Dana Blankenhorn

After the War on Oil

As the war drums beat post-war planning isn’t given a second thought. (To the right, the Air-Gen, which pulls energy directly from the air.)

We can do better. We need to do better regarding the War Against Oil.

Make no mistake. The War Against Oil, which I first wrote about over a decade ago, is behind our current crises. Saudi efforts to destabilize the Middle East are funded by oil. Russian efforts to destabilize the U.S. are built on oil. Trump is all about oil.

But oil is losing. Oil is doomed. The coronavirus, COVID-19, proves it. The International Energy Agency now sees falling global demand for oil at the end of the year.

We should have seen this coming. While Democrats were arguing about “banning fracking,” the frackers were flaring off more natural gas than ever before. Even with that, they couldn’t get $2/mcf for it. The UAE recently said it found a giant pool of gas, close to its export terminals. Texas gas is losing what markets are left.

2020: The Crisis

“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” 

Thomas Paine (right) died penniless in 1809, the forgotten Founder. He died that way because he was a writer, not a politician. His writing was a demand, not a request or a negotiation. The words above were read to Washington’s men before they crossed the river at Trenton. Paine made ours a revolution, not just for the patrician, but the working man. Not just for the General, but for the private. Not just for those who would lead, but those who would die. 

Every crisis has casualties. The year 1968 was marked by terrible casualties. The Great Depression and the following war killed tens of millions of people. The Civil War killed 2% of this country’s people, mostly young men in the prime of life.

Compared to that, the Crisis caused by Trump should be easy to overcome, its casualties minimal. But that won’t be. His Presidency reeks of all the worst in our history. It combines the greed of those around Warren Harding, the weakness of James Buchanan, and the racism of Andrew Jackson. The crimes are all done in plain sight, as Nixon’s crimes were done.

We’ve had some bad men in the White House, but never one whose soul belonged to another country. Trump is Putin’s man. It’s that simple. We beat Russia in the Cold War, but revenge is a dish served cold, and Trump is Russia’s revenge.

The year to come will be all about Trump. It can’t be about anything else. Can America throw off a foreign dictator when he’s already in the White House? Will we stand, once again, against the racism, the misogyny, and the brutality our forefathers fought against? Are we Americans or docile Soviets?

Against the Mullahs, against Moolah, against the militarists, the three arms of the triad that has kept the developing world in bondage for centuries, it seems we have only words, faith, and hope. The question seems simple. Whose side are you on – America’s or Russia’s? But those who fear the loss of their power over other races, and over women, won’t be swayed by words. It’s going to take the hard work of all of us to win this, and even if we win the battle the war to save the planet will have just begun.

Where Have You Gone, Al Gore?

The Sun shines. The wind blows. The tides roll. We live on a molten rock.

Yet in 2019 California’s electricity was still running through a centralized system that was obsolete 20 years ago, when then-Vice President Al Gore coined the term “enternet,” predicting renewables could make the energy grid resilient. 

Now that his vision is possible, he’s silent.

Ordinary people are now way ahead institutions of this. Residential solar is growing at 30% per year.  The fastest growing occupation over the next decade is expected to be that of a solar power installer.  Old solar panels are even recyclable, into anodes for new solar panels.

The 2020s: A Future in Three Parts

Moore’s Law accelerates change. Aging accelerates time.

Hard as it may be for me to believe, the 2010s will be over in less than 5 months.

In technology the last decade has been a Golden Age for clouds and devices. So, too, in business and in politics. The refusal of cloud companies to lock-down their technology elected Donald Trump. The result has been a march toward civil war, global war, trade war, the biggest crisis since the late 1960s.

But you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Moore’s Law of Health means I may live much longer than my parents did, long after history should have rolled over me. At least that’s true in those places where people can afford medical care. The likeliest replacements for Donald Trump are both older than he is. Al Gore is younger than either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. We’re still debating Woodstock, 50 years on.

We’re going to start turning the page on the current era in 2020. The hold of the autocrats is weakening. It’s weakening in Russia. It’s weakening in China. It’s weakening in Texas.

Moore’s Law continues marching onward, better and better, faster and faster, reaching further and further afield.

In this decade it has made Africa accessible to global markets, made India as well as China an economic power. Over 1 billion people have entered the middle class this century – they have homes, some material comforts, and they have hope.

What might the next decade bring? If I make it to the end of this decade, I’ll be 75, so this may be my last shot at predicting the future.

But here goes.

The 1979 Game

An industry’s takeover of politics tends to be defensive.

It happens when that industry seems to be riding high. It acts against leaders whom neutral observers may credit with that rise.

I covered this story 40 years ago. In Houston.

The oil industry did great in 1979, despite Jimmy Carter’s cardigan sweater. Saudi Arabia, more Texas’ ally than America’s, had proven the economic power of resources with its 1973 embargo. Iranian mullahs believed they could use the same economic force against America. Oil understood this as a threat to its interests. Carter saw oil’s profits as leverage he could use against the Iranians.

Fall of the House of Oil

There is no energy shortage. The sun shines. The wind blows. The tides roll. We live on a molten rock.

At the start of this decade, when I first began covering the War Against Oil, and changed the sub-head of this blog to reflect that, I believed the key to victory was bringing enough investment to the space, public and private, so that the cost of renewable energy would fall below that of fossil fuels.

It’s happened.

Crossover happened just as I expected, in 2016. The cost of energy from solar panels is now lower than that from burning coal. The cost of energy from windmills is now falling below that of burning natural gas.

The only thing keeping fossil fuels alive in the big utility model is the sunk cost of infrastructure. When that proves unreliable, as it did in Puerto Rico a few years ago, it’s replaced by solar power, batteries, and micro-grid technology, just as Al Gore predicted two decades ago. 

The Sun Shines, The Wind Blows, and Watch Houston Become Detroit

Nearly a decade ago, having been tossed to the curb by ZDNet for calling out a “privacy” lobbyist as an industry shill, I changed the headline of this blog to focus on renewable energy.

“There is no energy shortage. The sun shines, the wind blows, the tides roll, we live on a molten rock.”

Tidal and geothermal energy have yet to make major contributions to our energy mix, but the Sun does indeed shine and the wind does indeed blow. More important is the cheapest form of renewable energy, efficiency, and which is always before us.

Today, U.S. energy demand is just passing its year 2000 peak. This is true despite Gross Domestic Product, the economy’s production of goods and services, rising from $13.131 trillion in 2000 to last year’s $18.566 trillion.  That’s 41% more economic activity with no increase in energy use.

The Crash of 2019

Right now, in early April of 2019, the U.S. economy seems to be in great shape.

Inflation is minimal. Money is cheap. Unemployment is down. Wages are rising.

Here is why I think this is all going to collapse, and that right soon.

Deflation.

As I have said here many times, technology creates deflation. Deflation is the primary subject of my Moore’s Law book, which I’m getting ready to rewrite for 2020.

To understand deflation in action, look in your hand.

What Comes Next

After the market falls, when everyone is in despair, is when I get the most excited about the future.

That’s because recessions aren’t so much an ending as a beginning.

A recession means the old games no longer work. The oldest business processes disappear entirely. WE have seen this during every recession of my working lifetime.

Small towns fell under the onslaught of Walmart in the 1980s. Big boxes replaced department stores in the 1990s. In the 2000s, whole layers of middle management disappeared. In this decade, gatekeepers like insurance agents have gotten the boot.

The 1979 Game

When you win the popular vote by 9.5% but still lose ground, as Democrats did November 6, your problems are systemic.

The result underlies tech’s obligation to come out of its shell and fight for the political system that birthed it.

Tech moguls have done some things. Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post, Marc Benioff bought Time Magazine, Laurene Powell Jobs bought The Atlantic. The key to gaining more power will be in creating journalism business models beholden to tech interests.

Tech must do to Bizarro Carter what oil did to Jimmy Carter, and for the same reason -- to protect its self-interest.