Peak Oil: Keeping Reality In Mind (Pt 6)

Oil has us literally over the barrel. If this situation is to change, we will all need to recognize that our present course is not sustainable. All of our institutions are geared to an era that was designed for a different set of circumstances that mainly relied on cheap domestic oil. That day is over. We need to realize it and embrace a future that recognizes that fact. That future must include public transportation, especially rail. Delay simply pushes future prosperity and enhanced mobility that much further from our grasp. [1]

The world is addicted to a material that is being used up from day to day and from hour to hour, a material that is also much too valuable to be burned. The prosperity of the human race is based on limited resources. Most people know this, and yet they refuse to accept the necessary consequence: reducing their use of fossil fuels….
The withdrawal will undoubtedly be tough. The economy will be affected when it is deprived of its lubricant. But consumers and business owners have no choice, and the longer they delay, the more painful the transition will be. [2]

None of this is enjoyable to contemplate. While Peak Oil proponents honor a responsibility to share what we know (based on facts … an amazing concept!), it is—as I’ve noted in several prior posts—a constant struggle to maintain and share optimism in the midst of evidence suggesting our future will be different in ways beyond our ability to fully appreciate and that we’re woefully unprepared.

It’s been a recurring theme of mine from my very first post that we need to take time to become better informed about what the future has in store for each of us. Facts, evidence, truth, and reality all serve to inform us that Peak Oil will impact every single one of us, necessitating some dramatic changes in how we live and work. Rosy scenarios are nice, and blind optimism has its place, but the claims deniers continue to make, couched in their “perhaps might if only could possibly” memes [e.g., see the series beginning here], need to be seen for what they are: statements motivated by a desire to maintain profitable business as usual for the benefit of the relatively few. That train track is not endless.

I’ve also been clear that we also cannot rely on “leaders” to properly inform us about Peak Oil and the challenges we face, for reasons mentioned above. What successful energy corporation wants to undo its very existence because of unpleasant and inconvenient facts artfully dismissed? They have shareholders and bottom lines to contend with. As for our politicians, most if not all are far too concerned with their next donation and/or pandering to select followers with limited interests to concern themselves with a broader, long-term vision benefitting us all.

The political process as it exists today is utterly repugnant to good people. I’m sure there are many fine people with noble aspirations to make a difference in our world, but they immediately meet with the cruel reality: getting elected and staying in office is about raising money and repaying it in favors, not voting one’s conscience and doing what’s right for the majority of the people. [3]

So now what? What options do we have for meaningful change?

How do we get off oil and other fossil fuels? By working vigorously now to become more energy efficient, conserve more, build massive amounts of renewable energy (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, etc.) and over the next few decades shift to using electricity to transport people and goods. Energy efficiency and conservation alone can do far more than increased oil production — as recent history has amply demonstrated.
For this transformation away from fossil fuels to happen, we need to educate ourselves on energy. It’s time to learn a new vocabulary and to pay attention to what may seem like arcane facts. These arcane facts are going to become extremely important in the coming years. [4]

And what are some of those facts? (This is one discussion, for example.) And a couple more which I and others continue to point out:

Another key issue is one that oil companies do not want to emphasize: depletion. The worldwide average for production declines in existing oilfields has been estimated to be about 4 percent per year. [5]

[E]xploiting those resources [Arctic and off-shore] would be a long-term effort: probably 10 years to bring the first oil online, and 15 years or more to reach maximum output around 2 to 3 mbpd. By that time, it would be hardly noticeable as it compensated for the loss of oil production in the U.S. and elsewhere due to the depletion of mature fields. [6]

Canadian tar sands production today is about 1.5 mbpd, and it is hoped to increase to 3 mbpd by 2020. ‘Tight oil’ production from shales is hoped to grow from 0.9 mbpd today to 2.9 mbpd by 2020. Even if these projections panned out—and am I extremely skeptical that they will, based on the failure of such projections over the past decade, the cost of new production, the outlook for project financing, among other factors—that’s only a total increase of 3.5 mpbd over a decade . . . less than one year’s decline in conventional oil. [7]

[Some] “urban legends” about energy that comfort Americans[:] Here [are] four comforting myths about unconventional and alternative energy sources. These are excuses for not doing the hard work of gathering information, analysis, planning, and executing programs necessary to prepare for the multi-decade transition through peak oil to the next era (whatever that will be). These four myths are:
I. We’ll run crash programs for adaptation just as we mobilized for WWII.
II. Demand creates supply, by raising prices.
II. Oil is Oil, even if it is not oil.
IV. Demand creates supply, from new technology.
Unfortunately, we can rely on none of these. Certainly they are not substitutes for intense research and planning…. [8]

As we have seen with the Bakken and the various natural gas bearing shales we have been drilling of late, it takes an awful lot of expensive wells and environmental disruption to get the oil out. One estimate of the Energy Returned on Energy Investment (EROEI) for the Bakken shale suggests that the EROEI is six. This means that it may take one oil barrel’s worth of energy to produce six barrels of Bakken shale oil. This is getting very close to the theoretical point at which it really is not worth the effort and all the economic disruption. [9]

Between 2000 and 2010 China increased its consumption of oil more than any other country, by 4.3 million barrels a day, a 90 percent jump. It now burns through more than 10 percent of the world’s oil. More surprising is the country that increased its consumption by the second-largest increment: Saudi Arabia, which upped its oil-guzzling by 1.2 million barrels daily to 2.8 million, making it the world’s sixth-largest consumer and burning through more than a quarter of its 10-million-barrel daily output.
Saudi Arabia is not the only oil-producer that chugs its own wares. The Middle East, home to six OPEC members, saw consumption grow by 56 percent in the first decade of the century, four times the global growth rate. [10]

And that’s just for starters….

I can’t argue that the contrary views of those who discount, ignore, or simply misrepresent the facts is much more appealing to citizens already beaten down by the Great Recession and its myriad consequences. Who but the terminally pessimistic wants to consider more problems, especially those on a scale even approaching that of Peak Oil? As I’ve stated frequently, my own life is a very pleasant and comfortable one, and I have exactly zero desire to see it uprooted by the impact declining fossil fuel availability will have on me and my family.

But if we’re not even discussing it openly and broadly, let alone doing any planning at all, at some point in the near-enough future (who cares if it’s two years or eight or fourteen—we still won’t be prepared), we are all in for a very, very rude awakening to life here in Reality.

With this knowledge, there is no intellectually honest way to believe that the world can continue its near-total reliance on fossil fuels for much more than another decade — a paltry window of opportunity. We also know that we cannot wait until they go into decline before reaching for renewables and efficiency, simply because the scale of the challenge is so vast, and the alternatives are starting from such a low level that they will need decades of investment before they are ready to assume the load. The data is clear, and the mathematics are really quite straightforward. [11]

Peak Oil Matters