by backstop » Mon 13 Feb 2006, 20:29:40
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('justgas', 'I') went to eia.doe.gov and to see the actual numbers. Yes the site reports that the average field production of crude oil in 2005 was 5.1 million barrels per day. (range 5.5 to 4.2) But it also reports that Field Production, Natural Gas Plant Liquids was 1.7 mbpd for a total field production of 6.8 mbpd of stuff that will burn. Same excel spreadsheet shows that we imported 10.1 mbpd of crude, 3.5 mbpd of products plus an adjustment figure of .6 gives total average supply of pretroleum products in USA in 2005 of 21.0 million barrels per day. So we are extracting 32.6% of what we use not 40%. Or to live on what we have, we need to reduce consumption by 70%.
When someone talks about cutting our consumption in half to match European consumption it almost sounds possible. 70% reduction sounds much less possible.
Justgas -
Writing from the UK I can tell you straight that we could fairly easily get by on 60% of our present oil consumption -
a major transformation yes, but no collapse - just the end of gridlock.
Dear God, people still go polluting for fun here on boats, jet skis, bikes, cars, trucks, microlights, planes and even jets !
Our 60% would equal per capita your 30% give or take - and I doubt you'd necessarily have much more difficulty on that ration -
the suburbs, that so many see as insurmountable, could well be served by 15-seater mini-buses to hybrid-coach hubs,
thus shifting those commuters whose jobs survive the dollar's crash and who haven't yet joined new businesses within their communities,
and doing so for perhaps 1/10th of present commuter-fuel demand.
Heating oil is another matter, and should do wonders for world wool prices as a huge extant supply of very fine insulation material. Makes excellent longjohns too . . . .
regards,
Backstop
P.S. I've just spotted the word "suddenly" in the first post of this thread.
While the prognosis above is reasonable as the outcome for a steady voluntary reduction,
any suddenly imposed cut of that scale would clearly be utterly chaotic.
The rate of decline is pivotal.
"The best of conservation . . . is written not with a pen but with an axe."
(from "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold, 1948.