Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As catastrophes go, the flood of oil in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) ranks right up there. Today I’m going to look at the effects of the 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling. Back on May 6, I published Oil Production In the GOM—What’s At Stake? This is a follow-up based on new developments since then.
In her Commentary and her Critique of the Transition Initiative/Network, Lorna Salzman questions the role of government and Transition. Ms. Salzman asserts that the Transition approach omits government. As I will attempt to explain below, our approach is far from that.
Here’s the president on March 31st,announcing his plan to lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling: “Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”
Like it or hate it, the International Energy Outlook from the EIA is a touchstone for the energy industry and is treated as the authoritative government forecast in the press and in capital raising documents like prospectuses. It influences policy-makers, the media, public opinion and investors. What it says matters.
And what does it say?
That peak oil is all but on us.
We believe fears about Peak Oil to be…
a) unsupported by evidence.
b) utter rubbish emanating from cretinous doomsday cultists.
c) compellingly credible.
d) strangely arousing.
As we all know, Einstein went to his grave refusing to accept quantum mechanics until it was linked with a unified theory of physics. In that vein, it’s not surprising to see the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, too, setting the minds of restless geniuses to work.
The gusher far beneath the gulf is spouting a message that the era of easy oil is over, or they wouldn’t be drilling that deep. But there’s a response we can have other than just complaining about blackened pelicans, ruined shrimp, and tar ball beaches.
Anyone devoted to the study of resource economics, especially peak oil, must finally abandon the comfortable foundations of geologic science and face up to the much messier and much less predictable economic side effects implied by the end of cheap energy.
Interview with Oxford researcher, Jörg Friedrichs, whose article “Global energy crunch: how different parts of the world would react to a peak oil scenario” is due to appear in the scientific journal, “Energy Policy.” Summary: Responses would range from predatory militarism to authoritarian retrenchment and the mobilization of local resilience.
-Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places
-New oil plume evidence uncovered
-What the Spill Will Kill
-Gulf Gusher and the Price of Oil and Gasoline
-Imagining Life Without Oil, and Being Ready
-Post peak oil stress map
Peak oil and mixed economy don’t mix.
Our energy subsidy from the stored sunlight in fossil fuels is gigantic. The chemical and kinetic energy embodied in the thick gooey condensed organic matter from past eons is, for all human intents and purposes, indistinguishable from magic. Once in a while, like now, we see the downsides to our dependency on this elixir, in this case the ecological degradation of increasing areas of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems, and collateral damage to other species.
