What can be done?

First of all it is important to disseminate information about Peak Oil among friends and acquaintances. Only when information and awareness are out there, will it be possible to prepare for this great challenge. There are four steps that one can take concretely and immediately:

1. Those who become a member of ASPO Switzerland contribute to attaining this goal. You can become a member here.

2. Those who want to help electronically can send a mail to their friends and call attention to this web site.

3. In order to recruit members, the Swiss ASPO has had a flyer printed, entitled \'Peak Oil. What is that?\' (\'Peak Oil. Was ist das?\') If you wish to give these flyers to friends and acquaintances, you may send a letter to the Swiss ASPO Secretariat with 10 Franks cash indicating the number of flyers you would like to receive. The ASPO Secretariat will then send them to you.

4. Whether you are an ASPO member or not, and whether or not you want to help with the dissemination of Peak Oil information, you can in your private life commit yourself to sustainable development, conflict resolution, efficiency and frugality.

At the political level we need more time. Since global Peak Oil and Gas are new phenomena for which there are no historical examples, there is no agreement between experts, industrials and politicians on how to prepare for global Peak Oil.

Replacing petroleum by other energy sources is difficult because the concentration of energy in petroleum is exceptional (10 kcal per gram, which corresponds to one day of manual labour). Since petroleum is such a valuable and dense source of primary energy, it will be a very difficult or even impossible challenge to quantitavely replace this source of energy.

The energy mix is different from one country to the next, and consists of
different primary energy sources. They can be arranged in a clear way using the ancient 12-cell backgammon board. There are currently no primary energy sources other than those indicated on the board.

The primary sources of energy are used to produce heat, mobility and electricity. Furthermore they are used as a starting material for industrial processes. Electricity and hydrogen are not primary energy sources, but secondary sources that have to be produced from primary ones, so that you can distiguish between \'solar hydrogen\' and \'nuclear hydrogen\'.

The primary sources in row A are all non-renewable and exhibit a production peak as a function of time, which is their disadvantage. On the other hand their advantage is that they are very dense and have a high energy potential. Row A dominates the global energy supply. The primary energies in row B and C are all renewable and exhibit no peak, which is their advantage. But then their disadvantage is that their energy potential is small, and their contribution to the global energy mix is still modest. This is why the advancement of renewable energies and energy efficiency, shown in cell C4 as the Joker, is of utmost importance for Switzerland as well as for other countries.