Abstract
The “tight oil revolution” is a prominent example of the misleading belief in the power of technology. We identify the “domination of nature paradigm”, which originated in the sixteenth century and developed into an influential ideology of Western society, as a root cause for the optimism that technology will always push the geological limits and provide us with an abundance of fossil fuels. As a case study, our discussion of the “tight oil revolution” will demonstrate (1) that natural factors like steep depletion rates are alarming symptoms of its unsustainability; (2) that the emergence of this revolution is only partially linked to the “power of technology”, but also to deregulation and Wall Street economics. The article concludes that we need to accept that there are insurmountable limits to technology’s “domination of nature”. Theoretically, this recognition should be reflected in International Relations, allowing for the incorporation of natural factors such as “peak oil” in order to provide us with sustainable models for a post-fossil era.
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Notes
- 1.
Deudney (1999a: 42) reminds us that important exceptions to this rule are being found in the disciplines of archeology, geography, economics, and history, all of which have contributed to the “study of the effects of the natural environment on politics”.
- 2.
Galileo’s credo that theory must be confirmed by experimental observations and Newton with his mathematical formulation of the laws of nature have revolutionized the classical understanding of the world establishing the fundamentals of natural sciences.
- 3.
For a critique of Merchant’s radical gender orientation in her interpretation see Bramwell (1989: 24–26).
- 4.
LaPlace stated that once the initial and boundary conditions of all atoms in the world are known, their movements could be predicted into any future. Since such knowledge can only be theoretical and virtual, this statement became famous as “La Place’s demon”.
- 5.
The uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to know a priori all relevant physical data of any physical system exactly. This result of mathematical calculations led Bohr and Heisenberg to the “Copenhagen interpretation”, which identifies any physical prediction at an atomic level as a probabilistic statement (Born 1957). This interpretation was fundamental in relating modern physics to macroscopic observations, while also allowing the integration of neuronal aspects of thinking and even esoteric views in the broader physical frame without logical contradictions (Dürr and Österreicher 2001).
- 6.
To illustrate the consequences of the processes of entropy Homer-Dixon (2007) uses the example of the Roman Empire’s collapse.
- 7.
Though Mitchell (2011: 238) does not want to be misunderstood as belonging to the camp of determinists and Malthusians.
- 8.
Non-renewable resources were excluded from any analysis because they were considered to be abundant in the 1990s. This changed in the mid 2000s when questions of the availability of fossil fuels became an integral part of Homer-Dixon’s analysis. See Homer-Dixon (2007) and Homer-Dixon and Garrison (2010).
- 9.
- 10.
Peluso and Watts are extensively criticizing Homer Dixon in their introductory chapter as well as Hartman, Fairhead, Richards, and Watts in their contributions to the volume (Peluso and Watts 2001).
- 11.
- 12.
The big bang introduction of the “tight oil revolution” was only preceded by very few analyses referring to the Shale oil revolution (e.g. Mills 2012).
- 13.
Certainly, energy self-sufficiency is not only a result of the tight oil revolution, but also because of the expected impact of new fuel-efficiency measures in transport (International Energy Agency 2012: 1 and table 3).
- 14.
In recent years, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) modified the reporting rules for gas and oil companies by allowing the inclusion of unconventional reserves. Without this change, most companies would no longer be able to report reserve additions larger than the decline due to the produced volumes during the year.
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Peters, S., Zittel, W. (2014). The “Tight Oil Revolution” and the Misinterpretation of the Power of Technology. In: Mayer, M., Carpes, M., Knoblich, R. (eds) The Global Politics of Science and Technology - Vol. 2. Global Power Shift. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55010-2_6
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