Peak Oil is You
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Page added on July 4, 2012
Enough fossil fuels to fry us all
Will peak oil save us from global warming? Can it be that the decline of oil production caused by scarcity will be more effective than the (feeble) attempts made by governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?
This point was debated briefly this year the conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) in Vienna. It is a typical controversy of ASPO conferences: some people seem to be so oil centered that they think that the climate models of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are all wrong because they don’t take into account the ASPO data. The latest manifestation of this peculiar delusion comes from George Monbiot who decided that peak oil is not coming so soon, after all, and so concluded that “We were wrong about peak oil, there is enough to fry us all.”
Now, we can say that Monbiot is wrong: first of all because he gives too much credit to an optimistic recent study on oil production (and even misinterpreting it – if you read it carefully, the data of the study are not so optimistic. See here and here for a critical assessment)
But the real mistake made by Monbiot is to over-emphasize the importance of peak oil for climate change. So far, the vagaries of oil production haven’t affected so much the trend of the emissions of greenhouse gases. Today, even though crude oil production has been flat for several years, carbon dioxide emissions keep increasing.
That’s what you’d expect: oil is just one of the sources of extra CO2 in the atmosphere and the increasing costs of extraction are pushing the industry to use dirtier fuels. In other words, we are seeing a trend towards using fuels which release more CO2 for the same amount of energy generated. In this sense, tar sands, heavy oil, oil shales, and the like are all dirtier than oil. Coal is even worse and it is also the fastest growing energy source in the world. To say nothing of the emissions of methane by fracking, (methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide).
So, why should we expect peak oil to make a difference? Paradoxically, if peak oil were to come tomorrow, we might see CO2 emissions increase even more as that would cause an even more massive use of coal, tar sands, and other dirty sources. It is true that, eventually, the declining energy yield (EROEI) of fossil fuels will cause a general decline of greenhouse gas emissions; but we shouldn’t expect that to be very soon and it won’t be the immediate consequence of peak oil.
If we continue with the present trends of fossil fuel production, we risk to make climate change irreversible if we pass the “tipping point”, the point of non return, which we may well have passed already. If peak oil had to have an effect on climate (maybe), it should have come at least 20 years ago when CO2 concentrations were still around 350 ppm, said to be the upper limit to avoid irreversible climate change. Now, at 400 ppm and growing, peak oil is not enough to stop global warming.
So, in the end George Monbiot is wrong on peak oil, but right on his general conclusion. We only have to modify it a little, as “Peak oil or no peak oil, there are enough fossil fuels to fry us all“.
9 Comments on "Enough fossil fuels to fry us all"
Graeme on Wed, 4th Jul 2012 10:53 pm
Monbiot says he was wrong on peak oil but the crisis is undeniable
The first incumbency illusion proved to be a deadly bubble, the legacy of which still threatens to torpedo the global economy five years on. We will find out about the second within a few years. The UK industry taskforce on peak oil and energy security, which I convened, is among many groups forecasting a global descent in oil production by 2015 at the latest, notwithstanding all the incumbency rhetoric.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jul/04/monbiot-wrong-peak-oil?newsfeed=true
DUH on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 12:16 am
They still keep bringing up AGW???
Just before this I was reading about anoter Royal Society scientist changing tone and now agreeing CO2 is NOT cause of global warming.
AND: “The IPCC’s report, according to Vahrenholt, is littered with falsities and a complete disregard for natural factors that would be considered in fluctuating climate such as Earth’s.”
http://occupycorporatism.com/globalists-switching-gears-royal-society-lecturer-says-co2-not-effecting-earths-temperature/
And I also read:
Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time – and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/25/antarctic_ice_not_melting/
Meanwhile day after introducing Carbon Taxation in Australia Trademinister Emerson ridicules those who are concerned over impact of rising living costs and impacts on certain towns.
(Watch til the end. I guarantee it will leave you speechless).
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/07/craig-emerson-dances-on-the-grave-of-the-australian-economy/
This is what it is about.
New age socialism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3bH3_-dQVs&feature=player_embedded
How do the AGW fear mongers have any credibility left after Climategate 1&2, glaciergate, polarbear hoax, IPCC admissions of lies and fearmongering etc etc ad nauseum???
Final words:
“Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in the history. When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”
Japanese UN IPCC scientist Dr Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist
BillT on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 1:42 am
Ask the people living in the eastern Us if there is climate change, or the ones fighting fires in the west. Ask the farmers whose crops are drying. These are signs of change when they happen more and more frequently and that means something is warming up somewhere. We have had more record breaking heat so far this year than ever in recorded history. I guess all of this is in our deluded minds?
Deniers will deny until they are dying from the heat and then they will say it is just a ‘normal variation’. Well, believe what you want, but mother nature is sweeping the human species from her house and heat is one way to do it. Less food, more disease, heat stroke, etc. Go for it Mother!
DUH on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 4:39 am
La Nina in the pacific has played in for the last 2-3 years. Eastern Australia, which was hot and dry during the years preceeding while it was El Nino has not had rain and unusually cold weather. Same oscillating whether phenomenon has brought dryer weather conditions to Western and Central US.
But people have been conditioned to blame climate change as soon as the weather differs form last week.
If you want some good accurate weather predictions then listen to Piers Corbyn, meteorologist and astrophycisist who can explain this based on amongst other jetstreams and solar acttivity withot including AGW mumbo jumbo AND he has an EXCELLENT track record.
mike on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 11:16 am
“Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in the history. When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.”
Japanese UN IPCC scientist Dr Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist
This is true to an extend. We won’t actually feel much warming, what we will feel is very extreme unpredictable weather (kind of like how we have been having for the last 5 years at least)
Sadly people like yourself are still under some illusion that pumping millions of years of stored carbon into the atmosphere will have no effect on the planet.
You can also tell your a right winger by your knee jerk reaction to carbon taxes (which I disagree with by the way) and using a Lord Monckton video (good call). I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually believed in God .
BillT on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 12:11 pm
DUH….appropriate name. You believe one oil company paid weather ‘expert’ over thousands of more independent scientists? Who need to open their mind here? You or the rest of the world?
As I said before…close all of the windows and doors in your home. Turn off the A/C and then turn your thermostat to the highest point it has and burn that 250 gallon tank of heating oil continuously until it is empty and tell me that it did not raise the temperature in your house. One cannot suddenly (100 years or less) burn millions of years of sunlight energy and not heat up the earth. Also, when you finally run out of oil, you will see that it take a long time to cool back to normal without your A/C or open windows/doors.
Ham on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 4:05 pm
Go to Venus if you think Climate Change is not real. It is astonishing that anyone can deny that we are rapidly heating up the atmosphere.
DUH on Thu, 5th Jul 2012 11:47 pm
Yeah, I deliberately picked DUH.
Couldn’t remember what I last used here.
And to say I follow ONE paid shill for the oil companies is a stab in the dark and in this case a miss.
But an appropriate type of attack from an AGW cultist who somehow manages to completely ignore all the scanadals and lies coming out of that camp. But hey, even the Maoists and the nazis thought they were right.
DUH on Fri, 6th Jul 2012 12:18 am
…and who said there is no climate change? There always has been always will be. Just like on venus and all the other planets.