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20 Burning Questions
Staff, Herald Bulletin (Madison County, Indiana)
It seems sound advice to focus on what we can control and to let what we can’t control take care of itself.
But the volatile market for gasoline demonstrates that it’s far better for Americans to find ways to gain control of what they can’t control now.
That’s not to say that the United States should subjugate oil-rich countries. We’ve learned painful lessons about why that strategy just doesn’t work — recently in Iraq, decades ago during the Arab oil embargo, and at many points in between. We will never control the oil reserves that we need — by force or by diplomacy. It’s just not going to happen.
We simply need too much of it. The U.S. consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil every day. That’s 14 million more daily than the country (Japan or China, according to various sources) with the next highest consumption. Twenty-million is a mind-boggling number that’s easier to grasp — but equally stunning — when you reduce it to per capita consumption. For every man, woman and child in the United States, we consume 25 barrels of oil a year. And the supply is running out.
In today’s paper, the special section, 20 Burning Questions, explains the concept of peak oil. It refers to the time after which the oil that’s being pumped out of the ground can no longer rise to meet the needs of an increasingly industrialized, congested and demanding world.
The situation is out of control, but we don’t notice until prices at the gasoline pump spike.
(X July 2007)
Of the 20 stories listed, I can’t find any on peak oil. Almost all of them have to do with gas and trasnportation (“How Can I Stop Gas Theft?” and “Portrait of an electric car owner”). But never mind! Peak oil is at least mentioned and energy problems are discussed in terms that people can relate to. -BA
Practical responses to peak oil
Peter McMahon, Science Alert
For those who came in late, it is increasingly clear that global oil reserves are reaching the point where half has been used up, called “peak oil”. After this point supply will no longer meet demand, and prices will rise increasingly steeply until oil becomes inaccessible.
…Most of our oil use and much of greenhouse gas emissions come from road transport. Commercial road usage certainly needs review, but the easiest and most effective changes would occur in general motoring.
To this end, there are two simple things governments should do immediately: the first is to cut speed limits; the second is to get unnecessary, big, four-wheel-drive cars (4WDs) off the roads.
Most car engines run most efficiently around 80 kph, so all speed above this efficiency peak wastes petrol. As a start, governments should cut back all speeds above 80 kph, which would mostly effect freeways and country driving.
Motorists would have to factor in a little longer time in their driving, but in addition to saving fuel, lives would be saved, accident costs diminished and stress levels lowered.
Four-wheel-drives should never have become so prevalent on the roads, aside for legitimate rural and industrial usage. They use too much fuel, pollute more, are dangerous to other road users and dangerous to those who use them (mostly because of the high centre of gravity). They are hard to drive and take up too much space (affecting visibility) on the roads and in car parks.
Mostly they reflect the Americanisation of Australian culture and the rise of the “me and mine” mentality that saw a personal fortress approach to life. The huge 4WD is the road version of the McMansion, huge and insular, and offering the finger to any idea of sociality or common interests.
(2 July 2007)
Researchers warn of transport poverty
Jane Cowan, ABC
Petrol prices weigh on the mind of any motorist, but there are predictions that if the cost of fuel continues to rise, the poorest Australians will be forced to quit work because travelling to and from their jobs will be unaffordable.
Researchers are calling it transport poverty, and it is a concept that will be presented to a conference in Melbourne today. ..
Monash University’s chair of public transport Graham Currie says the price of petrol does not have to rise much more before those families simply will not be able to afford to fill up the tank.
..”Our cities are gigantic, and there is really no alternative other than using the car at the moment, and if that is further marginalised with increasing oil prices, climate change, this will further marginalise groups who can’t afford these cars,” he said. ..
“We’re concerned that there could be communities grow up where there’s very few jobs, a lot of people on low incomes, it costs a lot for people to get to work, and so people make the choice that actually it costs them more to get to work than they earn, and they drop out of work,” [Victorian Council of Social Services] spokeswoman Kate Colvin said.
“Those are also suburbs where there’s not very good access to services, so you have people on very low incomes, who can’t access employment that they can afford to get to, they can’t afford to get to services.
“Really the key to solving a lot of these problems is better public transport provision.”..
(27 Jun 2007)
Iran’s oil restrictions “a warning for Australia”
Mark Colvin and Sabra Lane, ABC
..Dr Roger Bezdek is an American petroleum economist currently in Australia to have talks with state and federal government officials.
He is an expert on what is called “peak oil”, the idea that we are already at or may even have passed the peak moment of exploration, and it will get scarcer and more expensive from now on. Dr Bezdek says the events in Iran provide a warning for Australians.
“Even though they’re probably temporary and are indeed self-induced, they may just be a tiny precursor of what’s in store for the world as we approach peak oil and petrol shortages occur and prices increase and people are not able to get the petrol they require,” he said.
“It doesn’t take much to make people very angry, very quickly.” ..
“It’s going to take a long time, in terms of changing development patterns, running rail and light rail systems, mass-transit systems out to the suburbs and that,” he said.
“And we don’t have that amount of time. Peak oil could occur any time within the next decade, and probably sooner rather than later.” ..
(28 June 2007)
“..peak moment of exploration” was of course over thirty years ago.-LJ
ODAC News
The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
Headlines and commentary from a peak oil perspective.
(1 July 2007)
