A+Crude+Awakening

Audrey Newcomb Sustainability Problems

Film Annotation: “A Crude Awakening” “A Crude Awakening,” produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack, and released in 2006

Like “Blind Spot,” “Crude Awakening” focuses on the issue of peak oil. The two movies even both interviewed Roscoe Bartlett and Matthew Savinar. The beginning of “Crude Awakening” was more sensational than that of “Blind Spot,” declaring oil as the “bloodstream of the world’s economy” and “our God.” Instead of talking about how oil is a finite resource, “Crude Awakening” featured once bountiful oil fields and contrasted images of their heyday with current images of their abandoned or slow churning equipment. “Crude Awakening” didn’t make viewers feel guilty about the industrial revolution. The description of the discovery of oil was very matter of fact; it was great that oil could provide so much energy. When I was a freshman I watched this movie for the first time and actually walked away with a greater appreciation for oil and the great amount of energy it stores. “A Crude Awakening” asserts how specific geological conditions are required for oil to form. This was an important point to make in order to eschew the idea that oil is abiogenic, meaning that it forms naturally in the earth’s core and is not a result of the decomposition of dinosaurs. The technologies for extracting oil were also reviewed in order to convince viewers that oil companies are going to great lengths to do all they can to extract oil, but it continues to decline. According to “A Crude Awakening” the implications of peak oil will be unemployment, starvation, and poverty.

Politicians are not elected unless they can promise change for their communities, with change being equated to increased economic success. Savinar pointed out that politicians are part of the peak oil problem because it is rarely in their favor to slow down an economy by, for example, limiting the sale of cars. Also, politicians are not elected based on their ability to prevent a perceived crisis, because usually the perceived crisis is a contentious issue with the public.

Advertisements have also imbued in some citizens the sense that there is dignity in owning a huge vehicle. People buy 10 gal/mi Hummers because they are status symbols. Advertisements have successfully convinced many that vehicles can serve as an outlet for self expression.

The design of U.S. cities around the assumption that a car would be the main form of transportation creates difficulty in experiencing peak oil, because a transition to a life with less oil implies a transition to a different model of a community.

Funding for research also lies within the matrix of forces behind the problem of peak oil. When non-fossil fuel energies were discussed, one man states that he didn’t believe that there is enough research of alternative energies. An interesting headline splashed the RPI website a week or so ago: “ [|Rensselaer Researchers Secure $1 Million Grant to Develop Oil Exploration Game-Changer.”]  The project sounds interesting; the objective is to find a way to power nanosensors. The application is questionable; the nanosensors are to help discover pockets of oil or natural gas. The study is funded by the [|Advanced Energy Consortium] which is a collection of 10 different oil companies.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) further exacerbates the confusion of peak oil when member countries incorrectly report their oil reserves in an attempt protect their ability to sell as much oil as possible. Oil data has not changed since 1985. Incorrect and outdated data can make it difficult to substantiate the claim of peak oil.

The movie makes viewers questioned how it is so cheap. One of my favorite graphics compares the cost of a gallon of oil with the cost of a gallon of Starbucks coffee. A gallon of Starbucks coffee is about $50.00. A gallon of gas compared to this is very cheap considering the number of man hours of labor a gallon of gasoline can provide. This comparison was one of the most compelling parts of the film. If I can justify buying a $3.00 cup of coffee then I should never complain about the price of gas. Glorifying the energy in gas was a compelling way to talk about peak oil. This angle makes one think about how the last century weighted down on the “excessive” side of the scale and now the “modest and controlled” side is going to have to be weighted down in order to balance out life.

I disagree with the movie’s assertion that oil is the devil. Oil certainly provided the temptation, but our rapacious appetite and unjustified paradigm of unlimited growth led us to make immoral choices and create an “unsustainable” society. “A Crude Awakening” asserts that we built a system that “fails to honor our living systems, under which “he who holds the gold makes the rules” (Hayes). The movie did such a good job convincing me of the power of oil, that I couldn’t accept a subsequent claim that oil is the devil, or that oil is so central to society that “oil is our God” (Savinar).

At the end of the film the pros and cons of several different technologies were discussed. There was no final conclusion about what path society will take to power itself. I was surprised that it would take 10,000 nuclear plants to replace our current oil demand. This number is staggering, but not realistic since I don’t envision one technology completely replacing our consumption of oil, nor do I envision a continued demand of oil equal to the current level. My second vision may be naïve, but I don’t think it would be smart to plan on replacing our current energy sources with another source of the same energy production capacity. Whether or not the technology is “green,” planning on the same rapacious population is not “sustainable” in principle and I bet it is not realistically “sustainable” either. I didn’t like the way nuclear plants, wind, and solar energy were so quickly dismissed, although doing so prompts me to seek out more information about those technologies. They said building the 10,000 nuclear plants would exhaust our uranium supply in 1-2 decades. I am interested in how this number is calculated; my best friend is a nuclear engineer and she said that uranium can be recycled many times and the limit of our uranium supply is often exaggerated. My opinion of this should not be based on hearsay, and therefore calls for additional investigation. Another problem to be further investigated is the planning of communities so that the car is not a necessity.

Peak oil movies are best suited for an audience who is motivated by grim predictions of the future. Peak oil movies appeal to an audience that can criticize conventional thoughts. For example, “A Crude Awakening” blatantly connected the war in Iraq with energy security, even describing how maps of oil fields were used to plan the war. The militarization of the taking of oil was expressed in “A Crude Awakening” more than in “Blind Spot.” Omitting this aspect of peak oil in “Blind Sport” may have been intentional in order to avoid fractionalizing the audience. “A Crude Awakening” affects how people view environmental problems in that it unites societal and environmental problems. Gluttonous consumption of oil is bad because of its damage to the environment, as well as its establishment of a lifestyle and world population that cannot be sustained.

Pursuing alternative energies and paying attention to fuel consumption is suggested by the film. [|Bloom Energy] is a company that produces modules of fuel cells that can produce 100kW of power, although their logic regarding decreased CO2 emissions from the fuel cells is based on the assumption that no large emissions free generators will be build in the future (read [|CO2 Accounting]). However, if one’s objective is to reduce wars and deaths due to struggles over oil, then a fuel cell that uses natural gas may not be bad idea. The modularity and independence from the electric grid that the Bloom Box can provide could also help people realize and adhere to limits of energy consumption.

To enhance environmental education the film could have mentioned how burning oil is destructive for the environment, or how extracting oil is destructive to the environment. The latter could have been incorporated simply by feature a “before oil drilling” snapshot before the “before the oil well reached its peak” snapshot. Even though gasoline has a lot of energy, and petroleum products are pervasive, society faces climate and respiratory issues, as well toxicological issues associated with the plastic and the many new substances we have crafted from petroleum.

__Resources:__

"Endgame(Derrick Jensen Books)." //Wikipedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Mar 2010. .

Hayes, Shannon. "Radical Homemakers." //Eco Local Living// Spring 2010: 18-20. Print.