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Peak Oil and the Population Bomb

  
 
happenchance
15:25 / 23.08.06
I've been investigating things such as peak oil, the population bomb and their intrinsic relationships recently, and I was wondering if anyone has views on these incredibly disruptive topics.

Peak Oil

Peak Oil, refers to a singular event in history: the peak of the entire planet's oil production. After Peak Oil, according to the Hubbert Peak Theory, the rate of oil production on Earth will enter a terminal decline.

Production decline will ultimately send the price of oil rapidly upward, resulting in oil dependant nations struggling to maintain their economies and burgeoning populations.

Pretty scary, especially when it's predicted to peak in the next decade (even as early as 2008).

When you consider the following:


  • 80-95% of all transport is fuelled by oil products

  • All petrochemicals are produced from oil

  • 99% of all lubrication is done with oil products

  • 95% of all goods in the shops get there using oil

  • 99% of our food involves oil or gas for fertilisers, agrochemicals, tilling, cultivation and transport.



...Europe, China and the US are about to enter some interesting times. We're seeing it already, through physical snatching of Iraqi oilfields by the UK and the US. Something other than 'spreading democracy' is at work here, and many believe it's due to an emerging energy crisis.

How are we to continue feeding our cities and driving our cars when the price of oil reaches and passes $100 a barrel? Could this be the tipping point for sending us into a dramatic world recession?

Population and Peak oil?

We are a world society supported completely by oil, it's no secret that the population boom occured soon after the discovery of the first oil fields.



In my father's lifetime the word population has grown from around 2.5 billion to over six and a half billion people. In just over 50 years, our demand on world resources has become completely unsustainable. How will the increase of energy prices (through peak oil) affect that? Badly I suspect.

I've been checking out the following resources regarding this topic:



Anyone up to speed on this? I can't help but think it's going to be one of the most significant things to happen to the human race for a long, long time.
 
 
happenchance
07:41 / 24.08.06
Just come across this interesting online documentary, available to watch for free over at the Chicago Tribune website.

Oil: A Travelogue of Addiction

Click 'Watch Documentary' on the bottom left of the page.

"Pulitzer prize winner Paul Salopek traces gasoline sold at a Chicago-area station back to it's origins. His safari reveals how America's oil addiction binds it to some of the most violent corners or the planet -- and to a petroleum economy nearing crisis."
 
 
elene
09:09 / 24.08.06
How are we to continue feeding our cities and driving our cars when the price of oil reaches and passes $100 a barrel? Could this be the tipping point for sending us into a dramatic world recession?

The answer to the first question is: just as we're doing so presently. The second question is very complicated and I don't believe there's anyone can say for certain that that will or won't happen. A recession is only certain to happen when there is a shortage of fuel, rather than it merely being more expensive.

In just over 50 years, our demand on world resources has become completely unsustainable. How will the increase of energy prices (through peak oil) affect that?

Again, it's not the increase of oil prices that will be decisive, but rather its unavailability. Unless we can introduce a sufficient set of alternative technologies as oil becomes unavailable, billions will die.
 
 
happenchance
10:55 / 24.08.06
A recession is only certain to happen when there is a shortage of fuel, rather than it merely being more expensive.

You've got to start thinking why the price of fuel/oil is increasing in the first place I guess. Price and availability are completely related to one another. Completely.

The rule of the pricing market is such that as oil availability goes down (be it through geological shortage or political means), price goes up. It's as simple as that. But there will always be a tipping point of affordability. As prices dramatically affect those with lower incomes, the burden of cost must be shared somewhere along the line.

Again, it's not the increase of oil prices that will be decisive, but rather its unavailability.

See, again that doesn't make sense. Oil prices can easily proceed beyond the point of affordability and thus also 'availability'. It doesn't matter how much oil is left in the ground, it's how much it costs to extract it that's important, the EROEI - Energy Return on Energy Investment. This is the basis of the whole Peak Oil theory.
 
 
elene
11:34 / 24.08.06
The price of oil has often peaked without inducing recession, happenchance, it's only certain to induce recession when supply drops, as occurred during the oil embargo in '73. Increasing the price of oil increases the price of everything else, which will cause temporary imbalances but won't really change anything in the long run if sufficient oil remain available at some price. I'm talking only of oil that is already out of the ground. Once we can't extract more oil than we must use extracting it we'd better have alternative energy sources in place.

The currently rising price of oil is caused mostly by increased demand, primarily from China, and political and environmental instability in and about Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, the Gulf of Mexico and Israel. Oil has (probably) not yet peaked.
 
 
happenchance
15:17 / 24.08.06
Indeed, oil price has spiked before... but the predictions for future oil prices post-peak will be considerably more than we've ever known. The results of peak-oil will dwarf the 1973 embargo, and then some. At least back then, all the western countries had to do was convince OAPEC to 'turn the taps back on'. You can't do that when demand escalates past supply, nations get oil-thirsty and a bidding war begins.

I agree with you that we better have something else in place, but it's getting that technology in place during escalating prices that's going to be tricky. You can't roll out an alternative energy economy in less than a decade. Can you?
 
 
elene
16:56 / 24.08.06
You can't roll out an alternative energy economy in less than a decade. Can you?

Peak oil is not when the oil runs out, happenchance, it's the peak of oil production.

We are currently wasting most of the oil we pump, on inefficient engines, on flying and driving to unnecessary meetings and foreign holidays and the tanning studio, on running a global economy of commodities such as agricultural produce that could mostly be grown locally, on excessive use of plastics and other oil-based chemical products, and on war. Once oil peaks we will either continue to act like fools and within a few decades have returned to a society resembling those of the middle ages, loosing most of our population along then way, or we will change. If we do, as soon as we stop wasting oil we will have a lot more time to work with.

Though no single technology can replace oil, there are several hopeful technologies that can cover aspects of oil’s utility. I suspect we can make the shift when the time comes. I don't know whether we will though.

Unfortunately we will also need to cap the population. That takes generations (if we don’t simply let a very large number of people starve, that is), and so is by far the more pressing task to begin. I don’t know how we might do it though.
 
 
enrieb
20:58 / 24.08.06
Peak oil is not when the oil runs out, happenchance, it's the peak of oil production.

I don’t believe that anyone here is suggesting that oil is going to run out, there is as much oil still in the ground as the amount that the world has used since oil was first discovered.

The point about the peak oil is that when we do reach this point, as we will at some time, it will be the end of cheap oil and the end of cheap energy.

The end of cheap energy will have a dramatic effect on the world economy, it’s the shortage of fuel that creates the rise in the price of oil and then recession.

I fully agree with you elene that we are wasting the oil that we have and the only way to get through the peak oil problem is to limit our use of energy and to invest in renewable sources while we can still afford to do so. Importing goods from around the world is only possible because of cheap oil, when we pass the point of cheap oil then hopefully more food and products will be made locally, providing jobs to offset the damaging economic effects of peak oil.

Here are a few audio interviews with Richard Heinberg, the Financial Sense News hour interviews are both an hour long, are a great introduction for anyone who is not to familiar with the concept of peak oil and how it will effect the world economy.


Big Picture, Richard Heinberg Peak Oil

Richard Heinberg The Party is Over

Richard Heinberg Powerdown
 
 
elene
09:56 / 25.08.06
I thought, when happenchance said,

You can't roll out an alternative energy economy in less than a decade. Can you?

sie was implying that we have maybe ten years to change our ways, enrieb. As we may well have until most of the oil has been extracted to do that, depending on how well we manage the problem, and given that ten years is one well-known and quite likely estimate for the time remaining until oil peaks, one quoted earlier by happenchance, I presumed sie meant that peak oil and the end of oil are one. Sorry, happenchance.
 
 
grant
13:26 / 25.08.06
We had a kind of blue-sky thread about this in the Lab, and I wound up pondering over the fact that most trucking/shipping is done with diesel engines, which burn biodiesel without any kind of conversion, and biodiesel is already being sold in the U.S. by Willie Nelson.

So there's already a rudimentary market & infrastructure to keep diesel machinery going.
 
 
elene
16:21 / 25.08.06
Yes, that would be in A World Without Fossil Fuels, by the way, and there's also We need oil..., and other threads not focused on peak oil alone.
 
 
enrieb
09:29 / 26.08.06
I remember posting a bit about Peak oil in the World Without Fossil Fuels thread but I felt that my discussing it there was taking the thread off topic, I feel that we should keep at least one thread dedicated just to Peak oil, however Peak oil has a number of different implications and areas for discussion.

We have the geology of peak oil, the amount of oil in the ground, how easy it is to extract/produce also how much of the cheap stuff there is, this is shown by the Hubble curve. With the oil production in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries and two of the three largest oil fields already past their peak, Chart of Oil peak production there can be few who will deny that eventually world oil production will peak. All that is in dispute is the date this will happen, indeed some say it already has happened.

Then we have our dependence on oil specifically cheap oil. For transport, farming, and the products that we consume and of course our energy needs. A world without cheap energy could not support the current world population. The industrial revolution could not have happened without cheap energy; first fuelled by coal then superseded by the more energy rich oil. This site has answers to most of the frequently asked questions about peak oil. .


Then peak oil effects on the world economy, the economics of growth, stock markets and possible dollar collapse, the dollar being the international currency that oil is traded in. We have an economic system that depends on growth, in order to avoid collapse.
(I listen a lot to Financial Sense News hour they have weekly broadcasts and interviews with financial experts, Peak oil and its implications are frequently mentioned).

How this affects our military and strategic policies and our relations with other countries. Peak oil discovery for the USA happened in the 1930s the USA hit Peak oil production in 1971 from this point on the USA solved its supply problem by importing oil. This changed the foreign policy of the USA and since then it has been involved in the Middle East. During the 1973 oil crisis it has since been revealed that the USA had military plans to invade the Saudi and Kuwait oil fields, according to British government documents made public in 2004.

When a country has its oil supply cut they tend to react, Japan did so in 1941 after the USA cut their oil supply in response to Japanese aggression.

The U.S. response was to freeze Japanese assets and initiate a complete oil embargo. Oil was Japan's most crucial resource, as its own supplies were very limited and 80% of Japan's oil imports came from the U.S.

This link is an audio interview with F. William Engdahl, Author of A Century of War discussing the effects of oil dependence on our foreign polices.

And finally post peak oil how we come to terms with a world without cheap energy, Powerdown and reducing our use of energy. The growth of renewables and a new
sustainable way of living.


No-one can know how the future will pan out for certain; hopefully none of these events will come to pass. One thing is we do know is that cheap energy will end one day. How this effects the world only time will tell. When people read the above they can react in a number of different ways, to deny it and bury their heads in the sand or to be overwhelmed by a sense of doom. The most sensible option is to realize that the rate that we using our energy is unsustainable and to look for realistic long term solutions.

We need to be making the changes from our dependence on cheap oil now, while we still have cheap energy with which to do it. Even now it may be to late for a smooth transition, I just don’t see any of our governments making the changes that would be necessary or even acknowledging that we need to make changes.
 
 
enrieb
09:43 / 26.08.06
Grant despite the good points about biodiesel, it is only economically viable as a fuel source due to the cheap oil that we use at the moment, the feedstock for producing biodiesel will need cheap oil in order to be grown then processed into an oil, then there is the transport issue. It is a renewable source of energy and that’s a positive, it’s just that it’s not a cheap source of energy. Certain alternative energy 'sources' may actually have ERoEI ratios of less than one, such most methods of industrially producing biodiesel and ethanol. That is, when all factors are considered, you probably need to invest more energy into the process than you get back.

Other proposed solutions include Canadian tar sands and shale oil but this also requires a large amount of cheap energy to process the tar sands into a useable form, after peak oil we will not have cheap sources of energy.

Nuclear power, despite all the other problems associated with it is not a renewable source. At present, economically viable deposits are regarded as being those with concentrations of at least 0.1 per cent uranium. At this cost level, available reserves would last for 50 years at the present rate of use. With many other countries also building new reactors the supply of uranium will soon be out striped by demand, Price of uranium soars Peak Nuclear anyone? Also the mining of uranium, processing and reprocessing are extremely energy intensive. UK Nuclear clean-up costs likely to soarYou have to mine the uranium, transport it, build reactors, reprocess the waste and add in burial and long term storage. All very energy intensive this is also only affordable due to cheap oil.

Who says nuclear power is clean?


They say that at the present rate of use, worldwide supplies of rich uranium ore will soon become exhausted, perhaps within the next decade. Nuclear power stations of the future will have to reply on second-grade ore, which requires huge amounts of conventional energy to refine it. For each tonne of poor-quality uranium, some 5,000 tonnes of granite that contains it will have to be mined, milled and then disposed of. This could rise to 10,000 tonnes if the quality deteriorates further. At some point, and it could happen soon, the nuclear industry will be emitting as much carbon dioxide from mining and treating its ore as it saves from the “clean” power it produces thanks to nuclear fission.

Biodiesel, tar sands and nuclear will help with us lessen the blow of expensive energy, but non of them are long term economical solutions to the problem. Methane hydrate is a huge energy source but the dangers of destabilizing them could leave us facing a global warming threat many times greater than the current one.

Methane hydrate news at Energy Bulletin
 
 
Quantum
10:36 / 09.11.06
Bumping this thread, I'm a bit perplexed by it. I've thought of peak oil as basically a conspiracy theory for years now, and I can't understand how people take it seriously. It smacks of the eschatological millennium/apocalypse/armageddon fears that are so common.

Back in the 1950s, they said that if we chopped down the rainforests the weather would change. Consistently since then, environmentalists have been shouting about green issues and have been ignored, even now the international community is just about recognised the danger of climate change, too late, and planning to build Nuclear power stations as a solution. (In the UK, Blair plans ten new reactors, which will reduce CO2 emissions by 4% by 2024. We need to reduce emissions by about 70% in five or ten years.)

So my point is, the peak oil theory is a hangover from the 1950s, energy policy has come a long way, we're certainly going to go through changes but society won't collapse. Stealing oil from the poor is the current solution (Nigeria mostly) but the green drive will reduce fossil fuel consumption including oil, and (too slowly) move toward sustainability.

If you want an apocalyptic scenario, visualise what will be happening in fifty years time when the carbon we're releasing now kicks in. Superstorms, floods, droughts, and a self-sustaining greenhouse effect that will never go away because it's hit critical mass. We have less than ten years to prevent that, and we're not doing anywhere near enough.
 
 
enrieb
17:15 / 12.11.06
I don’t think that anybody seriously wants an apocalyptic scenario, It’s certainly true that Global Warming will have a catastrophic effect on the world even if we take the most optimistic predictions, potentially positive feedback loops in the global earth climate could see the world facing an even greater threat that would make the effects of the world passing its peak of oil production seem very negligible. Yet the future effect of climate change will not make the peak oil problems insignificant or cause it to disappear.

It will be expensive oil that will force people to abandon their cars and stop polluting the planet; there are many positive outcomes for the post peak oil scenario that will push us towards investing in renewable energy sources and using the energy that we do produce as efficiently as possible.

The most aggressive critics of the peak oil debate for the most disputes the statistics that are being used to predict the date or that some new technology breakthrough will stop us having to face any problems caused by expensive energy. I haven’t heard anybody argue that the world does not rely upon cheap oil or that we have inexhaustible supplies of cheap oil.


It’s good to have someone with a sceptical view towards the peak oil debate so we can test the subject, but what is it specifically, that you feel is is wrong with the concept of peak oil.

Is it the science and statistics by oil geologists that you feel is being misrepresented. Do you take issue with Hubble’s curve or the global oil reserve estimates?

Is it our economic, industrial and agricultural dependence on oil, specifically cheap oil that you are questioning or the effect of potentially higher oil prices on global politics?

Do you believe that new technology will help us make a smooth transition from cheap oil based energy?



Perhaps the way that the peak oil debate has been presented in this thread is what is causing you to feel that it’s just an apocalyptic conspiracy, if that’s the case then I am sorry if I made it come across in that way. I have followed the peak oil issue for a few years now and though I am not an economic expert or an oil geologist I will try my best to answer any questions you have about the subject.
 
 
Phex: Dorset Doom
19:07 / 12.11.06
I haven’t heard anybody argue that the world does not rely upon cheap oil or that we have inexhaustible supplies of cheap oil.

I have heard of some Christian groups claiming that because God provides for his people, Americans, they will always have plentiful oil. Presumably He will also ensure that Global Warming doesn't affect them. Sorry that I can't find a link.
As for the conspiracy theory bit- conspiracies require conspirators, in this case a cabal of politicians and oil company types who are keeping peak-oil related information from the general public and holding back alternative energy research so they can make money from the possible extinction of mankind. In the conspiratorial view of Peak Oil said shadowy cabal is willing to weather the wars, famines, droughts and general apocalyptic nastiness of humanity hitting the oil peak for a few more years of private jets and million dollar yachts. Does this sound feasible? Would anybody make a conscious choice to fiddle while the world burns? Nobody would, so anybody claiming that there is some sort of conspiracy involving Peak Oil (or global warming for that matter) is as nuts as the oxymoronic 9/11 Truth Movement. But unlike 9/11 conspiracies the Peak Oil thing does not require belief in shadowy cabals, just basic stuff like how there can only be so much oil in the world and when our society, which is 'addicted' to oil so to speak, starts to run out bad things are likely to happen. Where's the conspiracy there?
 
 
Quantum
14:53 / 13.11.06
Okay, let me answer these;
Do you take issue with Hubbert's curve or the global oil reserve estimates?
No, it seems sound. Global oil production may have peaked in December 2005.

Is it our economic, industrial and agricultural dependence on oil, specifically cheap oil that you are questioning or the effect of potentially higher oil prices on global politics?
The effect (and specifically impact) of higher oil prices on global politics and economics.

Do you believe that new technology will help us make a smooth transition from cheap oil based energy?
Well, yes and no. On the one hand you never know what's round the corner; at the beginning of the 20th century people were predicting we'd all be drowned in manure if the increase in horse usage continued, but they couldn't know the automobile would replace the equine.
On the other hand many people bizarrely believe that nuclear power is the answer, or that someone will invent antigravity metal tomorrow or something. Blind faith that technology will provide the answer seems unfounded, but I firmly believe major vehicle manufacturers have a slew of blueprints for electric cars etc. they are not producing until the demand rises and the infrastructure looks like it's in the pipeline. So to speak.

I think the transition from an oil economy to a sustainable economy can be managed without global catastrophe though. Use of hybrid vehicles for example, high efficiency vehicles and solar powered, the increase of bikes and public transport, the rise of local produce consumption, all these things will reduce the impact of the rise in oil prices.

But mostly, it's proclamations like Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon that I take issue with (that quote from http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ the FAQ site linked to upthread). I don't think we are inevitably heading for a post-industrial stone age and the idea that we are is defeatist.
 
 
Quantum
15:01 / 13.11.06
The relationship between the supply of oil and natural gas and the workings of the global financial system is arguably the key issue to understanding and dealing with Peak Oil. In fact this relationship is far more important than alternative sources of energy, energy conservation, or the development of new energy technologies

The idea that the two are inextricably linked is false. Just because they have been in the past doesn't mean they are always going to be. Global economics is a complex subject, after all, and preosperity might come from other sources than irreplaceable hydrocarbons.
 
 
grant
18:10 / 22.10.07
More fuel for the "already happened" fire:

German group finds evidence oil peaked last year:

The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.

...

The results are in contrast to projections from the International Energy Agency, which says there is little reason to worry about oil supplies at the moment.

However, the EWG study relies more on actual oil production data which, it says, are more reliable than estimates of reserves still in the ground. The group says official industry estimates put global reserves at about 1.255 gigabarrels - equivalent to 42 years' supply at current consumption rates. But it thinks the figure is only about two thirds of that.

I think it's kinda funny looking at this topic's abstract in this light: "As the cost of oil rises to $72 per barrel."

Heheheheh.
 
 
Sjaak at the Shoe Shop
06:50 / 23.10.07
Yes but that is also the US Dollar falling, in any other currency the oil price is much more constant.
 
 
Sjaak at the Shoe Shop
12:02 / 29.10.07
I can add to Grant's post that Shell, who have their own strategic forecasting group (who run through all sorts of scenarios of where they think the world is going the next 5 yrs, usually pretty accurate) in all scenarios identify an increasing oil price, which is uncommon.

So, it is likely that soon oil will rise to $100 plus. Some time ago I would have seen that as the economic catalyst for alternative energies.
But now, with everybody clutching at biodiesel etc, I fear that it will only lead to further cutting of rainforest and displacement of agriculture in favor of biodiesel.
 
  
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