I’m talking today at a Brisbane Institute forum on oil and whether it’s running out. 12:30 at the Hilton. I’ll try to post my presentation soon.
387 thoughts on “Peak Oil”
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John Quiggin 
Seeker, it’s quite possible to produce biodiesel on the scale needed to replace fossil fuel use, only in most countries (even the USA, but not Australia) that would displace food production too much (see Nassau Senior’s introductory remarks on machinery not affecting food availability in his classic work on “Wages”).
As it happens, biodiesel can be used for flight. The Germans had diesel powered flying boats in the 1930s, and the fuel is useable in gas turbines (though not as a direct replacement – it would need new engines).
This chicken little stuff is marvelous.
New oil discoveries are being made all the time. Examples are the North-West of Australia, Mauritania, etc etc etc The Middle-east isn’t even close to being fully exploited. Improving exploration and recovery technologies are increasing the known resources.
One of the major factors in the high oil price are lack of competition in the developed world where very few new oil refineries have been developed (none in the US for 25 years) – this restricts supply forcing the price up. The OPEC Cartel also artificially inflates the price. Add taxes on top of the normal prices and we see the reasons for the current high prices. It is not because we are running out.
At the same time alternatives are being developed. The potential for Bio-diesel has yet to be reflected in the share prices of producers. This is because any rational analysis takes into the possibility of falls in the price of normal diesel. If we were running out there wouldn’t be the likelihood of falls in that price, reducing the risk of bio-diesel investments.
I went down to the beach on the weekend. This was the first time after a wet winter and one of the coolest Springs on record (the Applecross Jacaranda Festival on the weekend wouldn’t have been much chop because the Jacarandas haven’t flowered because it has been too cold.) The sea level appears to be the same as when I was a kid. I went home disappointed that the Global Warming, sorry, climate change I keep reading about hasn’t warmed up the Leeuwin current. It was cold in the water.
Yes Razor, God loves you and nothing bad will ever happen because you don’t want it.
Which God? Is She female and good looking?
Razor – you are correct new oil discoveries are being made all the time however the rate of discovery is low and the fields found are small. The one you refer to is less that 50 000 barrels per day. Current world consumption is 83 million barrels per day.
This is a quote form ASPO Australia site that summerises the situation
“Dr Samsam Bakhtiari, of the National Iranian Oil Company, provided a pessimistic view of future oil supply decline and of its effects: –
“Seen from a Middle Eastern perspective, the present global oil situation can be summarised within five major and inescapable trends:
* The world’s super giant and giant oil fields are dying off;
* There are no more major frontier regions left to explore besides the earth’s poles;
* Production of non-conventional crude oil has been initiated at great costs — in Venezuela’s Orinoco belt, Canada’s Athabasca tar sands and ultra-deep waters;
* Even OPEC’s oil production has its limits;
* No major primary energy rival can possibly take over from oil and gas in the medium term.
Adding up these five trends, one can envision a global oil crunch at the horizon — most probably within the present decade…..” “…It would take a number of miracles to thwart such a rational scenario. Now, a single miracle is always a possibility, but a series of simultaneous miracles is not — for there are limits even to God Almighty’s mercifulness”. (Samsam Bakhtiari, 2002)”
Most recent discoveries just make up for depletion of major fields. Also modern technology allows us to deplete these resources faster that actually accelerates decline. Have a look at figures for the North Sea, exploited with the most modern technology and is depleting rapidly.
BTW one spot check at a beach does not make a comprehensive survey of global temperatures.
Ender – you are happy to accept the word of people who’s best interest it is to have high oil prices and openly act as a cartel? OK, I’ve got some land in West Fremantle you might be interested – great ocean views.
I’ve been going to the same beach for over 30 years. Obviously not a long enough sample?
Razor – have a look yourself about discovery rates. The information is all there – you do not have to depend on people. The last supergiant field was discovered in 1965 and there have been no similar discoveries since. If you can tell me different then fine, we shoud be OK. The conditions for making oil existed mainly in 2 distinct times in the distant past when the supercontinent was splitting up. Practically all present oil discoveries are in these regions and oil is not usually found anywhere else. There is a good reason that the other areas of the Middle East are unexplored is that they are not areas that produce oil – just as no-one looks in central Australia for oil.
30 years of of data is interesting however unless you have measured the tides over that 30 years with surveying instruments you would be very hard pressed to notice 3 or 4 cm of difference.
I thought that there was oil in Central Australia.
Terge – Yes there is in a well mapped sedimentary basin that is a product of the initial oil producing conditions.
On page 5 of this:
Click to access energy_chapter_2.pdf
is a map of Australia’s oil producing regions. I was wrong when I said that there was no point looking in central Australia for oil as as you correctly point out there are sedimentary rocks well into central Australia. However you will notice that outside this basin there is no oil. All the rest of Australia’s oil is around the coast.
for those interested two good papers to read are:
One by Ugo Bardi which looks at the Whaling industry and its experience of peaking and implications for the oil industry and
running out of and into Oil by David Greene, Janet Hopson and jia Lia.
Sorry you will have to google them.
My thoughts:
Hubbertians are right on geology but wrong on the economics
Homer – so Hubbert was right about the USA peaking in 1970?
By the way – I am putting my money where my mouth is on oil and global warming – picked up a brand new 5.7 litre V8 two weeks ago. Looks great with a baby seat, too!
Yes it did that is was Hubbert is so influential.
His analysis was spot on!
This is a fascinating discussion – it looks so much like one we had on this site a few months ago.
Yes, oil will run out one day – it is a finite resource. What will happen is simple – as it becomes more scarce the price will rise. More work will be done on discovering and developing alternatives – many of which are already under development. As the price continues to rise, more and more will switch to the alternatives. As with whale oil and everything else that at one stage we relied on for various things, by the time the last drop is produced it will be barely be noticed that it has gone and everyone will wonder what all the fuss was about.
Move on.
Andrew – yes but the alternatives cannot produce 83 million barrels per day nor the 93 million if we continue our demand rise as we are doing presently. Unless we stop using oil and remember a lot of oil use is for heating then we will not to sail on regardless.
Whale oil is a special case because an acceptable alternative existed. To most people an electric car is not an acceptable alternative. It will take more that high prices to convince people that we should use less petrol. What do you say the the people that burn oil for heat? Remember natural gas is finite as well.
The main problem is that people that think like you do is that you believe that alternatives can just simply substitute for oil with no modification to our lifestyles. Nothing is further from the truth. All alternatives involve less energy use and changes to our petrol head ways.
actually ender there wasn’t an alternative to whale oil until about thirty years after it had peaked.
andrew: In addition to Ender’s comments, there are some specific characteristics of oil production which magnify the problem.
As you may have read by now, oil fields tend to take years or decades to ramp up production – but then they delete very quickly. So it may seem reasoanble to assuem that a field which has been producing for 50 years and which is still increasing output has a reasonably long life ahead of it. In fact, it may be exhausting in little mote than a decade.
This phenomena (“Hibbert’s Peak”) is well-documented and well-accepted for individual oil fields, the question is whether it will also exhibit on a global scale.
Ian & Ender,
I used whale oil as an example because it was a simple one. There have been plenty of other resources either exhausted or nearly exhausted in the past and there will be in the future. The chicken little approach to management of problems has been proved wrong time and time again. I am aware of Hibbert’s Peak, and it is based on good science. I am also aware that the Saudis may not have all the oil they claim. Even on th emost pessimistic assumptions we still have more than a decade to deal with this. Yes, a change over to whichever alternative is eventually generally adopted will be expensive, but I would hazard a guess that it will be less expensive that the taxes we currently pay on our fuel. It may even benefit the environment.
There are plenty of problems out there that we can be getting upset about. This is not one of them.
Wrong Andrew, on the most pessismistic assumptions, Campbell, we have already hit it!
We may have hit Hibbert’s peak globally, we may not have. If we do run out of oil recoverable at reasonable cost any time soon we will have plenty of advance warning, caused by a real (not like the current supply chain induced) rise in prices. That will begin the transition process. I say again that this has happened plenty of times before; it is happening with other commodities now and it will happen with others in the future.
There is nothing unique in oil or gas or coal that will identify them as outside the general case that depletion leads to price increase, price increase leads to substitution, substitution leads to irrelevance for the nearly exhausted commodity.
As I said at the end of the last thread on this: by the time the last barrel of oil is pumped in however long from now that is we will not notice that oil has run out. It may be the subject of one of those ‘Did you know’ articles in whatever passes for a newspaper at that point in the future.
“I am aware of Hibbert’s Peak, and it is based on good science. I am also aware that the Saudis may not have all the oil they claim. Even on th emost pessimistic assumptions we still have more than a decade to deal with this. Yes, a change over to whichever alternative is eventually generally adopted will be expensive, but I would hazard a guess that it will be less expensive that the taxes we currently pay on our fuel. It may even benefit the environment.”
Yes but NOW is the time to begin to ddress the problem. WE probably have 15-20 years before the situation becoems critical but it will take a good part of that time to develop the solutions
Plenty of options exist. Solar and its derivatives (wind, wave, tidal etc) all have good chances and, with some serious work, could answer the problem. If a more immediate need is there, nuclear is already there. For cars, hydrogen is a suitable energy storage mechanism in the medium term and batteries or hybrids will work now. There is no major crisis, nor will there be.
The important thing now is not to panic and start forcing solutions – let the market signals work their way through and sort it out. It has worked in the past and will in the future.
While I agree with all ov yu I think with peak oil we should adopt a wait and see approach. In the meantime, before there iz enything to see, we should each make individual sacrifices for environmental benefifts. Think lean, efficient, discipline and default environmentalism.
The same goes for potable water. Peak water, he he he he that is funny.
Andrew, it’s “Hubbert’s Peak” not “Hibbert’s Peak”.
Andrew Reynolds wote : “Plenty of options exist. … Solar and its derivatives (wind, wave, tidal etc) all have good chances and, with some serious work, could answer the problem. ”
You have ignored the point I made earlier about the massive environmental problems that would be caused if renewables were to be used on a scale that woud be necessary to completely replace fossil fuel powered stations.
Andrew Reynolds wote : “For cars, hydrogen is a suitable energy storage mechanism in the medium term and batteries or hybrids will work now.”
Currently there are 750 milion cars in the world. There exists enough platinum and palladium in the world, both currently necessary for hydrogen fuel cells, for about 10 million cars. (I learnt this from Andrew McNamara, Labor member of the Queensland Parliament, who made thatt famous speech about Peak Oil in February this year (http://energybulletin.net/4654.html), at a meeting about Peak Oil in Montville, Queensland on 4 November (see http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/577))
Andrew Reynolds wote : “There is no major crisis, nor will there be.”
As I wrote earlier, many seemingly advanced civilsations have collapsed before when they have degraded the environments and depleted the natural resources necessary to sustain them. What makes you so sure that this won’t happen to ours?
James,
You have completely ignored the point I made that we should let the market work it out.
In answer to your first point, nuclear may be the solution – there may be another. On the second, current technology demands palladium and platinum. Future technology may not. For example, until just over 30 years ago, computing required expensive valves – it now needs silicon and is much faster and better. Sixty years ago it was pen and paper.
If a government attempts to impose a solution then it may well choose a solution that looks good at the time, but has some of the problems you identified. Looking to a government imposed solution will almost always lead the wrong way.
The ‘other’ (read previous) civilisations uniformly collapsed when their systems could not cope with a challenge. A system based on the use of all of our brains rather than on the use of one brain (our government) is much more likely to cope with change than the systems that preceeded us. Our system has coped with these sorts of challenges before and will do so in the future.
Malthus was wrong, is wrong and always will be wrong provided we do not attempt to solve the problem by diktat.
Abdrew Reynolds wrote:
“There is nothing unique in oil or gas or coal that will identify them as outside the general case that depletion leads to price increase, price increase leads to substitution, substitution leads to irrelevance for the nearly exhausted commodity.”
So, Andrew, what are we going to do for all the products that are made from oil? (Plastics, drugs, solvents……)
Andrew Reynolds wrote:
“James,
You have completely ignored the point I made that we should let the market work it out.”
Andrew, your faith in the power of markets to solve all energy problems is touching. However, you ignore the fact that governments have generally considered energy too important a matter to be left entirely to markets. Had the US government been persuaded of the overwhelming efficacy of markets to solve problems of demand and supply, of consumers and producers, it would have opened the US to unlimited supplies of cheap mid-east oil from the 1950s. It did not do so, preferring instead to protect domestic producers from the cheaper imported oil. Domestic producers benefitted while consumers paid. This did not even satisfy the stated aim of conserving oil for emergencies. (If this had been the priority, of course the home-grown stuff would have been left in the ground and the cheaper Arab stuff would have been pumped.) The oil industry is dominated by cartels (OPEC, the Seven Sisters). Production quotas have been set for decades (the Texas Railroad Commission). Here’s a thought: if oil supplies do indeed become squeezed, perhaps governments will come under increasing domestic pressure to “save” doemstic oil from the markets. (“Our oil for us!”)
Peterd,
I do not know – my chemistry knowledge did not go past year 12. In the meium term there is lots of coal – that could be a solution. We may find that the cellulose based compounds can do it. The point is, which you have either missed or ignored, that anyone saying that ‘this is the solution’ is almost certainly wrong. Let the accumulated wisdom of all the people alive and economically active sort it out. That is what markets do.
Andrew,
(Funny, I don’t remember mentioning either ‘big government’ or Malthus, not that I am particularly against either of them.)
I think Ronald Wright hit the nail right on the head when he wrote on pages 126 and 127 of “A Brief History of Progress” :
“After the Second World War, a consensus emerged to deal with the roots of violence by creating international institutions and democratically managed forms of capitalism based on Keynesian economics and America’s New Deal. This policy, although far from perfect, succeeded in Europe, Japan, and some parts of the Third World. (Remember when we spoke, not of a ‘war on terror’ but of a ‘war on want’?)
“To undermine this (post-war) consensus and return to archaic political patterns is to walk back into the bloody past. Yet that is what the New Right has achieved since the late 1970’s, rewrapping old ideas as new and using them to transfer power from elected governments to unelected corporations – a project sold as ‘tax-cutting’ and ‘deregulation’ by the right’s courtiers in the media … The conceit of laissez-faire economics – that if you let the horses guzzle enough oats, something will go through to the sparrows – has been tried many times and has failed many times, leaving ruin and social wreckage.”
Andrew,
whether there are substitutes for oil for the production of plastics, drugs, etc. is something I need to research further.
Until then, all I’ll say is that I am not convinced of the ability of markets alone to respond sufficiently fast, and without support from governments (with taxpayers footing the bill). They didn’t respond fast in 1the 970s (though the price rises then were probably quicker than what we’ll face, even with the worst peak oil scenarios). After all, did “the markets” develop nuclear energy? Not the concept, surely.
Andrew – “You have completely ignored the point I made that we should let the market work it out.”
What will you eat while the 20 year lead time between action on alternatives and results. Your fuel cell cars are 20 years away even by the best estimates. Without action now the alternatives simply will not be ready in time. What you interpret as chicken little stuff is simply a desire to start changing NOW before the crisis is upon us.
However you notion that we can just carry on business as usual is fanciful at best and fatal as worst. We need to make major changes to accomodate the fact that all the alternatives have lower energy return than oil. That is basic physics which no matter how you try economics and the ‘market’ cannot get around. We have built this edifice on the high and easy energy return of oil. It is not sustainable with a lower energy return.
While it is true that we used valves 50 years ago the designers of Colosuss , the first computer used to decode German codes, did not delay the design of this computer because they were hoping for better technology. They just went ahead and did it without pinning their faith in new technologies. We have the solutions now however they are not acceptable, deemed to expensive or contrary to corporate interests. However for some uses heating there is no subsitute but another finite resource.
“There is nothing unique in oil or gas or coal that will identify them as outside the general case that depletion leads to price increase, price increase leads to substitution, substitution leads to irrelevance for the nearly exhausted commodity.”
And here you are dead wrong and is the basis of why you are so wrong in your thinking. Oil, gas and coal are all totally unique in their energy return ratio. There is no substitute that has a similar one. Why do you think we use them – because we like the color of them? We use them for one reason only and that is that they are high energy density, compact, easily stored, cheap and versatile energy resources. They are totally unique. The problem is that we view them as just another thing to use and this is where the problem lies.
Razor wrote:
“Looks great with a baby seat, too!”
Congrats, Razor, you’ve gone against the trend. A true individualist. Who’s the baby seat for?
Hmm, three large posts. Difficult to approach, except in order.
.
James,
The whole set of arguments above are Malthusian in nature. Have a look. Most of them are also targetting some form of government action; otherwise, what is this argument about?
Keynesian economics and the New Deal style packages lasted until it was clearly demonstrated that they could not explain stagflation in the 1970’s. They coped well while there were no real economic constraints, as in economies devastated by war. Fortunately, wars on that scale are infrequent and will hopefully not be repeated.
Wright may have ‘hit the nail on the head’ but I am not sure it was the right nail. In fact, I am sure it was not.
Peterd,
Governments will only be able to ‘guide’ the market where they have more wisdom than the sum of the governed. It may happen one day, but it has not happened yet. Governments only get it right when it is blindingly obvious even to the simple minded. Even then they mostly fail.
“The Market” would not have come up with nuclear power – at least not yet – it is a lot more expensive (after capital costs) and far more risky than almost any other method of generation. As for the concept, name a government that has come up with any concept, other than a silly one, and you win tonight’s star prize. Individuals come up with concepts. The same or other individuals then make them work. Others then buy the resulting products. That is a market.
Just noticed your other comments to me. My response would be clear – you cannot blame a market for not functioning correctly when the government stops it doing so. The US government in the 1950’s was following some silly policies – I do not see how a market can be blamed for that.
Ender,
They are not ‘my’ fuel cell cars. I am not claiming that any of the current technologies are the way to go. It may be every one of them, it may be none of them, the point is that no-one, least of all a government, should be tooling around trying to mandate one of the solutions.
Of course they did not delay the introduction of valve computers. All I was trying to say was that technology moves on, pushed by profit incentives and price signals, a good outcome was achieved. Corporations, like all businesses, stand or fall on their ability to change and adapt.
Are you being deliberately obtuse on the energy return ratio? At the moment there is not substitute. 50 years ago there was no substitute for bakelite. Before telephony there was not substitute for hiring someone to deliver messages (other than walking them around yourself). 50,000 years ago there was no substitute for hunting and gathering. Battery technology is making great leaps. Fuel cells could fix it too. Fusion power could help. There may be large reserves of oil as yet undetected. The point is that no one knows; so trying to run around as chicken little did is senseless. Make sure the price signals are allowed to get through and the problem will be solved. There is no magic, voodoo or other difficulty here.
If you want to make a difference, get out there and help the technology you think will do it. I will work with my favoured solution and may the best one win. The result will be better for everyone.
.
If I have one question to ask before you critisise me it is this – what is your proposed solution? All I can see above is a lot of people speaking about how terrible the problem is. No solutions.
Andrew Reynolds, we’re truly going around in circles, again. To every new fact which contradicts a previous assertion made by you, you simply respond that market signals will fix everything without the people as a whole needing to make any conscious decisions about the direction of their society. (No time to finish, now.)
Market signals are conscious decisions. And in any case some of my best thinking is done when I am asleep
I presume that James thinks that voting is more conscious than pricing.
“Plenty of options exist. Solar and its derivatives (wind, wave, tidal etc) all have good chances and, with some serious work, could answer the problem. If a more immediate need is there, nuclear is already there.”
Nuclear is hardly an “immediate” option. The technology may be mature but it typically takes ten years or more from the decision to build a nuclear plant to power generation.
soem of that is due to regulatory delays but it is a very lare, complex task. If we attempted a massive increase in nuclear power – say to double it’s contribution to world electricity production – we’d probably need MORE than ten years lead tiem because there simply aren’t sufficent nuclear engineers and technicans in the world to design, construct and operate them.
Hell, I’m not sure if there’s sufficient universities that teach the required subjects.
The question of whether oil reserves are about to ‘peak’ and whether we should start to worry is obviously a very contentious one. If the Peak Panic People are on to something, the least we can do is start modelling scenarios for a world facing a genuine oil crisis, in the same way that the Pentagon used to model life in the suburbs after a variety of nuclear wars: good, bad, ugly, terminal.
How quickly can we introduce proper alternatives? What industries would make it through? How would rationing work? How many 4WD Crapwagens should be forcibly disabled by the Petrol Police without compensation?
We might look at the kind of measures that were only resorted to in wartime. After the 1973-74 oil crisis, the American Bureau of Engraving and Printing produced an enormous stockpile of ration books for gas, which are presumably still languishing in warehouses.
Whatever crystal ball the rock-oil afficionados are gazing into, a few million dollars worth of imaginative modelling might save us endless queuing and panic in 2015.
Andrew – “Are you being deliberately obtuse on the energy return ratio? At the moment there is not substitute.”
No I am not. The energy return or EROI is a fixed physical quantity that relates to the resource in question. Consider the situation now assuming a 20:1 EROI of oil. We now expend one unit of energy to leverage 20 units of energy that goes to do work. We make things and drive around etc. All these activities have an energy requirement of 1 unit. Consider now that we have only a resource that has a 5:1 EROI. If we are to continue the present activites that requires 20 units of energy we now have to expend 4 units of energy to obtain the energy to power the same amount of work that 1 unit of oil sustained. The problem is that where is that extra 3 units of energy to come from? Either we find the extra energy or we have to scale back our activities to a level that 5 units of energy can sustain or find ways to make 5 units do the same job. This is the EROI problem in a nutshell. We have constructed this economy based on a high EROI resource. There is nothing similar that combines oil’s versatility and energy density.
The way forward is first a massive energy efficiency drive. This makes industry do more with less energy. With lower EROI power sources we cannot afford to waste as much as we do. Second is to redesign the power grid to incorporate mostly renewable power with PHEVs and BEVs as smart storage nodes in the power grid and incorporating household and industry local power generation. Thirdly is the realisation that perhaps a continually growing market economy is not sustainable and we may have to change to a different system.
None of these options is particularly palatable to our global western market economies and I doubt that this will happen. I think that it will take a crisis.
Ender,
I agree with you – there is nothing currently – but that may be because we have had no need of one.
The problem you have identified could be solved in any one of several ways – the one you have suggested is probably the best given current technology. The others would be to increase the total amount of energy available – nuclear (either fission or fusion if the tokamaks work) or any of the other options identified above. We could also work on ways to improve the ERIO of our existing processes. I think that the widespread availability of fossil fuels has meant that we had no need of alternatives, so we did not use or develop them. As the fossil fuels exhaust (pardon the pun) over whatever number of decades we have left the price will rise, the substitutes will attract attention, get developed and the problem will be solved. I repeat, we, as a species, have been through this many times before and there is no reason to expect that this time will be different.
Andrew,
I have the same problems with your reply to me that James has identified. When I point out that governments have intervened to allocate (for example) oil and affect the distribution of income between producers and consumers, you say: “leave it to the market”. They intervened precisely to solve problems of distribution of income that the market, by itself, was unable to solve. This is why governments intervene. BTW, I did not claim that “governments invent concepts”. All I suggest is that governments provide resources (money, through research grants) to allow individuals (or research groups) to come up with concepts. Governments will probably have to provide much or even most of the extra funding required to develop alternatives to fossil fuels.
Wasn’t this whole debate originally about the immediate future of oil rather than fossil fuels generally? I’m quite prepared to believe that our coal will last forever (if we can continue to tolerate using the stuff). In fact, there is so much coal, gas, sunlight and uranium that the wondrous new dawn of fusion power – a technology that I was last starry-eyed about when I was 17 – might never be needed or economical. Fusion reactors will be astronomically expensive (not a pun) and probably as temperamental as prima donnas: solar cells are already here.
The long-term energy future probably isn’t worth worrying about: ‘Peak oil’ is.
Andrew – you are correct in all these things however ALL of them require 20 year lead times. If we started today you could expect the new energy sources to be available in 15 years time. This is not counting the investment required. How do you convince people to invest money in new energy sources when in the words of most people in power there is plenty of oil for the forseeable future?
You can improve the EROI of some resources however most are limited by basic physics and only incremental improvements are possible. Fusion has been 50 years away for the last 50 years so I do not hold much hope there.
“As the fossil fuels exhaust (pardon the pun) over whatever number of decades we have left the price will rise, the substitutes will attract attention, get developed and the problem will be solved.”
This is not correct becaust the substitutes do not have the same EROI that oil has no matter what the price of oil.
“I repeat, we, as a species, have been through this many times before and there is no reason to expect that this time will be different.”
When? Civilisations have collapsed before becuase of the same reasons. As a species we will survive but the survival of global market economies is not assured. And we have NEVER been in this situation before. Fossil fuels have allowed our population to grow to unprecedented levels in all history. There has never been a time when so many people are using so much of the Earths limited resources. You are TOTALLY WRONG to say that this has happened before.
Andrew – “The others would be to increase the total amount of energy available – nuclear (either fission or fusion if the tokamaks work) or any of the other options identified above.”
(I pressed submit prematurely.)
The problem with this statement is that it ignores the FORM that the current energy takes. Oil derivatives are versatile, energy dense liquids that our current infrastructure is adapted to. The half-life of the current transport fleet is approx 10 years so it would require 20 years or more to replace the current oil based infrastructure with one that can use the energies forms that you mention.
Left to market forces there could be a gap of 10 years or more when oil becomes scarce and expensive and when the alternatives come on stream in any numbers. Whithout starting early and aggressively by recognising that Peak Oil is a monumental problem that will affect us in our lifetimes there will be a limbo time that our civilisation may not survive very well.
Ender,
That calculation assumes that the current oil remaining figure is correct – an assumption that has proved wrong time and again. 30 years ago we only had 30 years of oil left. We now have about 30 (plus or minus) years left.
In any case, all that may need to be replaced is the engines driving that fleet, or the fuel delivery method, not the entire fleet itself. If the fleet is to be retired, then a half life of 10 years means that delivery would drop by 25% in 5 years, and 50% in 10 years, materially increasing the life of the oil left. Within 20 years, capacity would be down to at most 25% of current.
There remains no need to panic and I have not seen anything yet that would justify strong government action.
We have been in this situation before – many times. An original foundation of the chinese state was the vast forests they had. None left now – they solved the problem of a lack of trees by switching to cooking with woks. India had the same problem – they switched to cow dung and made the cow sacred. In Europe, at the dawn of the industrial revolution they found that animals could not supply enough power – ergo the swich to charcoal. Once the trees became too valuable they found coal to be a good substitute.
If you want further examples I could bore you for hours with them, but I do not think that would have a point.
The problem with government action is that it then means that government has to pick the winners – something they have a miserable track record of.
Andrew – the oil figures are more likely to be optimistic as Middle East oil reserves have been exagerated for years. It is not a trivial problem to replace engines or the fuel. It is simplistic to say the delivery will drop 25% – who does not get deliveries? You?
I did not say we should panic – just put in place changes before they are really necessary to avoid a gap.
We have NEVER been in this situation. All the other time there was a fraction of present population. There are more people alive today than have ever lived in history. When the people that you mention needed to switch there was a more or equally energy dense substitute waiting for them. The situation facing us is totally unique in that our substitutes are less energy dense that what we are using now. I defy you to give an example where a civilisation switched from a very high EROI resource to a low EROI resource and survived intact.
How do you suggest we put the changes in place?
peterd – the baby seat is for the Razorette.
Ender – when the supply of oil drops and the price rises i may consider switching the cars over to LPG. We have got shed loads of the stuff up North.
Andrew – given a sane human race we should all realise the problem and work collectively together for a brighter cleaner future.
This however I do not think will happen. I believe some sort of measures will be put in place after a major crisis of some sort.
Unfortunately I think we will follow the path of market forces shaping the future until we come to the edge of the cliff. Oil resources will be pushed to their limit and substitutes found to prop up the status quo for as long as possible. Then we will fall off the cliff.
The major problem is that unlike yourself, as you seem to be a person that will listen, there are millions of influential people that will not. As Mr Bush famously put “The American Way of Life is not Negotiable” Most of the measures I and others advocate can be seen by narrow minded people as attacks on their living standards and way of life and will be resisted to the end. That is why I think that it will take a crisis of some sort. “Why should I give up my 4WD just because some long haired greenie says the oil is running out and the Earth is warming” – that sort of thing. It will take a crisis or disaster.
However ASPO Australia will still continue to advocate change and who knows someone might listen and act.
Ender,
What do you think market forces are other than the collective efforts and intelligence of all with the effort’s worth being communicated by the price mechanism? That is what a market is and what I have been arguing for.