Richard Heinberg is the author of the indispensable ‘The Party’s Over’, which is the definitive book on Peak Oil. In that book he set out very clearly the issues surrounding oil depletion, making complicated oil reserve statistics understandable and painting a clear picture of what it all means and the implications for us all. I have given copies of ‘The Party’s Over’ to relatives, and recommended it to many people. If you haven’t read it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

His follow up, ‘Powerdown’, builds on the findings of its predecessor, and looks more at what we can do about it. I was very excited when I heard the title, and what the book was to look at, but I have to confess to being somewhat disappointed by it. The first quarter of the book is basically an update on the first book, bringing the reader up to date with the latest developments and events, and essentially reinforcing the argument set out in the first book. Whereas ‘The Party’s Over’ was a fat book of small print, this book is much smaller, and much larger font. Indeed the whole book could probably have been condensed into two final chapters for the last book.

He then goes on to identify the four options we have. The first he calls ‘Last One Standing, the way of war and competition’. This is basically the path that the current US administration have decided upon. The plan, as set out in the neo-conservative document ‘Project for a New American Century’ (check it out on the web, scary stuff) is for the US to seek to control the world’s oilfields, and to be the hand on the global petrol pump. Heinberg argues the obvious fallacies and potential consequences of this approach, but this is where the world finds itself, and with considerable momentum propelling it along this path.

The second option he calls ‘Powerdown’, which is the concerted effort at a national and international level to change the direction of our economies from growth to managed contraction. He quotes Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute who says "in both scale and urgency the effort required is comparible to the US mobilistion during World War II". Heinberg argues that although many environmentalists call for a decentralisation of power to local communities, a Powerdown strategy can only be carried forward by national governments, and the degree of mobilisation that is called for requires the involvement of the full spectrum of Government institutions. This task is huge, to take a massive economy and change its orientation towards sustained contraction and localisation, is a task of monumental proportions, but one which is achievable.

The third option he calls ‘Waiting for the Magic Elixir’. This is the option where we say "oh well, it is all OK because we can all run our cars on hydrogen", or "well, Viktor Schauberger made free energy machines didn’t he, we’ll use those". There is no alternative to oil that will allow us to do all the things that oil can do. Fact. Hydrogen is not an energy source, it is a storage medium. It requires more energy to make than you get from it. Free energy machines are often alluded to but where are they? Indeed it could be argued that free energy machines are the last thing we need. In effect, we have had free energy for the last 80 years, oil being so cheap. And look what we have done with it. Free energy would allow us to continue ravaging the planet, we are not sufficiently mature to have free energy machines, even if such things existed, and there is very little evidence that they do. Heinberg uses this chapter to argue that we do not have the luxury of sitting around waiting for a new energy source to come along, because it almost certainly won’t.

His final option ‘Building Lifeboats’ is about individuals and communities getting together and putting in place the infrastructure they need in order to become more self reliant. He makes a definite distinction between survivalists (the "head for the hills with your shotgun" approach) and the preservationists, who start building the sustainable future we need, and who he says "will persist through acts of service that will make them indispensable to the regional population". He argues that as communities we must begin relearning the skills we will need, putting in place the infrastructure, saving the seeds, planting the fuel forests and so on.

He then goes on to look at the big picture, and concludes that Lifeboat strategies on their own are not enough, that either we all pull through or none of us do, and what really is needed is Powerdown. This for me is where the book turned out to be rather disappointing. Heinberg seems to be trying to convince us that we really need a concerted effort at national and international scale to bring this about, but seems unable to convince himself that it is possible. It reads a bit like a doctor who knows you have terminal cancer telling you that you’ll pull through. He is trying to tread a fine balance between impressing on us the gravity of the situation and the scale of the task while at the same time convincing us that it can be turned around. This leads on to what for me is the key weakness of the book. Admittedly this complaint may be unique to me and where my thinking is at on this, but for me I wanted to know how we would actually set about achieving Powerdown? Taken as given that our leaders have decided upon the path of Last One Standing (invading Iran anyone?) what can we do to start making Powerdown a reality?

Building on Howard Odum’s concept of ‘energy descent’, and David Holmgren’s linking of energy descent to permaculture design, it strikes me that what we need is to prepare Energy Descent Action Plans for each town and settlement, in effect a roadmap to localisation. What I wanted from this book was what that might look like? How do we get from here to Powerdown? Has anyone (apart from Cuba, and that was forced on them rather than out of choice) actually looked at a settlement and begun to formulate a pathway for energy descent? Strikes me as the most important work we could be doing. For me I would have liked more meat on the bones, how would a community begin to take practical steps towards it. We have been trialling an Energy Descent Action Plan in with students of Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland, and it is fascinating and timely work.

‘Powerdown’ is an important and courageous book, Heinberg asks some very uncomfortable questions in it that really need to be asked. Perhaps for now the most important thing about this book is the fact that there is a book called Powerdown which promotes the idea of Powerdown. I would have liked a clearer idea of how we practically get from here to there, so that this book would have given the reader the tools to sit down with his/her neighbours and say ‘right, what do we do about this…’. It fails to do that, and that for me, despite its many strengths, is ultimately its weakness.