|
Laurence Middleton Jones is a writer and part-time
locum pharmacist from Hereford
|
Few of us are fully aware of the extent to which cheap, fossil fuel
energy has influenced modern life, modern pharmacy and modern expectations.
With the era of cheap energy now drawing to a close, it is perhaps time
to reflect on future scenarios which may be shockingly different from
those assumed.
A declining resource
The discovery of new oilfields peaked in 1964 and has been falling
relentlessly since then despite intensive exploration. Most experts say
we are now
at, near, or have in fact passed the “global oil production peak” — the
point after which oil output declines
forever.
There is evidence that this decline may be happening faster than anticipated.
Ghawar, for example, one of the largest fields ever discovered and responsible
for 60 per cent of Saudi production, is showing accelerated depletion
to the extent that it is currently being injected with seven million
barrels of seawater a day in an attempt to keep output up. As of summer
2004, more than half of Ghawar’s outflow was seawater, not oil.
Many reserves of oil and gas may have been grossly overstated for political
or economic reasons. Shell was forced to reduce its claimed reserves
by one-fifth last year. Saudi Arabia’s claims of 250 billion barrels
of reserves are suspect: other authorities, including the companies that
discovered the fields, claim there were only ever 130 billion barrels,
of which 100 billion has already been pumped.
In the past, states with excess capacity were “swing producers” that
could open the taps when needed to stabilise prices and prevent panic
buying. It now looks increasingly as if everyone has the taps wide open
and it is only a question of time before the shocks hit home.
China’s oil imports increased by 40 per cent in the first half
of 2004 alone. Demand is also soaring in the rest of the developed and
developing worlds.
There is growing political unease. The China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s
recent attempt to buy American producer Unocal was blocked by US Congressional
backlash as it was judged threatening to US national security. The Iraq
wars, according to many, were also about oil — an attempt by the
US to stabilise and control a region of the world with significant remaining
resources. (Iraq originally invaded Kuwait accusing it of drilling diagonally
under the border into Iraqi reserves.) Corporate and international rules,
as well as diplomatic niceties, are all likely to get left behind as
politicians, and the populations they represent, grow desperate.
And there are no real alternatives. A close look at the energy and technical
demands for producing, storing and attempting to transport, say, hydrogen
make this obvious. Wind energy cannot produce cheap organic precursors
for plastics and pharmaceuticals. Making alloys for turbines needs energy
currently supplied by oil. Nuclear power stations are currently built
and maintained with large inputs of fossil fuels.
There are those who envisage a magical new energy source appearing to
save our current way of life deus ex machina, but this confidence is
most likely a result of cognitive dissonance or a 21st century western
mindset — so brainwashed are we by the incredible technological
achievements made possible by the era of cheap oil we have just witnessed
that we are unable to think the unthinkable. No one can doubt that the
global energy profligacy of past decades has been truly awesome and unsustainable.
A few well-targeted terrorist attacks — or a decision by some countries
not to continue to support the American Dream at the expense of their
own futures — and within days we could wake up to find fuel rationed
and our local just-in-time supermarket with empty shelves. Addictive lifestyle
Cheap fossil fuels have underpinned most assumptions about what civilised
life is like, from food production to health care provision. It takes
13 calories of energy input to produce one calorie of food value as
grain and 70 calories of input to produce one calorie of food value
as meat. We are “eating oil”. Take away the fossil fuel
inputs, or hike the price, and the economics of everything around us — modern
suburban life, out-of-town shopping, modern retail environments, regional
hospitals, hamburgers, holidays, supermarkets, street lights, patient
packs, globalism — is transformed.
Expensive and restricted fossil fuels will force us to re-evaluate
the NHS, centralised manufacturing and modern protocols such as medicines
reuse. The decimation of the huge budgets driving current health care,
themselves the products of oil-economy, will force more radical changes
as the very concept of economic “growth” becomes consigned
to the history books. The pharmacy medicine review of the future might
run along the lines of “that, that and that are not available any
more”.
Although we can expect the resurgence of the famous Dunkirk spirit in
parts of the UK, there will be parts of our society where
the more recent philosophy of aggressive
individualism holds sway and for where
co-operation and sharing may not be the chosen option. Your local pharmacy of the future
Future scenarios without cheap fossil fuels could well resemble a medieval
vision of hell if, as may well be the case, there is insufficient time
or the political determination to put strategies in place to cope with
or control the possible outcomes. The world population’s six-fold
increase from pre-industrial levels has only been made possible because
of, and is supported by, cheap fossil fuels: cut these off and we face
mass starvation, migration, disease, crime and local and international
conflict.
Older readers may be familiar with the National War Formulary, dispensing
from bulk, compounding, reusable containers, infrequent deliveries, poorly
heated pharmacies, curfews, armed guards and the only choice being “take
it or leave it”. These things may be with us again. Sending off
for “specials” at £120 per tube is what we will reminisce
about over our pint of homebrew.
A much larger proportion of the population will have to be involved in
the one subject that will preoccupy and unite people as no other — food
production. Pre-oil-dependent societies can produce one calorie of food
energy for one calorie of energy input (via a horse and more hands).
The pre-industrial, walking-scale
town, with its close proximity of food production and local trades and
services, will probably be the best model.
Pharmacists are likely, once again, to be intimately involved in things
like animal health and the supply of pickling jars and saltpetre. They
may find themselves searching in a copy of the National Pharmacy Association’s
compendium of past knowledge, the remarkable Pharmaceutical Formulas
Volume 2, once again making all the things that were not available centrally:
toothpaste, face cream, leather tanning solution, poultry and horse worming
powders.
Could the past 100 or so years or so really have been nothing but an
intoxicating dream, a glorious freebie gifted to us by vanished algae
in long-gone seas? It seems ridiculous, it must be impossible: cheap
energy is so ingrained in our thinking. Fasten those harnesses —we’re
in for a bumpy ride. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal