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No silver bullet for oil in crisis
Sherry Mayo, Online Opinion (Au)
It’s easy to take cheap oil for granted when we fill our cars to drive down the great Ocean Road for the weekend, or buy more products dependent on the petrochemical industry to add to those that already fill our homes. The recent higher prices may make us grumble a little, but they haven’t yet made big changes in our oil-hungry habits. Peak oil could soon change all that.
Peak oil is the media-friendly term for the point at which global oil production reaches a maximum after which we will produce less and less oil each year. …
How then can we deal with this problem? If peak oil occurs sooner rather than later then we’re already starting very late to prepare for it. There is no silver bullet that is going to solve this problem, no magic technology that is just waiting in the wings to replace oil in the near future. Bio-diesels and ethanol have problems of scale – they will never replace more than a small fraction of oil production. Options like coal-to-liquids technology will require massive infrastructure investment that will take many years to implement. The much-vaunted hydrogen economy is decades away and has many technical challenges to overcome. In any case hydrogen is an energy store, not an energy source, as it requires energy – and natural gas – to make it. These and other oil alternatives won’t solve the problem of peak oil on their own, but they will all likely play a part in the future. In the short term though the one thing that is really on our side is the slack in the system.
Our modern industrial way of life is based on the assumption of cheap plentiful oil and we are profligate in our use of it. Our modes of transport, city-planning and supply chains were never conceived with energy efficiency in mind, so there are enormous gains to be made in changing the way we do things. Some of these changes will happen quite naturally and quickly. With high oil prices imported food will become expensive food, making local produce more attractive to consumers. This will reduce fuel use in freight and discourage over-centralised distribution networks. Other longer term changes such as improving public transport will require real political will, but they will be essential for those on lower incomes in outer suburbs who will be hardest hit by rising fuel costs. Further into the future, our settlements and work patterns may change radically, moulded by the constraints of scarce and expensive oil.
Dealing with peak oil will be just one step on a long road to a very different and more sustainable way of life, and many other issues such as CO2 emissions, water use and salinity, will all have to be dealt with along the way. Nevertheless, peak oil is an increasingly urgent issue and despite the remaining uncertainties we can’t afford to wait and see, hoping that something will turn up. As was observed by WA minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Alannah MacTiernan, at last year’s Oil: Living with Less conference, “It is … certain that the cost of preparing too early is nowhere near the cost of not being ready on time”.
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Sherry Mayo is a member of the Sustainable Transport Coalition WA (STC-WA), and a founder member of the newly formed Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO-Australia). ASPO-Australia is affiliated with the international ASPO group and will be formally launched in late November 2005.
(16 November 2005)
Peak Oil, Energy Futures and Violent Conflict
Jack Santa Barbara, Peace Journalism
…Increasingly, the issue which will define future conflicting world views will focus on whether current preoccupations with economic growth (requiring more energy use) are in fact the cause of our major problems rather than their solution. Currently dominant policies call for more economic growth, despite the evidence of its adverse environmental impacts, its inability to provide for just distribution, and the lack of improved well being from yet more economic growth in already rich nations. [11] Attempts at establishing a just and sustainable energy regime will conflict with this dominant view.[12] How the energy gap is resolved will determine our future. Whether we can move the current approach characterized by violence against both nature and those with resources coveted by the powerful, to one of justice for all and sustainability for the ecosystems upon which we depend, will likely determine the fate of human civilization for centuries to come.
Jack Santa Barbara, Ph.D. is with the Sustainable Scale Project and the Centre for Peace Studies, McMaster University.
(November 2005 issue)
Oleocene: se préparer au Pic Pétrolier
Eric Silberstein, Oleocene.org
Le monde que nous connaissons est appelé à connaître dans un futur très proche des changements radicaux. Notre civilisation est sur le point d’affronter la plus grande crise qu’elle ait jamais connue. Une crise qui ne s’est jamais produite auparavant, et qu’elle ne connaîtra jamais plus. Cette crise, c’est la fin de l’âge du pétrole. Comme tout le monde, vous savez sans doute que le pétrole ne durera pas éternellement et, si vous deviez donner une date, vous diriez sans doute qu’il en reste suffisamment pour quarante ou cinquante ans. Malheureusement, la réalité est toute autre.
J’ai crée ce site afin de vous faire connaître ce qu’il en est vraiment. Dans ce site, vous apprendrez entre autres choses :
* Pourquoi le pétrole est sur le point de manquer
* Quelles seront les conséquences sur notre mode de vie
* Comment cette crise explique déjà en grande partie la géopolitique actuelle
Ce site est encore très jeune, mais je compte le faire évoluer en écrivant régulièrement des articles ou en publiant ceux de contributeurs. Il y a en effet de nombreux sites traitant de ce problème sur internet, mais il s’agit pour la plupart de sites en Anglais. Il y a très peu d’information disponible pour le lecteur francophone, et je pense que ce site comblera un manque réel. Enfin, et surtout, j’invite tous les internautes intéressés à participer au forum et à débattre de ce problème.
(November 2005)
French-language site on peak oil, with articles and discussion.
Out of Control: Do senators really hate oil price manipulation?
Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
The U. S. senators who recently held hearings to vilify oil company presidents about high oil prices don’t so much oppose price manipulation as have a preference for its direction, namely down. But those same senators may soon be wishing that their favorite villains actually had the power to control prices. Such power would imply that considerable extra production capacity still exists.
It should come as no surprise that there is a basis for the senators’ suspicion. From the early 1930s onward the Texas Railroad Commission limited supplies from Texas oilfields to keep prices high. Huge discoveries in East Texas during the Great Depression had caused oil prices to plummet below the cost of production–down to 10 cents a barrel at one point. The commission successfully obtained the power to allocate (read: restrict) production among all of Texas’ wells, a process called proration.
…Petroleum, however, is completely immune to the bad tempers of senators or the presumed entitlements of Americans. Petroleum sits indifferent and silent under the earth. As we scour the globe for the last remnants of it, it resists us more and more in its discovery and extraction. And, when we do find it, it comes to the surface not at rates determined by the wishful thinking of senators, but at rates ordained by the laws of physics alone.
(21 November 2005)
The first blog entry from Kurt Cobb in several weeks.
Weekend roundup
Big Gav, Peak Energy (Australia)
(21 November 2005)
If your addiction to energy information isn’t sated by Energy Bulletin, try Big Gav. Lots more links and commentary in the past few entries at Peak Energy (Australia) -BA
