The U.S. is at a substantial disadvantage in transitioning away from an oil economy-empirics prove this will collapse hegemony.
Nader Elhefnawy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Miami, April, ‘8
(The Impending Oil Shock, Survival, Volume 50, Number 2, p. Ebsco) [Bozman]
While the situation may yet change (the process of transitioning away from fossil fuels has been initiated, but remains in its early stages), the United States will embark on any effort to reduce its fossil-fuel dependency from a position of significant disadvantage relative to other industrialised countries. Indeed, the United States could ultimately lose its position as a world power: political commentator Kevin Phillips has shown that changes in the energy base of a given historical period have coincided with the rise and fall of great powers.63 Thus, just as the UK’s position declined along with the age of coal and steam it pioneered, so too could the United States decline as oil’s era passes. While the idea that a German-led European Union and Japan might eclipse the United States economically is no longer taken seriously, such predictions may yet find some validation in these trends.
Laundry List
Peak oil will cause famine, disease, wars and economic collapse-consensus of experts agree.
Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, ‘5
(The Party's Over : Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, p. 220) [Bozman]
This is probably a good point to stop and take a breath. The picture drawn in this chapter is a profoundly disturbing one. It depicts a century of impending famine, disease, economic collapse, despotism, and resource wars. The reader may be wondering: Is the author deliberately exaggerating the perils ahead in order to make a point? Or is he simply a gloomy and depressed individual projecting his neuroses onto the world? Nothing in this chapter was written deliberately to depress or alarm. The future projections under each heading above represent not possible though improbable disasters ? like an asteroid striking the Earth tomorrow ? but the likely outcomes of present trends. And I hasten to point out that, while my personal life has held its share of frustrations and disappointments, I am reasonably cheerful and optimistic by nature. However, as anyone would, I find this picture of the future to be deeply disturbing. Everyone I have met who understands population and resource issues comes to essentially the same conclusions and has to deal with the same emotional responses ? which typically run the gamut from shock, denial, despair, and rage to eventual acceptance ? and a determination to do whatever is possible to help avert the worst of the likely impacts.
Middle East War Module
A. Peak oil will spark inteverntions in the Middle East, causing region wide instability.
Frederic Leder, Analyst at Esso Research and Engineering & Judith Shapiro, President of Strategic Enterprises, August, ‘8
(Energy Policy, Volume 36, Issue 8, p. 2840-2842, Science Direct) [Bozman]
Those who oppose the Iraq War should be especially concerned about a permanent decline in oil supply, not for the reason critics usually state, that is, the war was an oil grab by President Bush on behalf of greedy US oil companies. The better reason is that the war is a precursor of the type of conflict we can expect under conditions of peak oil. That is, military action will be taken by countries intent on preventing disruptions in the production and transport of oil. This, in fact, was the essence of former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's advice to White House officials prior to the invasion in 2003. According to Greenspan, removing Saddam Hussein was important for the global economy because “Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence of moving towards controlling the Straits of Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels a day” passing through. Disruption of even 3–4 million barrels a day, he observed, could translate into oil prices as high as $120 a barrel and the loss of anything more would mean “chaos” to the global economy (Woodward, 2007). In other words, we are not there to grab the oil. We are there, and will remain there for the foreseeable future, to ensure its safe transit to the West. At the same time, oil-producing countries, emboldened by their critical position in the global economy, will be motivated to replace the US as the dominant presence in the Middle East. This is particularly true of Iran, which has taken again to confronting US Navy warships operating in the Persian Gulf. The confrontations, which began in the 1980s during the Iran–Iraq War, resumed with the US invasion of Iraq. David Crist, a military historian working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, witnessed one of these confrontations while serving in the Marine Corps Reserve in Iraq in 2003. Crist writes that “While these incidents may not seem alarming to those who’ve never served on a potentially vulnerable modern warship, they fit into a worrisome pattern, a two-decade-old military strategy by Iran intended to counter the United States presence in the Persian Gulf…testing the limits of what America will accept” (Crist, 2008).
B. Extinction.
Bahig Nassar, Arab Co-ordinating Centre of Non-Governmental Organizations, and Afro-Asian People’s Solidary Organization, 11/25/02, keynote paper for Cordoba Dialogue on Peace and Human Rights in Europe and the Middle East, http://www.inesglobal.org/BahigNassar.htm
Wars in the Middle East are of a new type. Formerly, the possession of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union had prevented them, under the balance of the nuclear terror, from launching war against each other. In the Middle East, the possession of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction leads to military clashes and wars. Instead of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, the United States and Israel are using military force to prevent others from acquiring them, while they insist on maintaining their own weapons to pose deadly threats to other nations. But the production, proliferation and threat or use of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear chemical and biological) are among the major global problems which could lead, if left unchecked, to the extinction of life on earth. Different from the limited character of former wars, the current wars in the Middle East manipulate global problems and escalate their dangers instead of solving them.
Nuclear Power Bad Module
A. Peak oil will lead to huge amounts of nuclear power development worldwide, exponentially increasing the risk of nuclear terrorism, proliferation and meltdowns. And no turns-this development will be rushed, take place in developing countries, and wont be regulated.
Nader Elhefnawy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Miami, April, ‘8
(The Impending Oil Shock, Survival, Volume 50, Number 2, p. Ebsco) [Bozman]
Expansion of nuclear power as an alternative energy source is especially likely to compound international security problems. Oil shortages, or the prospect of them, are already putting pressure on states to follow the path France took in the 1970s and invest heavily in nuclear power for their electric grids. There are currently 443 nuclear reactors operating worldwide, which as of 2004 produced 2,619bn kilowatt-hours of electricity every year.87 This amounts to roughly 17% of global electricity consumption. France, by contrast, gets 77% of its electricity this way. Were the entire world to follow the same path, this would mean a nearly fivefold increase in output, and perhaps 2,000 reactors online. From a technical standpoint, this would seem a reasonable way of reducing the world economy’s oil dependence, and many analysts are advocating exactly this path.88 Nonetheless, a global rush to build another 1,600 (or more) atomic reactors is no cause for comfort. While nuclear-power advocates are confident that properly built, operated and maintained reactors are safe, there is no assurance that the reactors providing these new energy supplies will be any of these. A rushed enlargement of the number of working nuclear reactors in poorer, less-developed nations would be extremely dangerous. A repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl accident cannot be ruled out, and given the threat that such an incident poses to neighbouring states, the political wrangling over reactor construction programmes can be expected to multiply. Controversies like the one over Cuba’s Juragua nuclear power plant could well become routine.89 The safe storage of spent nuclear fuel, given the longterm radioactivity of its waste products, is also a problem unresolved after more than five decades of experience, and underlies the controversy in the United States over the Yucca Mountain Repository.90 The burden on the surveillance mechanisms charged with protecting the non-proliferation regime will also grow, as trade in nuclear technology expands and the list of installations needing monitoring lengthens. This will heighten the risk of nuclear proliferation, though it is difficult to say by how much, given uncertainties about, for instance, the types of nuclear technology that energy purchasers will opt for. Of most concern are fast-breeder reactors, which are so called because they produce more fissile material than they consume by converting non-fissile uranium isotopes into fissile plutonium. In the 1970s this feature raised the possibility of a ‘plutonium economy’ in which the world economy would depend on plutonium-fueled reactors for its electricity.91 Higher-than-expected costs and surprisingly low uranium prices diminished the attractiveness of this path. However, this model is being actively pursued in several countries, including China, India and Japan, and changes in uranium prices (already rising) or the technological state of the art may bring back the concept on a broader scale.92 Increased production of fissile material by itself does not necessarily mean more nuclear states. The non-proliferation regime works largely because potential nuclear-weapons states commonly calculate that the weapons would do little to improve their security position. In future however, the increased use of nuclear power could coincide with generally greater insecurity, altering those calculations. In particular, the nuclearisation of a single state can produce a chain reaction across its region in which other countries arm themselves, especially as it becomes easier to do so. The possibility that North Korea’s nuclearisation may lead South Korea, Japan or even Taiwan to acquire nuclear weapons of their own is frequently raised. In the Middle East there have been signs that Saudi Arabia is reviewing its nuclear option, and a nuclear-armed Iran would be a strong spur to Saudi nuclearisation.93 Additionally, even if the risks of nuclear accidents, and of more states with nuclear-weapons programmes, were ameliorated, there would still be more facilities vulnerable to terrorist attack. It should be noted that it would be extremely difficult for terrorists to attack a reactor so as to produce a large-scale release of radiation; in theory even an 11 September-style attack with a hijacked airliner would be insufficient, at least in the case of US reactors. Nonetheless, there would be more targets, and an attack on a reactor can have effects far outside the targeted country, both from the radiation release, and the political and economic consequences that could follow. There would also be a larger stock of fissile material susceptible to theft, frequently in countries unable to bear the cost of securing it.
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