Peak oil era will be hard on Hawaii

In the next decade or two, a global energy crisis will be thrust upon us; the changes it brings will be felt first in Hawaii, possibly with a more devastating effect here than in the rest of the world. Hawaii must begin preparations now to cushion the effects, say the authors of this cautionary essay. The writers are a University of Hawaii political scientist and a UH-educated civil engineer. In addition, it was signed by 21 others representing a range of scientific disciplines in Hawaii; three chose to sign as private citizens.

DURING the past months “peak oil” has been the subject of a heated discussion in the media, including in Hawaii. The state’s energy security is too important for us to allow discussions of future energy options to become a battle about peak oil, pro or con.

Peak oil ought to be understood as a helpful scientific tool to model the depletion of conventional oil reserves and to develop a sense of urgency for taking steps to mitigate its effects. The peaking of individual oil fields and oil regions has been observed always to follow a similar production curve. Global peak oil is simply an extrapolation from what is known about individual field depletion.

The arrival of peak oil does not mean that we have run out of oil. Rather, it means that production rates will start an inevitable decline. When peak oil arrives there will still be a huge amount of oil in the ground, yet the ability to get it out at reasonable cost and energy will decrease as the reserve depletion accelerates. Peak oil does not signal the end of the world, but the start of a new chapter for the global community.

No serious oil analyst disputes the fact of peak oil. The debate is about when, not if. Most published peak oil dates are between 2010 and 2017, give or take a few years. There is near-universal agreement that our current production base of conventional oil is declining at a rate of 4 percent to 8 percent per year while demand is growing at a rate of about 2 percent per year. The evolving demand-supply gap has to be filled with new conventional oil, unconventional oil, nonpetroleum sources and conservation.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin