by Henry Robertson
“Everybody knows we’re going to run out of oil sooner or later. So what?”
I was shocked to hear this from an acquaintance of mine, but in a way he’s right. It doesn’t matter when we run out of oil.
The real turning point is when world oil production peaks and goes into terminal decline. Just over that peak demand will outrun supply. The oil that’s left will be harder to get at and more expensive to extract. The price of oil will shoot through the roof, and that will add to the price of everything else in our oil-dependent economy.
This idea goes by names like Peak Oil and Hubbert’s Peak. “Pessimists,” including many independent petroleum geologists (academics and retirees), think the peak will come between now and 2010. If you prefer the “optimistic” forecast of the US Geological Survey, which has been criticized for relying on inflated estimates of oil reserves, the peak will occur in 2035. Either way that’s an eyeblink in historical time. And this is an event of truly historic moment. It will force the greatest social transformation since the Industrial Revolution.
Two-dollar-a-gallon gasoline doesn’t mean we’ve hit the peak, but it’s a hint that jabs people where it hurts, in their wallets. Demand for oil is 84 million barrels a day and rising, led by the US (21 million barrels a day), China and India. Supply is barely keeping pace and there is virtually no spare capacity. Discovery of new oil fields peaked in the 1960s. In recent years the industry has been pumping 3–4 barrels for every replacement barrel it finds. It’s taken us 150 years to burn through the first half of Earth’s oil supply starting from a baseline of zero. The downward slope of this modified bell curve will be much steeper.
Most of the talk in this country so far is not about conservation but about declaring independence from foreign oil. In reality that means independence from oil, period. Hubbert’s Peak is named after M. King Hubbert, the geologist who in 1956 correctly predicted that oil production in the 48 contiguous states would peak in the early 70s. Surprisingly, the US is still the number three oil-producing nation but it has only 3% of world reserves. Drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would only be an act of denial and destruction. All our offshore reserves are estimated at two years’ worth of oil, three and a half years of gas. We can’t drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil.
Peak Oil advocates are skeptical of technological fixes. Unconventional sources like “oil shale” and the Alberta tar sands take enormous amounts of water and energy to exploit—they have a low or negative energy return on energy invested (EROEI). Alternative technologies lack oil’s “energy density.” Oil packs a wallop; consider that a mere gallon of gasoline can propel a 2000-pound car over 30 miles at 70 mph. There are many technical obstacles to a hydrogen economy, and hydrogen itself is not a fuel; it takes fuel to split hydrogen off from water before it can be used in a fuel cell. The supply of biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel is limited by the amount of arable land left after we feed ourselves.
The oil peak is a magnet for doomsayers whose worst-case scenarios include economic and social collapse, resource wars and mass starvation. There may be truth in these if we don’t prepare for the decline, but defeatism is unhelpful. Better to look at the oil peak as an opportunity. American consumers will not willingly give up their profligate ways. The oil shortage will compel us to live more sustainably.
We’ll feel it first in transportation. Passenger vehicles alone account for 40% of oil use in the US — that’s 10% of the world’s oil — and there is no readily available alternative to the internal combustion engine. When gasoline hits $3 or $4 a gallon people will start to conserve, driving less and buying more efficient cars. But conservation on that scale will only buy time. Eventually we’ll have to pull back from the suburbs to the town centers and rely on public transit, bicycles and feet. The short-lived era of mass air travel will come to an end. The pace of life will slow — not a bad idea.
Few people appreciate how agriculture depends on oil. Pesticides and herbicides are petroleum-based. Fertilizer is made with natural gas, which is expected to peak about a decade after oil. Oil-fueled machines work the huge farms that make it possible for a small population of farmers to feed the other 98% of us. And it takes lots of oil to haul California produce to your local supermarket.
During the transition growing and distributing food will get higher priority for oil than personalized transport or making plastic trinkets. After the transition farming will be small-scale, local and organic. There will be millions of new farmers learning a way of life they had never thought of before.
As I read the daily news stories about the price of a barrel or a gallon I can see the prospect of oil depletion lurking just below the surface, ready to erupt into public consciousness. This is a bipartisan, nondenominational issue. Republicans have been out front more than Democrats; on March 14 a conservative Republican Congressman from Maryland, Roscoe Bartlett, brought the subject to the House floor.
To plan a smooth landing into the post-hydrocarbon age is the great project of the next generation. Environmentalists, who know a thing or two about living sustainably, should lead the way. There is no time to lose. High oil prices will drain away the capital needed to finance the transition, and oil will be needed to put a new energy infrastructure of wind, solar and other renewables into place.
The changes we will go through will be dislocating, disorienting and potentially very dangerous. It will be a time of great opportunity as well, opening up new (and old) fields of endeavor. The instant satisfaction of personal whims must yield to communal purpose.
There is another reason to make the transition: think what will happen to the atmosphere and climate if we burn the other half of that oil. After years of highly publicized warnings about climate change, carbon dioxide emissions are still rising. The oil peak will more effectively concentrate people’s minds on the future.
To learn more:
The most readable book on the subject is Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over. He also wrote Powerdown and has a website, museletter.com.
For the petroleum geologist’s viewpoint read Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Hubbert’s Peak, or go to hubbertpeak.com.
To get the full apocalyptic flavor of the Peak Oil movement, check out lifeaftertheoilcrash.net, fromthewilderness.com or dieoff.org.
For a more modest approach read Paul Roberts, The End of Oil. For Congressman Bartlett’s presentation, go to energybulletin.net/4733.html.
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