Two Green issues have been swept under the carpet by both Howard and Rudd during this election campaign – the nuclear agenda, which I’ll post on shortly, and peak oil.
For those who think peak oil is a left-wing conspiracy theory, it’s worth noting that President Bush recently told a White House press conference that:
“I believe oil prices are going up because the demand for oil outstrips the supply for oil. Oil is going up because developing countries still use a lot of oil. Oil is going up because we use too much oil, and the capacity to replace reserves is dwindling. That’s why the price of oil is going up.”
How astonishing that just yesterday, as crude oil prices rose above a record $99USD per barrel, the Labor Party was announcing yet another billion dollars for a highway, without, as is now typical, any mention about the imperative to upgrade the nearby rail line out of the steam age. They think there are fewer votes in rail, obviously.
The escalating oil price is a key threat to the Australian economy and the laissez faire attitude of both the Government and the Labor party to the diminishing confidence about global oil production and strong oil demand growth forecasts should dismay the Australian community.
Australia’s self-sufficiency in oil is forecast to decline significantly in coming years, with serious implications for the trade deficit. Without discoveries of major new oil fields, Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association projects that our oil self-sufficiency would fall to less than one-third of consumption levels by 2015. This would cost around $20 billion in 2015.
Not only will this create inflationary pressures but it will precipitate an “access” crisis. Australia’s political leaders have failed to notice that many of the world’s oil resources have been nationalised with owners and suppliers being governments not necessarily friendly to the United States and its deputy Sheriff. China has spent the last few years buying the oil resources of Africa, Venezuela is already hostile and President Putin sees his next phase as being an energy tzar. This leaves Australia and the USA increasingly locked into supply from the Middle East and the conflicts inherent in securing that supply.
It is remarkable that, while Sweden makes plans to be oil free by 2020 and US President George Bush calls for US citizens to wean themselves off oil, Howard and Rudd promise more roads. More roads only serve to induce more traffic. Building more freeways as the oil price rises is like handing out free garden hoses as the drought deepens.
Populist pork barrelling by both the Government and Labor over the election campaign has increased Australia’s vulnerability to oil scarcity. In the first half of this election campaign alone, promises for new roads through politically sensitive electorates reached $15 billion. Incredibly, some, like the RACV yesterday, even support increasing fuel consumption by reducing the fuel excise.
Instead of funding for new roads, the Greens have polices for bold funding of reliable, fast and safe public transport, mandatory fuel efficiency standards, more stringent government vehicle procurement policies, tying subsidies for car manufacturing to efficiency standards, removing fringe benefits tax benefits for driving, and removing favourable tariff treatment for four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Not only are the policies of the Coalition and Labor exacerbating an Australia’s vulnerability to rising oil prices, but they have disgracefully ignored all of the ten recommendations of this year’s Senate Committee report on Australia’s future oil supply and alternative transport fuels. This important inquiry, which was initiated by the Greens and reported in February this year, identified peak oil as a risk to be managed, yet none of the committee’s ten recommendations have been acted upon.
For those new to the issue, peak oil will have occurred when the rate of global oil production starts its final decline, from the current trends of increasing yearly production. The exact timing of when peak oil will occur is debated – some strong arguments have been mounted that it may have already been reached – but measures to reduce oil dependency, such as developing public transport infrastructure and improving the fuel efficiency of the vehicle fleet, take many years. Since the cost of acting too late to reduce oil dependency far exceeds the cost of acting too soon, there is a clear imperative to respond to credible warnings now.
According to a widely discussed report published last month by the Energy Watch Group, world oil production has already peaked. That report concludes:
“The major result from this analysis is that world oil production has peaked in 2006. Production will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.
The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life.”
Even the International Energy Agency, using an alternative, more conservative methodology, conceded last week that:
“Although new oil-production capacity additions from greenfield projects are expected to increase over the next five years, it is very uncertain whether they will be sufficient to compensate for the decline in output at existing fields and keep pace with the projected increase in demand. A supply-side crunch in the period to 2015, involving an abrupt escalation in oil prices, cannot be ruled out.”
If Howard and Rudd were true fiscal conservatives they would recognise that there is no quick fix to the emerging oil supply gap and that our economy, indeed all economies are utterly dependent on easily accessible oil.
The Government and Opposition are promoting policies that will make the problem worse by locking us in to more roads, artificially cheaper fuel and even more polluting alternatives like coal-to-liquids. Only with the Greens in balance of power in the Senate will we see Australia preparing to oil proof Australia.
The oildrum has recently published several articles on peak oil, public transport and the Federal election campaign:
Election Time in the Land of Oz
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3213#more
Australian Election: Peak Oil Policy Responses
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3254#more
A Public Transport And Green City Manifesto For The Federal Election
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3246#more
I guess Bush &co would think that the left-wing conspiracy theory is that the supply of oil is limited by nature and what is available on the planet and not by the refining capacity.
I am very glad to see that this is an issue that the Greens are making a priority. I have been disappointented (but not surprised) to see that this has not been mentioned through out the campaign.
I am surprised we have not heard more about it from the Greens though. I emailed Sarah Hanson-Young in South Australia a few weeks ago asking if the Greens had specific policies regarding dealing with Peak Oil and was just directed to a couple of statements made by Senaton Milne.
I have also been looking for a direct response to the Family First policy of “reducing perol tax”. Can anyone help me out there?
The major parties must think our oil import bill blowing out to $20 billion isn’t bad enough, so they’re neglecting public transport and blowing billions on more roads to speed up our totally unsustainable oil consumption. This is gross economic negligence when compared to our last total merchandise trade deficit of about $12 billion.
By wanting to cut petrol tax, Family First are complicit in this economic vandalism and they must be fully aware that more than half the benefits of such a tax cut would go to the wealthiest 40% of households, and only 9% to the poorest 20% of households. Which services are they going to cut to pay for this subsidy to increased pollution?
Even if petrol tax is cut and public services slashed to pay for it, a fall in the Australian dollar and/or further increase in global oil prices will obliterate any motorist savings, and we’ll be worse off than before.
After years of saying all’s well, even the International Energy Agency is now warning of the dangers ahead. How long before we wean ourselves off the “devil’s excrement” as one international energy minister has called oil?
Peak Oil just doesn’t seem to register with many of the parties. The big two are pledging billions of dollars in road expansion, which history shows us will ensure more cars burn more oil and produce more emissions. Family First want to cut petrol taxes, also boosting petrol demand, cutting billions from government revenue (what gets cut to pay for it?) and for just 10 cents per litre difference… which could get gobbled up tomorrow with the next (inevitable) petrol price rise or if the Aussie dollar drops.
What will really make a difference is giving people an alternative to driving: more and better sustainable transport such as cycle and pedestrian facilities, and more public transport. And hey, it also helps emissions, obesity, and equitable access to education and employment.
Daniel Bowen, PTUA
Arlen, re Family First, see this
The Greens don’t say much about peak oil. Christine Milne appears to me to be a lone voice.
The greens get my vote for at least having the ideas. The next step once they have a few more seats in the senate is to educate the other two parties and get some real changes happening. It’s not going to be easy and we are running out of time.
It’s a time for new leadership on the environment and economy (the two are related as without an environment we don’t have an economy). Both parties vote buying is an embarrassment to the citizens of Australia. What happened to real leadership with real policies and a idea for where the country is going instead of Business As Usual.
George Carrard - go and learn something about federal politics.
Senator Milne is the Greens spokesperson on such issues. Hence why you only hear from her about it.
Duh.
“The escalating oil price is a key threat to the Australian economy and the laissez faire attitude of both the Government and the Labor party to the diminishing confidence about global oil production and strong oil demand growth forecasts should dismay the Australian community.”
Actually, quite the contrary. Last I heard roads where mainly funded by the public sector, even in these “private partnerships”. The lack of laissez faire attitude is the problem. With the price of oil rising like it is, the private sector would not be stupid enough to invest in more highways, and would instead invest in other more energy efficient forms of transport. Its government influence and political points scoring that’s causing all this ridiculous road building.
Clinton, what I meant was the laissez faire attitude of the big parties to the whole issue of oil depletion, not laissez faire attitude to road funding. Precisely the reverse.
I agree entirely, as I had hoped was clear in this post, that the Government’s strong backing for roads is the problem.
Christine, thank you for your efforts at raising the profile of peak oil. Unfortunately these your efforts are not being reflected by your Greens colleagues. In recent weeks I have met Bob Brown, Larissa Waters and a number of your House of Reps Candidates in Southeast Queensland. All have been polite, but none have taken an active interest in what I have had to say about the impact of peak oil in this region. Although peak oil will likely have a greater and more immediate impact than climate change in the short term, evidently the former is perceived as a ‘distraction’ from the latter.
My god!
Who do you lot think leans on the Govt., and its pseudo opposition, in the back rooms to pubicly finance and construct the trunk infrastucture that is needed to hang all of the ‘master planned, sustainable’ urban pods from?
A modicum of perspicacity is needed here guys.
and girls (sorry).
And apologies for the typos.
Although the public have had the dick well and truly if this systemic nonsense goes on much longer.
Right on Christine for raising this monumental issue! This issue is a bigger short-to-medium term threat than climate change. For those who missed it, oil production peaked in May 2005, and has plateaued since. This plateau of production during a period of expanding demand is _THE_REASON_ the price of petrol is going up right now. And it’s not the loony-left, tin-foil hat brigade saying this, it’s sober energy investment analysts like Matthew and Stephen Leeb that are clearly on the record as saying we’re past peak and in for a catastrophic economic crash as the bountiful supply of cheap energy begins to run dry.
Here’s Matthew Simmons on CBS Business News talking about how oil is destined to go above $200pb in the foreseeable future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IwtAQzrfiw
The Greens are the only party with a Peak Oil policy. This is an urgent issue and one of the main reasons I’m a member.
I recently published a report on Peak Oil and it indicates that we peaked in 2006 and that the alternatives do not have the capacity to replace oil. This report is based on scientific studies:
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2757/81/
Good on you and the Greens for bringing up peak oil, Ms. Milne. It’s amazing to me that this FACT, which will derail the current course of world civilisation sooner than global warming, is unknown to 97% of the people on Earth. Only the Greens seem to be telling the inconvenient truth. I’m a Yank expat (moved here to escape the moral stain from paying taxes to support Bush’s fascism) and one of the main reasons I’m getting onto the citizenship track instead of remaining on my work visa is so I can VOTE GREEN! Not this time around, sadly, but the next one. Keep up the excellent work.
It is immensely frustrating, the thundering silence from the two main parties. I live in Bradfield, a solid Coalition seat held by Defense Minister Nelson. I went to the political meeting he held and asked him what the government was doing about peak oil. His response was that he didn’t know anything about it, and that he would get back to me. I am still waiting.
I think they all know the score. Maybe not in full detail, but all the senior ministers and all the shadows will have been briefed on the situation and there has been a joint decision by them to remain silent. There can be no other explanation.
I will be voting Green. I hope that the Greens get the balance of power in the senate. If so I want them to be disruptive if the two main parties fail to bring this issue to public attention. If the Greens do hold the balance of power they can do a lot with this. If Australia breaks ranks and declares peak oil, we will be the first to do so notwithstanding Swedens initiative to be oil free by 2020. They will then have done an enormous service not only for Australia, but for the world as well.
The election is a sideshow. Stage managed around two “presidential” candidates. It is all about polls, gaffes and mud slinging. Australia has just become a net importer of oil during this election campaign.
As Christine says, peak oil is upon us. There is no planning for any transition to sustainable transport with lower carbon emissions. I finished some leaflet rounds today in Kooyong and was amazed by the traffic noise and volume along Toorak Road and the Monash freeway.
It seems we actually have to run out of oil, or it has to reach $200 a barrel before they will even start to think about it.
All we have seen this election is more $b for freeways and roads and nothing of significance for rail.
How about getting every truck of the Melbourne-Sydney haul route and putting all the trailers onto trains?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/22/eaoil122.xml
Apocalyptic vision of a post-fossil fuel world
By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 22/11/2007
An apocalyptic vision of how the world will look after the oil runs out
has been given by a top scientist.
Richard Heinberg, one of the world’s leading experts on oil reserves,
warned that the lives of billions of people were threatened by a food crisis
caused by our dependence on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels.
Y’know, having never updated our rail alignments from steam era might prove to be useful. No matter how filthy coal is, you can use it to run trains so long as the rail alignments are not steep. It could be the fallback strategy to keep inland australia moving.
Steam trains have fantastic acceleration and therefore can slow for curves and accelerate out of them with no trouble, whereas diesels have higher continuous traction but worse acceleration, so they need flatter alignments but can deal with steeper climbs.
In the end though, we need to get back to sea and river transport. Up until 1942 most longer haul intercity travel was by boat, given that just about any city of importance in this country is on the coast and the rest are on potentially navigable rivers. Boats are more energy efficient than trains, and can run on sail power, coal, oil, biomass, and when using rivers or canals, can be pulled by beasts of burden on a tow rope.
A hard question is whether this country still has the nous and the skills base to build boats and locomotives during an energy crisis, or better still, to build them slightly before the energy crisis kicks in.
The harder question is whether urban areas can be supported without the car, whether there’s any point in maintaining those urban centres in the first place.
The hardest question is whether we will adapt our food production to cope with less chemical dependency, less earthworks, less/no diesel irrigation pumps, and less mechanised harvesting, and few/no trucks in the logistics chain due to diesel shortages.
Correction: Diesels need straighter alignments to run efficiently but can deal with steeper gradients.
All the important politicians in all the parties are perfectly well aware of Peak Oil. The problem is there are no solutions to Peak Oil other than austerity, and as George Monbiot said, “Nobody ever rioted for austerity.”
Investing in public transport rather than motorways is only going to make a difference until lack of fuel stops them too.
In fact the fossil fuels that will be burnt to build the public transport infrastructure will probably tip us into run-away Global Warming.
The Greens are talking as if we can have Business As Usual with new transport infrastructure, new electricity infrastructure, new passive solar houses, new new new ….
but the reality is all of this new stuff is going to have to be built with fossil energy, and the only solution that works is to BUILD LESS STUFF.
You know, I’ve been following this “Peak Oil” thing for about 18 months now, and making my escape plans. They are in place now.
But I have taken to ‘googling’ for pages updated in the last 24 hours, and this one came out tonight.
There is so much sensible discussion here - unlike some of the ‘Stateside’ pages where I see comments like “Stay in the city folks, that’s where the food is”.
More power to your elbow Aus-greens!!
Steve from the UK (soon to be elsewhere)
I’ve discussed on these pages how Australia (and the world) needs to move away from fossil powered electricity generation, and to switch to renewables like solar, wind, and sea. I have directed less attention towards our thirst for oil, deliberately.
After peak oil has been reached and oil production declines, the price will climb, and one way or another the problem will partly fix itself. In 20 years time Australia won’t be using as much oil as it does now. No government intervention is required to precipitate such a reduction.
Australia faces a tougher challenge than many of our rivals, due to our cities being so far apart, our poor reach of public transport networks, and our resource driven exports with their inherently high transport cost to value ratios. Without major action the future is bleak.
Clifford J Wirths article makes sobering reading. I knew the transport situation was bad without oil, I didn’t realise we have so few alternatives.
The Australian Democrats have been working on Uranium and peak oil issues for over 30 years. Sadly something not easily acknowledged I’ve noticed in this Australian election campaign.
Well done Greens on winning more Senate balance power, it will be interesting to see how that responsibility will be conducted to inhibit Indian & Russian Uranium sales contracts over the next three years. As will the 2010 & 2013 hustings.
“I knew the transport situation was bad without oil, I didn’t realise we have so few alternatives.”
Not only are there few alternatives Zoltar, but the one’s we have are both expensive and inefficient (in comparison to oil at least - research into hydrogen and alternative fuel problems make interesting reading). Declining supplies will force down demand, but how will the market handle the revelation? Economic collapse on the scale of the Crash of ‘29 is not out of the question, although in this case it won’t be turned around by growth, growth, growth!!! Still, with massive unemployment the result of such a scenario, there’ll be lots of workers to help produce food locally :-)
Zoltar @25 stated: “In 20 years time Australia won’t be using as much oil as it does now. No government intervention is required to precipitate such a reduction.”
LOL….. in 20 years time time, Australia will have ZERO oil!
In fact it might well happen within TEN years.
Now, you tell me how we build the Green Energy Utopia within 10 years…
Without oil, we won’t even be able to mine coal. Ever thought of THAT?
Now as it happens, I think all these things are rather good things. I can’t think opf a better way to stop the madness. Business as usual is FINISHED.
At http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2767 you will read:
This is a post by Jeffrey J. Brown, an independent petroleum geologist in the Dallas, Texas area.
“In my opinion, we will see an epic collision between the conventional wisdom expectations of a continued exponential rate of increase in net oil exports, versus the rapidly developing new reality of an exponential decline in net oil exports.
My frequent coauthor, Khebab, is presently working on some mathematical models for production, consumption and net exports by the top net oil exporters. Based on the data that I have seen so far, it will not be a pretty picture. I suspect that the models may show that not much more than 25% of the remaining URR in the top net exporting countries will be exported.” (for the uninitiated, URR is Ultimate Recoverable Reserve)
I suggest you go to the URL and read the whole thing… very sobering.
Nice link Mike, I tend to agree with him.
As the gap between demand and supply widens the price of oil rises, as the price rises the countries which export oil become more affluent, as affluence increases so does their demand for energy. This further limits the supply of oil exports, and the spiral continues.
There must also be a very real risk that at some point the oil exporters say, we’ve only got enough reserves to meet another X years of domestic consumption, so we’re terminating our oil exports. This would manifest as sudden drops in oil availability on top of any peak oil reduced production curve.
There is also the possibility of oil exporters choosing to value add to their product rather than just exporting oil and petroleum. If they were to export plastic, paint, and other oil derived products they should be able to maintain the country’s income while depleting their oil reserves more slowly. They are fully entitled to do this, but it will cause industrial upheaval around the world.
Oil is not going to disappear in 10 years it is just going to become very expensive.
Greens Policy has to inform how the remaining oil is used.
And it probably needs to be set at different levels.
ie at $200 a barrel this and this should happen
at $500 a barrel these things happen
this should make it more palatable for joe blow to understand
they may not believe the worst case will happen but they have been introduced to the posibilities that it may happen at some point
Here’s another one for you…..
http://tinyurl.com/2vv92a
Tajik, I have very bad news for you……. oil WILL disappear within ten years!!!
By ABARE’s own figures, we will barely produce 95,000 barrels a day by 2012….. and we currently use 828,000!
By then NOBODY will export it to us. So do you know something I don’t know?
“By ABARE’s own figures, we will barely produce 95,000 barrels a day by 2012….. and we currently use 828,000!”
This is very alarming! Where can we see these figures?
I’ve been able to find two recent ABARE reports - http://www.abareonlineshop.com/PdfFiles/eia06.pdf and http://www.abareonlineshop.com/PdfFiles/energyupdate_2007.pdf
In both, the statistics show a continued decline in oil production, however ABARE predicts that it’ll either stay flat or increase in the future - this despite the fact that oil produced in Australia has dropped at least 50% since 2000. In that same period, by ABARE’s figures, our imports of refined petrol products have jumped by more than 300%.
There’s a very interesting article here (http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php?Itemid=93&id=93&option=com_content&task=view) shedding light on ABARE’s perennially optimistic forecast practices.
The first link also has a very interesting chart showing where our oil is imported from. About a quarter comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, two countries that themselves have past peak and are now net importers - how much longer will they continue to sell oil to us? Another major source is Vietnam, who are also feeding the growing markets in South Korea and Japan, two countries with a positive balance of trade that can easily afford a higher price for oil than we can.
In the not-too-distant future we’ll be queuing up for Middle Eastern oil like everyone else in the world. We’ll be queuing up at the browser too.
The historical data comes from ABARE’s Mineral Statistics quarterly at
http://www.abareonlineshop.com/searchforprod.asp
I am also referring to this chart based on that data :
http://www.peakoil.org.au/australia.oil-prod.trend.gif
The decline between March 2000 and March 2006 was 51%
so that if the next 6 years follow the same decline, we will be at zero by 2012.
The only reason I’m predicting we’ll still be producing ~95,000 barrels a day is because a largish WA find will have come into production by 2012, and that is its predicted flow rate. The way oil companies operate, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were optimistic…
This was not an ABARE forecast, it was my projection, though based on ABARE figures, and there is no strong reason to suppose the next 6 years WILL be exactly like the last 6 - a Hubbert down-curve is the theoretical, but with only a small number of oil-wells, it will likely be very lumpy.
However in the September 2006 quarter, ABARE revised their data upwards and backdated the revisions for 6 quarters. This makes the data for the above period unusable as some has been revised and some hasn’t. I think this was done on purpose by ABARE to make it difficult to show peak oil.
This is the same thing using BP annual data :
http://www.peakoil.org.au/australia.oil-prod.trend.bp.gif
This is a full history of Australian production with best fit Hubbert Curve :
http://www.peakoil.org.au/australia.oil-prod.hubbert.gif
and more stuff at
http://www.peakoil.org.au/australia.production.consumption.htm
http://www.peakoil.org.au/australia.fossil.consumption.htm
Mike, why do you say nobody will export to us? We already import a large proportion of our oil. Why would our current providers stop when they have us over a barrel, so to speak?
I’m in no way suggesting we shouldn’t act and act fast, just want to be clear that we will still be able to import oil well beyond 2020. It’ll just be much much more expensive!
go back and read post 28 Tim……
By 2020 (and a lot earlier), many of today’s exporters will no longer be exporting at all. A lot of oil from those who still export will be tied up in long term politically based contracts, such as those China’s been busily tieing up around the world (including getting our NW shelf natural gas at a _fixed_price_), plus oil the US has been trying to seize by force.
There won’t be much left for sale on the “free market” and yes the price will be “much much more expensive”.
Even if Australia does manage to import some oil, we’ll be very lucky if its enough to drive the essential rural and transport sectors. Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to trade some oil in return for iron ore & coal. Rest assured though, there’ll be nothing for the average citizen at all - the days of cheap fuel are over, and so is our car-based economy.
Yes and 2012 is just around the corner. I think people forget it is nearly 2008 and this is something that is URGENT! How often do we think, “Gee the last few years have flown by”? It makes sense to look at this NOW , to prepare NOW and even if we do, we will be pushing uphill to get the right solutions in place in time. We are talking about our ENTIRE lifestyle changing and I do not think a lot of people will like the changes. I also think they will look to the Government and want to know why they were not given more warning to prepare for this. Surely this is something that should be seriously looked into. Just my humble opinion.
love and light
Susan xxxx (that sign off is for you Zoltar! - appreciate your encouragement in other threads)
In fact the time to ‘prepare’ was 30 years ago when the Club of Rome warned us limits to growth would occur…… In many ways it’s too late now, we can only adapt in a drastic manner.
Rationing of fuel will be one of the first steps required to deal with the coming shortages. If this isn’t done, there will be mayhem – hoarding of supplies, black market profiteering, queues for fuel at petrol stations and crucially, shortages for essential services, particularly food production and distribution. I believe that tradable quotas are the best means of rationing demand as they would allow people with greater needs to buy additional quota and reward those who conserve most effectively.
If rationing was implemented via a worldwide “Oil Depletion Protocol”, where all countries reduce their consumption progressively to match the available supply, this would mitigate the problem in the most
equitable way possible, hopefully preventing a breakdown of world order. However, getting the US on board is bound to be difficult.
The rationing system must also reserve enough fuel to implement the infrastructure works required to adapt to the post-peak world…… massive electric rail building (instead of building more bloody airport runways for gawdsakes!), solar thermal power stations, wind farms where most appropriate, and consolidating all farming to essential crops and in the country’s most sustainable farmlands using only organic methods (peak oil will put an end to chemical farming anyhow).
I can’t see how the economy can possibly continue on its current footing for too much longer. There will be millions of people living in outer suburbs who will not even be able to drive to work, the public transport system is already at breaking point in peak hours (at least it is in Brisbane).
Yes Mike, I do believe personally that we are now at the point where we have to prepare fast and as you say, in a drastic manner. It would be absolutely fantastic if the Greens could devote some webspace to ‘preparing for peak oil’ from a household point of view. Then just maybe when it does hit - whenever it is, at least it can be said that the Green’s were talking about prep details back in 2007 and how people would and could be affected.
This stuff kinda reminds me of Bob Brown, who in his earlier days, had to do things that even he admits, were a tad hard, like holding up a placard in a public place all on his own, to draw attention to a subject many years ago.
In a way Mike, it is like we are all trying to hold up a placard here and say “This is real, it will happen, it is URGENT’ and then will come the day when in hindsight, it will be “oh those guys WERE right!”
Just like we look back on what Bob was talking about 10 and 20 years ago and realise, he was right on the money about so many things.
Bob wasn’t scared to stand up and shout out about David Hicks. He copped a lot of flack about that. But Bob was right wasn’t he! And finally now, Australia can look back and think, Bob was right!
So I think in a way, it is comparable. I know it is not a message people want to hear. I too like to see a cup as half full. Being positive is good - but I am not seeing the bowser as half full, I am seeing it as half empty in this instance.
There was a good video from Catalyst (I think it was) last year who did a piece about this subject - it began with a walk through a shopping centre, pointing out all the things that relied on oil to be produced. I remember David showed it to me. Have you got that link Mike?
love and light
Susan xxxx
The Gaza strip is currently facing severe fuel shortages, as you can read here
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PALESTINIANS_RUNNING_ON_EMPTY?SITE=DCUSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2007/12/07/1196813021860.html
I realise that the shortages the Palestinians face are unrelated to peak oil, but is this what much of the world has to look forward to in the not too distant future?
Will the Liberal’s election campaign for 2013 feature an “education revolution” and be offering every child a bicycle - so they can get to school.
Susan, always a pleasure. This site needs as many contributors on climate and peak oil issues who have not yet given up as possible!
No, I’m afraid not, but recently a past leader of the Nationals, John Andersen, said people poured more oil into their fridges than they did in their cars’ fuel tanks…….. and he’s dead right.
Mike@41,
The only problems I foresee with this plan, apart from the massive contribution to greenhouse gas emissions such a large-scale transformation of society and the economy would create, as all this frenzied activity took place, is the lack of fuels to bring it about once peak oil seriously kicked in, and the population spectre. Now any combination of resources, and or technologies, which simply allows the population to keep growing, is just asking for trouble. Eventually we’d reach another physical barrier to growth, but be in a far worse position than today, since the population would not only be so much larger, but also because the physical world would be so much more degraded from all our continued activity. The way I see it, no alternative way of life can work without, or probably even before, a drastic reduction in human numbers occurs first. Unfortunately, any discussion of population control is taboo in polite circles worldwide. It certainly looks like the human race has painted itself into a nasty corner.
Here’s the site my wife Susan was looking for:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1515141.htm
It’s a segment about Peak Oil aired on the ABC’s science show Catalyst, back on the 24th of November 2005. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a well worth watching introduction to the subject that also suggests oil is about more than just transport (there is a transcript of the segment on the same page).
John@45, sadly I agree with you, but much can be done to tackle the problem - Transition Towns for instance (something worth some investigation by the Greens) - although I wouldn’t hold much hope for the cities.
John@45 you are right of course… the only way we could pull it off is by totally abandoning growth, AND tightening our belts really tight, plugging waste (including social waste like watching moronic TV!) and rationing rationing rationing…
It is because I can’t see that happoening that I agree with you re the nasty corner. We need a revolution, nothing less.
I noticed that SBS is running 2 documentaries on fossil fuels and peak oil this evening (Tuesday December 18), and thought they may be of interest.
8:30pm Energy War
This documentary describes the geopolitical consequences of the dependency on fossil fuels. The 21st century will be dominated by the struggle for energy: It will be every man for himself and it’s going to get dirty. Energy War features the New York Times columnists; Thomas Friedman who is also the author of the international bestseller The World is Flat. In the struggle for fossil fuels, countries all over the world are forced to take new political and moral decisions and have to enter into awkward alliances: rogue regimes must be tolerated and befriended.(From the Netherlands, in English, Russian, Spanish and Georgian, English subtitles) (Documentary Series) M WS
10:00pm Crude Impact
Crude Impact exposes our deep-rooted dependency on the availability of fossil fuel energy and examines the future implications of peak oil, i.e. the point in time when the amount of petroleum available worldwide begins a steady, inexorable decline. It looks at the role of the media in keeping the people in developed countries unaware of the climate changes affecting the world today. Thanks to mankind’s rapid growth, fuelled by fossil fuels and other minerals, we are warming the earth. As heat increases, the energy in the atmosphere increases causing more storms, hurricanes, droughts and other severe weather conditions. (From Australia, in English) (Documentary Series) (Rpt) PG (A) CC
Yes Zoltar!!
Even here in rural Tassie, David and the farmer next door, also very interested in this topic, as am I, are all set, to watch this together here at our place. It should be great - I hope perhaps some others from this blog will watch too and have some discussion on what is shown on this thread - no doubt hubby and neighbour, will discuss it for some time afterwards. As they do……………a lot!
Thanks for putting this up Zoltar, I am actually kicking myself for not doing so when I found out about it yesterday.
love and light
susan in tasmania xxxx
And here we are with $100 oil……
I predicted $100 oil by the end of 2007. I was 3 days off!
Mike you are selling yourself short.
It happened on 2nd-Jan in US trading time. So really 2 days off.
But it gets better. It was the first trading day of 2008, so really you are only 1 day off. That is it happened at the first opportunity in 2008.
Three years ago, people would have said $100 oil would be an immediate economic catastrophe. So the surprise is how little real effect the high price has had thus far.
One thing to remember is that the USD has fallen massively in relative value in the last three years.
I think maybe you did at least as good a job of predicting the falling value of the USD as you did the rising price of oil.
The change in the price of oil in Euro’s (or even AUD) might explain a little better why the world has withstood the rise in USD price so well thus far.
Frankly I hope oil goes to $200 a barrel, at least then we might use it a little more sparingly.
That’s the problem with you Mike, your predictions are rubbish!
How long till oil hits $150 a barrel? My predictions is March 12, 2009.
[I'm gussing it was you Mike who agreed with my post on the ABC site. Darn annoying how the threads there stay open for such a short period of time. Its much better here! Though I suspect this readership to be considerably smaller and mostly the converted. Any chance Tim for some stats on the number of site visitors and page views?]
My brother forwarded me a Richard Heinberg link the other day that’s worth a read (though he’s a bit too pro vegetarian for my liking):
http://globalpublicmedia.com/richard_heinbergs_museletter_what_will_we_eat_as_the_oil_runs_out
Zoltar, I’d be surprised if oil wasn’t $150 by Christmas this year (2008). Demand is staggering….. there are truckies in China waiting THREE DAYS in fuel queues to work their trucks for one day… saw it on ABC TV, so it must be true!!
To Concerned @ 51, the economic impact has not been visible here yet, except for the fast rising cost of food - see http://www.energybulletin.net/38349.html and the fact that the poorer people on the planet have already given up buying liquid fuel, thus reducing demand somewhat. I’m sure that’s why the price dropped to just under $50 last year. Of course when that happened, demand skyrocketed again, and here we all are.
Supply has been on a bumpy plateau now for 2 and a bit years. If it starts to actually decline this year, as I think it will, then all bets are off, and $200 is not beyond the realms of possibility.
If the US economy totally shits itself this year, highly likely with all the sub prime stupidity going along its merry way, then demand could fall off the perch, and then oil could well go back down to $50…..
Capitalism sure is a crazy place.
If that happens, the price of oil’s economic impact will be off the hook again, though it’s almost certainly the inflationary pressures of oil on food prices that broke the camel’s back and started the defaults on those stupid loans. The ‘economically challenged’ who were given those sub prime loans were always going to be the ones to suffer first at the hands of inflation.
This year is crunch time for capitalism, no doubt about it.
It is fine for many people to dictate that public transport is the answer to the peak oil issue. But has anybody seriously looked at how high volume public transport (trains) can service the new outlying suburbs in each major city. Take Melbourne for example. No new train lines have been built for the past 50 years, and I suspect that it is nearly impossible to build them out to the new suburbs as no transport corridores were left when suburbs expanded. Add to this the increasing population numbers in each city, and what transport is currently available is running to capacity, so state governments are forced to increase population density threatening green wedges (in Victoria some parks already have housing built on them). I believe that, as Australia is very spread country, we will always have a problem with peak oil, unless we spend huge sums on exploration of new reserves.
Grant, finding new oil reserves merely delays the problem, it does nothing to solve it.
Our suburban sprawl relies upon abundant cheap energy for transportation. When cheap oil runs out, and if no affordable and plentiful alternative fuel arrangement is in place, then I foresee cities as we know them contracting inwards, surrounded by a ring of large satellite towns. The era of long commutes (distance wise at least) will have passed. Internal migration from the country to the city will at some point stop, and will then go into reverse as people follow the increased jobs and opportunity of regional and rural areas.
How well our cities solve the public transport challenge will be a sizable determinant of the level of contraction and fragmentation that our cities will experience. Its also a law and order issue, as those home owners caught in the far reaches of the burbs, and without access to public transport, will find themselves burdened with debt and a near worthless asset.
Grant, finding new oil reserves may well prove impossible, and even those that may be left will totally inadequate to keep business as usual going.
If you go to http://www.peakoil.org.au/ you will see a pretty chart of the USA’s oil production. You will see that the USA’s production peaked in 1970, and then rose again around 1976 to another lower peak around 1986. This second peak was caused by Prudhoe Bay. PB was BY FAR the largest oil discovery in Nth America (bigger than all of Australia’s oil endowment), and yet it hardly made any difference to their production.
If you understand the “area under the curve” mathematical concept, then consider this: if PB had NOT been discovered, then the depletion curve would have followed a path lower and earlier than the one in the graph I pointed you to at http://www.peakoil.org.au/. Now, EVERYTHING within the area of the ‘would’ve been curve’ and the one that eventuated represents ALL the oil contained in PB….. and what a tiny portion it really is.
This is exactly why so many people are up in arms about drilling ANWAR… it would only last them them 6 months, and it’s simply not worth destroying pristine arctic ecosystems so they can drive cars for 6 more months…
If your maths is better than average, go here: http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/crisis_unfolding.htm
Zoltar and Milkestrasse, I take a number of your points and also see that oil availability will decrease, but also that there are a number of alternatives coming on stream (eg. gas of various types, hydrogen, oil from sands etc.) that will keep the motor vehicle as we know it chugging along for many years to come. We also have the Fed Gov. who will eventually have to start reducing taxes on fuel to avoid political suicide (2007 - 1+ million new vehicles sold, 2008 - sales expected to pass the 2007 figure, with only 0.5% being hybrid vehicles) which will occur when the over 1 million families find they cannot afford to drive their new pride and joy, or get to work. I suspect that the Feds will eventually need to get directly involved in fuel search (fuel of some type to operate existing vehicles), again, or the voting public will turn to somebody who says they will (probably an Italian model of changing governments annually). I agree with the satelite city idea, but I suspect that I will be dead before the city of Melbourne would allow the Vic Gov to encourage businesses out of the CBD, even though this is the only way that people will be able to get to work due to a public transport network that cannot be expanded for increased peak period loads. What I am happy with, is that I decided to retire last year after finding the hassells of going into and out of the Melbourne CBD was beyond a joke. In summary, I bought a new diesel vehicle last year with the view that it does provide me with some flexibility of burning alternative fuels if the proverbial hit the fan in the next 10 years or so. I also look back 60 years when one of the largest armies the world had ever known, with millions of motor vehicles (many of which were huge energy consumers) managed to crush Europe with access to only approx 20% of the natural petroleum products required. They managed this through scientific research and innovation, so there are ways and means of dramatically extending what is called peak oil.
Grant, Hydrogen is NOT a fuel. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, a bit like a battery. Not a good one either.
It takes MORE energy to make the hydrogen than you’ll ever recover from it, no matter HOW it’s made. No amount of efficiency improvements can ever get over this hurdle.
Then consider this: the current petrol/diesel infrastructure was built one brick at a time, as and when it was needed as population and car useage grew. This took ~100 years. To replace it within 10 years (that’s all we’ve got left!) literally all at once with a technology at least one order of magnitude more complicated is a huge challenge. Liquid H2 (last time I looked) cost $57 a litre, and only propels a car about 15% the distance of a litre of petrol…. you figure it out! When you see a Hydrogen powered car on TV, all it proves to me is that with fossil fuels, you can do ANYTHING!
Tar sands will never produce more than 1 or 2 million barrels a day (global extraction, including tar sands, is currently 84, demand is ~86). Roads are made OF oil, to build a car requires 80 to 200 barrels before you even turn the key…..
Re bio fuels, read this sobering item…. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/14/2138173.htm?section=justin
The current sale rises in vehicles is merely an aberration. I like to compare the current state of affairs with having a car accident. Just seconds before the accident, you’d never know you’re about to have one, when all of a sudden……. WTF!
We are heading into much more than Peak Oil…. there’s Climate Change, and the looming financial crisis to deal with as well, not to mention Peak Lead, Peak Nickel, Peak Lithium, Peak Water, in fact, Peak Civilisation……..
Milkestrasse, bio fuels have a number of issues, the main one for me is the huge amount of energy / emmissions generated to make the bio-fuel, but what was being stated is that they are only one of the many alternatives. By the time you add the remaining natural oils, bio fuels, compressed natural gas, plus all the other alternatives, then the motor vehicle will be around for a long time to come. I suggest that fuel for the average Australian family motor vehicle rates much higher on any agenda than concerns about carbon emissions, so all levels of government will reduce the fuel issues / cost impacts, while just flag waving on carbon emissions (refer Bali). Actually the Feds know that with the way we consume energy (from aircons to motor vehicles etc.), we have not a chance in a million of meeting any Kyoto carbon emissions targets, so they just try to retain at our current levels, reducing a little if possible. I believe that over time, most nations will pull out of any Kyoto type agreements if their nation becomes impacted by increasing costs or economic downturns.
In summary, you may consider the current sales rise of motor vehicles as a aberration, but they have been steadily rising for many years, and it would be politically suicide for any government to ignore the owners requirements for affordable fuel.
No it won’t…… Natural gas is plentiful here for the time being, but piping it to the East Coast where most of it is needed is going to cost a pretty packet… $1mil a km I’m told!
Peak Gas is expected ~2012. Howard sold us off to the Chinese at the equivalent of $20 a barrel… what a clever dick! He never believed energy could possibly go up as it has.
Car sales ARE an aberration! Like DINOSAURS!! You really don’t get it, just because sales are good NOW doesn’t have any impact AT ALL on how they will sell next year, in 5 years, in 10 years. NONE whatsoever. By then, we will have had the car crash I mentioned in my last post.
OK folks, we’re back. Thanks for keeping talking over the hols while we got some much needed rest!
Let’s move the debate over here now. Preferably staying close to the thread ;-)
Ta and happy 2008!
Tim