When Will Peak Oil Arrive ?  

The Falls Church News Press has another article out in its series on peak oil - this one considering the question of when peak oil will arrive.

Nearly anyone who studies our world oil supply knows that someday production will peak and start its inexorable course downward. Moreover, everybody knows there are many events — hurricanes, wars, terrorism, regime changes, and proliferation squabbles to name a few — that could cause such a large and prolonged downturn in a country's or region's oil. By the time the cause of the interruption is remedied, the rest of the world's oil producing countries would be so far down the depletion curve, resumed production would not matter.

Thus, the issue comes down to one of a.) peak oil coming "naturally" as a result of the simple inability of the world's oil producers to continue to supply an increasing amount of oil, or b.) some outside force stopping a significant amount of production. This issue is hotly debated with some believing we may have already passed the year of peak oil, while others see worldwide production increasing by tens of million of barrels per day beyond the current 85 or so million.

Much of the reasoning behind the debate is political rather than scientific. No politician is eager to deal with the fallout from the widespread perception that we are about to run out of cheap gas. In recent days, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has been running around Europe telling people peak oil is not an immediate problem.

This, in turn, gives cover to political leaders who can point to the IEA as backing the claim that peak oil is not imminent. It is much easier to pretend the issue won't arise for decades when our grandchildren aided by some fortuitous technological breakthroughs, can deal with the unhappy occurrence in an orderly fashion.

The Hirsch Report (pdf) has surfaced again, this time in the "Bulletin of the Atlantic Council of the United States".

It is possible that peaking may not occur for a decade or more, but it is also possible that peaking may be occurring right now. We will not know for certain until after the fact. The world is thus faced with a daunting risk management problem. On the one hand, if peaking is decades away, massive mitigation initiated soon would be premature. On the other hand, if peaking is imminent, failure to quickly initiate mitigation will impose large nearterm economic and social costs on the world. The two risks are asymmetric:

• Mitigation initiated prematurely would result in a relatively modest misallocation of resources.
• Failure to initiate timely mitigation with an appropriate lead-time is certain to result in very severe economic consequences.

The world has never confronted a problem like this. Risk minimization requires the implementation of mitigation measures well prior to peaking. Since it is uncertain when peaking will occur, the challenge for decisionmakers is indeed vexing. Mustering support for an invisible disaster is much more difficult than for one that is obvious to all.

Over the past century, world economic development has been fundamentally shaped by the availability of abundant, low-cost oil. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal, coal to oil, etc.) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.

The world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation at least a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and long lasting. Oil peaking represents a liquid fuels problem, not an “energy crisis” in the sense that term has been used. Accordingly, mitigation of declining world oil production must be narrowly focused, at least in the near-term.

A number of technologies are currently available for immediate implementation once there is the requisite determination to act. Governments worldwide will have to take the initiative on a timely basis, and it may already be too late to avoid considerable discomfort or worse. Countries that dawdle will suffer from lost opportunities, because in every crisis, there are always opportunities for those that act decisively.

The trailer for the new peak oil movie "Syriana" is out, which looks to be a class above "Oil Storm" and "The Deal" (George Clooney and Matt Damon have the lead roles).

I had the misfortune to check out the "Dieoff Q&A" list this weekend (normally I try not to read too much from the real hard core "we're all going to die" camp as its both demoralising and serves no real purpose unless you are seeking motivation to head for the hills and hide out awaiting imminent disaster). Richard Duncan had one ominous post on possible North American Natural Gas shortages this winter - though not as ominous as Jay who may have gone off the deep end entirely now as he seems to be advocating a military takeover of the US, having seemingly decided democracy is pointless and we may as well get to the end game now. This may be a textbook case of why not to brood on scenarios of future doom too heavily. He is also suggesting people look at his "Society of Sloth" argument a bit more seriously (startlingly coupling this idea wih the military dictatorship suggestion). I think I'd prefer democracy and an efficiency / conservation drive personally...

Readers new to peak oil who think I'm gloomy (as one recent commenter suggested) are encouraged to go off to dieoff.org and read Duncan's "Olduvai Cliff" paper - just so you can see what a genuinely gloomy outlook looks like.

North American NG shortages may bring a sea change this winter -- worldwide. Perhaps you’ve read our paper, “North American Natural Gas: Data Show Supply Problems,” (Youngquist & Duncan, Natural Resources Research, December 2003).

The full paper is available at www.mnforsustain.org. Credit goes to Jay Hanson who in 1995 identified NA NG as “The Trigger Event”.

Triple Pundit has a look at the contrasting marketing strategies of BP and ExxonMobil.

For a few years now, BP has been undertaking a massive green marketing campaign, aggressively showcasing its investment in renewable resources, and going so far as to refer to itself as "Beyond Petroleum". It also showcases environmental issues prominently on its website. ExxonMobile, on the other hand, has made very little effort to brand itself as anything other than a petroleum company, has publicly refused to accept renewables, and maintains a much more basic website with little obvious environmental messaging.

The question: Which marketing strategy will pay off in terms of market share? Is either more honest?

BP is clearly banking that their strategy will differentiate them from other oil companies and assuage people's fears that their motoring is hurting the environment. In the California market, they are up against many other firms, notably ChevronTexaco and Shell who have both stepped up "Green" campaigns of one sort or another. BP wants to be seen as the "Greenest" and despite some calls that they are greenwashing, seems to be at least making a cursory gesture to do a little solar installation here and there. They certainly look green.

On the other side, what is ExxonMoble banking on? Critics say they have their heads in the sand, but could they be marketing themselves toward that segment of the market that takes a more resigned approach to climate change and pollution? - The self described pragmatists that would rather buy their gas at the one company that goes against a marketing tide of debatable authenticity? Perhaps they're just trying to be honest - an oil company is an oil company in some regard, and it's possible that ExxonMobile's frankness on the issue may resonate with some consumers.

Still, it seems like a somewhat high risk decision by ExxonMobile because all the other major gas companies are embarking on some kind of "green" campaign - so they wouldn't have much to lose. Additionally, Exxon (before Mobile) is still suffering the ill effects of the Valdez disaster. Perhaps they just don't see any chance of ever reclaiming the "green" thinking customer at all.

WorldChanging has a short piece on educating drivers of hybrid cars on how to get maximum efficiency from their cars.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on the "Saudi king condemns al-Qaeda and high cost of oil" which noted that OPEC quotas have been suspended entirely.

The SMH also has a number of articles on our new laws that try to clone the US "Patriot" act, which are being widely viewed with suspicion. The government is annoyed that ACT Chief minister Jon Stanhope has published the proposed laws (PDF), which are going to be rushed through with only a single day for the Senate to consider them. It seems Mr Stanhope has a better concept of democracy than the federal government (though at least some small-l Liberals are reportedly wavering) - perhaps citizens ashould be allowed to consider new laws and talk to their local MP about them before they are passed ? Whatever happened to genuine debate and consultation ?

Today's "Sunday" program also had a look at the issue, with the journalist asking some pointed questions about the whole affair - at least some people are trying.

According to your point of view, the introduction of these new laws will either give Australia stronger powers to curb the possibility of terrorist attack or be considered the greatest handover of civil liberties this country has seen for 60 years. ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, went into the meeting with questions about the laws but came out seemingly convinced they were necessary. “I asked the blunt question of the director general of ASIO. Did he believe that the new legislative package that the prime minister had put on the table would assist him in his responsibility in the pursuit of his duties in protecting the people of Australia to the extent that he could and he answered yes. No head of government can turn away from that.”

But since agreeing to the laws Stanhope has had second thoughts: "It was hard and I have thought long and hard since the meeting. I have not had a relaxed week as I’ve pondered what I’ve done, what I could have done better or whether I should have agreed. I have been through it a thousand times in my mind and I continue to be concerned."

Doubts about the legislation have been growing. The government’s rush to push the new laws through Parliament have upset many politicians and former security agents. Lt Colonel Lance Collins saw first-hand how governments use ambiguity to achieve political aims in times of fear when he was serving with military intelligence: "The government does not need to persuade 100 per cent of the population 100 per cent of the time. They only need to inject enough ambiguity into the debate that enough people stop trying to sort it out and give in to the government of the day. That’s the role of ambiguity."

Jon Stanhope recalls that the role of Iraq in fermenting terrorism was not discussed by any of the state and territory leaders or intelligence chiefs: "I'm concerned that the prime minister can rock up to a meeting to discuss enacting tough new laws that erode our civil liberties and our human rights and at the same time not embrace issues that each of us know is fundamental to a resolution of the issues we face."

The SMH notes that objectors to government policy could be locked up and the law council is pointing out that these new laws are wide open to abuse and that we are moving towards a police state. So why no debate and no checks and balances ? I've got no idea so I'll just list the options that occur to me (especially in view of the "ashen" expressions on the faces of the state Premiers noted by Sunday after the secret security briefing that they were given when these laws were announced).

As the Sunday program pointed out, we have had our rights (which are still to be formally codified into a "Bill of Rights" like the US set up when it first became a republic) suspended before - during World War II.

Given Jim Puplava's constant references to the likelihood of an upcoming war in the piece I posted recently, and the statement that "Australia must prepare for a major conflict in Asia within the next 15 years" by the partly Defence-funded think-tank, the Kokoda Foundation I'd say that one possible (frightening) option is that the government genuinely believes we will be fighting in a major war in the near future, and therefore considers rushing through this sort of thing an urgent priority. They are also looking at doubling the size of ASIO over the next 5 years, which I guess supports this theory.

Other options ? The obvious peak oil theory related one is that they view a peak as imminent and want to guard against a breakdown of order during a post-peak crash. Or you could use the "Power of Nightmares" theory that the primary tool of government in the "market state" is the Machiavellian use of fear to motivate the population. And of course there is always the conspiracy theorist option which would say this is all part of a coming takeover by the New World Order.

Of course, I guess it is possible that the government genuinely believes all this "Clash of civilisations" and "Islamofascists under the bed" stuff the neocons go on about, but the terrorist threat hardly seems all that enormous given that we've never had an attack on Australian territory - and the previous head of ASIO did say publically a year or so ago that existing laws were sufficient to prevent them.

None of these options are very palatable and the "Power of nightmares" one actually seems quite benign compared to the others.

I'll close with an article by old-school leftie journalist John Pilger on the recent Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Harold Pinter. I must admit I've never heard of him, but you have to wonder if he (and Mr Pilger) could inadvertently find themselves secretly detained one day for saying something that displeases the government. And we'd probably never know.

In the post-modern, celebrity world of writing, prizes are alloted to those who compete for the emperor's threads; the politically unsafe need not apply. John Keanes, the chairman of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, once defended the absence of great contemporary political writers among the Orwell prize-winners not by lamenting the fact and asking why, but by attacking those who referred back to 'an imaginary golden past'. He wrote that those who 'hanker' after this illusory past fail to appreciate writers making sense of 'the collapse of the old left-right divide'.

What collapse? The convergence of 'liberal' and 'conservative' parties in western democracies, like the American Democrats with the Republicans, represents a meeting of essentially like minds. Journalists work assiduously to promote a false division between the mainstream parties and to obfuscate the truth that Britain, for example, is now a single ideology state with two competing, almost identical pro-business factions. The real divisons between left and right are to be found outside Parliament and have never been greater. They reflect the unprecedented disparity between the poverty of the majority of humanity and the power and privilege of a corporate and militarist minority, headquartered in Washington, who seek to control the world's resources.

One of the reasons these mighty pirates have such a free reign is that the Anglo-American intelligensia, notably writers, 'the people with voice' as Lord Macauley called them, are quiet or complicit or craven or twittering, and rich as a result. Thought-provokers pop up from time to time, but the English establishment has always been brilliant at de-fanging and absorbing them. Those who resist assimilation are mocked as eccentrics until they conform to their stereotype and its authorised views.

The exception is Harold Pinter. The other day, I sat down to compile a list of other writers remotely like him, those 'with a voice' and an understanding of their wider responsibilites as writers. I scribbled a few names, all of them now engaged in intellectual and moral contortion, or they are asleep. The page was blank save for Pinter. Only he is the unquiet one, the untwitterer, the one with guts, who speaks out. Above all, he understands the problem. Listen to this:

"We are in a terrible dip at the moment, a kind of abyss, because the assumption is that politics are all over. That's what the propaganda says. But I don't believe the propaganda. I believe that politics, our political consciousness and our political intelligence are not all over, because if they are, we are really doomed. I can't myself live like this. I've been told so often that I live in a free country, I'm damn well going to be free. By which I mean I'm going to retain my independence of mind and spirit, and I think that's what's obligatory upon all of us.

Most political systems talk in such vague language, and it's our responsibility and our duty as citizens of our various countries to exercise acts of critical scruntiny upon that use of language. Of course, that means that one does tend to become rather unpopular. But to hell with that."

...

Pinter is not saying the democracies are totalitarian like Nazi Germany, not at all, but that totalitarian actions are taken by impeccably polite democrats and which, in principle and effect, are little different from those taken by fascists. The only difference is distance. Half a millions people were murdered by American bombers sent secretly and illegally to skies above Cambodia by Nixon and Kissinger, igniting an Asian holocaust, which Pol Pot completed.

Critics have hated his political work, often attacking his plays mindlessly and patronising his outspokenness. He, in turn, has mocked their empty derision. He is a truth-teller. His understanding of political language follows Orwell's. He does not, as he would say, give a shit about the propriety of language, only its truest sense. At the end of the cold war in 1989, he wrote, '...for the last forty years, our thought has been trapped in hollow structures of language, a stale, dead but immensely successful rhetoric. This has represented, in my view, a defeat of the intelligence and of the will."

He never accepted this, of course: 'To hell with that!' Thanks in no small measure to him, defeat is far from assured. On the contrary, while other writers have slept or twittered, he has been aware that people are never still, and indeed are stirring again: Harold Pinter has a place of honour among them.