Peak Oil (was "petroleum geologist explains US war policy")

[elbows]

Not quite sure about your last comment, not sure what a schtick is either.

However i'm talking from the heart of asia and looking at western nations (ie europe) in general, the US in particular, and the amount of energy resources they use.

All I meant was that it is sometimes all too easy for Europeans to focus on how much worse the USA is, instead of how bad Europe still is.

In a fair world I guess the Western nations whose population & industry use too much energy per head, would reduce their use, whilst developing nations are allowed to increase theirs, till we all meet in the middle. Shame we dont often expect such fairness to prevail.

 

[david dissadent]

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush planned to lift a ban on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf on Monday as part of an effort to ease record high oil prices, the White House said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush was acting because the Democratic-led Congress had failed to do so since he urged lawmakers last month to lift restrictions on offshore drilling, a move strongly opposed by environmentalists.

Bush was due to announce his decision and make a statement on energy needs at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT). High gasoline prices increasingly have irked American consumers in a presidential election year, when Bush's Republicans are trying to keep control of the White House.

"In his statement, the president will announce that he has decided to lift the executive ban on oil exploration in America's Outer Continental Shelf," Perino said. "He'll again call on Congress to lift its legislative ban.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1443120520080714

The MMS estimates that the quantity of undiscovered technically recoverable resources ranges from 66.6 to 115.3 billion barrels of oil and 326.4 to 565.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The mean or average estimate is 85.9 billion barrels of oil and 419.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These volumes of UTRR for the OCS represent about 60 percent of the total oil and 40 percent of the total natural gas estimated to be contained in undiscovered fields in the United States. The mean estimates for both oil and gas increased about 15 percent compared to the 2001 assessment. For the oil resources, the vast majority of this increase occurred in the deepwater areas of the Gulf of Mexico, while for gas resources the majority of the increase was in deep gas plays located beneath the shallow water shelf of the Gulf of Mexico.

http://www.mms.gov/revaldiv/RedNatAssessment.htm

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The most energy-efficient approach (particularly if you consider food without lots of oil inputs and things like nutrient recycling) is probably to spread back out into something like the old village > market town > small city structure, while still using better tech as far as energy considerations permit. I seriously doubt that rational measures to optimise energy use will take priority over economic and political considerations however.

Rationality never seems to take priority over economic and political considerations.

I suspect that we can figure out our future by looking back a bit and then adding some bits of tech on that. We'll see the return of things like sleeping porches in hot climates and windmills for pumping irrigation water, but I don't think we'll see the return of horse powered tech.

 

[elbows]

The time for a measured adjustment to a post oil age was about 20 years ago. In a best case scenario we are now looking at crisis managment - and if we want don't the nature of that to be determined by the narrow interests of the rich and powerful then we need to get busy.

Or 30 years ago. Considering we already have a number of things that are being labelled 'crisis', even before decline takes place, then yes, its all crisis management from this point forwards.

Thing is that it was always going to be extremely painful, thats why they didnt start transition properly decades ago. If a solution that was as cheap, easy & profitable as oil had come along, then they would have switched. Instead we will get to see just how capable our system and economy are at adjusting to new realities.

Although it will be extremely painful, I think we will be able to adjust, humans will get over it. I just wish we had a system that was going to handle it fairly, and not end up with lots of deaths, wars etc. But as we get those during the 'good times' its hard to see how more of the same will be avoided once the bad times really kick in.

 

[elbows]

Also the current system is based on growth, so some economic assumptions & organization of society will become unsustainable once we get stuck at the top of production (maybe now), dont even have to wait for decline to see some of the wheels come off the wagon.

This is also why the idea of peak oil was not going to be openly discussed and accepted in the mainstream, until it actually happened. If everyone believed it would happen soon, then that sentiment would be enough to derail the economy. It even seems that the economy was better able to handle the idea of climate change, than the peak of such an important resource as oil. Crazy, but thats where the journey of human society has taken us to.

The 1970's are probably a good lesson for how much the economy can withstand multiple serious problems, who ends up bearing most of the pain, how far governments can push it, and how the system ends up being changed radically as a result. Ultimately it will be different, because barring some wonder-science, the god of growth is dead. So some rather entrenched and taken for granted economic & political realities will become unreal rather quickly. What we get instead is of crucial importance.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Rationality never seems to take priority over economic and political considerations.

I suspect that we can figure out our future by looking back a bit and then adding some bits of tech on that. We'll see the return of things like sleeping porches in hot climates and windmills for pumping irrigation water, but I don't think we'll see the return of horse powered tech.

You might be surprised actually. Cuba in the 'special period' just after the collapse of the Soviet Union had to figure out what to do when their supplies of subsidised oil and fertiliser etc were suddenly cut off. They ended up returning to using work animals in several areas where it made sense to do so. They're actually reasonably good in terms of both energy and nutrient recycling efficiency within their fairly tight (compared to tractors etc) limits.

Like Crispy's vegetable oil example, they can't substitute for the enormous volume of energy use we currently enjoy. Doesn't mean that work animals aren't perfectly rational options on certain scales of use though.

For the sake of argument, suppose you have a community of 400-800 or so that's fairly optimal in terms of closure (ie mostly grows its own food and recycles most of its nutrients locally, has pretty good insulation and maybe shares with half a dozen or so nearby communities a clean local CHP plant they can run off biomass, a windmill or two, a bit of small scale hydro etc)

Let's say they've got x amount of wind/solar/biomass/etc generation capacity but above that they have to buy nuclear generated electricity from the grid at some crazy price. You probably could cook up some ethanol or something to run a small tractor, or have one that runs on fuel cells, but if you've got a bit of pasture anyhow, which you would unless you were really tight for space, a horse or two leaves you with a bit more energy for doing stuff like running electronics and provides handy organic fertiliser you can recycle. You probably still need a tractor, but you don't have to use it nearly as often because most times a horse can do the job at that scale, so you have a bit more cheapish energy for running your computer or whatever without paying grid price.

 

[elbows]

But where does the power come from to run the national grid?

Nuclear and renewables are nowhere near providing even 50% of present demand and won't be for the forseeable future.

There are a few climate change, renewable or electricity threads around Urban75 that contain some good discussions about such issues.

Certainly even without electric cars or climate change, the UK faces electricity generation problems in the years ahead. A combination of lot of nuclear, lots of renewables, greater efficiency, and a very very large decrease in use, will eventually get us to a balanced and mostly sustainable outome, but it may take multiple decades. Climate change campaigns to reduce use and use renewables have not got us very far yet, the next phase will probably be when we actually get power cuts on a regular basis, which along with much higher bills, will start to significantly changes peoples attitudes to electricity.

The most optimistic theory with switching to electric cars is that people will recharge them at night, which is traditionally an offpeak period, and so the batteries will actually act as a giant store of energy that may otherwise go to waste. eg wind turbines spinning at night. Ive no idea how the numbers add up, I presume there will be a lower percentage of the population driving in future, or at least less journeys and distance.

The war on waste will also affect industry a lot. 4 day week anyone? Or at least eventually a return to a slower pace of life. The only good thing about the ludicrous amounts of waste in our lives now, is that there is so much to be saved once that waste starts to be eliminated.

The world will get bigger again. The future is more local, less globalisation, less crappy useless goods, and the internet will play its part too. Digital growth may end up one of the few growths in the future?

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

You might be surprised actually. Cuba in the 'special period' just after the collapse of the Soviet Union had to figure out what to do when their supplies of subsidised oil and fertiliser etc were suddenly cut off. They ended up returning to using work animals in several areas where it made sense to do so. They're actually reasonably good in terms of both energy and nutrient recycling efficiency within their fairly tight (compared to tractors etc) limits.

Like Crispy's vegetable oil example, they can't substitute for the enormous volume of energy use we currently enjoy. Doesn't mean that they aren't perfectly rational options in some situations though.

True. I heard a figure years ago that if we used the equivalent horse power for all that we use gasoline engines for, we'd be 20 feet deep in horseshit.

For animals, I can see small-scale backyard meat production -- chickens and rabbits too.

I don't know a lot of people who have hands on knowledge in those areas and those that do are mostly older. Driving a team takes a lot of know-how. In any case, this is all going to mean a steep learning curve for a lot of people.

You'll have to see less job specialization too. Whoever runs a plow will have to know something about repairing one and about animal care.

 

[Crispy]

A litre of petrol is the energy equivalent of about 30 million joules. At peak sustained performance, a human can produce about 3W of motive power. That's 10 million seconds of work, or 2777 man hours. Petrol engines are only about 20% efficient, but even taking this into account:

Working a 7 hour day, 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, 5 days a week, it would take a (very fit) man 3 and a half months to do the same amount of physical work as one litre of petrol.

(someone check my sums!)

 

[Darios]

Crispy, is it worth changing the title (again I know) to 'Peak Oil and Gas'? We can't really discuss the one without the other, especially when we're talking about energy supplies.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

A litre of petrol is the energy equivalent of about 30 million joules. At peak sustained performance, a human can produce about 3W of motive power. That's 10 million seconds of work, or 2777 man hours. Petrol engines are only about 20% efficient, but even taking this into account:

Working a 7 hour day, 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, 5 days a week, it would take a (very fit) man 3 and a half months to do the same amount of physical work as one litre of petrol.

(someone check my sums!)

Sounds plausible. I've got the figures at home but I'm in a hotel room right now so can't check (and yes, I did travel by train)

Point of the sort of pattern I'm describing above though is to get by with a very great deal less energy without too much pain. I don't think you can make the numbers add up if you try to use anything like what we're used to using now.

 

[weltweit]

So from recent posts, the population living in the industrialised west whose lifestyles will be least affected by future oil shortages will be :

The Amish !

 

[elbows]

A litre of petrol is the energy equivalent of about 30 million joules. At peak sustained performance, a human can produce about 3W of motive power. That's 10 million seconds of work, or 2777 man hours. Petrol engines are only about 20% efficient, but even taking this into account:

Working a 7 hour day, 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch, 5 days a week, it would take a (very fit) man 3 and a half months to do the same amount of physical work as one litre of petrol.

(someone check my sums!)

I would like to check them, but there are a few gaps that cause me confusion. Where did the 10 million seconds come from? A conversion of joules to watts?

Also what does peak sustained performance mean? I was lead to understand that a human could generate at least 75 watts using pedal power hooked up to a generator, but obviously this cannot be sustained all day.

Another way to do the comparison would be to compare a human to a horse, and then how much horsepower todays car engines have.

 

[Crispy]

Well a 'horsepower' isn't strictly tied to what a horse can do IIRC.

My figures were yanked off google and my calcs were done on the hoof without showing my working, so someone should really do the whole thing idependantly to verify

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

So from recent posts, the population living in the industrialised west whose lifestyles will be least affected by future oil shortages will be :

The Amish !

I for one, welcome our Amish overlords.

 

[spring-peeper]

True. I heard a figure years ago that if we used the equivalent horse power for all that we use gasoline engines for, we'd be 20 feet deep in horseshit.

For animals, I can see small-scale backyard meat production -- chickens and rabbits too.

I don't know a lot of people who have hands on knowledge in those areas and those that do are mostly older. Driving a team takes a lot of know-how. In any case, this is all going to mean a steep learning curve for a lot of people.

You'll have to see less job specialization too. Whoever runs a plow will have to know something about repairing one and about animal care.

There are a lot of people living in cities, how are they gonna get fed?

 

[elbows]

The best question I've seen asked on this thread so far though is this one.

Quote:
What classes will pay for “the energy transition”? What classes will benefit from potentially a century of “expensive oil”? What classes will lose wages, profits and/or rents?
Quote:
Originally Posted by butchersapron
George Caffentzis — The Peak Oil Complex, Commodity Fetishism, and Class Struggle

Well that was an interesting read, but it did my head in. Im not really used to the language of class struggle, so please bear with me whilst I get it all wrong.

For a start I am confused about the notion that burning oil does not create value, but then I probably dont understand the term value. Whilst I see much that rings true in the document, it seems like its not the whole picture to me. I do not recognise the idea that absolutely everything is about the workers struggle. Or that non-human energy is used only because of workers struggle. I thought that there was lots of work that needed to be done to sustain humanity, and fossil fuels & machinery are a way to multiply human effort, in effect oil is a virtual slave. The work of these energy slaves benefits capitalists, but some of it also benefits everyone, at least where the results of the work is important to humans. Cars make money for some people. But they also bring a sort of freedom to large numbers of people, which is surely not just about workers struggle? Anyway my lack of understanding about much of the wording in that document leaves me uncertain wheterh I agree or disagree with it. If its point is that much of the stuff that oil is used for, is just pointless stuff dome for profit and that much of the output has no real value, then I agree to an extent. But I feel it is rather shying away from the idea that some of that stuff may be considered to be the essentials of modern living, has value in the eyes of the workers themselves, and will be missed by more than just capitalists. I cant even tell if the author thinks that peak oil will lead to scarcity of the thing the capitalists care about, profit.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Incidentally, the Amish are more tech savy than most would give them credit for.

Most of their buggies are actually made out of fiberglass, not wood as you would expect. They use farm equipment much like everyone else, but they have horses pull it for things like baling hay. They actually use tractors for some things like silage cutting. They may not own cars and such, but they do take rides from cars and use public transport although they generally avoid airplanes if they can.

They use diesel power to run refrigeration for milking operations to cool bulk tanks, essentially the same technology as other dairy operations, just utilized a bit differently.

They also use 12-volt batteries or gas engines for small appliances. They might use propane stoves and Coleman lamps. They may use the same appliances we do, but adapted to work off of some alternate power source, such as compressed air. Some of these can be bought from specialty Amish supply houses. (Lehmans is an example)

You might see car batteries used to power digital cash registers and computers used for accounting in Amish-run stores.

They use technology. They’re just picky about what they decide to use.

(I used to live in a small city in Iowa that has Amish.)

 

[Bernie Gunther]

There are a lot of people living in cities, how are they gonna get fed?

Well, I don't see it happening because profits are more important than sustainability in our world, but to make a relatively painless (except for property developers) transition to the sort of scenario I was describing you just do it over several decades. Instead of knocking old buildings down and putting up office blocks, you replace them with what amount to urban farms (the Cubans did a lot of stuff like this during the 'special period') So you make the transition fairly gradually.

 

[bigfish]

Lawrence Solomon
Up! Up! Up! The world is consuming more and more energy and, as if by miracle, the amount left to consume grows ever higher. Never before in human history has energy been accessible in greater abundance and in more regions, never before has mankind had more energy options and faced a brighter energy future.

Take oil, the scarcest of the major energy commodities. In the Americas, proven oil reserves have increased from 170 billion barrels to 180 billion barrels over the last two decades, according to the 2008 Statistical World Review from British Petroleum. In Europe and Eurasia, proven oil reserves almost doubled, from 76 billion barrels to 144. Africa's proven oil reserves did double, from 58 billion barrels to 117. Even the Asia Pacific region, where China and India are reputed to be sucking up everything in sight, has increased its proven reserves. And the Middle East, the gas tank of the world, shows no sign of slowing down -- its reserves soared by almost 200 billion barrels, from a whopping 567 billion barrels to a super-whopping 756.

Bottom line for the world: an incredible 36% increase in oil reserves during the two decades that saw the greatest globalization-spurred oil consumption in the history of mankind. And that doesn't include the 152 billion barrels in proven oil reserves obtainable from Canada's tar sands. Is there any reason to doubt that the next two decades won't build on the steady growth of the last two?

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...abundant-energy-will-power-future-growth.aspx

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well that was an interesting read, but it did my head in. Im not really used to the language of class struggle, so please bear with me whilst I get it all wrong.<snip>

I'll leave it to butchers to decipher that stuff. I struggle with it as well and I've been trying for a couple of years to get to grips with it, but I think the fundamental question is dead on.

Arguments about the most rational behaviour for e.g. optimising our energy use are sort of besides the point, because what will drive policy will be the response of capital to changing conditions, for example in dictating the terms under which energy use is reduced and the response of the rest of us to what capital does, for example fighting against reduced standards of living being imposed in the name of 'green' considerations and with a bit of luck actually fighting for ways of life which are both sustainable and just.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Ok - Bernie, Elbows and others are putting forward a low enregy, low consumption, localised co-operative society as the way to cope with energy depletion (and global warming).

I agree. But how do we ensure this happens? At the moment my money is on the rich and powerful simply useing their power and wealth to maintain their current postions and lifestyles to the detriment of the vast majority of humanity.
How do we move things towards the 'best case' scenario above?
I think getting the whole notion of what peak oil actually means accross to a significant number of people is a vital first step.

Also pointed out is the fact that the vaibility of an economic model based on ever expanding consumption and economic growth is about to collapse in the face of harsh reality - but this model has so much is invested in it that there is going to be a lot of bullshit and denial - beacuse we're essentailly talking about the end of capitalism.
Who the fuck is going to invest in anything if we're looking down the barrle of a 10 -20 - 30 year economic slump?

At the moment the media and governments of the world seem to be in a state of denial - but if oil and food prices keep on climbing at some point soon surely the penny will drop?

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...abundant-energy-will-power-future-growth.aspx

I believe there is a separate thread for that argument. Please utilize it and not derail this one. Thanks.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I wouldn't say governments are in a state of denial exactly. The UK government Stern Report on climate change is perfectly rational for example, it's just looking at it from the point of view of capital. "Can we reduce emissions to the level the scientists reckon is safe without it being bad for business? No. OK, next item. How do we make money off it? Sell climate change insurance to third world countries worst affected. Pink gin for that man!"

The response to energy peaks are the same sort of thing. There are plenty of people in government who are taking the North Sea peak perfectly seriously, but they're always going to do it from the point of view of capital's servants. Same with the global peak.

 

[Kaka Tim]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...abundant-energy-will-power-future-growth.aspx

Lawrence Solomon is a writer global warming sceptic - he is not a climate scientist, a geologist or an economist. He is someone who promotes uber capitalism - no constraints on growth, no constriants on consumption.

Anyone else think he is a credible source?

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Lawrence Solomon is a writer global warming sceptic - he is not a climate scientist, a geologist or an economist. He is someone who promotes uber capitalism - no constraints on growth, no constriants on consumption.

Anyone else think he is a credible source?

No.

Bigfish is a one-trick pony. I've only ever seen him post on one topic. If we let him, he'll derail the thread.

 

[elbows]

No.

Bigfish is a one-trick pony. I've only ever seen him post on one topic. If we let him, he'll derail the thread.

Well two topics - the denial of climate change, and the denial of peak oil. This thread is the very long multi-year peak oil thread that bigfish has been active on for ages, a considerable proportion of the thread is about whether peak oil is here or not, where at least bigfish has been a useful counterpoint sometimes. Granted recently created threads on peak oil have been merged into this one, and those are going in an interesting direction which is more about discussion of the consequences & solutions & politics than when peak oil arrives, and it would be a shame to derail that. Personally after more than 5 years of arguing with people about whether peak oil would arrive this decade or not, I am more than ready to move on, to assume its happening, to no longer bother arguing with bigfish, and to be prepared to eventually look silly if eventually it somehow becomes clear that the peak is not actually arriving anytime soon (or already happened).

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yeah, I gave up on this thread years ago 'cos bigfish was just spamming the fuck out of it with his gibberish. A pity really because we had some very interesting discussions on here before the spammage started.

 

[spring-peeper]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN1443120520080714

The first article I read on this decision contained nothing but condemnation for the move. Statements such as, "it will take over 20 years to develop, and then we will be swimming in it" and "it won't happen until it is economically viable".

All I could think was that these people still don't get it - we are supposed to be conserving, not continuing along as before.

(Sorry, slow internet means finding exact articles very difficult.)

 

[elbows]

Well if these issues are even half as big as we think they are, then the year will come that there is a whole subforum dedicated to energy issues, not just a few threads? Certainly this year I have found it more difficult than ever to have linear discussions, as all the different energy strains are starting to make themselves felt in so many different ways. Electricity, nuclear, renewables, climate change, peak oil, peak gas, peak other things, war, economic wibbles, they are all overlapping clearly now.