fields. Modern irrigation systems are very
dependent on energy sources such as electricity, diesel or natural gas.
But What Can I Do about
this?
One way you can
help yourself and our nation get through this crisis is to become
informed. There are several very good books on the market today that
will give you some background and a basic understanding of the issues.
You can then make decisions affecting your family and your future based
on a "heightened level of awareness."
This will also have
an impact on the world that we leave to future generations. Without this
awareness, we leave the decisions to our "leaders." We essentially take
ourselves out of the "loop" and let others dictate our future. While our
leaders may be well meaning, they need help. It may be easier to take
popular positions based on a "60 second media newsbyte" or follow the
position of our political party, but these rarely if ever result in a
satisfactory long term solution to any problem. This is especially true
of our current energy crisis, which is a survival issue for the United
States.
H. Court Young
© 2006, H. Court Young
is the author of two books about water and water supply
security, Understanding Water and Terrorism
and Understanding Water
Rights and Conflicts, Second Edition. He is a writer, author and publisher writing about
water, security and terrorism issues. He is also an
eBook publisher with eBooks about meteorites, and World
War II. For more information visit
http://www.tmcco.com
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