Peak Oil is You
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Page added on October 13, 2014
Global Collapse, Local Survival
* The world is collapsing from overpopulation and its converse, declining reserves of natural resources such as oil (petroleum). The entire world economy is tied to oil and other fossil fuels for manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, mining, electricity, and so on.
* World oil production in the year 2030 will be about half that of the year 2000.
* Alternative sources of energy are a failure mainly because of insufficient net energy — “energy return on energy invested.”
* The decline in fossil fuels leads to an increasing problem of low wages and high prices (“stagflation”).
* The shortage of oil will continue to result in warfare.
* The above events will result in the deaths by famine of a great many people. Above all, “peak oil” means “peak food.”
* The conventional news-media and the politicians will not state the problems.
* Solutions on a global scale are impossible, because there is no responsible governing body for all those billions of people.
* Nevertheless, planning for post-oil survival must eventually be on a scale larger than that of the individual person.
* Most people in developed countries grow up largely separated from birthplace and family. This process must be reversed.
* In general, survival in smaller population centers will be easier than in larger ones.
* The old-fashioned and more-basic skills for providing food, clothing, and shelter have been largely forgotten, but they must be relearned.
Systemic collapse, the coming crash, overshoot, the die-off, the tribulation, the coming anarchy, resource wars — there are many names, and they do not all correspond to exactly the same thing, but there is a widespread belief that something immense is happening. This event has about ten elements, each with a somewhat causal relationship to the next. (1) Fossil fuels (e.g., oil, natural gas, coal), (2) metals, and (3) electricity are a tightly-knit group, and no industrial civilization can have one without the others. As those three disappear, (4) food and (5) fresh water become scarce. Matters of infrastructure then follow: (6) transportation and (7) communication — no paved roads, no telephones, no computers. After that, the social structure begins to fail: (8) government, (9) education, and (10) the large-scale division of labor that makes complex technology possible.
Systemic collapse has one overwhelming ultimate cause: world overpopulation. The world’s population went from about 1.7 billion in 1900 to 2.4 in 1950, to over 7 billion today. All of the flash-in-the-pan ideas that are presented as solutions to the modern dilemma — solar power, ethanol, hybrid cars, desalination, permaculture, enormous dams — have value only as desperate attempts to solve an underlying problem that has never been addressed in a more direct manner.
Fossil fuels, metals, and electricity are intricately connected. Electricity, for example, can be generated on a global scale only with fossil fuels. The same dependence on fossil fuels is true of metals; in fact the better types of ore are now becoming depleted, while those that remain can be processed only with modern machinery and require more fossil fuels for smelting. In turn, without metals and electricity there will be no means of extracting and processing fossil fuels. Of the three members of the triad, electricity is the most fragile, and its failure will serve as an early and very noticeable warning
of trouble with the other two.
Fossil fuels not only provide the energy for internal-combustion engines. They also provide us with fertilizer, pesticides, lubricants, plastic, paint, synthetic fabrics, asphalt, pharmaceuticals, and many other things. On a more abstract level, we are dependent on these fossil fuels for manufacturing, for transportation, for agriculture, for mining, and for electricity. As these fuels disappear, there will be no means of supporting the billions of people who now live on this planet.
A good deal of debate has gone on about “peak oil,” the date at which the world’s annual oil production of useable, recoverable oil will reach (or did reach) its maximum and will begin (or did begin) to decline. The exact numbers are unobtainable, but the situation can perhaps be summarized by saying that dozens of large-scale studies have been done, and the consensus is that the date for “peak oil” is somewhere between 2000 and 2020, with a maximum annual producion of about 30 billion barrels.
It should also be mentioned that the above-mentioned quest for the date of peak oil is in some respects a red herring. In terms of daily life, it is important to consider not only peak oil in the absolute sense, but peak oil per capita. The date of the latter was 1979, when there were 5.5 barrels of oil per person annually.
In the entire world, there are at most about a trillion barrels of usable, recoverable oil remaining — which may sound like a lot, but isn’t. When newspapers announce the discovery of a deposit of a billion barrels, readers are no doubt amazed, but they are not told that such a find is only two weeks’ supply.
After the “peak” itself, the next question is that of the annual rate of decline. Estimates tend to hover around 4 percent, which means production will fall to half of peak production by about 2030, although there are reasons to suspect the decline will be much faster, particularly if Saudi reserves are seriously overstated.
As the years go by, new oil wells have to be drilled more deeply than the old, because newly discovered deposits are deeper. Those new deposits are therefore less accessible. But oil is used as a fuel for the oil drills themselves, and for the exploration. When it takes an entire barrel of oil to get one barrel of oil out of the ground, as is increasingly the case, it is a waste of time to continue drilling such a well.
Coal and natural gas are also declining. Coal will be available for a while after oil is gone, although previous reports of its abundance were highly exaggerated. Coal, however, is highly polluting and cannot be used as a fuel for most forms of transportation. Natural gas is not easily transported, and it is not suitable for most equipment.
Alternative sources of energy will never be very useful, for several reasons, but mainly because of a problem of “net energy”: the amount of energy output is not sufficiently greater than the amount of energy input. All alternative forms of energy are so dependent on the very petroleum that they are intended to replace that the use of them is largely self-defeating and irrational. Alternative sources ultimately don’t have enough “bang” to replace 30 billion annual barrels of oil — or even to replace more than the tiniest fraction of that amount.
Petroleum is required to extract, process, and transport almost any other form of energy; a coal mine is not operated by coal-powered equipment. It takes “oil energy” to make “alternative energy.”
The use of “unconventional oil” (shale deposits, tar sands, heavy oil) poses several problems besides that of net energy. Large quantities of fossil fuels and water are needed to process the oil from these unconventional sources, so net energy recovery is low. The pollution problems are considerable, and it is not certain how much environmental damage the human race is willing to endure. With unconventional oil we are, quite literally, scraping the bottom of the barrel.
More-exotic forms of alternative energy are plagued with even greater problems. Fuel cells cannot be made practical, because such devices require hydrogen derived from fossil fuels (coal or natural gas), if we exclude designs that will never escape the realm of science fiction; if fuel cells ever became popular, the fossil fuels they require would then be consumed even faster than they are now. Biomass energy (perhaps from wood or corn) would require impossibly large amounts of land and would still result in insufficient quantities of net energy, perhaps even negative quantities. Hydroelectric dams are reaching their practical limits. Wind and geothermal power are only effective in certain areas and for certain purposes. Nuclear power will soon be suffering from a lack of fuel and is already creating serious environmental dangers.
The current favorite for alternative energy is solar power, but proponents must close their eyes to all questions of scale. To meet the world’s present energy needs by using solar power, we would need an array (or an equivalent number of smaller ones) of collectors covering about 550,000 square kilometers — a machine the size of France. The production and maintenance of this array would require vast quantities of fossil fuels, metals, and other materials — a self-defeating process.
Modern agriculture is highly dependent on fossil fuels for fertilizers, pesticides, and the operation of machines for harvesting, processing, and transporting. The Green Revolution amounted to little more than the invention of a way to turn petroleum and natural gas into food. Without fossil fuels, modern methods of food production will disappear, and crop yields will be far less than at present. Because of the shortage of food, world population must shrink dramatically, but we conveniently forget that war, plague, and famine are the only means available.
The problem of the world’s diminishing supply of oil is a problem of energy, not a problem of money. The old bromide that “higher prices will eventually make [e.g.] shale oil economically feasible” is meaningless. This planet has only a finite amount of fossil fuel. That fuel is starting to decline, and “higher prices” are quite unable to stop the event from taking place. Much of modern warfare is about oil, in spite of all the pious and hypocritical rhetoric about “the forces of good” and “the forces of evil.” The real “forces” are those trying to control the oil wells and the fragile pipelines that carry that oil. A map of recent American military ventures is a map of petroleum deposits. When the oil wars began is largely a matter of definition, though perhaps 1973 would be a usable date, when the Yom Kippur War — or, to speak more truthfully, the decline of American domestic oil — led to the OPEC oil embargo.
There is no “big plan” for dealing with these problems, and there never will be, although most people assume the leaders of society are both wise and benevolent. Instead of the “big plan,” there will be only the “small plan,” person by person, family by family. Everyone’s way of life will change as time goes by, but over the next few decades the following principles will apply.
A better way of life would begin with finding a saner connection to the natural world. It would be a good idea to leave the busy city for that strange, long-forgotten place called the countryside. Living in the countryside will be more useful than living in urban areas. Rural communities are closer to the land and the water, and any disruption of such ties is more easily resolved in a rural community. One’s community will certainly constitute no more than about a hundred people or so, perhaps far less than that. Each family or small group will then need to find some way to provide itself with the necessities of life, because transportation and communication will be on a much smaller scale that they are today.
It would be best to start looking at how things were done in the 19th century, or even before that. This will mean living independently of the modern equipment and chemicals with which most people nowadays are familiar. The members of the community should learn to use the sorts of tools and materials that were common long ago. They should not own devices that cannot be repaired personally or at least locally. Finally, they should learn how to get by with no more than can properly be used, as was the case in earlier times — even as recently as the 19th century, the average bedroom was hardly big enough for more than the bed, but it was still big enough.
Further reading: Peter Goodchild, Tumbling Tide: Population, Resources, and Systemic Collapse(London, Ontario: Insomniac Press, 2014)
26 Comments on "Global Collapse, Local Survival"
Davy on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 8:15 am
This article sums up much of what we talk about here. There was nothing optimistic about it and I feel personally this is reality. I know when many of you see my comment you equate me to Dr. Doom. I accept that characterture. I am obsessive with doom in an academic sense. The obsession is a mental defect. What I talk about is doom in abstractions so it is only a one dimensional mirror image. It is not reality nor am I qualified to judge reality in an expert sense. I do believe in local optimism. I see many locals surviving a significant period that may not be as painful as the picture I paint daily. We also have the very local and that is in our hearts. Many of us will survive in that space with a degree of happiness. If you follow Taoism at all the pictures painted for your mind is one of a dance with happiness and sadness. I imagine the pain of what is ahead will allow for a happiness that is easier to attain. We may die from a thousand cuts in what is ahead but we also will find more happiness in simple forms that currently allude us. If I look at the local instead of the macro in abstraction I see optimism for many of us. I will be honest I see zero possibility for a growth of prosperity we have known for so many years. This prosperity is all I have known from the 60’s until right now. All is good now but I know we are near a darker period. I will enjoy the next few years like I have a terminal illness. Every bite of good food, beautiful sky, and smiles on my boy’s faces will be drunk like wine. I have plans in place and I am practicing relative sacrifice. I have begun downsizing and I am feeling some pain from losing enjoyments I once had. I could still have them but I feel it is time to have less with less relative to my place in life, family, and work. If I make any of you uncomfortable with my doom I apologize. For me it is a mental exercise to stay fit mentally. It is my nature and disposition to academically study doom subjects. I have learned a great deal from you guys. Even those I disagree with I enjoy the banter and the competitive mental battles. Enjoy life if you can to the fullest. Avoid dwelling in the future we can never really know. Practice empathy and charity with those special because I am afraid much will be lost but let us hope not our relative happiness.
ghung on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 9:19 am
This article sounds a lot like Gail, except for the “…idea to leave the busy city for that strange, long-forgotten place called the countryside…”. She doesn’t think that’ll do much good it seems. I’m more on this article’s tack; creating a bridge to whatever follows, at least to try.
Alternative energy (solar, in my case) is part of that bridge, even if it’s only leveraging fossil fuels to pay some transitioning time forward. At least we won’t be struggling and competing for less affordable, less available energy sources while remaining as reliant upon failing complex top-down systems like virtually everyone else.
noobtube on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 9:53 am
Why is it only the American devils scream about overpopulation?
And, if Americans are so worried about too many people, why don’t Americans just kill themselves to fix the problem once and for all?
One day, the world may realize who the monsters are on this Earth. And, those monsters are called Americans.
Dubya on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 10:08 am
Thanks noob, that was very helpful.
paulo1 on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 10:08 am
re Ghung’s : “I’m more on this article’s tack; creating a bridge to whatever follows, at least to try.”
That is what survivors, do. There actually are folks who try and live deliberately, with a plan and purpose. I have never been too big on being a victim of circumstance, either.
paulo
Dubya on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 10:25 am
About the only disagreement I have with the article is that renewables cannot replace 30 million barrels of oil annually. Since about 70% of that is “wasted” (eg lost due to the practicalities if the internal combustion engine) the problem becomes less acute. On top of that I would be very happy to have about 100 watts of power available to run my HRV and solar heat. Another couple of hundred watts & the fridge & freezer become useful. 2kw will heat our house & replace our minuscule firewood requirement, although we still burn a couple of tons of deadfall a year. The 100kw for my car is less useful. So given the choice between no electricity or a small amount (even unreliable) I would
Dubya on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 10:28 am
…not hit the send button so quickly…
… Be happy to have any tiny amount of power.
Also I meant 30 billion.
Bryan
Anontina Racinoski on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 10:37 am
I fail to see why population growth is still not a topic that is addressed to all world societies.
Perk Earl on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 10:50 am
“The conventional news-media and the politicians will not state the problems.”
That is absolutely true, yet so glaringly obvious it’s tragic. Lack of sufficient growth are framed around the idea of seeking answers to how to solve the problem, but MSM does not seek out or happen upon the energy predicament as the culprit. In fact it goes out of its way to anoint as experts those that deny peak oil. It’s always some fiscal component that is lacking, i.e. lack of tax breaks, or too much corporate taxes, or failure of the education system to produce the right workforce, or an import/export in-balance, etc.
Hey you, MSM, yeah you idiots, it’s the diminishing returns of net energy from oil! I know they won’t, but it seems a great injustice to the ignorant masses to pied piper them along without informing them of the truth. Would it be so hard to just come out and say, “Hey people we’ve got a problem here that endangers the future of BAU. We need copious amounts of a cheap energy filled liquid. Anybody got an answer besides denying peak oil?”
Kenz300 on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 11:58 am
The worlds biggest problem is OVER POPULATION……..affecting all other problems and making them harder to solve.
Endless population growth is not sustainable.
Around the world we can find a food crisis, a water crisis, a declining fish stocks crisis, a Climate Change crisis, an unemployment crisis and an OVER POPULATION crisis.
Overpopulation facts – the problem no one will discuss: Alexandra Paul at TEDxTopanga – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNxctzyNxC0
———————
Wrap it up……. get it snipped……
Birth Control Permanent Methods: Learn About Effectiveness
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/birth_control_permanent_methods/article_em.htm
Don on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 12:19 pm
Seriously noob? Your screenname comes from the nickname for a troll weapon in american video games. Leading me to believe that you, like most of the world, probably enjoy a lot of the technology that comes out of the US.
Solarity on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 12:36 pm
A 4 percent decline rate??
That’s about triple Hubbard’s original estimates, which were made before considering unconventional and other substitutes. I’ll go with Hubbard, and factoring-in the non-standard stuff, believe the decline rate will be less than 1 percent.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 12:50 pm
Perk Earl, again I find myself agreeing with you. Except, imagine this scenario:
1) Obama (or some other president) steps up to the podium in a highly publicized nationally televised address to the nation, and says, “Hey people we’ve got a problem here that endangers the future of BAU. We need copious amounts of a cheap energy filled liquid. Anybody got an answer besides denying peak oil?”
Next day:
1) Stock markets worldwide crash to zero
2) Mayhem erupts around the world
3) Bank runs everywhere as people seek to get their cash, but banks run out of cash and close down
4) Raids on supermarkets, stores, mass riot, mayhem
5) Nony makes the evening news, as he runs around pulling his hair out, screaming “Marcellus is Mighty!”, “Fracking technology is awesome”, “Polly want a cracker”, squawk squawk
You get the idea. Officials can’t tell the nervous frightened herd the bad news they don’t want to hear because THEY CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
longview on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 1:19 pm
While biomass from wood and corn are poor energy sources, miscanthus and industrial hemp seem to offer real hope. Energy yield per hectare is impressive, very little fertilizer or pesticide is needed, and both liquid fuels and electricity can be produced with reasonable EROEI.
Yes, there will probably be fewer of us, and yes, we will need to re-localize and de-urbanize, but there should be a future that still includes some mix of renewable energy and the ability to maintain a minimum of technology in service, even if only on a regional basis.
We humans can adapt to life with very little fossil fuel, but will we get the chance before arctic methane releases drive temperatures beyond what we can survive?
Plantagenet on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 2:36 pm
I never quite understand why people think modern society and being connected to nature are incompatible.
I’ve spent a lot of time working and traveling in third world countries, and IMHO the peasants toiling in the fields aren’t well educated and have little to no understanding of science, nature or ecology. Most peasants would cut down every single tree in a forest to earn a hundred dollars. In contrast, the most well-educated and connected and nature-loving people you can find are modern well educated environmentalists.
Perk Earl on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 2:54 pm
“You get the idea. Officials can’t tell the nervous frightened herd the bad news they don’t want to hear because THEY CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”
Maybe my suggested phrasing was a bit too clear (LOL), but I think it can be addressed in some manner without completely ignoring, rejecting peak oil. When shtf people won’t know what the heck hit them. At least if the poor fools had some inclination, even if it had to be offered up to them piecemeal over time, then they could at least store some food away (to make the melee in the aftermath of collapse a little more interesting as houses are pillaged one by one). Maybe they can have a game show called, ‘Battle for the Food Cache’, or ‘Solar Panel Survivors’ and make the whole idea of what is to come seem more like a fun competition.
Apneaman on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 3:06 pm
Davy, you only obsessive in the same way a con on death row is obsessive knowing the end is near and there will be no call from the Governor.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 3:13 pm
Perk Earl — I like your sense of humor. Hey — Maybe we’ll find a Monty Hall look-alike and fire up the “Let’s Make A Deal” show — except this time, it’ll be named “Let’s Make A Steal”. What’s it going to be? Door Number One: (behind which sits a desperate doomer with no food but three assault rifles and plenty of ammo just hanging on in the hope he can take somebody out before he dies of starvation). Door Number Two: (behind which is a year’s supply of powdered eggs, the diarrhea medicine you’ll need to survive on that crap, and three feral growling teenagers guarding it, green slime dripping from their sharpened teeth. Rabies vaccine not included). Door Number Three: (The winner! Two crates of beef jerky, a one month supply of Army K-rations, ten rolls of toilet paper and only two feeble grandmas with baseball bats and frying pans that you’ll have to fight through to get that PRIZE!)
Perk Earl on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 4:57 pm
Hilarious, NWR! Yeah, if we can’t have a little fun with this stuff then it’s going to get way too serious. When the grandmas swing, just step back and they’ll hit each other, job done, time to load up the horse drawn pick-up back end with the cache.
I think we’re on to something with game shows that will not only excite people with competition (because let’s face it they’ll do anything) for great survival stuff, but also help in an indirect way to explain just how bad things will get (since peak oil is either too complex for them to get or too much non-fantasy information).
Northwest Resident on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 5:07 pm
Perk Earl — I agree. What fun is total collapse and an uncertain future if you can’t have a few laughs along the way. Fire up that humor anytime, I’m with you all the way!
Davy on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 5:52 pm
Apnea, I want fried chicken, mash potatoes, white gravy, green beans, and ice cream for that last meal before the electric chair.
Makati1 on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 8:53 pm
More ‘feel good’ BS from the “Anti-population crowd. The world could have supported 10 billion of us, if the resources were fairly and evenly distributed. But a few (the West) want it all or at least enough to live like the kings of old. Screw the other 6 billion.
“The old-fashioned and more-basic skills for providing food, clothing, and shelter have been largely forgotten…”. Not forgotten in most of the world outside the West. And certainly not in the 3rd world where everyone struggles to survive on the leftovers of the wasteful Westerners.
Will die-off happen in some areas of the world? Sure, but some of the locations are going to shock and surprise the West when it happens. Like the US, where most people live on the East and West coasts, where it will not be possible for all of them to survive. Especially the California area where drought is going to force millions to migrate East. And many countries in Europe already import food and don’t have the land to farm as it has been covered by city or highway. Typical Western situation.
If Russia and China combined resources, they would be the about 125 on the list of countries by density with most dense being number 1 and least being 220.
US is 180 @ 84/sq.mi.
China is 82 @ 367/sq.mi.
Germany is 58
UK is 51
Philippines is 40 @ 866/sq.mi.
Japan is 39
Israel is 34
India is 33
Bermuda is 9 @ 3,139/sq.mi.
But, these numbers do not tell the tale. They do NOT express growing seasons, water availability, or actual farm-able land. They do NOT define cultures or level of energy use. They are like counting a mixed bag of beans, without sorting out the different kinds, by food value, and subtracting the rotten ones. Only time will tell who survives the bottle neck, if any.
dave thompson on Mon, 13th Oct 2014 9:16 pm
“Nuclear power will soon be suffering from a lack of fuel and is already creating serious environmental dangers.” This is an understatement on the subject as per usual. 440 nukes world wide that will all potentially go into meltdown once the cooling systems fail, due to lack of human ability to maintain them without the necessary fossil fuel inputs. Humanity is headed for near term extinction.
MSN Fanboy on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 6:08 am
You do understand there are multiple fails safes for every nuclear reactor… they will not just all blow up at the end of oil but shut down.
Then safely leak into the enviroment, admittidly you wont be able to live near one, but humanity wont go extinct either.
Im sure there will be war and killing in the future too, just with knives and swords again lol
Davy on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 6:55 am
MSN, humanity won’t go extinct but would it be much of a world to live in?
Makati1 on Tue, 14th Oct 2014 9:48 am
MSN, think Fukushima. They had ‘fail safes’ too. And what about the 300,000+ tons of spent fuel stored in hundreds of glorified swimming pools? They still have the capacity to melt down. Then there are the 20,000 +- nukes stored all around the world. and thousands of smaller nuclear sites that handle radioactive materials. Let’s see if there are any ‘safe’ areas left after 100 years of leaching into the water and air and soils.