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From the Library Shelf:
Proud Co-Founders of Transition Town High Wycombe
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Peak Oil - What you need to know
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In the 1970's OPEC
Oil Embargo a 5% reduction in the supply of oil caused the price
to quadruple overnight. For every calorie of food we consume,
ten calories of oil were burnt to produce it. To build the
computer, you are reading these words on, took ten times its
weight in oil. Heating your home, driving your car, the economy,
your job, the food you eat, everything requires oil. Oil makes
the world go round. Oil is money. Oil is your food. No oil and
your dead. There is an alternative. We will have to change. You
could ignore Climate Change but not this. How do we preserve all the positive achievements of energy-rich mankind as we transition to an energy-poor world? It
is not that we cannot do it. It is that we have a poor track
record of handling change. Empires have crumbled and species
become extinct because they could not change fast enough. Let
this fate not be ours. Read on..... |
What is this all about?
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 In 2005
ExxonMobil released its Report "The Outlook for Energy: A
2030 View". They Forecast that the total Oil production
for the non-OPEC world would peak in 2010. Previously, like
all other oil companies and oil producing nations, they were
highly conservative about the pending end of
the planet's
most valuable commodity. Now they admit it openly.
BP is now
"Beyond Petroleum". At least two major Oil companies took
out massive advertising space at airports during 2006 to
openly admit they were not finding enough oil to replace
what they were currently extracting. In short, when the oil
companies start telling you they are running out of oil you
had better sit up and listen. |
But we have plenty of time - right?
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 If we include
OPEC Countries then the general agreement, outside of the
vested interest of the Oil Companies and Oil Producing
Nations, is that Peak oil hits between 2000 and 2015. Find
that incredible? How come nobody told you before? Well,
there are thousands of Geologists and Scientists saying
exactly this. Check out our Resource section (below). Even
the outlandish claims of the USGS put the figure at 2035
but
that is based upon being able to extract oil that hasn't
been discovered. Oil that only has a 5% chance of existing.
Fantasy oil. Remove the fantasy oil from their figures and
even they must agree that Oil Production Peaks within 8
years (these words written in 2007).
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But half the oil is left - yeah?
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We have never
used so much oil in such a short period of time. Over 1.5
trillion barrels of oil have been produced since the first
Oil Well was drilled in 1859 but, at the rate we use it, we
will need all of that again to last us the next 25 years.
If the global economy grows at 3% per annum between now and
2040 we will consume resources equivalent to ALL those we
consumed since humans first stood on two legs. Our demand for Oil is increasing exponentially but the
supply can't keep up. The supply is going to level off then
fall. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what is
going to happen.... In 2025 the demand for oil will be 60%
higher than it is today but Oil production will have fallen
to 1985 levels. |
Heard it all before....
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"Aaaah..." I
hear you cry, "...we heard all this in the 1970's then we
just went out and found some more". The 'boy-who-cried-wolf'
argument has no founding in science, economics or geology.
Yes, they found more oil in the 1970's because the price of
oil went up to pay for the exploration. 30 years ago there
was still more oil to find. Today is a different matter. For
every barrel we find we consume 9. The geologists now admit
that they have run out of places to look. |
25 Years is still plenty of time, right?
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  Don't kid
yourself. In the first 140 years we took all the easy oil.
All the oil that is the cheapest & cleanest to extract & use. From now on Oil
becomes more and more difficult to extract. More and more
expensive. As Production trails off and demand continues to
rise then the effect is inevitable. The Price will rise.
Slowly at first but soon the Oil Markets will realise that Production is not keeping up with demand. Then
the buying will start. Countries will buy for their
reserves. Prices will spike, doubling or quadrupling over
night.
Price rises will
send the Oil Companies off extracting the "dirty" Oil that had not been
economic to extract. After a while supply will rise and
prices will stabilise. For a while. But then prices will
rise again. And again. Slowly then more quickly... If Oil,
Gas and Coal is the miracle-grow that makes all economies
and populations expand then when it is gone everything
starts to contract down to the level at which economy &
population reach a level that is sustainable by the Sun or
our own ingenuity with Nuclear Power. |
Resource
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So, it'll be expensive to fill up the car?
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 Yes.
Unbelievably
expensive. Forget the car. What about keeping warm in winter?
Work? Money? Food? For a period of five years the price will go up and
down unpredictably. After that period prices will go up and up
and up. They will roughly double every year for, well, forever.
The effect will be
devastating for the industrialised nations but it will hit
hardest on the poor and the poor nations first. If Oil energy is
a high proportion of your spending then you have little to
sacrifice. You will just have to go without. The richer northern
countries will cope for a while. Inflation will start to head
upwards. All economic activity becomes more and more expensive.
It won't just be travel that is hit. Not just your gas and
electric prices. Everything in life will become difficult.
People cut back on all
non-essential activity such as holiday's
and other luxuries. Spending slows to a halt. Industry shuts
down. Tax revenues
are hit. Governments cut back services. Unemployment rises. We
enter a recession for which there is no end. The only way out is
to convert all energy supplies to non-carbon sources. |
Abiotic oil
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A few Geologists
(and some conspiracy theorists) believe that Oil may not be a
fossil fuel. Their theory suggests that Oil may be a result of
extreme heat and pressure acting very deep in the earth on
naturally occurring methane. It then trickles upward to pool at
higher levels where it picks up certain chemical markers that
have lead us to believe this oil came from Organic matter. This
might mean that there is plenty more oil available if we just
look a lot deeper in the earth. Some even say that this oil is
"infinite" is supply as it is renewing itself. They say that
this Oil will slowly fill up our oil wells again.
Nice idea but....
Burning all that oil would be a disaster for our climate. Even
if Oil was renewing itself it is doing it too slowly to make any
difference. Drilling very deep boreholes is very expensive and
you would have to drill millions of them to look for this
trickling oil. Even if the theory was true it wouldn't solve a
thing. Sorry guys.
So, why do Oil
reserves grow? There is no miracle or cover-up. Oil Reserves
grow because of quite normal Accounting practices where
Companies do not declare all of their Assets in one period. The
other reason is political as OPEC Countries achieve influence
based upon how much Oil they have left in the ground. Recent
history now suggests that Companies will have to declare reserve
losses not gains. |
Technology & Economics
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Some have the
opinion that the problem will take care of itself. Rising Oil
prices will mean that more oil is discovered as it becomes
economic for oil companies to extract the 'marginal' oil in the
furthest corners of the earth. Technology will continually
improve to allow us to extract more and more oil. It also means
that alternative technologies become economically viable. Great.
No worries.
The small problem
with this is that, although largely true, the devil is in the
detail. Rising prices can cause economic devastation - just look
at 1973. Alternatives take time to develop and come to market.
There is no substitute for oil. Even Geologists don't believe
that incremental improvements in technology will yield a
trillion barrels of oil cheaply. Even worse - the economic
argument ignores the rules of physics. It doesn't matter how
high the price of oil, if it takes two barrels of oil to extract
one barrel of oil then that oil stays in the ground. |
A Book to Read
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 "Hubbert's
Peak - The Impending World Oil Shortage". This is the
sixth reprint, the first in paperback and it describes itself as
"revised and updated" although this means a new preface by the
author. The new preface shares with us the slightly scary fact
that evidence suggests that Peak Oil came and went in the year
2000. This is based upon actual numbers. Deffeyes is a child of
the Oil Industry and born to a familyy up-to-their-armpits in
the Oil Business. Of course the historical perspective supplied is
largely North American and it is written for a US audience. The
author is an Oil Geologist with a not totally dissimilar
background to Hubbert himself. Indeed they new each other for
many years before M King Hubbert's death in 1989. In this book
we get an Oil industry insider's view of the Hubbert Peak
phenomena. A full review
here. |
Quotes
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"....one thing is clear: the age of
easy oil is over..."
David J O'Reilly - Chairman & Ceo, Chevron
"Only puny secrets need to be
protected. Big discoveries are protected by public
incredulity."
Marshal McLuhan - Author/Philosopher
"Many people came to think that it was
money that made the world go round, when in reality it was cheap
and abundant supply of oil-based energy."
Introduction to "The Rimini Protocol
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an Oil Depletion Protocol" - "Heading off the Economic Chaos
and Political Conflict During the Second Half of the Age of
Oil" - To read the protocol click
here
(pdf).
"It is not the strongest of the species
that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most
responsive to change."
Darwin |
This solves Global Warming, right?
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Post-Carbon Girl
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 No. When the cheap and clean Oil & Gas run out we will
substitute with expensive & dirty alternatives like Coal &
lignite. Alternatives have a low energy yield meaning they pump
out more CO2 for less usable energy output. Peak Oil undermines
our ability to cope with Climate Change and will accelerate the
Global Warming. Life will be far harder than we imagine - if we
survive at all. |
 I don't understand. Where has all the oil gone? There was loads
and loads of it for 140 years then suddenly there was only 25
years left! I want there to be some when I grow up. I want to
drive around in a car and be warm in Winter. I will need a job
and money. We will need food to eat and electricity. Daddy says
that all things could be gone unless we learn to adjust to life
without oil. |
Conclusion
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