US Cost of War at Least $3.7 Trillion and Counting

Published on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 by Reuters

US Cost of War at Least $3.7 Trillion and Counting

by Daniel Trotta

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.

Soldiers from Viper Company stand next to a blackhawk helicopter in Khost. In addition to the incalculable cost of human life, the financial cost to support ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq will likely exceed $4 trillion. Worse still, there's no end in sight. (AP) Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study.

In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare, including 125,000 civilians in Iraq. Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, healthcare, and nutrition. An additional 365,000 have been wounded and 7.8 million people -- equal to the combined population of Connecticut and Kentucky -- have been displaced.

"Costs of War" brought together more than 20 academics to uncover the expense of war in lives and dollars, a daunting task given the inconsistent recording of lives lost and what the report called opaque and sloppy accounting by the U.S. Congress and the Pentagon.

The report underlines the extent to which war will continue to stretch the U.S. federal budget, which is already on an unsustainable course due to an aging American population and skyrocketing healthcare costs.

It also raises the question of what the United States gained from its multitrillion-dollar investment.

"I hope that when we look back, whenever this ends, something very good has come out of it," Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, told Reuters in Washington.

SEPT 11, 2001: THE DAMAGE CONTINUES

In one sense, the report measures the cost of 9/11, the American shorthand for the events of September 11, 2001. Nineteen hijackers plus other al Qaeda plotters spent an estimated $400,000 to $500,000 on the plane attacks that killed 2,995 people and caused $50 billion to $100 billion in economic damages.

What followed were three wars in which $50 billion amounts to a rounding error. For every person killed on September 11, another 73 have been killed since.

Was it worth it? That is a question many people want answered, said Catherine Lutz, head of the anthropology department at Brown and co-director of the study.

"We decided we needed to do this kind of rigorous assessment of what it cost to make those choices to go to war," she said. "Politicians, we assumed, were not going to do that kind of assessment."

The report arrives as Congress debates how to cut a U.S. deficit projected at $1.4 trillion this year, roughly a 10th of which can be attributed to direct war spending.

What did the United States gain for its trillions?

Strategically, the results for the United States are mixed. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are dead, but Iraq and Afghanistan are far from stable democracies. Iran has gained influence in the Gulf and the Taliban, though ousted from government, remain a viable military force in Afghanistan.

"The United States has been extremely successful in protecting the homeland," said George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR, a U.S.-based intelligence company.

"Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was capable of mounting very sophisticated, complex, operations on an intercontinental basis. That organization with that capability has not only been substantially reduced, it seems to have been shattered," Friedman said.

Economically, the results are also mixed. War spending may be adding half a percentage point a year to growth in the gross domestic product but that has been more than offset by the negative effects of deficit spending, the report concludes.

COMPREHENSIVE STUDY

Some U.S. government reports have attempted to assess the costs of war, notably a March 2011 Congressional Research Service report that estimated post-September 11 war funding at $1.4 trillion through 2012. The Congressional Budget Office projected war costs through 2021 at $1.8 trillion.

A ground-breaking private estimate was published in the 2008 book "The Three Trillion Dollar War," by Linda Bilmes, a member of the Watson Institute team, and Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. That work revealed how much cost was added by interest on deficit spending and medical care for veterans.

The report draws on those sources and pieces together many others for a more comprehensive picture.

The report also makes special note of Pakistan, a front not generally mentioned along with Iraq and Afghanistan. War has probably killed more people in Pakistan than in neighboring Afghanistan, the report concludes.

Politicians throughout history have underestimated the costs of war, believing they will be shorter and less deadly than reality, said Neta Crawford, the other co-director of the report and a political science professor at Boston University.

The report said former President George W. Bush's administration was "shamelessly politically driven" in underestimating Iraq war costs before the 2003 invasion.

Most official sources continue to overlook costs, largely because of a focus on just Pentagon spending, Crawford said.

"Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war," Obama said in last week's speech on reducing U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. At the very least, he was rounding down by $200 billion to $300 billion, when counting U.S. congressional appropriations for the post 9/11 wars.

"I don't know what the president knows, but I wish it were a trillion," Crawford said. "It would be better if it were a trillion."

ELUSIVE NUMBER

In theory, adding up the dollars spent and lives lost should be a statistical errand. The U.S. Congress appropriates the money, and a life lost on battlefield should have a death certificate and a casket to match.

The team quickly discovered, however, the task was far more complicated.

Specific war spending over the past 10 years, when expressed in 2011 dollars, comes to $1.3 trillion, the "Costs of War" project found. When it comes to accounting for every dollar, that $1.3 trillion is merely a good start.

Since the wars have been financed by deficit spending, interest must be paid -- $185 billion of accumulated so far.

The Pentagon has received an additional $326 billion to $652 billion beyond what can be attributed to the war appropriations, the study found.

Homeland security spending has totaled another $401 billion so far that can be traced to September 11. War-related foreign aid: another $74 billion.

Then comes caring for U.S. veterans of war. Nearly half of the 1.25 million who have served in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan have used their status as veterans to make health or disability claims at an expense of $32.6 billion to date.

Those costs will soar over the next 40 years as veterans age. The report estimates the U.S. obligations to the veterans will reach $589 billion to $934 billion through 2050.

So far, those numbers add up to a low estimate of $2.9 trillion and a moderate estimate of $3.6 trillion in costs to the U.S. Treasury. No high estimate was offered.

"We feel a conservative measure of costs is plenty large to attract attention," said report contributor Ryan Edwards, an economist who studied the war impact on deficit spending.

Those numbers leave out hundreds of billions in social costs not born by the U.S. taxpayer but by veterans and their families: another $295 billion to $400 billion, increasing the range of costs to date to some $3.2 trillion to $4 trillion.

That's a running total through fiscal 2011. Add another $453 billion in war-related spending projected for 2012 to 2020 and the total grows to $3.668 trillion to $4.444 trillion.

THE HUMAN TOLL

If the financial costs are elusive, so too is the human toll.

The report estimates between 224,475 and 257,655 have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, though those numbers give a false sense of precision. There are many sources of data on civilian deaths, most with different results.

The civilian death toll in Iraq -- 125,000 -- and the number of Saddam's security forces killed in invasion -- 10,000 -- are loose estimates. The U.S. military does not publish a thorough accounting.

"We don't do body counts," Tommy Franks, the U.S. commander in Iraq, famously said after the fall of Saddam in 2003.

In Afghanistan, the civilian death count ranges from 11,700 to 13,900. For Pakistan, where there is little access to the battlefield and the United States fights mostly through aerial drone attacks, the study found it impossible to distinguish between civilian and insurgent deaths.

The numbers only consider direct deaths -- people killed by bombs or bullets. Estimates for indirect deaths in war vary so much that researchers considered them too arbitrary to report.

"When the fighting stops, the indirect dying continues. It's in fact worse than land mines. The healthcare system is still in bad shape. People are still suffering the effects of malnutrition and so on," Crawford said.

Even where the United States does do body counts -- for the members of the military -- the numbers may come up short of reality, said Lutz, the study's co-director. When veterans return home, they are more likely to die in suicides and automobile accidents.

"The rate of chaotic behavior," she said, "is high."

(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Missy Ryan, Brett Gering, Laura MacInnis and Sharon Reich; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

© 2011 Reuters

 

Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/29-0

 

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Local Activists Make Their Voices Heard at U.S. Mayors Conference

http://indyreader.org/content/local-activists-make-their-voices-heard-us-mayors-conference

-- Local Activists Make Their Voices Heard at US Mayors Conference

Sunday June 26th, 2011

Stephen Roblin

On Saturday, June 18 some 60 local activists (including myself) gathered at St. Vincent's church in downtown Baltimore and marched to the Hilton Hotel in the Inner Harbor, the site of this year's U.S. Mayors Conference (June 17 – 21). We took to the street in support of two resolutions, one calling for nuclear disarmament, which would free billions of dollars to be used to address unemployment in U.S. cities, and the other calling for an accelerated end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the estimated $126 billion spent annually on these wars to be redirected towards domestic need.[1] (See below for both resolutions.)

The mayors passed both resolutions, thereby making them the official policies of the mayors' organization. The nuclear disarmament resolution was sponsored by Mayors for Peace, an international organization with more than 4,700 members in 150 countries. The mayors unanimously passed the resolution, which calls on President Obama to join other leaders of nuclear weapon states to implement the United Nations Secretary-General’s Five Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament and negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.[2] 

The resolution also calls on Congress to terminate the “modernization” of the nuclear weapons program to redirect those funds to address urgent needs of cities. Furthermore, the resolution instructs “governments to enter into negotiations for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free world,” a demand that is particularly relevant for the U.S. which has been the world’s biggest obstacle to the establishment of nuclear weapons-free-zones.

The “Bring the War Dollars Home” resolution calls on President Obama and Congress to: "end the wars as soon as strategically possible and bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt."

Consistent with standard imperial practice, before passing the resolution the mayors had to ensure that it pass through the filter of jingoism. After debating whether or not the original version―drafted C.J. Minster from the national activist organization, Code Pink―sufficiently supported U.S. troops, the mayors, predictably, determined that it did not and added a statement about how they all “support our brave men and women in uniform and their families.”[3]

More harmfully, the mayors added wording which in the world of U.S. foreign policy amounts practically to a contradiction in terms: a call for a withdrawal “as soon as strategically possible.” The mayors' resolution further qualified the withdrawal by stating that it should be done in a “measured way that does not destablize the region.”[4]

Mayor Paul Soglin (D-Madison, Wis.) referred to the resolution as "rather temperate" because it did not call for an immediate withdrawal.[2] Maria Allwine, a local activist and former gubernatorial candidate from the Green Party, said that the softening of the withdrawal demand was “disappointing.”

Despite the disappointment, the passage of the resolution is considered historic. It has been 40 years since US mayors passed an “anti-war” resolution; the last time being in 1971 when US mayors supported a federal amendment calling for President Nixon to withdraw all U.S. forces from Vietnam in a matter of months.[5] For this reason, Allwine considers the mayors' action on Monday “a big deal,” a sentiment shared by myself and many other activists.

Commenting on the significance of the resolution, Minster stated that it “framed mainstream media coverage of the conference and helped make concrete connections between the economic problems domestically and the choice made by the administration and congress to waste money on needless wars abroad.” Indeed, headlines like “Mayors See End to Wars as Fix for Struggling Cities” and “U.S. Mayors Pass Resolution To Bring War Dollars' Home” could be found throughout the mainstream press.

Echoing Allwine’s sentiment, Minster went on to describe the passage as a “HUGE victory for the peace movement,” particularly Baltimore’s local peace activists, who helped organize Saturday’s march as well as a teach-in on Friday evening.

Local Activists Go To Work

Saturday's march was organized by the Fund Our Communities, Bring the War Dollars Home Campaign―a Maryland coalition composed of 45 organizations, including civil rights, environmental, peace and justice, union and other groups―and Full Employment Baltimore―a local coalition comprised of a students, workers, and community organizers calling for policy changes that will create more and better jobs for Baltimore residents.

While marching through Baltimore's tax-payer subsidized Inner Harbor, young activists from the Baltimore chapter of the ANSWER Coalition led chants on the instrument of choice for protestors, the bullhorn: “They say cut-back, we say fight back!”, “We got money for war, but can't feed the poor!” and other chants pierced the routine sound of commerce, catching the attention of Baltimoreans and tourists alike who offered their support in the form of peace signs, thumbs-up, and honking of car horns.

The day before the march, Fund Our Communities hosted a teach-in at McKeldin Square in the Inner Harbor. Representatives from over 10 local organizations explained how they would use money diverted from fighting wars to addressing the urgent needs in Baltimore.

Adam Schneider from Health Care for the Homeless offered fiery words, spliced with statistics that together painted a vivid picture of the cruel fate of America's homeless population--the domestic demographic which more than any other has been sacrificed at the alter of foreign wars and the tax-payer plunder it entails. Scheider topped-off his speech with a critical message: That the hellfire unleashed on Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere demands more than simply pulling the plug on the criminal enterprises; it demands holding the masterminds of the criminal policies accountable as well as providing massive reparations to all victims.

In addition to Schneider, the local participants included: Jim Kraft (Baltimore city Council), Monica Cooper (Out 4 Justice), Ralph Moore (Full Employment Baltimore), Art Cohen (B-More Mobile), Josh Steiber (Iraq Veterans Against the War), Michael Coleman (United Workers), Hathaway Ferebee (Safe and Sound), Charlie Cooper (Baltimore Education Coalition), Terry Ellen (Chesapeake Climate Action Network), and Rashad Hawkins (Stop the Youth Jail Alliance).

A common refrain among the speakers was the need for local activists to work together. According to Allwine, organizing for the mayors' conference actions enhanced cooperation: “New alliances were definitely forged, especially with the [local] African-American activist community and the traditional peace . . . community,” which is known for being majority white and above the age of 40. She went on to say, “The powers that now control our government and our lives do not want us to join forces, which is exactly what we need to do if we’re ever going to change what is being done to us by the forces of greed.”

During the teach-in, participants and passers-by were given an opportunity to identify their funding priorities through a participatory budget exercise. Unsurprisingly, the results poorly reflected official government priorities, a local anecdote for the national phenomenon―dysfunctional democracy. According to the U.S. mayors resolution, the cost of the war annually amounts to $126 billion; the participants believe less than $15 million should be allocated to that budget line. Instead, they would rather see education, human services, infrastructure, environment, and programs in other socially useful areas dwarf war spending.

This sentiment is shared by Baltimore's local politicians. Prior to the march and teach-in, Fund Our Communities worked with Code Pink and contacted the offices of Baltimore City Councilmember James Kraft and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blacke and provided them with a copy of the Code Pink resolution. The City Council passed the resolution on Monday, May 16 and was subsequently signed by the mayor, who later summed up well a feeling held nation-wide after over two-decades of war: “There are so many better uses for the money.”[6]

NOTES:

[1] Gar Smith, “US Mayors to Obama: Bring War Money Home! Ban the Bomb!,” The Berkeley Daily Planet, June 22, 2011, http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-06-22/article/38029?headline=US-Mayors-to-Obama-Bring-War-Money-Home-Ban-the-Bomb-.

[2] Matt Sledge, “U.S. Mayors Pass Resolution To Bring War Dollars' Home,” Huffington Post, June 20, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/us-mayors-afghanistan_n_880370.html.

[3] See link to Code Pink version: http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=5774.

[4] Matt Sledge, “U.S. Mayors Pass Resolution To Bring War Dollars' Home,” Huffington Post, June 20, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/us-mayors-afghanistan_n_880370.html.

[5] Sam Stein, “U.S. Mayors To Push For First Anti-War Resolution Since Vietnam,” Huffington Post, June 15, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/15/us-mayors-to-push-for-ani-war-resolution_n_877817.html.

[6] Michael Cooper, “Mayors See End to Wars as Fix for Struggling Cities,” New York Times, June 17, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/us/18cities.html.

RESOLUTIONS:

CALLING ON CONGRESS TO REDIRECT MILITARY SPENDING TO DOMESTIC PRIORITIES

WHEREAS, every member of the US Conference of Mayors and the Americans they represent, support our brave men and women in uniform and their families;

WHEREAS, the drawdown of troops should be done in a measured way that does not

destabilize the region and that can accelerate the transfer of responsibility to regional authorities;

WHEREAS, the severity of the ongoing economic crisis has created budget shortfalls at all levels of government and requires us to re-examine our national spending priorities; and

WHEREAS, the people of the United States are collectively paying approximately $126 billion dollars per year to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan; and

WHEREAS, 6,024 members of the US armed forces have died in these wars; and at least

120,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the coalition attacks began.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors supports efforts to speed up the ending of these wars; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the United States Conference of Mayors calls on the President and U.S. Congress to end the wars as soon as strategically possible and bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt.

CALLING ON THE PRESIDENT TO WORK WITH LEADERS OF OTHER NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES FOR ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS BY 2020 AND CALLING ON CONGRESS TO CUT FUNDING FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND TO REDIRECT THOSE FUNDS TO MEET THE NEEDS OF CITIES

WHEREAS, more than two decades after the end of the Cold War, nearly 23,000 nuclear weapons, over 95% of them in the arsenals of the United States and Russia, continue to pose an intolerable threat to cities and people everywhere;

WHEREAS, recent studies have shown that a nuclear war involving no more than 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs―about 0.3% of the global nuclear arsenal―could have catastrophic, long-lasting effects on the global climate leading to a drop in average surface temperatures, reduction of the ozone layer, a shortened agricultural growing season resulting in a global famine of unprecedented proportions;

WHEREAS, the 2010 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review did not lead to substantial changes in the U.S. nuclear force structure, only marginally reduced the role of nuclear weapons in national security policy, explicitly rejected reducing the high-alert status of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and Submarine Launch Ballistic Missiles, and retained the capability to deploy U.S. nuclear weapons on tactical fighter-bombers and heavy bombers, including at NATO bases in Europe, while proceeding with a modification of the bombs carried on those planes;

WHEREAS, a plan submitted to Congress by President Barack Obama projects investments of well over $185 billion by 2020 to maintain and modernize U.S. nuclear weapons systems, including construction of three new nuclear warhead production facilities and an array of new delivery systems;

WHEREAS, although the U.S. stockpile contains one-fifth as many warheads as it used to, the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget request is the largest ever for maintenance and modernization of nuclear warheads, and after accounting for inflation, the $7.63 billion request is 21 percent more than President Ronald Reagan’s largest nuclear weapons budget;

 WHEREAS, reflecting President Obama’s commitment to modernize all three legs of the strategic triad of nuclear weapons delivery systems, the FY 2012 budget request also includes $197 million for research and development on a new Air Force long-range nuclear bomber, $2.6 million to study a future Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, and $1.07 billion to develop a new replacement ballistic missile submarine slated to be in operation through 2080, all of which will lead to far greater expenditures if production follows;

 WHEREAS, with the economic downturn forcing mayors and cities to make deep cuts in critical public services, and with more than 100 metropolitan areas projected to have double-digit unemployment by the end of this year, the budget deal worked out between the Administration and Congress contains a 16.2 percent reduction in Community Development Block Grant formula funding – a $647 million cut for the current year, eliminates Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants, and includes huge reductions to other domestic programs of importance to mayors and cities, the size of which have not been seen in recent times;

 WHEREAS, Mayors for Peace membership has grown to over 4,700 cities in 150 countries and regions, including half of the world’s capital cities, with more than 170 U.S. members;

 WHEREAS, the United States Conference of Mayors unanimously adopted resolutions in 2004, 2006 and each year since, expressing its strong support for Mayors for Peace, its demand for negotiations for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020, and its Cities Are Not Targets campaign;

 WHEREAS, Mayors for Peace has been endorsed by national mayoral associations in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa;

 WHEREAS, the final document of the 3rd Congress of United Cities and Local Governments, adopted in Mexico City November 20, 2010 expresses “our support for the call of the Mayors for Peace Campaign for a world free of nuclear weapons by 2020 through a new international Convention”;

 WHEREAS, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in Hiroshima for the 65th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing on August 6, 2010 expressed his strong support for the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign for the global abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020, declaring, “The 2020 vision is a perfect vision”; and the United Nations, on March 24, 2011 recognized the importance of Mayors for Peace by inaugurating a permanent installation at its New York headquarters exhibiting more than 1 million signatures on the Mayors for Peace Cities Are Not Targets petition;

 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors reaffirms its call on President Obama to work with the leaders of the other nuclear weapon states to implement the United Nations Secretary-General’s Five Point Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament forthwith, so that a Nuclear Weapons Convention or a related framework of mutually reinforcing legal instruments can be agreed upon and implemented by the year 2020, as urged by Mayors for Peace; and

 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the U.S. Congress to terminate funding for modernization of the nuclear weapons complex and nuclear weapons systems, to slash spending on nuclear weapons programs well below Cold War levels, and to redirect those funds to meet the urgent needs of cities; and

 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in its contacts with national associations of local authorities of the other nuclear weapon states, calls upon them to also press their governments to enter into negotiations for the establishment of a nuclear- weapon-free world and to sharply curtail expenditures on nuclear arms; and

 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors expresses its continuing support for Mayors for Peace, pledges to assist in recruiting new U.S. members in order to help reach the goal of 5,000 member cities by the August 6, 2011 Hiroshima anniversary, at which time Mayors for Peace will represent one billion people; and, as since 2005, supports USCM representation at the international Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision Campaign Executive Committee and General Meetings later this year; and

 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors agrees to take up this matter at its 80th Annual Meeting in June 2012, and that mayors shall remain engaged in this matter until our cities and citizens, and cities and citizens throughout the world, are no longer under the threat of nuclear annihilation and catastrophic climate change.

 

See also http://ourfunds.org

 

Fukushima Spews, Los Alamos Burns, Vermont Rages & We've Almost Lost Nebraska

Fukushima Spews, Los Alamos Burns, Vermont Rages & We’ve Almost Lost Nebraska
By Harvey Wasserman
http://warisacrime.org/node/58321

Humankind is now threatened by the simultaneous implosion, explosion, incineration, courtroom contempt and drowning of its most lethal industry.

We know only two things for certain: worse is yet to come, and those in charge are lying about it -- at least to the extent of what they actually know, which is nowhere near enough.

Indeed, the assurances from the nuke power industry continue to flow like the floodwaters now swamping the Missouri Valley heartland.

But major breakthroughs have come from a Pennsylvania Senator and New York’s Governor on issues of evacuation and shut-down. And a public campaign for an end to loan guarantees could put an end to the US industry once and for all.

FUKUSHIMA: The bad news continues to bleed from Japan with no end in sight. The “light at the end of the tunnel” is an out-of-control radioactive freight train, headed to the core of an endangered planet.

Widespread internal radioactive contamination among Japanese citizens around Fukushima has now been confirmed.
http://nukefree.org/internal-human-contamination-confirmed-fukushima

Two whales caught some 650 kilometers from the melting reactors have shown intense radiation.
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/06/15/japan-nuclear-radiation-whal...

Plutonium, the deadliest substance known to our species, has been found dangerously far from the site.
http://nukefree.org/nhk-plutonium-found-outside-fukushima

Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government have admitted to three 100% meltdowns but can’t confirm with any reliability the current state of those cores. There’s reason to believe one or more have progressed to “melt-throughs” in which they burn through the thick stainless steel pressure vessel and onto the containment floor.

The molten cores may be covered with water. But whether they can melt further through the containments and into the ground remains unclear.

Possibilities may include a “China Syndrome” scenario in which one or more still-molten cores does melt through the containment and hits ground water. That could lead to a steam explosion that could blow still larger clouds of radioactive steam, water and debris into the atmosphere and ocean.

At least three explosions have occurred, one of which may have involved criticality.

There is no doubt at least two containments were breached very early in the disaster. Unit Four is cracked and sinking. The status of its used radioactive fuel pool, which has clearly caught fire, is uncertain. Also unclear is the ability of the owners to sustain the stability of Units Five and Six, which were shut when the quake/tsunami hit.

That stability depends on continued power to run cooling systems, which could disappear amidst seismic aftershocks many believe are inevitable. A very substantial quake hit after the tremors that led to Indonesia’s devastating tsunami, and few doubt it could happen again -- soon -- at Fukushima.

All the above is dependent on reports controlled primarily by Tokyo Electric and the Japanese government. There is every reason to believe the situation is worse than it seems, and that those in charge don’t really know the full extent of the damage or how to cope with it.

Just five years ago a quake shut seven reactors at Kashiwazaki. The entire nation of Japan sits on a wide range of fault lines. Tsunami is a Japanese word.

Radiation from Fukushima has long since been detected throughout the northern hemisphere, with health effects that will be debated forever.

Some fifty reactors still operate in Japan. According to some, the Japanese public has the legal right to shut them all.

Let us pray they do. Yesterday.

LOS ALAMOS: A massive wildfire has swept at least to the outskirts of the national laboratory that was at the core of the program that built the Atomic Bomb.

The first explosion irradiated a nearby valley on July 16, 1945. Then came the two that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There are significant quantities of stored radioactive material in and around Los Alamos. How much there is, where it is, how badly it is threatened, how much (if any) has already been engulfed in flames remains to be seen. Evacuations are underway.

Official reassurances are not reliable.

Nor are estimates of the potential for radioactive fallout to spread throughout North America and beyond.

VERMONT YANKEE: Entergy, owner of the one reactor in Vermont, has sued to shred a solemn public contract.

The one thing certain here is the company’s contempt for the sanctity of its own word.

Years ago Entergy sought official permits at VY. It promised in return that the state could choose to shut the reactor on March 21, 2012, which it’s now done.

In recent years VY has spewed tritium into groundwater and the Connecticut River, in some cases from underground pipes whose existence the company denied. A cooling tower has collapsed.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the reactor's license and asked the federal Justice Department to intervene on behalf of the utility.
http://nukefree.org/sen-sanders-says-nrc-has-sided-entergy-vermont-yanke...

The request trashes any credibility retained by the NRC. The Commission was established in the mid 1970s to be a disinterested party on which the public could rely. For it to now take a partisan stand on behalf of a reactor owner it’s bound to regulate thoroughly contaminates the core of its existence.

Entergy has sued so it can buy some $65 million in radioactive fuel the people of Vermont do not want burned on their land.

This will go to the US Supreme Court, where the future legal sanctity of any and all public contracts signed by any corporation, nuclear or otherwise, may be determined.

NEBRASKA: The flooding Missouri River continues to threaten at least two heartland reactors.

Late reports indicate Cooper may still be running, with public assurances it could be shut very quickly. What might happen if the operators are a little bit late has not been explained.

Nor is there much to go on about the impacts of flooded cores and fuel cooling ponds on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers or the eco-systems along the way to a Gulf of Mexico still reeling from BP’s toxic dose.

But an almost surreal set of circumstances surrounds the true nature of design specifications and protections in place (or not) at Ft. Calhoun. http://www.counterpunch.com/giambrone06272011.html

They may be best summarized by what happened to a “flood berm” meant to protect Ft. Calhoun. This huge rubberized water-filled sausage was sixteen feet at the base and eight feet high.

But CNN http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-26/us/nebraska.flooding_1_nuclear-power-... has quoted a company representative as saying some sort of equipment “came in contact” with the berm and punctured it.

Not to worry: the “same level of protection is in place” as had been prior to the installation of the berm.

In other words, the device was installed to protect the reactor. Then somebody punctured it. But things are as they were before so they must not have needed that berm in the first place. Got it?

It’s as yet unclear whether flood waters will continue to rise at these two reactors, whether the operators can protect them, and what will happen if they can’t.

The corporate media is carrying virtually zero coverage of any of the above stories. All are subject to rapid, dangerous changes about which we may have little reliable information.

But we do know for sure that US Senator Robert Casey, Jr. (D-PA) now wants to see more deeply into one of the key holes in the nuclear façade: evacuation.

After Three Mile Island’s 1979 partial melt-down, new federal legislation allegedly gave states more power over how to get people out of the path of a melting nuke.

But after an as-yet unopened Perry reactor was damaged by a 1986 earthquake, Ohio's then-Governor Richard Celeste sued to keep Perry shut pending a state evacuation study.

The NRC refused and won in federal court. Perry opened. Ohio’s official study then said evacuation was virtually impossible.

A quarter-century later, Casey wants to see what it might now take to move downwinders out of harm’s way from a TMI, Perry, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Vermont Yankee, Cooper, Ft. Calhoun…..you name it.

Casey’s being joined by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose demands for the shut-down of Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan, have left its owners “shaken.” http://nukefree.org/ny-governor-cuomo-emphasizes-aim-shut-indian-point

Cuomo and Casey might do well to join governors of states like Vermont, Massachusetts, California and others in testing the law on evacuation planning. Populations have vastly increased at virtually all US reactor sites since TMI. And the ugly realities that define the so-called “Peaceful Atom” are still making themselves all too apparent.

Whether the US will now turn with Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and others away from atomic power and toward a green-powered Earth is up to us. The Solartopian technologies of wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, ocean thermal, bio-fuels, increased efficiency and conservation are now demonstrably cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable, more job-producing and quicker to install than anything atomic energy can promise.

A $36 billion loan guarantee give-away still mars the proposed 2012 federal budget. http://nukefree.org/bonnie-jackson-graham-we-may-be-brink . Constant pressure on Congress and the White House can kill that, and any other proposed funding for still more of these nightmares.

The stream of reactor disasters spewing from this dying industry is certain to escalate. The toll rises with each leak at Fukushima, every flame at Los Alamos, each legal brief at Vermont Yankee, every foot of Nebraska floodwater.

The need to stop the madness grows more desperate every day.

Harvey Wasserman edits www.nukefree.org and is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH. His “Solartopia! Green-Power Hour” is at www.talktainmentradio.com every Wednesday, 8-9pm.

Assault on Gaza Flotilla Ship: 'Sabotaged by Divers' in Port, Attacked by Legal Group Funded by Christian Right 'Mad Pastor' John Hagee

Assault on Gaza Flotilla Ship: 'Sabotaged by Divers' in Port, Attacked by Legal Group Funded by Christian Right 'Mad Pastor' John Hagee By Dahr Jamail and Max Blumenthal, Al Jazeera English and MaxBlumenthal.com Posted on June 28, 2011, Printed on June 29, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/151461/assault_on_gaza_flotilla_ship%3A_%27sabotaged_by_divers%27_in_port%2C_attacked_by_legal_group_funded_by_christian_right_%27mad_pastor%27_john_hagee The following are two news stories revealing an orchestrated attempt to prevent the launch of the 2nd flotilla ship aimed at breaking Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Gaza flotilla ship 'sabotaged by divers'                  by Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera English A Swedish ship due to join an upcoming Gaza-bound aid flotilla has been sabotaged in the Greek port of Piraeus, organisers say. In a statement, they said "hostile divers had destroyed the propeller house and cut the propeller shaft" of the vessel Juliano on Monday. The ship is part of the 10-vessel Freedom Flotilla II that is expected to set sail from Greece and elsewhere for the Gaza Strip in the coming days in a bid to break Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory. About 350 pro-Palestinian activists from 22 countries are likely to participate. Israel insists the latest flotilla is a "dangerous provocation" and has vowed to intercept it. Determined organisers Organisers of the flotilla, however, remain defiant and said the Juliano would be ready to sail within one or two days after being repaired. They said they had documented the sabotage with their own camera-equipped divers. "We are sad that people are doing such things but we are determined to continue to Gaza," Dror Feiler, one of the organisers, told Al Jazeera from aboard the Juliano. "We will not be frightened by Israel, and we are going to continue. Our friends from all around the world are with us, and we are all going to Gaza." Mattias Gardell, a spokesperson for Ship to Gaza Sweden, also condemned the act of sabotage. "It's one thing for a foreign power to press the Greek government to delay our voyage with red tape. It is quite another thing for enemy agents to operate on Greek territory. "It is high time for the international community to put their foot down and say: Enough!" Israeli allegation Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted senior Israeli officials as saying that "radical elements" among the flotilla activists had stated an intention to "spill the blood of Israeli soldiers". According to Tel Aviv daily Yedioth Aharonoth, military sources said participants of the flotilla were planning to pour chemicals, such as sulfur, on Israeli soldiers. But according to activist Feiler, the goal of the flotilla is to "come in peace" to Gaza. "We are shocked by the Israeli actions, and their propaganda that we have weapons and acid and are going to attack Israeli soldiers, when we are all dedicated to peace," Feiler said. "We will not throw objects or attack them in any way." The flotilla comes a year after another aid shipment was intercepted by Israeli commandos. At least nine activists were killed when commandos stormed Mavi Marmara, the Turkish-owned lead aid ship. Besides the Juliano - named after Juliano Mer-Khamis, the Arab-Israeli actor, director and political activist who was shot dead in the West Bank town of Jenin in April - boats from Greece, France, Italy and Spain are also among those joining Freedom Flotilla II. Two cargo vessels will carry medicines, a fully equipped ambulance car, and cement. A number of journalists are among those taking part in the bid to break Israel's five-year naval blockade on the Gaza Strip, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary-general, and several international leaders have urged the flotilla not to set sail, and the US has warned its nationals not to join the attempt to break the embargo. The border has remained largely shut since June 2006, when Israel imposed a tight blockade on the coastal territory after Palestinian fighters snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is still being held. The UN has called the blockade illegal and repeatedly demanded it be lifted. A ban on civilian goods and foodstuffs was eased last year but many restrictions remain in place. *** Right-Wing Christian Megapastor a 'Major Funder' of Legal Group's Efforts to Prevent Flotilla Launch to Break Israel's Naval Blockade of Gaza by Max Blumenthal, MaxBlumenthal.com  On June 24, Joseph Dana, a journalist who will traveling aboard the US boat to Gaza, discovered that an anonymous private legal complaint had been filed against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The complaint alleged that US boat, “The Audacity of Hope,” was not sea worthy and therefore was unfit to sail. In response, the harbor master in Athens, Greece, where the boat was docked, told the crew that he could not allow them to leave until the complaint was resolved. Two days later, the Israel Law Center, Shurat Hadin, accepted responsibility for the complaint, which was essentially a baseless but startlingly successful exercise in legal harassment. Who is Shurat Hadin, and what is their agenda? According to the group’s website, Shurat Hadin is a Tel Aviv-based law center that specializes in lawsuits against “terrorists.” Its founder, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, describes herself in her bio as a “human rights activist.” Darshan-Leitner began her harassment of the US boat to Gaza began weeks ago when it filed a civil action against “perceived supporters of Hamas” on behalf of Alan Bauer, an American doctor who was injured along with his son in a 2002 Jerusalem bombing attack. The action also threatened maritime insurance companies with legal consequences if they insured any of the boats involved in the flotilla. I have discovered that a major donor to Shurat Hadin is the homophobic far-right Pastor John Hagee. In March 2010, I reported that Hagee appeared beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a major rally in Jerusalem to denounce the two state solution and announce the financial contributions he and his supporters were making to Israeli organizations. Among the organizations Hagee said he had bankrolled was Shurat Hadin. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Republican Senator John McCain repudiated Hagee’s endorsement as soon as Hagee’s statements describing the Holocaust as a fulfillment of divine prophecy came to light. Hagee has also asserted his belief that the anti-Christ was “partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler.” As the researcher and reporter Bruce Wilson has documented, Hagee preaches that the Jewish Rothschild family controls the US economy through the Federal Reserve and conspires to attack the American middle class by devaluing the dollar. In his 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown, Hagee claimed that a lineage of “half-breed Jews,” descended from Esau and which included Adolf Hitler, have persecuted full-blooded Jews throughout history. Hagee prophesied that God intended to exterminate that “half-breed Jew” line. These statements — and countless more demonizing gays, Muslims, and anyone else Hagee deems to be allied with “the Enemy”  – have been widely reported. However, nothing Hagee says or does seems to deter the “human rights activist” Darshan-Leitner and Shurat Hadin from embracing him and benefiting from his riches. Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist and author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq, and The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight In Iraq and Afghanistan. Max Blumenthal is the author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books, 2009). Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com. © 2011 Al Jazeera English and MaxBlumenthal.com All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/151461/

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Winners and Losers in the Great, Global Energy Struggle to Come

http://www.truth-out.org/winners-and-losers-great-global-energy-struggle-come/1309184846

 

Winners and Losers in the Great, Global Energy Struggle to Come

Monday 27 June 2011

by: Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch | News Analysis

Elvin Batz, an installer with SPG Solar, checks the pontoon structure and solar panels on the company's Floatovoltaics floating solar array, stationed in an irrigation pond in Petaluma, California, April 6, 2011. Building solar arrays that can float allows for clean energy opportunities in places that have no land to spare, but abundant water resources and intense sunshine. (Photo: Peter DaSilva / The New York Times)

A 30-year war for energy preeminence?  You wouldn’t wish it even on a desperate planet.  But that’s where we’re headed and there’s no turning back.

From 1618 to 1648, Europe was engulfed in a series of intensely brutal conflicts known collectively as the Thirty Years’ War. It was, in part, a struggle between an imperial system of governance and the emerging nation-state.  Indeed, many historians believe that the modern international system of nation-states was crystallized in the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, which finally ended the fighting.

Think of us today as embarking on a new Thirty Years’ War.  It may not result in as much bloodshed as that of the 1600s, though bloodshed there will be, but it will prove no less momentous for the future of the planet.  Over the coming decades, we will be embroiled at a global level in a succeed-or-perish contest among the major forms of energy, the corporations which supply them, and the countries that run on them.  The question will be: Which will dominate the world’s energy supply in the second half of the twenty-first century?  The winners will determine how -- and how badly -- we live, work, and play in those not-so-distant decades, and will profit enormously as a result.  The losers will be cast aside and dismembered.

Why 30 years?  Because that’s how long it will take for experimental energy systems like hydrogen power, cellulosic ethanol, wave power, algae fuel, and advanced nuclear reactors to make it from the laboratory to full-scale industrial development.  Some of these systems (as well, undoubtedly, as others not yet on our radar screens) will survive the winnowing process.  Some will not.  And there is little way to predict how it will go at this stage in the game.  At the same time, the use of existing fuels like oil and coal, which spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, is likely to plummet, thanks both to diminished supplies and rising concerns over the growing dangers of carbon emissions.

This will be a war because the future profitability, or even survival, of many of the world’s most powerful and wealthy corporations will be at risk, and because every nation has a potentially life-or-death stake in the contest.  For giant oil companies like BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell, an eventual shift away from petroleum will have massive economic consequences.  They will be forced to adopt new economic models and attempt to corner new markets, based on the production of alternative energy products, or risk collapse or absorption by more powerful competitors.  In these same decades, new companies will arise, some undoubtedly coming to rival the oil giants in wealth and importance.

The fate of nations, too, will be at stake as they place their bets on competing technologies, cling to their existing energy patterns, or compete for global energy sources, markets, and reserves.  Because the acquisition of adequate supplies of energy is as basic a matter of national security as can be imagined, struggles over vital resources -- oil and natural gas now, perhaps lithium or nickel (for electric-powered vehicles) in the future -- will trigger armed violence.

When these three decades are over, as with the Treaty of Westphalia, the planet is likely to have in place the foundations of a new system for organizing itself -- this time around energy needs.  In the meantime, the struggle for energy resources is guaranteed to grow ever more intense for a simple reason: there is no way the existing energy system can satisfy the world’s future requirements.  It must be replaced or supplemented in a major way by a renewable alternative system or, forget Westphalia, the planet will be subject to environmental disaster of a sort hard to imagine today.

The Existing Energy Lineup

To appreciate the nature of our predicament, begin with a quick look at the world’s existing energy portfolio.   According to BP, the world consumed 13.2 billion tons of oil-equivalent from all sources in 2010: 33.6% from oil, 29.6% from coal, 23.8% from natural gas, 6.5% from hydroelectricity, 5.2% from nuclear energy, and a mere 1.3% percent from all renewable forms of energy.  Together, fossil fuels -- oil, coal, and gas -- supplied 10.4 billion tons, or 87% of the total.

Even attempting to preserve this level of energy output in 30 years’ time, using the same proportion of fuels, would be a near-hopeless feat.  Achieving a 40% increase in energy output, as most analysts believe will be needed to satisfy the existing requirements of older industrial powers and rising demand in China and other rapidly developing nations, is simply impossible. 

Two barriers stand in the way of preserving the existing energy profile: eventual oil scarcity and global climate change.  Most energy analysts expect conventional oil output -- that is, liquid oil derived from fields on land and in shallow coastal waters -- to reach a production peak in the next few years and then begin an irreversible decline.  Some additional fuel will be provided in the form of “unconventional” oil -- that is, liquids derived from the costly, hazardous, and ecologically unsafe extraction processes involved in producing tar sands, shale oil, and deep-offshore oil -- but this will only postpone the contraction in petroleum availability, not avert it.  By 2041, oil will be far less abundant than it is today and so incapable of meeting anywhere near 33.6% of the world’s (much expanded) energy needs.

Meanwhile, the accelerating pace of climate change will produce ever more damage -- intense storm activity, rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, lethal heat waves, massive forest fires, and so on -- finally forcing reluctant politicians to take remedial action. This will undoubtedly include an imposition of curbs on the release via fossil fuels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, whether in the form of carbon taxes, cap-and-trade plans, emissions limits, or other restrictive systems as yet not imagined.  By 2041, these increasingly restrictive curbs will help ensure that fossil fuels will not be supplying anywhere near 87% of world energy.

The Leading Contenders

If oil and coal are destined to fall from their position as the world’s paramount source of energy, what will replace them? Here are some of the leading contenders.

Natural gas:  Many energy experts and political leaders view natural gas as a “transitional” fossil fuel because it releases less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases than oil and coal.  In addition, global supplies of natural gas are far greater than previously believed, thanks to new technologies -- notably horizontal drilling and the controversial procedure of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) -- that allow for the exploitation of shale gas reserves once considered inaccessible.  For example, in 2011, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) predicted that, by 2035, gas would far outpace coal as a source of American energy, though oil would still outpace them both.  Some now speak of a “natural gas revolution” that will see it overtake oil as the world’s number one fuel, at least for a time.  But fracking poses a threat to the safety of drinking water and so may arouse widespread opposition, while the economics of shale gas may, in the end, prove less attractive than currently assumed.  In fact, many experts now believe that the prospects for shale gas have been oversold, and that stepped-up investment will result in ever-diminishing returns.

Nuclear power:  Prior to the March 11th earthquake/tsunami disaster and a series of core meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex in Japan, many analysts were speaking of a nuclear "renaissance," which would see the construction of hundreds of new nuclear reactors over the next few decades.  Although some of these plants in China and elsewhere are likely to be built, plans for others -- in Italy and Switzerland, for example -- already appear to have been scrapped.  Despite repeated assurances that U.S. reactors are completely safe, evidence is regularly emerging of safety risks at many of these facilities.  Given rising public concern over the risk of catastrophic accident, it is unlikely that nuclear power will be one of the big winners in 2041. 

However, nuclear enthusiasts (including President Obama) are championing the manufacture of small “modular” reactors that, according to their boosters, could be built for far less than current ones and would produce significantly lower levels of radioactive waste.  Although the technology for, and safety of, such “assembly-line” reactors has yet to be demonstrated, advocates claim that they would provide an attractive alternative to both large conventional reactors with their piles of nuclear waste and coal-fired power plants that emit so much carbon dioxide.

Wind and solar: Make no mistake, the world will rely on wind and solar power for a greater proportion of its energy 30 years from now.  According to the International Energy Agency, those energy sources will go from approximately 1% of total world energy consumption in 2008 to a projected 4% in 2035.  But given the crisis at hand and the hopes that exist for wind and solar, this would prove small potatoes indeed.  For these two alternative energy sources to claim a significantly larger share of the energy pie, as so many climate-change activists desire, real breakthroughs will be necessary, including major improvements in the design of wind turbines and solar collectors, improved energy storage (so that power collected during sunny or windy periods can be better used at night or in calm weather), and a far more efficient and expansive electrical grid (so that energy from areas favored by sun and wind can be effectively distributed elsewhere).  China, Germany, and Spain have been making the sorts of investments in wind and solar energy that might give them an advantage in the new Thirty Years’ War -- but only if the technological breakthroughs actually come.

Biofuels and algae:  Many experts see a promising future for biofuels, especially as “first generation” ethanol, based largely on the fermentation of corn and sugar cane, is replaced by second- and third-generation fuels derived from plant cellulose (“cellulosic ethanol”) and bio-engineered algae.  Aside from the fact that the fermentation process requires heat (and so consumes energy even while releasing it), many policymakers object to the use of food crops to supply raw materials for a motor fuel at a time of rising food prices.  However, several promising technologies to produce ethanol by chemical means from the cellulose in non-food crops are now being tested, and one or more of these techniques may well survive the transition to full-scale commercial production.  At the same time, a number of companies, including ExxonMobil, are exploring the development of new breeds of algae that reproduce swiftly and can be converted into biofuels.  (The U.S. Department of Defense is also investing in some of these experimental methods with an eye toward transforming the American military, a great fossil-fuel guzzler, into a far “greener” outfit.)  Again, however, it is too early to know which (if any) biofuel endeavors will pan out.

Hydrogen:  A decade ago, many experts were talking about hydrogen’s immense promise as a source of energy.  Hydrogen is abundant in many natural substances (including water and natural gas) and produces no carbon emissions when consumed.  However, it does not exist by itself in the natural world and so must be extracted from other substances -- a process that requires significant amounts of energy in its own right, and so is not, as yet, particularly efficient.  Methods for transporting, storing, and consuming hydrogen on a large scale have also proved harder to develop than once imagined.  Considerable research is being devoted to each of these problems, and breakthroughs certainly could occur in the decades to come.  At present, however, it appears unlikely that hydrogen will prove a major source of energy in 2041.

X the Unknown: Many other sources of energy are being tested by scientists and engineers at universities and corporate laboratories worldwide. Some are even being evaluated on a larger scale in pilot projects of various sorts.  Among the most promising of these are geothermal energy, wave energy, and tidal energy.  Each taps into immense natural forces and so, if the necessary breakthroughs were to occur, would have the advantage of being infinitely exploitable, with little risk of producing greenhouse gases.  However, with the exception of geothermal, the necessary technologies are still at an early stage of development.  How long it may take to harvest them is anybody’s guess. Geothermal energy does show considerable promise, but has run into problems, given the need to tap it by drilling deep into the earth, in some cases triggering small earthquakes.

From time to time, I hear of even less familiar prospects for energy production that possess at least some hint of promise.  At present, none appears likely to play a significant role in 2041, but no one should underestimate humanity’s technological and innovative powers.  As with all history, surprise can play a major role in energy history, too.

Energy efficiency:  Given the lack of an obvious winner among competing transitional or alternative energy sources, one crucial approach to energy consumption in 2041 will surely be efficiency at levels unimaginable today: the ability to achieve maximum economic output for minimum energy input.  The lead players three decades from now may be the countries and corporations that have mastered the art of producing the most with the least. Innovations in transportation, building and product design, heating and cooling, and production techniques will all play a role in creating an energy-efficient world. 

When the War Is Over

Thirty years from now, for better or worse, the world will be a far different place: hotter, stormier, and with less land (given the loss of shoreline and low-lying areas to rising sea levels).  Strict limitations on carbon emissions will certainly be universally enforced and the consumption of fossil fuels, except under controlled circumstances, actively discouraged.  Oil will still be available to those who can afford it, but will no longer be the world’s paramount fuel.  New powers, corporate and otherwise, in new combinations will have risen with a new energy universe.  No one can know, of course, what our version of the Treaty of Westphalia will look like or who will be the winners and losers on this planet.  In the intervening 30 years, however, that much violence and suffering will have ensued goes without question. Nor can anyone say today which of the contending forms of energy will prove dominant in 2041 and beyond.

Were I to wager a guess, I might place my bet on energy systems that were decentralized, easy to make and install, and required relatively modest levels of up-front investment.  For an analogy, think of the laptop computer of 2011 versus the giant mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s.  The closer that an energy supplier gets to the laptop model (or so I suspect), the more success will follow.

From this perspective, giant nuclear reactors and coal-fired plants are, in the long run, less likely to thrive, except in places like China where authoritarian governments still call the shots.  Far more promising, once the necessary breakthroughs come, will be renewable sources of energy and advanced biofuels that can be produced on a smaller scale with less up-front investment, and so possibly incorporated into daily life even at a community or neighborhood level.

Whichever countries move most swiftly to embrace these or similar energy possibilities will be the likeliest to emerge in 2041 with vibrant economies -- and given the state of the planet, if luck holds, just in the nick of time.

Copyright 2011 Michael T. Klare

Michael T. Klare

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. A documentary movie version of his previous book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation.

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs