The Long Emergency... Peak Oil & the total change in life as we know it...

[freakygeek]

Heres a link to an excerpt from a book by James Howard Kunstler, entitled "The Long Emergency".

Basically it goes into some fairly frightening predictions about living life in a world with an ever-reducing supply of oil, or more to the point, cheap energy.

"No combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run American life the way we have been used to running it, or even a substantial fraction of it."

Read the entire excerpt :-
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto...long_emergency

Interested to see the discussion about this, people's views and ideas about the topic. It's something which interests me quite a lot.. and I think certainly deserves a lot more attention and thought than many people give it.

Read and discuss!

[macoman69]

Whoa......
Sounds intense.

Do you really think world leaders would actually let this happen though??
I know they are not perfect but they would obviously see the signs and would be informed of what may and WILL eventually happen. They need to create better international ties so that the trading of oil can live on......lets just hope the dont say FCUK OFF when they ask

[00dc2]

I too am very interested in this.

IMO unless the world finds new sources on power so we can continue our relentless march what is described in this article will slowly happen.

i think it will happen very slowly... as energy supply grows shorter and shorter prices (which are currently ridiculously low) will increase. People and the world will have to adapt their lives.

Wind the clock forward 100 years and i think the world will be very very different. And probably for the better!

[norma]

I remember reading this a while ago and talking about it with some friends.

While Kunstler brings up a good point (that is, we are using a lot more energy than we couldn't possibly continue making), he does exaggerate a little too much to the point of hopeless pessimism.

I'm not trying to discredit what Kunstler is saying (he makes an excellent point), but I just want to say he's a better journalist than he is a scientist.

There's also a counter-argument made by a renewable energy researcher here: http://www.greeninstitute.net/node/430

[freakygeek]

There's also a counter-argument made by a renewable energy researcher here: http://www.greeninstitute.net/node/430

This article seems to be based on some sort of blind faith / optimism, because many of the so-called "facts" are completely incorrect. Let's begin with the first "rebuttal" ...

Kunstler claims that "no combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run even a substantial fraction of our lives on it." Well, I have news for him. Germany already gets 25 percent of its electrical power from wind.

Really! Sounds good, right? Well, unfortunately it's completely untrue.

Wind accounts for 1% of the world's total electricity production (2005). Germany was the leading producer of wind power with 28% of the total world capacity in 2006 (7.3% of German electricity); the official target is for renewable energy to meet 12.5% of German electricity needs by 2010 — this target may be reached even earlier. Germany has 18,600 wind turbines, mostly in the north of the country — including three of the biggest in the world, constructed by the companies Enercon (6 MW), Multibrid (5 MW) and Repower (5 MW). Germany's Schleswig-Holstein province generates 36% of its power with wind turbines.

So Germany produce 28% of global wind power, using 18,600 wind turbines. But 28% of total global wind power is only 7.3% of Germany's domestic requirement. Germany is aiming to produce 25% of their electricity using wind by 2020... Which is quite different to the picture the article paints.

Next, the article goes on with this...

Yes, we are nearly totally dependent on these fuels as the mainstay of our economy. But that's now. We could, if we're willing to muster the political will, completely eliminate our need for foreign oil ...

Here's how: We start with simple efficiency retrofits to existing vehicles. These retrofits would include a new generation of high-efficiency spark plugs and mileage booster fuel additives.

... but doesn't explain what these magical solutions might be. Sounds wonderful to the uninformed, but surely most people on this forum can see through this utter bullshit... High efficiency spark plugs? What, we don't already have these? Fuel additives? Made from what?

The article then goes on to suggest that :-

The fact is, biofuels are better for your car, better for the environment and better for our national security.

Better for your car then? Sounds good. But it's not what the major group of Diesel Fuel Injection component manufacturers say about using Biodiesel.



There are other factual errors and untruths in the article also, but I don't really have the time to dissect the article further. Hopefully I have at least shown that the picture the article paints seems to be mostly fantasy.

[tinkerbell]

they are core drilling around adelaide for geothermals...

i magma!

http://www.torrensenergy.com/announc...07_torrens.pdf

[tinkerbell]

opps, here is wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geother...tral_Australia

[Jingers]

freaky for president

[freakygeek]

they are core drilling around adelaide for geothermals...

i magma!

http://www.torrensenergy.com/announc...07_torrens.pdf

Yeah, Geothermal seems like a good thing from many angles.

Lets hope they can get it online and productive in the near future... the sooner the better!

Oh, and time to buy some shares in Geothermal companies... hehe

[freakygeek]

Back to the original topic, that is, the changes that we will begin to see -

One thing which will be changing soon, globally, will be the airline industry. As there are no alternative fuel options to power our global fleet of airlines, the industry totally relies on the availability of refined petroleum products.

Unfortunately, the airline industry realistically has no long term (perhaps even medium-term?) future, or at least as we know it today.

This article from 2005, when oil pricing was $47/barrel... Today it is $87/barrel.
Oil prices ‘destroying’ airline profitability

Something a little closer to home :-

A submission to the Brisbane Airport Corporation regarding the new parallel runway proposal

This submission outlines the effects of global depletion of oil production on the proposal to build a New Parallel Runway at Brisbane airport.

The Environmental Impact Statement / MDP contends that the project is necessitated by growth in passenger and air traffic demand at Brisbane Airport, with demand predicted to exceed existing capacity by 2015. One of the assumptions supporting this growth forecast is that oil prices will remain relatively cheap into the medium to long term. This is seriously flawed in that it ignores the impact of world oil depletion, which will see prices remain volatile in the short term and increase dramatically in the medium to long term. Demand for Brisbane Airport may continue to grow in the short term, but will most likely decline from approximately 2010, i.e. before construction of the NPR is complete. This casts serious doubt over the rationale for the project and needs to be properly addressed in the final EIS/MDP assuming that BAC decides to continue with the project regardless.

Despite this level of public and industry awareness, the impact of oil depletion on the aviation industry has been completely omitted from the Draft EIS/MDP, indeed the authors appear to have wilfully ignored the problem by selecting positive, yet discredited, forecasts of world oil prices.

Given the situation faced by the airline industry and the impact of rising oil prices, analysts around the world have been questioning the viability of proposed airport expansions for some years. In relation to the proposed expansion of Heathrow and Stansted Airports in the UK, Dr Colin Campbell of ASPO writes:

The building of additional runways in order to satisfy a perceived rise in passenger air travel, raises expectations that cannot be fulfilled. The runways at Stansted and Heathrow, if they are ever built, will serve as parking lots for redundant aircraft. The demise of the aircraft industry will be signalled by the progressive grounding of the aircraft fleets, as a reduction in the supply of jet fuel will be the first indicator of the end of the oil era.

So, in summary - the world airline industry is in a downturn. It cannot expect to maintain profitability in a world with rising oil prices. Air travel will again be reserved for the very wealthy...

[00dc2]

imo the depletion of oil will result in higher oil prices and thus higher air travel prices and thus less flights happening.

I dont think we will ever actually run out of oil it will just get more and more expensive till its not used much.

they need to make more and more efficient planes (per passenger per km) as prices will keep rising... who would be flying interstate to watch their fav footy team if the airfare was 5X the current price? not many i suspect.

[freakygeek]

I dont think we will ever actually run out of oil it will just get more and more expensive till its not used much.

You talk as though we can simply replace oil with alternative fuels in a short amount of time (a few years)... Unfortunately this is simply not the case.

[00dc2]

haha

where did i say that it will be replaced? I said "I dont think we will ever actually run out of oil it will just get more and more expensive till its not used much."

I mean that people will find a way not to need anywhere near as much oil as they do now. We all know that currently human kind is very very wasteful with energy. Its too simply too cheap. If we accepted power bills 3X what they are now we would have no climate crisis as that is the ballpark cost of renewable power. Huge power usage reductions can be had with high efficiency lighting. Or not using the 500W 50" plasmas.

Oil consumption will fall as prices rise due to shortages. Eventually to the point where its consumption will be only where its costs are justified or where it cant be replaced like on airplanes.

When petrol rose from around $1 to $1.4 peoples driving habbits started to change. As petrol goes up to $2 people will really start using less of it. $3, $4 will see major changes to how much keen people are to use public transport imo.

We are still finding oil and i think it will be a long long time (like hundreds of years) before it actually runs out (assuming out consumption falls DRASTICALLY due to much higher prices) and we should have some new source of energy by then surely.

How people get to work each day and what they pay for a bus ticket will be interesting in the cities we have in Australia and the US where urban sprawl makes public transport a nightmare. Compact European cities will handle the transport problem much better.

[freakygeek]

haha

where did i say that it will be replaced? I said "I dont think we will ever actually run out of oil it will just get more and more expensive till its not used much."

This is simple to say, but certainly has drastic implications for a world economy which has thrived on cheap, readily available energy (oil) for the past century.

"Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food" - Bartlett, 1978

"Approximately 90% of the energy in crop production is oil and natural gas. About one-third of the energy is to reduce the labor input from 500 hours per acre to 4 hours per acre in grain production. About two-thirds of the energy is for production, of which about one-third of this is for fertilizers alone." - Pimentel, 1998

I mean that people will find a way not to need anywhere near as much oil as they do now. We all know that currently human kind is very very wasteful with energy. Its too simply too cheap. If we accepted power bills 3X what they are now we would have no climate crisis as that is the ballpark cost of renewable power. Huge power usage reductions can be had with high efficiency lighting. Or not using the 500W 50" plasmas.

Oil consumption will fall as prices rise due to shortages. Eventually to the point where its consumption will be only where its costs are justified or where it cant be replaced like on airplanes.

...Or food production... or transporting food to your supermarkets... or fertiliser production for our agricultural needs...

When petrol rose from around $1 to $1.4 peoples driving habbits started to change. As petrol goes up to $2 people will really start using less of it. $3, $4 will see major changes to how much keen people are to use public transport imo.

The problem is bigger than most people imagine. We plan and build cities and road networks around a fundamental requirement, that of cheap, readily available energy from fossil fuels. The way we have designed our cities simply will not be viable in a post-fossil fuel era. I'm not a doomsayer.. I'm simply looking at the facts available today.

The majority of our food supplies rely on high transport miles. Watch the fall-out after Peak Oil kicks in properly, as farmers have difficulty affording fertiliser, pesticides and diesel, and as road transport gets too expensive, and as the major food outlets begin to stumble because the whole process of supply and distribution - including their customers being easily able to travel to the mega-stores - is underpinned by affordable fuel.

We are still finding oil and i think it will be a long long time (like hundreds of years) before it actually runs out (assuming out consumption falls DRASTICALLY due to much higher prices) and we should have some new source of energy by then surely.

Yes, we are still finding oil. Absolutely correct, don't doubt you for a minute. But the oil we are finding is nowhere near the volumes we did in the 50's and 60's. US domestic oil production peaked in 1972, despite all the technological advances that had been made in oil discovery.

The fact everyone is in agreement with is that we will reach a time where demand outstrips production. Many suggest that this time has passed.

World production achieved 85.5 million barrels per day in July of 2005, and again achieved 85million per day in December 2005, but since that date, has not achieved more than 84million barrels. We are of course talking about a two year period, all though which, the OPEC nations have their periodic meetings, and the Saudi's in particular, have been getting pushed to produce and extra 2M /day.. at the last meeting in Oct they reluctantly agreed to produce an extra 0.5M, but even that hasn't happened. We could be just at a temporary plateau prior new capacity coming on line leading to a new rise in production. But maybe not, too.

I read an article recently suggesting that Brazil has discovered "Huge reserves of oil". The article goes on to say :-

"Petrobras, Brazil's national oil company, said in a statement that exploration of its Tupi field, offshore Sao Paulo state, revealed it could produce up to eight billion barrels of light oil and natural gas. "

8 billion barrels? Wow, sounds like a lot. But with the US alone consuming 20million barrels/day, this only supplies the US for 400 days. And it will take a lot longer than 400 days to extract this reserve from the field. It then goes on to say :-

At best, he said, production would begin in around four or five years' time.

How people get to work each day and what they pay for a bus ticket will be interesting in the cities we have in Australia and the US where urban sprawl makes public transport a nightmare. Compact European cities will handle the transport problem much better.

Yes, people will certainly need to adapt their lifestyles to a rather different world. Will people have jobs to go to, or will their industry collapse as a result of the rising costs of energy?

Only time can really tell!

[tinkerbell]

currently humans are dependent on ENERGY (in any form) to exist.

once energy becomes harder to obtain, the entire world economy will be destroyed.

there will be a complete rebalancing, and we will regret destroying the only thing that will help us survive in the resulting energy depleted environment - ECOLOGY.

but since we have tried so hard to destroy all ECOLOGICAL systems since we (homo-sapiens) came into existence, we have no chance to rebalance, thus will be destroyed as a result.

clearly, we are the architects of our own demise...