[a true account of a day inside the energy dispersion machine]


> [play] >


Into the car. Accelerate onto the freeway. Burn those hydrocarbons. Running on empty. Take the long way home to stop at the cheap gas station. Blast over the lake, concrete floating on water, dripping oil, antifreeze, rubber. Crest the hill, there's downtown, the stadium, the Space Needle, steel giants glowing in the cool night air. Exit right.

At the corner of James and 12th is the Shell station. One block down at Jefferson is Arco. Whose gas is cheaper today? My debit card is expired, and cash is running low. So let's put it on plastic. Wait, Arco doesn't take credit. Cash only, baby. No prices on the glowing yellow Shell sign. That's odd. Pull into the station. The pumps are off. White sheets of paper taped to every pump read:

"Temporarily out of gas."


< < [rewind] < <


Election Day. Drop the ballot in the mail. I voted against the monorail even though traffic is awful and Seattle desperately needs good mass transit. This is only one of many contradictions I live every day. At least I voted Yes on the increased gas tax. I drive to work.


> > [fast forward] > >


Our people and the people at California Independent System Operator (ISO) drone on about the gritty details of the project deadlines. Already over a year behind schedule and over budget, things look bad on both sides of the fence. For customer and vendor both, frustrations are high, miscommunications abound. Jobs and livelihoods hang in the balance.

My company is developing custom software for California ISO, the not-for-profit company charged with impartially operating California's electricity grid. [ http://www.caiso.com ] It is an important piece of software, as it calculates who owes whom money and how much of it in California's de-regulated wholesale electricity trading market. Of course, CAISO is just one of our many worldwide customers. We provide much more advanced and critical software to 7 of the 10 de-regulated U.S. energy markets. We sell our software all around the globe and have offices on every continent. Welcome to the insider's view of global real-time energy trading, a "free market" of buyers and sellers, exchanging electronic money for physical energy delivered instantly as electricity.

As I sit in my office this morning listening to voices materialize from 600 miles away, my mind wanders. I browse my favorite oil crash sites, voraciously absorbing every bit of information regarding the impending end of cheap, excessively abundant energy.

My mobile rings. It's Mom. Mute the conference call--priorities. There's a radio show on peak oil airing live on 88.5 KGNU, Boulder, CO in a few hours. Can't miss it. [Hear the replay of today's Metro: http://www.kgnu.org/ht/listencomp.html ]


> > [fast forward] > >


Steve Andrews, co-founder of Association for the Study of Peak Oil, has just signed off. Now Julian Darley, founder of the Post Carbon Institute and author of about-to-be-published Relocalize Now, is discussing the peak of oil production with the show's host and Michael Brownlee of Boulder Valley Relocalization [visit this group here on postcarbon.org]. Even though I live 1200 miles away, I call in to ask a question. After all, it's my home town, and I've been considering moving back. Living in the heart of Seattle is probably not the best place to weather the coming storm. So maybe Boulder, a smaller community with a much better preserved environment, is the place to be. And now here's my chance to find out how prepared my home town is for the crash. I pop the question:

"What, if any, kinds of studies have been done on the readiness of Boulder Valley? ...
How is Boulder Valley poised in terms of being able to provide, locally, all of the water, food, shelter, and heating supplies that all the residents in the area would need?"

The answers are not encouraging: No studies have been done. It's upon individuals to prepare. The storm is coming, and soon. Short-term preparations are critical. Light crude oil has likely already peaked. We may well have seen the end of $50/barrel oil. The peak of natural gas production will probably follow closely behind oil.


> > [fast forward] > >


Work is over. Time to go home. Get in the car. Should I get a new one? It's still an Audi, but 19 years is a long time for a car. It has no door handle. The seats are torn, the fenders are dented. Taillights and parking lights are broken. But it has real character. And expired custom California plates. Forget it, I'm running on empty. The needle is in the red. As the practical German owners manual states:
Time to refuel.

First, though, I want to check out some new ski gear. My gear is thrashed, hanging in threads.

--
Down with consumerism. You don't need more stuff. But I love skiing. But the chairlifts will shut down any day now. So? I have backcountry gear. I like hiking. You'll have a hard enough time getting food, water, and shelter. Forget about luxury pursuits like skiing. I can't. I love it. It is my raison d'etre.
--

I cruise through downtown Bellevue, one of the richest cities in America. I dodge B-mers, Mercedes and Audis operated by loonies in a rush to go nowhere. It feels like LA all over again. A cover of Peter Tosh's "Downpressor Man" struggles to emerge from my blown speakers and shorted-out stereo. My mind wanders to the modern wonder of big mountain skiing. Heli-skiing. To me, it is humanity's greatest invention. I went once. No joke. Warren Miller says every year about heli-sking, "If you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do." So three years ago, I went. $500. One day. Seven thundering, airborne ascents, seven milky-smooth, adrenaline-pumping descents.


< < [rewind] < <


We fly deep into remote mountains in the heart of winter. Like a magic carpet, the helicopter lifts us instantly and effortlessly up thousands of feet. We clamber out of the chopper onto a ridge so narrow the chopper's landing struts stick off both sides. Oil-powered gale-force winds press us down into the snow. White vortices swirl around my mesmerized head as that steel bug floats gently upward then descends madly from the mountaintop with stunning grace. Now it's time for some controlled freefall. Click in, drop in...

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> [play] >


I pull up at the ski shop and wait in the car to listen to the end of the new song by M.I.A. The shop door is locked. I can see through the glass that they are having a sales meeting. Beginning of November. Time to sell some skis. Customers demand educated salesman. Late night training sessions ensue. Last week, I saw the an identical late night sales training session, but at REI and with five times as many people.

Next door is Bergman Luggage. Two weeks ago I spent $200 on a "Travelpro" suitcase. I needed a piece luggage for my business trip to California. I thought many more trips were on the horizon for me, but it looks like I won't be doing all that much air travel after all. So I ask,

"What's the return policy?" 30 days, receipt, unused. Too bad environmental destruction doesn't have a return policy.


> > [fast forward] > >


Jarred by the "Temporarily out of gas" signs at Shell, I pull into Arco. Gas is $2.439. Two weeks ago it was over $3.00. A year from now, it will be over $5.00. I go inside, pull every last bill out of my wallet and hand it to the friendly black man behind the counter. It is a historic moment.

"Thirty-six dollars on pump seven, please."

I tell the cashier that one day soon a lot of people coming inside will be handing over every last bill in their wallets. He smiles, we talk. Shell has been out of gas since Saturday. He is from Ethiopia. This makes the third Ethiopian I've met in 2 weeks, 2 cabbies and now a gas station attendant. A friend of his from Ethiopia works at an Arco in Santa Monica. As I walk out, I wonder if America after the crash will be worse off than Africa.

At the pump, I pick up the gas gun. The final faucet at the end of a long, long energy pipeline. As the nozzle penetrates the fuel tank I am acutely aware of Man's domination [over nature, over women, over life]. I pull the trigger. That satisfying pressure forces me to hold the handle tight. Through the plastic I feel that black-turned-gold liquid gush forth in a furious stream. It's just like a hundreds times before, but this time it's different.

I lean back on the car and watch the numbers roll. Black digits on a glowing orange screen. Two sets of numbers. One hasn't changed in 100 years; it counts in units of energy. The other number suddenly seems meaningless, an artificial contrivance, an imaginary currency that has ensnared the world. Most people only pay attention to the meaningless number.

I glance to my left at the wall of the building. "Too much good stuff" the sign says. Truly. Too much.

To my right, a sign reminds me to "Look both ways." I think of the Past. I think of the Future. I think of Now. We have reached The Peak.


|| [pause] ||


---------------------------------------

today
we have reached the Pinnacle
of human achievement
of human insanity

The most productive
most destructive
civilization
that ever was
or ever will be

---------------------------------------

Energy, transported as electric power,
is traded for money in real-time,
every minute of every day,
day-in and day-out,
year-round,
worldwide.

California, Texas, Florida,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland,
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
and on and on....

New Zealand, Australia,
Germany, France,
Switzerland, Italy,
and on and on....

Russia, Romania,
Philippines, Africa,
and on and on...

---------------------------------------

Energy is the Real Currency,
not gold,
not pieces of paper,
not electronic bits.

[Energy Transformed]
Hundreds of massive plants:
nuclear reactors > >
atoms splitting,
water boiling,
magnets spinning,
toxic sludge oozing;
coal incinerators > >
massive machines pulverizing coal,
black dust combusting,
water boiling,
magnets spinning,
acid and mercury descending from the sky;
gas turbines > >
jet engines exploding natural gas,
magnets spinning,
carbon dioxide wreaking chaos;
dams > >
narrow tunnels channeling a million gallons of water,
magnets spinning,
concrete blockades stopping the flow of life.

[Energy Transported]
steel towers stretching
thousands of miles
to the horizon

wires guiding oscillations
of unseen energy fields
to the outlet

[Energy Dispersed]
atoms decaying,
light emerging,
particles flying,
heat exchanging.

electrons jumping,
light emerging,
heat exchanging.

molecules colliding,
heat exchanging.

[Energy]
never consumed,
always conserved,
chaos increases.