"Many awareness-raising events concerned with peak oil and petrocollapse are taking place lately. The news media, mainly concerned with price sensation, are helping somewhat to awaken the oil-addicted population, albeit with narrower concerns than the End of the Oil Age. Recent headlines include 'Beijing’s Pursuit of Oil' and 'Consumers Face a New Reality.' The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a peak oil resolution on April 11, 2006. It acknowledges the threats posed by peak oil and calls for the establishment of a city-wide study to assess San Francisco's vulnerability to peak oil."
The bulk of the article is Jan Lundberg reporting on the Pentagon-sponsored presentation, "Energy: a Conversation about Our National Addiction" on April 24th.
]]>Second, it doesn’t matter who’s right, because we should do the same things anyway just to save money, no matter whether oil is scarce or abundant. For example, Winning the Oil Endgame (free at www.oilendgame.com) provides an independent, peer-reviewed, detailed, transparent, and uncontested roadmap for eliminating U.S. oil use by the 2040s, led by business for profit. This Pentagon-cosponsoredstudy shows that half of U.S. oil use can be saved by efficient use and the rest substituted by saved natural gas
and advanced biofuels, at respective aver-age costs (in 2000 dollars) of $12/barrel and $18/barrel. Thus, reducing U.S. oil
use to zero will cost (as of 2025, partway through the transition) $70 billion a year less than buying the officially forecast
$26/barrel oil, even if all its externalities were zero. Early stages of implementation are showing much promise.
Despite my respect for experts on both sides of the peak-oil debate, both these reasons suggest that it’s not a prob-lem
meriting much attention. Let’s focus instead on implementing the practical solutions that make sense and make
money regardless. If we get off oil earlier than we turned out to need to, the worst that can happen is that we’ll make more
profit sooner.
Amory B. Lovins
Rocky Mountain Institute
Snowmass, Colorado, U.S.A.
On Smil
What a sad and misinformed appraisal of the motives of people like Colin Campbell. Campbell and others are pointing out that we have to be cognizant of peak oil as it will require precisely some of the alter-natives pointed out in this article, but Campbell and others, as opposed to Smil, recognize the timeframes that these alter-natives entail for implementation and also the realistic rates of delivery of energy from these alternatives by comparison to fossil fuels. Smil suggests that previous estimates of peak oil have been wrong and therefore implies that all estimates will be wrong. I hope he’s right! Michael Lynch goes back to the Greeks in suggesting that all esti-mates have never been right and therefore we have nothing to worry about. However, Hubbert was right in his forecast for the we have a deliverability problem. We have recov-ered the cheap, easy oil. The remaining oil is more expensive to recover (offshore, polar, and unconventional oil). Deliverability from these sources takes much longer and much higher capital investment than previous sources. Smil apparently doesn’t look at the forecasts for unconventional oil, even from the optimists (such as the U.S. Energy Infor-mation Administration) of meeting less than 5 percent of projected 2025 demand even with massive growth in production. Smil falsely states that “even $70/bar-rel is at least 35–40 percent below the 1981 peak” (therefore no worries). In fact, in inflation adjusted terms, oil was at $89/barrel in 1981, which means that $70 oil is 21 percent below the 1981 peak.
Economists such as Jeffrey Rubin of CIBC World Markets are forecasting $100/barrel oil by the end of next year.
Smil assumes that liquefied natural gas will create a world market for gas but ignores the infrastructure implications, in terms of time-to-build, geopolitics, and capital investment, as well as the full cycle emissions from this source (15–30 percent of the gas must be burned for liquefaction, transport, and regasification).
The realities of wind and solar are well understood; perhaps Smil should educate himself on the realistic contribu-tion to a grid of these and on price (as well as energy return on energy invest-ment). Although hydrates are purported as the panacea, and have been for a long time, they are energy negative and likely will continue to be for the foreseeable advan-tage, but to assume that “human inven-tiveness and ingenuity” will overcome the laws of thermodynamics is wishful think-ing on the highest level.
Dave Hughes
Geological Survey of Canada
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
"Mr. Bush is right about this much: China's growth has as much to do with rising oil prices as hurricanes, floods or rumors of war with Iran. As long as demand is high for a limited resource, prices will remain high. But even Mr. Bush ought to be ashamed to suggest the Chinese should go back to riding bicycles so we can keep driving Hummers - cheaply.
The president should have told Americans years ago that the days of cheap gas were over. It's too bad he didn't remind us of that when he had our attention - in the days and weeks after the terrorist strikes of 9/11. Even a nation of oiloholics was prepared to make sacrifices. If the president had imposed a stiff tax on gasoline at the pump, American motorists would have grumbled, but we would have gotten over it."
]]>Author James Howard Kunstler was in town Wednesday to give a talk promoting his new book, The Long Emergency. For those of you who have never read him, Kunstler believes we are now at the peak of the oil supply curve and that the subsequent and imminent drop in oil production will force us to change how we live. Soon, he predicts, automobile-dependent, suburban big-box culture will be economically unfeasible for most, forcing a return to cities and towns built upon traditional, pre-modernist planning principles. When you look, he says, at the history of human civilization as a whole, the era of freeways and strip malls, giant parking lots and tract housing subdivisions will be seen as a 60-year anomaly.
]]>"More often than not these days, if you go to hear someone speak you go to be entertained. But for once, feature speaker James Howard Kunstler, the author of "The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century" brought in by the University of Winnipeg's Institute of Urban Studies, did not entertain. He didn't make you feel comfortable and satisfied when you went home. Instead, he left you with your head full of questions, ideas and debates about the future of our world. Unfortunately, because of poor promotion, the audience was comprised mostly of students and academics - when it was the general public who really needed to hear what he had to say!
Environmentalists have criticized Kunstler for not exploring the alternative sources of energy. Kunstler responded to this by saying that he encourages us to utilize all forms of alternative energy, but that this will not be enough for our society to continue to function as it does today. For example, "smart cars" are great, but in order to have enough of these fuel efficient vehicles for everyone who needs/wants a car, there still won't be enough traditional energy. We will run out!
The challenge, therefore, is that we are going to have to live fundamentally differently. "It's about downscaling all the major activities of our daily life and living profoundly more locally," said Kunstler.
Can you imagine within the next 20 - 30 years? There will be no energy, no oil or gasoline - only electricity (it is renewable), no cars (they need gas and oil), heating and cooling by solar energy and no 'big box' developments because there will be no fuel to fly the aeroplanes or drive the trucks that bring the merchandise into the city for sale. What do you do then? Kunstler suggests that the cities' population will depleted, suburbia will collapse (no fuel, no cars) and people will move into the centre of the city using the resources there in order to survive. Roads will have to transformed into pedestrian walkways and bicycle paths, while the public transportation system will consist of electric railways (light railway transit - LRTs). With the loss of 'big box' merchandisers, large farms will collapse and we will have to learn how to grow our own food and cities will literally be transformed into village-like structures - much like the 'old days'.
Now, will this all happen logically and peacefully? Of course not. Kunstler suggested that the middle class and others who benefit from the way things are today will not give up quietly. There will be crisis, chaos, and possibly revolution. Here, however, Kustler wasn't very clear. My question, what political system will evolve out of this new system. He did not deny that a form of fascism could arise with a 'leader' telling people that they must live this way or they won't survive. Kunstler suggested this possibility because, he said, North Americans don't think for themselves. They are always looking for a leader (look at what's happening with President Bush and the war in Iraq).
Well, here I beg to disagree. For Kunstler opened my eyes about my own ideology - that is, how socialism could arise when capitalism collapses. For the last few years, I have argued that the Marxist dialectic moves us from feudalism to capitalism, to socialism ---- and ultimately to communism. Socialism is only possible after the full flowering of capitalism. Lately I have considered the fact that, just as Kunstler is saying, capitalism will come to an end crisis - at which point socialism is possible. I have always believed that socialism will evolve from a neighbourhood basis. Kunstler's description of the 'capitalist implosion' (my term, not his) will lead to a struggle between fascism (those looking for a leader to tell them what to do) and socialism.
If we accept Kunstler's vision of how capitalism will collapse, then we as socialists must prepare ourselves as leaders in the future socialist society that we will live in. We need to strengthen neighbourhood associations within the city of Winnipeg to ensure that locally produced food is done through food co-ops with local marketplaces - especially in view of the fact that there will be no Safeways, Wal-Marts. Transportation will need to be provided throughout neighbourhoods for everyone, including seniors and people with disabilities. Large financial institutions will be gone so smaller, local financial institutions must be built in neighbourhoods. The use of the barter system will become very important, as some people will want to exchange goods and services.
So, while these are just some suggestions of how the future of our cities could be, following the collapse of capitalism, there are many other scenarios to consider.
But consider them, we must! One of the possibilities that I raised was the impact a nuclear strike by the U.S. against Iran would have on the oil crisis (a distinct possibility, as President Bush has even suggested this). Oil deposits would be deemed useless to us because of the level of radiation, and Kunstler's prediction of a crisis might happen even sooner. If this were to happen or if Kunstler is right, and capitalism will hit a crisis in another 15 years, then we must be prepared or fascism could take over, leaving us worse off than we are today."
]]>[t]he seeds of an ultra-efficient green-powered post-pollution economy have been planted and proven, ecologically and economically. Our presence on this Earth cannot be sustained without it. A Solartopian transformation must happen to end the wars for oil and global-warmed storms, the nuke melt-downs and petro-dictatorships, while initiating an age of full employment, material prosperity and natural harmony.
The ancient Greeks were thoroughly schooled in the science of passive solar building design. Wind power has been profitable for centuries, including at least one machine that operated on Manhattan Island in the 1600s. Bio-fuels will soon be a trillion-dollar industry. And we have barely scraped the surface of increased energy efficiency.
Along with distributed generation and revived mass transit, these are the key components of the necessary and inevitable transformation to Solartopia. Some will translate into electricity, others into hydrogen, still more into straight heating, cooling and people moving.
For more, check out an excerpt here.
]]>The steadily skyrocketing cost of fueling your car or truck should come as no great surprise to anyone, says acclaimed author and anti-sprawl guru James Howard Kunstler.
The well-spoken and witty New Yorker, a former staff writer with Rolling Stone magazine who readily admits he has no formal training in architecture or science, maintains society has passed the peak of global oil production.
Last night, even before he took to the podium at the Winnipeg Art Gallery's Muriel Richardson Auditorium before about 200 people, the very first slide of his presentation -- a picture of an oil-field pump with the words We're in trouble above it -- drove home his message.
"We are entering a period of energy scarcity with no horizon," Kunstler said, noting oil fields that have, historically, produced the majority of the world's tradeable oil are all past their peak.
"There are very serious problems looming."
]]>"Analysts said oil prices were likely to climb further as long as geopolitical risks in Iran and Nigeria posed threats to supply at a time when global demand remains strong and supplies remain tight. Crude oil production is only barely keeping up with rising global demand, leaving a slim margin for error if there is a prolonged supply interruption, experts say."
The "When Energy Demand Exceeds Supply" event is taking place at a particularly crucial historical moment: should the United States attack Iran, there is widespread speculation that oil could hit $100.00 a barrel. One website is even conducting a countdown.
]]>
"Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era. It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life -- not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense -- you name it."
]]>
"I've worked in the energy sector for almost 30 years, still not nearly as
long as Lewis, and I believe he has most of it right in his comments.
I would like to make a few points, however..."
]]> * First, supply/demand economic theory is not only wrong about energy, its* For commodities such as energy the real question is which should take
precedence, the production cost and use value of these commodities or the
bid value arrived at in markets. The two are not the same and generally
no where near one another in terms of size. Plus the two serve very
different goals. This is one of many reasons energy markets don't work
and do a lot of harm to societal welfare.
* As Lewis indicates there are technological fixes for the some of the oil
issues, but most are social structure problems not amenable to technical
fixes. Over the next 3 decades, if we intend to survive with our current
standard of living or anything near it, there will have to be many changes
in how energy production, distribution, and use are organized from an
institutional perspective. This must include ending the current structure
of private corporations having a strangle hold on energy production and
distribution and removing the profit/private property motivation from
energy. It also must include international coordination and control of
energy resources and their use.
* And I ask if Lewis is correct that the industry has known about the
coming crisis for some time (I agree with Lewis on this) and did not worry
about it, WHY DIDN'T INDUSTRY WORRY? This is a clear sign that the
current energy social structure is rotten, not only ineffective and
inefficient but undemocratic.
* I want to underline and emphasize what Lewis said about water. But
water is not only the next crisis in the Middle East its also the next
crisis in the US. And it will have an intensity and level of impact never
even approached by the energy crisis.
* I too wonder what economists will tell their students next semester
about the almost inconceivable margins currently realized and likely to be
realized for some time to come on oil and other fossil energy sources. If
they're truthful, which some actually are, they'll tell their students
that the theories they've been "selling" for 50 years need to be
re-thought.
This is an academic's way of saying these theories don't appear to reflect
reality. The real issue here is how many countries will be bankrupted,
how many lives will be destroyed, how many dreams for the future will be
squashed before the necessary structural changes are made to fix the
problems the application of these theories has caused.
"To H-energy:
Barbara Currier Bell has asked me to comment on the prospects for crude oil. Since I have two papers in submission, I cant quote them. However, I can make a few points which I and/or others in the "peak oil" community have made on various occasions:
]]> "[1] The coming crunch in crude-oil markets does not depend so much on absolute numbers as on the difference between what consumer would like to consume [potential demand] and the lesser of the following --- the supply[2] The future demand for petroleum fuels is highly uncertain because it depends on conservation measures, hybrid cars, national policies, rates of economic development, the resolution of conflicts over "food versus fuel" , technological breakthroughs, the speed with which new technologies can be deployed and other factors. Many of these factors also have uncertain futures. For example, how fast will people in China and India increase car ownership and what will be the average mpg ?
[3] In particular, the much vaunted "hydrogen economy" will probably arrive in some form or another but not in time to "save us from perdition" . Meanwhile there are some niche uses which can and should be exploited ASAP.
[4] A critical factor is how much middle distillate ---diesel, kerosene and naphtha --- will be made from non-petroleum sources in the long run. [That number is a real crap shoot.] Diesel is important for construction, heavy land transport, marine transport and emergency plants. Kero is the basis for civilian jet fuel. Naphtha is the major feedstock for military jet fuel and for most petrochemicals and plastics. None of these fuels has anything equivalent to the hybrid car or increased mileage requirements in its future.
[5] Another critical factor is the speed with which oil-replacing and oil-saving technologies can be "deployed" . That is, how fast can companies [A] put money "in the til" [B] concrete, steel and people on the ground and then [C] complete projects on time, under budget and up to specifications ? [Probably not fast enough. This issue is usually
omitted from discussions of energy.]
[6] The odds are that physical crude oil capacity is going to peak soon enough to cause trouble. More important, the odds are that the subsequent decline in production will be steep rather than shallow. If so, this means a worldwide recession and maybe regional wars. [For the record, the writer foresaw the midterm proximity of the Middle East War and the invasion of Iraq, but not the years in which these started.]
In evaluating the above, please keep the following in mind ---
[1] Industry data is bad --- full of errors, inconsistencies, omissions and just plain lies. Trying to find the true story can get you killed fast. So any forecast of the year in which world crude-oil production is going to peak is highly speculative. [For the record, the writers favorite is 2010.] Nevertheless, there is enough good and mediocre data to
fully justify assertion [6] above.
[2] The industry has known all this for a long time, but nobody worried about it. This was because production kept growing, producers kept exaggerating and everybody thought the Middle East was an endless cornucopia. Well it isn't, no matter how many full-page ads Exxon takes out.
[3] Water will soon become the biggest problem in the Middle East, even bigger than the present biggest --- Israel and Palestine.
[4] Sinking a few supertankers in the straits between Iran and Oman could bottle up most of the oil exports of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and all of those from other Persian Gulf countries. Iran has the missiles to do this, even though it is not nearly as close to having an atom bomb as it or the American imperialists would like it to be.
[5] The worldwide network of terrorist networks has more terrorists and more sympathizers than it did on 09/11, although its popular support has declined in some specific countries, such as Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia and Jordan. Since 9/11 USA has helped this process along by writing a textbook on how to alienate friends and make enemies.
[6] Crude-oil markets do not behave like textbook markets. For example, even for well traded "baskets" of crude oil, such as "West Texas Intermediate", there is no single equilibrium price and over a decade, the market price may spend more time above its equilibrium range than it does either within it or below it.
[7] The life-cycle cost of most Middle Eastern crudes probably lies between $2.00 and $12 per barrel, freight on board the port of export, that is, including a return on and recovery of the capital investment required to find, extract and transport the oil. Even the incremental cost of finding crude oil in the USA is probably no more than $26 per barrel.
[8] With WTI fob Cushing OK at $68 per barrel, producing countries are enjoying gross margins unlike anything ever seen in the economic history of the world. Conventional economists quaintly call this difference "economic rents" . In theory, such differences are not supposed to get nearly so big nor last nearly so long. In most cases, they are supposed to be quickly "arbitraged" away. What are these economists going to tell their students next semester ?
Cordially,
Lewis L Smith
MMBTUPR@aol.com
"Canada has less than 10 years of proven conventional oil reserves left, Statistics Canada reports. In 2004, our oil production averaged 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd). We exported 1.6 million bpd to the U.S., requiring us to import some 963,000 bpd to meet our domestic demand of 1.75 million bpd. Canada has only 8.7 years of domestic natural gas supply remaining, also according to StatsCan. We produce 17 billion cubic feet per day (bcf) and export 9.7 bcf to the U.S., leaving us with less than half, 7.3 bcf. Even the ever-optimistic and industry-serving National Energy Board now admits Canada's natural gas situation is 'unsettling.'
]]> "Exploitation of Alberta's Athabasca tar sands, chiefly to serve the U.S. market, is now Canada's Job One. But every barrel of tar sands oil requires 1,000 to 2,000 cubic feet of natural gas and from three to six barrels of water. By comparison, an average Canadian home burns 9,000 cf of natural gas per month in winter. In full production, Fort McMurray's tar sands plants will demand an additional 175 million litres of water per day above the 138 billion litres a year already allocated.What happens when -- and it is when, not if -- Canada, a cold country, reaches a domestic supply crunch sometime in the next decade? Thanks to the proportional sharing clause contained in the North American Free Trade Agreement, we can't turn off the tap on either oil or gas. We can't even turn it down. We will have to go short ourselves."
She supports her arguments with links to a report from the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute, the Polaris Institute of Ottawa and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, called Fuelling Fortress America. According to this report,
"Most of the oil to be taken from the tar sands will go to the United States. In effect, the Athabasca deposits will be the centrepiece of a new continental energy grid. Its main purpose will be to provide a secure supply of fuel for the American industrial and military machines. Canadians are already paying a steep price for feeding the voracious American addiction to the dwindling world reserves of oil and gas.
Given that the rapidly increasing exports of Canada ’s oil and gas to the U.S. puts our own energy security as a nation in jeopardy; that Canada, despite being a petroleum-producing country, is already forced to import nearly half of the oil its people need; that Canada has less than a 10-year supply of conventional oil and natural gas remaining; that most of the tar sands oil is earmarked for export to the U.S., and most of the natural gas from the North is also intended for the U.S. market or to fuel extraction of the tar sands crude — the continuation of current energy policies is clearly not in the national interest."
Abstract:
The transport sector will be very hard hit by the “big rollover” in world oil production due to occur within the next 10 years. Urban transport in particular is almost entirely dependent upon oil, and will take many years to shift to other energy sources. Most cities will be particularly vulnerable during the transition to a post-petroleum world. Likewise, the growing focus on global warming and greenhouse issues places additional pressure on urban transport to reduce its CO2 output. This paper provides a review of transport, urban form, energy use and CO2 emissions patterns in an international sample of 84 cities in the USA, Australia, Canada, Western Europe, high income Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, low income Asia, Latin America and China. This overview concentrates on factors such as urban density, transport infrastructure and car, public transport and non-motorised mode use, which help us to better understand the different levels of per capita passenger transport energy use and CO2 emissions in different cities. Patterns of energy consumption, modal energy efficiency and CO2 emissions in private and public transport in the different groups of cities are examined. Automobile cities such as those in the USA use extraordinary quantities of energy in urban transport. An average US urban dweller uses about 24 times more energy annually in private transport as a Chinese urban resident. Public transport energy use per capita represents a fraction of that used in private transport in all cities, with rail being the most energy-efficient mode. CO2 emissions from passenger transport follow a similar pattern. For example, Atlanta produces 105 times more CO2 per capita than Ho Chi Minh City. Some policy recommendations are outlined to reduce urban passenger transport energy use and greenhouse gases and provide other positive outcomes in terms of sustainability and livability in cities.
(Presented to the international Third Conference of the Regional Government Network for Sustainable Development, Notre Dame University, Fremantle, Western Australia, September 17-19, 2003).
Thanks to Dr. Kenworthy for offering his paper for advance reading!
Check out the most recent issue of Habitat Debate, a special issue on "towards sustainable energy in cities." Topics include energy planning, getting energy to the poor (including to informal settlements) and "preparing cities for a world of expensive oil."