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(VIDEO)
David Holmgren speaks with GPM’s Julian Darley
Global Public Media
David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture, talks in depth about the implications of peak oil for for food security and a post-petroleum future.
(23 August 2005)
Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population and Energy (VIDEO)
Dr. Albert Bartlett, Global Public Media
The retired Professor of Physics from the University of Colorado in Boulder examines the arithmetic of steady growth, continued over modest periods of time, in a finite environment. These concepts are applied to populations and to fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal.
(23 August 2005)
This is a classic presentation, essential viewing to anyone aspiring to a grasp of ‘the big picture’.-LJ
Suck It Up, America
Cal Thomas, Fox News
Gasoline prices (search) are at an all-time high. I filled up last week and it cost me fifty-one dollars. Some years ago I found a box of old gas receipts. A fill-up in the mid 1960s cost me three dollars.
Things have been far worse in America. During World War II, gasoline and just about everything else were rationed. People did without and they managed on a lot less. Then, people were more important than things and we knew our neighbors who lived in apartments or homes with plaster walls, not wallboard. There was a feeling of permanency as most families stuck together and stuck it out.
Today’s consumer culture expects cheap prices allowing us to buy more and more stuff. But the law of supply and demand says you can’t expect low gas prices when the U.S. has five percent of the world’s population, yet consumes 25 percent of the available oil.
We consume too much and that’s the problem. We have confused needs with wants. Whatever delights our eyes we think is a necessity.
(22 August 2005)
Have I reached curmudgeon status when I find find myself nodding my head in agreement to Cal Thomas’s column? Has anybody else noticed that old-style conservatives and the greens are sounding increasingly alike? -BA
Aren’t there alternatives to oil?
John W. Schoen, MSNBC
The relentless rise of gasoline prices has readers asking about a variety of solutions to the problem — including alternative energy sources. Michael in Virginia thinks it’s time for a crash program to convert to a “hydrogen economy.” Marian in Arkansas thinks tax breaks for hybrids will help. And Jerry in Washington says it’s time to start pumping some of those U.S. oil reserves onto the market
…Question: IS OIL PEAKING?
How likely do you think it is that we are sitting on top of peak oil production right now? And independent of when that is going to happen, what do you think will happen to the US Dollar in the face of the long run energy (underlying driver of the economy) supply crisis peaking would provide. David H. — Palo Alto, CA
Our personal opinion is that the answer is unknowable. The size of oil reserves are notoriously difficult to estimate. And the governments of oil producing nations guard those numbers very closely.
But those who believe that “peak oil” is near point to the level of daily oil production. The price behavior of oil seems to confirm the peak theory, but a lot could happen to extend the peak forward – among them sharply greater efforts at conservation. (Oil consumption actually fell in the early 80s as greater efficiency kicked in.)
For example, if you doubled the gasoline mileage of the U.S. fleet of cars and light trucks, you would cut gasoline consumption dramatically. And that would almost certainly lower prices and extend the lifespan of gasoline as a transportation fuel.
As for the dollar, it’s hard to separate the impact of energy prices from a number of other influences on its value. Trade imbalances, federal budget deficits, the strength of competing economies all play a role. But there’s no question that the rising price of dollar-denominated oil erodes the global purchasing power of US currency.
Of the million barrels of oil the U.S. consumes daily, how much is burned in trains, planes and autos (non stationary) versus in homes, industry, power plants etc. (stationary energy consumption) that could be hooked to a power line and use electricity produced by other means?
Of the roughly 16 million barrels a day of crude oil consumed in the U.S., about two-thirds of it ends up being used as a transportation fuel. And until we can figure out a way to run cars on electricity, or make the cars and trucks we drive go further on less fuel, we’ll have a hard time weaning ourselves from oil.
That’s why alternate energy sources like wind and solar – which are used to make electricity – aren’t replacing nearly enough oil fast enough to kick our addiction to crude.
(23 August 2005)
Although Schoen is careful about predictions about Peak Oil, he’s still the best writer on energy issues in the popular media. -BA
Are We In Peak Oil Today?
Ryan McGreal, Raisethehammer (Part II of III)
For the first time, the global oil system has no margin for error. Any significant supply disruption will send prices skyrocketing.
Are we in peak oil today? It’s too early to tell, although the market does show signs of being close to an absolute production limit. In all likelihood, the “peak” will be stretched across several years, as the price of oil spikes, plateaus, dips, and jigs in response to a complex interplay of factors. …
Long term investments hope to bring more oil supplies on-stream in the next several years, but this may not be enough to lower prices. Demand continues to grow, and many existing fields are past peak and declining. In Saudi Arabia, for example, plans to add 1.5 million barrels per day to its output by 2010, but this will barely keep up with projected demand growth, never mind replacing declines elsewhere.
Part I of this series made the case for oil peak production some time between now and, say a decade from now. Part II examined the likely candidates to replace oil, concluding that none possess oil’s density, portability, and versatility. Part III begins the process of examining what cities can do to prepare for oil scarcity.
(22 August 2005)
Markets At A Glance – A Crude Awakening
Eric Sprott, Sprott Asset Management
Pursuant to our ongoing theme of energy, we would like to share with our readers some thoughts on what kind of world we will be left with after global oil production peaks. …
And yet, witness all the progress we were able to make in that blink of a timeframe! It is a wonderment to think how it was possible to make so much progress this past century, whereas in the millennia before so little progress was ever made in such a short span as a human lifetime. The reason has been cheap energy in the form of oil. From a scientific perspective, energy and work are one and the same. With cheap and abundant energy, we have been able to do so much work, with so little physical effort on our part! This is progress.
It is no coincidence that industrialization itself started at the same time as the dawn of the oil age. Make no mistake, cheap and abundant energy has played the leading role in our rapid progress as a civilization this past century. Unfortunately it was a one-time event, a windfall, in human history. Without it we may revert to the mean – back to the Dark Ages. …
Regardless of how one looks at it, in a world of peak oil there are so many branches that lead to a Mad Max endgame. With such a stark outlook, shouldn’t we be doing our level best to conserve as much as we can now? Indeed we should, but the world for the most part is clueless, and those in the know face a Prisoner’s Dilemma – why should we conserve and let the rest of the world consume most of the precious remainder? The ideal outcome in a Prisoner’s Dilemma is for all parties to cooperate, but alas this might just be wishful thinking. …
(22 August 2005)
This is one for fans of peak oil media; it contains no new information, but discusses oil depletion in the tone of one moneyed investor to another. I challenge all nay-sayers to read this and still claim its all the work of a few drugged malcontents.-LJ
The Oil Price Mirage
Pierre Lemieux, Mises Institute
The recent run-up in oil prices drew interesting reactions. Some analysts have tried to explain how reductions of crude demand by refineries can push crude prices up![1] Proving that even corporate economists don’t always remember basic economics, one of them explained that “[l]ogic and the market are barely on speaking terms these days,”[2] as if the market was anything else than a way to reconcile the participants’ subjective valuations. An opinion poll at the end of last year already revealed that 40% of Texans thought that corporate greed was behind high gasoline prices,[3] as if, to paraphrase Adam Smith, we should expect to obtain our gasoline from the oil merchants’ benevolence instead of their self-interest.
…Simon forecasted that the downward trend in resource prices would continue because, over the long run, the supply of resources (including oil) increases more than demand. Supply increases because of human ingenuity. Proved world reserves of oil, which were 762 billion barrels in 1984, are now estimated at 1,189 billion barrels.[6] As for the growth of demand, which normally follows population and revenue growth, Simon argued that it would be dampened by new technologies that reduce the use of oil (like lighter cars), and eventually by new materials. The value of petroleum as a proportion of finished products will continue to decrease. And contrary to Malthusian fears, population growth will spur the potential for inventions.
In the past few years, however, many resource prices — exemplified by copper — have gone up. As the saying goes, forecasting is risky, especially with regard to the future. Prices change because people change their minds. But we know the broad interacting factors in oil prices: political uncertainty in the Middle East, increased demand from rapidly developing countries (assuming that their growth is not stopped by their states), and the usual innovation spirit and entrepreneurship of man. We should just make sure that politics interfere as little as possible with the last factor.
(23 August 2005)
Another economist saying, “Don’t worry your pretty little heads; the market will take care of it.” -BA
The $10,000 Question
John Tierney, NY Times
I don’t share Matthew Simmons’s angst, but I admire his style. He is that rare doomsayer who puts his money where his doom is.
After reading his prediction, quoted Sunday in the cover story of The New York Times Magazine, that oil prices will soar into the triple digits, I called to ask if he’d back his prophecy with cash. Without a second’s hesitation, he agreed to bet me $5,000.
His only concern seemed to be that he was fleecing me. Mr. Simmons, the head of a Houston investment bank specializing in the energy industry, patiently explained to me why Saudi Arabia’s oil production would falter much sooner than expected. That’s the thesis of his new book, “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy.”
I didn’t try to argue with him about Saudi Arabia, because I know next to nothing about oil production there or anywhere else. I’m just following the advice of a mentor and friend, the economist Julian Simon: if you find anyone willing to bet that natural resource prices are going up, take him for all you can.
(23 August 2005)
Sigh. This is exactly the sort of thinking that prevails before a stock market crash. It might be worth pointing out that even Mr. Tierney will admit that the prices of two natural resources have been going up, up, up — land and water.
On the other hand, as Ken Deffeyes pointed out in his talk on CSPAN-2, as the oil supply fails to keep pace with demand, the price won’t just rise — it will become very volatile, both up and down. Only in the medium- and long-term you can be certain the price of oil will go up. -BA
