The energy crisis is being ignored

This is a voice from my past.

Most people in the “climate change movement”, in my estimation, are insane these days.

The author, Deidre Kent, is not.

This article is worth reading, especially for New Zealanders

While We Watch the Floods, Are We Ignoring Our Other Great Vulnerability?

Climate disasters dominate the news

Deirdre Kent

Jul 08, 2026

A large diesel powered truck delivering to a building site had to back rather than risk a U-turn

Washed out bridge Wairarapa. Thanks to Stuff

As I write, New Zealand is once again enduring an extreme weather event. Dunedin has suffered a major landslide. Kaikōura has been cut off. Several bridges in South Wairarapa have been washed out. Hardly a television news bulletin goes by these days without images of flooded homes, damaged roads or isolated communities.

Meanwhile, climate groups continue their work. Our Climate Declaration recently held yet another Zoom meeting where a scientist explained the latest estimates of sea-level rise. The science is becoming ever clearer. We know we must stop burning fossil fuels.

Yet our government continues to prioritise economic growth over serious climate mitigation. The warnings become more urgent while the policy response remains inadequate.

The Strait of Hormuz has changed my thinking

The recent disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has made me appreciate something I had perhaps underestimated before: just how completely our civilisation depends on oil.

Oil is not simply another fuel. It is the feedstock for thousands of manufactured products and the foundation of modern transport. Above all, diesel powers the systems we rely on every day—agriculture, mining, freight transport, construction and much more.

When diesel stops, civilisation doesn’t stop immediately. But it begins to unravel remarkably quickly.

The book New Zealand libraries don’t have

A couple of years ago I heard about a book by Alice Friedemann, When the Trucks Stop Running (2016). I asked my local library whether they could obtain a copy.

After some investigation, the librarian regretfully told me that no New Zealand library held the book. Nor could she locate Friedemann’s 2021 work, Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy.

I then looked online.

Amazon listed the first book for around NZ$114 for the paperback, with the Kindle edition almost as expensive. The second book was even dearer, and one eBay seller was asking over US$230.

Clearly these are not books that many people will casually buy.

ChatGPT points me in a different direction

When I asked ChatGPT whether any New Zealand libraries had acquired either title the answer was no. But it suggested something even more valuable.

It pointed me towards Alice Friedemann’s website, where much of her research has been made freely available. Among the recommended articles were:

• When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization

• What Would Happen if Trucks Stopped Running?

• Shipping Makes the World Go Round

• Peak Oil and Transportation

• Can Freight Trains Be Electrified?

• All-Electric Trucks Using Batteries or Overhead Wires

These articles explore subjects that have interested me for years: declining Energy Return on Investment (EROI), the limits of electrifying heavy transport, fragile global supply chains, the importance of rail freight, and the need for more local production as we move towards a lower-energy future.

ChatGPT also reminded me that Friedemann wrote much of her work around 2015. Battery technology has improved considerably since then, and electric trucks will undoubtedly play a larger role than she expected. Nevertheless, there remains vigorous debate about the future of long-distance trucking, mining, shipping and aviation.

Her central argument—that modern civilisation depends on continuous diesel-powered freight—remains highly relevant.

One suggestion from ChatGPT particularly struck me. It proposed that someone should write a companion paper titled:

“When the Ships Stop Coming: New Zealand after Cheap Oil.”

As an island nation dependent on imported diesel, fertiliser, machinery and manufactured goods, New Zealand could be even more vulnerable than many larger countries.

Our exports run on diesel

Thinking about Friedemann’s work led me to consider New Zealand’s own economy.

Our export earnings are dominated by the primary sector. Dairy, meat, horticulture, forestry and fishing all depend heavily on diesel-powered machinery.

According to information summarised for me by Perplexity AI, agriculture accounts for around 9.5% of New Zealand’s total diesel consumption. Tractors, harvesters, loaders, irrigation pumps, milk tankers and countless other machines all rely on diesel.

EECA also notes that a large proportion of New Zealand’s diesel is used off-road, with agriculture accounting for most of that consumption.

The point is not simply that diesel is another farm input.

Diesel is woven into the operating core of modern farming.

Reports on New Zealand’s fuel dependence describe both agriculture and industry as being “completely dependent” on imported liquid fuels. The country consumes around 3.7 billion litres of diesel each year.

Farms cannot simply postpone seasonal work when fuel prices rise or supplies tighten. Harvesting, planting and transporting stock all have narrow time windows. Fuel shortages or price spikes quickly become higher food prices, squeezed farm incomes and reduced export earnings.

In other words, a large share of New Zealand’s export economy is diesel-enabled.

The building industry is also dependent on diesel

In the building industry, the electric options that are already commercially available or in active pilot use are mainly compact and mid-size machines: excavators, wheel loaders, compact loaders, articulated haulers, some wheeled excavators, cranes, forklifts, and certain material-transport trucks used on construction supply chains. Volvo CE and Caterpillar both show that the range now stretches from mini excavators up to larger medium machines, while some sites are also using electric cranes and construction-material HGVs.

There is even a list of heavy vehicles that can use electricity now so we can expect more as they develop.

Preparing for a future beyond oil

Climate change rightly commands our attention. We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But perhaps we should also pay more attention to another question.

What happens if oil becomes scarcer, more expensive or increasingly unreliable?

Extreme weather and energy vulnerability are not separate issues. They are closely linked.

As we attempt to reduce fossil fuel use to limit climate change, we also need to build a society that can function with much less oil. That means strengthening local production, improving rail transport, reducing unnecessary freight, and making our economy far more resilient than it is today.

Alice Friedemann’s answer is essentially: downscale deliberately rather than assume a like-for-like replacement of today’s energy-intensive society. In practice, that means using less energy, simplifying systems, shortening supply chains, and accepting that some activities now done by machines, long-distance transport, and large centralised infrastructures will have to shrink or disappear.

She does not present a polished “tech fix” pathway. Instead, she argues for adapting by redesigning society around lower throughput: more local production and consumption, less dependence on trucking and global trade, fewer energy-hungry products and services, and a shift toward resilience over growth.

In plain language, her view is that the transition will involve learning to live with less—less mobility, less material consumption, and less complexity—while preserving the most essential functions of society as much as possible.

I suspect Alice Friedemann would have a great deal to say about New Zealand’s future.

Perhaps it is time more of us listened.