Peak oil – July 10

July 10, 2007

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Play peak oil before you live it

Eliza Strickland, Salon
Collaborative intelligence wiz Jane McGonigal designs alternate reality games to solve the world’s biggest problems. Enviros love her — but so does the military.

On April 30, 2007, an oil crisis shook the world. Supply chains were interrupted, and in the ensuing weeks the price of gas pushed higher and higher, peaking around $7 per gallon. The American economy sputtered to a halt as shortages spread…

…The oil shock and remarkable recovery were actually part of an elaborate online game, “World Without Oil,” another experiment in the budding genre of alternate reality games. In ARGs, thousands of players hunker down at their computers and delve into games that are impossible for any one person to play on his or her own. There’s no software to buy and players don’t have a clear set of rules or an objective. Instead, gamers happen across something strange on the Internet, “fall down the rabbit hole” into a fantasy world, and figure out together what to do next.

…The game began on April 30, and hundreds of gamers from Hawaii to New York proceeded to role-play the withdrawal symptoms of our oil-addicted country for 32 days. (In the game, one real day equaled one fictional week.) They envisioned how their own lives would be affected — how they would drive, eat and even listen to music without oil — and documented their imagined scenarios in blogs, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, and podcasts that were all collected on the game’s Web site. The game brought in players from more than 40 countries.

The initial concept for “World Without Oil” was dreamed up by Ken Eklund, a San Jose, Calif., writer, who had been reading about peak oil scares. But the mastermind of its execution was the brilliant young game designer Jane McGonigal, who’s fascinated by the way games can harness the collective intelligence of their players. McGonigal played the role of several in-game characters. By instant messaging and blogging, she drew gamers’ attention to their fellow players’ narratives, orchestrating their responses to the crisis. Ultimately, “World Without Oil” used the imaginations of hundreds of people to peer into an oil-depleted future and brainstorm ideas about how to cope.

…Players didn’t just create a “citizen’s manual” for how to respond to such a crisis, McGonigal says, they also changed their behavior in the real world. About 1,800 players contributed their stories, and those who used videos or photos had to have something tangible to record. Gamers planted real apple trees in their backyards, and converted their real cars to run on used cooking oil. Beyond the active participants, McGonigal estimates that more than 45,000 people followed the game.

…McGonigal is earnest and enthusiastic, with a brand-new Ph.D. in performance studies, and the title, bestowed by MIT, of one of the most interesting innovators under the age of 35 (she made it with five years to spare). She’s got a mane of curly brown hair and a slightly wide-eyed, idealistic look. She explains her idiosyncratic career arc while sitting in her Berkeley, Calif., apartment, as her hyperactive Shetland dog snuffles her knee. McGonigal began the Ph.D. program at the University of California at Berkeley intending to theorize about theater, she says, but she left as an expert in alternate reality games. Now she keeps a day job at the Institute for the Future, the Palo Alto think tank that forecasts trends for business execs and bureaucrats; McGonigal designs role-playing games for these movers and shakers to play.

Not one to shrink from ambition, McGonigal says her overarching goal is to reduce human suffering in the world.
(10 July 2007)


U.K. Parliament Members Form `Peak Oil’ Group to Study Reserves

Stephen Voss, Bloomberg
The U.K. parliament formed a group to study peak oil, the theory that world oil production is approaching its zenith, as British lawmakers face up to the country’s future as an energy importer.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, which held its first meeting June 26, comprises 32 members of the House of Commons, or lower chamber, and seven from the House of Lords, or upper chamber.

It aims to collate predictions for when production may peak and consider the implications for energy policy, rather than push a particular view, said the group’s chairman, John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, central England.

“Will oil production peak?” Hemming said in a telephone interview. “Yes, it will. Will it peak in my lifetime is a question worth considering. If you look at the issue of being energy-resource constrained, you use energy more efficiently. We need to aim to be more economical with energy.” The group will next meet July 24, he said in an e-mail today.
(10 July 2007)


Net Oil Exports and the “Iron Triangle”

Jeffrey J. Brown (“westexas”), GraphOilogy
As Matt Simmons pointed out several years ago, the critical problem with post-peak exporting regions is that we would have two exponential functions (declining production and generally increasing consumption) working against net exports. From the point of view of importers, it is quite likely that we are facing a crash in oil supplies. In my opinion, what I have described as the “Iron Triangle” is doing everything possible to keep this message from reaching consumers.

In an essay posted on The Oil Drum blog in January 2006, I warned of an impending net oil export crisis, and I used what I called the Export Land Model (ELM) to illustrate the detrimental effect on net oil exports of declining production and increasing consumption.

…In regard to discussions of Peak Oil and Peak Exports, I have described what I call the “Iron Triangle,” which consists of: (1) Some major oil companies, some major oil exporters and some energy analysts; (2) The auto, housing and finance group and (3) The media group.

If one resides in the oil industry leg of the Iron Triangle, and if one has concluded that Peak Oil is upon us, or extremely close, does one say, “We cannot increase our production,” and thereby encourage massive conservation and alternative energy efforts, or does one say “We choose not to increase production and/or we are temporarily unable to increase production for the following reasons (fill in the blank)?”

The latter course of action would tend to discourage emergency conservation efforts and alternative energy efforts, and it would encourage energy consumers to maintain their current lifestyles, perhaps by going further into debt to pay their energy bills, and it would in general have the net effect of maximizing the value of remaining reserves.

…I recommend FEOT–Farming + Electrification Of Transportation (EOT), combined with a crash wind + nuclear power program.

…On an individual basis, I would also recommend “ELP,” which is summarized in the following article: “The ELP Plan: Economize; Localize and Produce.”

Jeffrey J. Brown is an independent petroleum geologist in the Dallas, Texas area. His e-mail is westexas@aol.com.
(10 July 2007)


ODAC News – Sunday 08 July

The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
Headlines and commentary from a peak oil perspective.
(8 July 2007)


Energieagentur schlägt Alarm – neue Ölkrise in fünf Jahren

Der Spiegel
Dramatische Warnung vor einer neuen Ölkrise: Der Internationalen Energieagentur zufolge steigt die Nachfrage stärker als gedacht – bei fast gleich bleibendem Angebot. Der Ölpreis werde in die Höhe schießen, die Macht des Opec-Kartells wachsen. Noch schlimmer: die Lage beim Gas.
(10 July 2007)
German newsmagazine covers the IEA report.


Feeling peaky

Deborah Hargreaves, The Guardian
‘Peak oil’ doomsayers are wrong – there is plenty out there. It’s just a question of whether we are willing to pay the environmental price to get it.

The world could be facing an oil-supply crunch in the next five years, according to the International Energy Agency. The west’s energy watchdog warned this week that supply and demand were heading rapidly in different directions. There are no signs that concern over global warming has led to any reduction in the use of oil and gas. China is increasing its energy use at an ever-faster pace and demand in the US shows no sign of slowing. At the same time, a lot of the easily available oil has been located, new projects are technically more difficult and face long delays.

Doomsayers and survivalists use these developments to peddle the peak oil theory. This is the idea that we have already found most of the world’s oil and production will soon start to decline. “Peak oil” gets trotted out every time there is an energy crisis or a spike in prices. But I have always been sceptical. There is plenty of oil out there. It just happens to be in inaccessible and environmentally sensitive areas of the world. Oil companies have the technology to develop these reserves, but it is expensive. When the oil price is high enough, they will spend the cash on finding more.

Rather than proclaiming the end of oil as an energy source, we should be debating whether we want to drill in parts of the world such as the Arctic or the Ecuadorean rainforest. If, as a society, we decide this is not acceptable then there needs to be a more concerted effort to reduce demand. Protestors who bleat on about environmental destruction seem to be reluctant to give up their cars and their flights.

Rather depressingly, high oil prices seem to have very little effect on demand. The US is in the middle of another record driving season. With the world’s most developed economy showing no appetite for cutting back, it is hard to encourage developing countries to show restraint.

There is enough oil out there for many years. The question is, are we prepared to pay the environmental price of getting at it?

Deborah Hargreaves is the Guardian’s business editor.
(10 July 2007)
A viewpoint that seems to be common among environmentalists and global warming activists. Ironically, while claiming to disbelieve in peak oil, Ms. Hargreaves affirms the main points of peak oil: the easy supplies of oil have been found, and subsequent oil will be more expensive and environmentally damaging to produce. -BA


Tags: Education, Fossil Fuels, Oil