Beyond immediate concerns about rising oil prices and climate change, the threat of peak oil is looming.

Virtually every aspect of our economy and society is dependent on fossils fuels - from the energy used to produced heat and electricity, to the products that we manufacture and consume.

Globally, most experts agree that we will reach peak oil production by 2020, or earlier. As consumption of oil continues to increase, this will create a gap between production and consumption. If current trends continue, economic chaos and global conflict will follow.

American economist Jeremy Rifkin has an optimistic take on what is generally considered a crisis, and believes peak oil is actually driving us to a new and more sustainable world.

"We are on the cusp of a Third Industrial Revolution that could give us an open door to a new post fossil fuel era," Rifkin told a packed audience at the recent IIDEX Conference in Toronto.

"It was the first industrial revolution that brought together print and literacy with coal, steam and rail," said Rifkin. "The second combined the telegraph and telephone with the internal combustion engine and oil."

"What we have now is a possibility of a distributed energy revolution. Each of us can create our own energy, store it, and then distribute it to each other," he said.

Rifkin's Third Industrial Revolution involves a network of millions of buildings that will produce renewable energy through solar, wind and wave power and distribute through a de-centralized network he calls "the inter-grid."

"We're going to make the power grid of the world smart and intelligent like the Internet, said Rifkin. "So that when millions and millions of us load power in our own buildings, store it in the form of hydrogen, and distribute it peer to peer to each other, much like we store digital media and distribute via the Internet."

With the first inter-grids going up in the US this year in Houston, Boulder Colorado and Southern California, Rifkin believes that the only barrier we face is a commitment to move forward.

"The Third Industrial Revolution is a game plan," he said. "I think we have the science and technology to do this, but it will mean nothing unless there's a change of will."

- - -

5 pillars of a carbon-free world

The European Union (EU) has already adopted Rifkin's plan to achieve a fossil-free future - the Five Pillars on which the Third Industrial Revolution will be built.

1st Pillar - Expanded generation and use of renewable energy

- Wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and wave power are key

- The EU has committed to achieving a target of 20% reduction in CO2 emissions and 20% renewable production by 2020, or one-third of Europe's current electricity production

2nd Pillar - Buildings as power plants

- Shifting from centralized power generation and distribution

- Buildings will become "prosumers' - producing consumers

- Homes, schools, offices and factories will become part of a network of renewable power plants

- The EU has committed to converting all 191 million buildings in Europe to produce power through solar, wind and other renewable forms of energy

3rd Pillar - Hydrogen Storage

- Developing hydrogen and other storage technologies

- Allows for the storage of surplus energy

- The EU has committed 8 billion Euros for development of hydrogen technologies

4th Pillar - Development of the Inter-Grid

- Development of the inter-grid - a smart-grid that will allow for stored energy to be distributed much like today's Internet

5th Pillar - Plug-In Ready

- Development of a new energy infrastructure for transportation that supports plug-in vehicles

- Project Get Ready and A Better Place are currently working toward making cities plug-in ready

- - -

Peak oil - a looming crisis

In 1956, American geoscientist M. King Hubbert first introduced the concept of peak oil - the point of maximum oil production.

According to Peak Oil Theory:

- All finite resources have a beginning, middle, and an end of production

- Production will eventually reach a level of maximum output

- Peak oil production occurs when approximately half of the oil has been extracted

- Oil becomes more difficult and expensive as wells pass their mid-point

- This will drive up costs and environmental impacts - the harder it is to extract oil, the greater the environmental damage, as witnessed by the Alberta tar sands

www.torontosun.com/