Businessweek: Peak Oil to Dark Age.

[SirNitram]

Link

With global oil production virtually stalled in recent years, controversial predictions that the world is fast approaching maximum petroleum output are looking a bit less controversial. At first blush, those concerned about global warming should be delighted. After all, what better way to prod the move toward carbon-free, climate-friendly alternative energy?

But climate change activists have nothing to cheer about. The U.S. is completely unprepared for peak oil, as it's called, and the wrenching adjustments it would entail could easily accelerate global warming as nations turn to coal (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/19/07, "Rx for Earth: Sooner Not Later"). Moreover, regardless of the implications for climate change, peak oil represents a mortal threat to the U.S. economy.

Peak oil refers to the point at which world oil production plateaus before beginning to decline as depletion of the world's remaining reserves offsets ever-increased drilling. Some experts argue that we're already there, and that we won't exceed by much the daily production high of 84.5 million barrels first reached in 2005. If so, global production will bump along near these levels for years before beginning an inexorable decline.

What would that mean? Alternatives are still a decade away from meeting incremental demand for oil. With nothing to fill the gap, global economic growth would slow, stop, and then reverse; international tensions would soar as nations seek access to diminishing supplies, enriching autocratic rulers in unstable oil states; and, unless other sources of energy could be ramped up with extreme haste, the world could plunge into a new Dark Age. Even as faltering economies burned less oil, carbon loading of the atmosphere might accelerate as countries turn to vastly dirtier coal.

GIVEN SUCH UNPLEASANT possibilities, you'd think peak oil would be a national obsession. But policymakers can hide behind the possibility that vast troves will be available from unconventional sources, or that secretive oil-exporting nations really have the huge reserves they claim. Yet even if those who say that the peak has arrived are wrong, enough disturbing omens—for example, declining production in most of the world's great oil fields and no new superfields to take up the slack—exist for the issue to merit an intense international focus.

The reality is that it will be here much sooner for the U.S.—in the form of peak oil exports. Since we import nearly two-thirds of the oil we consume, global oil available for export should be our bigger concern. Fast-growing domestic consumption in oil-exporting nations and increasing appetites by big importers such as China portend tighter supplies available to the U.S., unless world production rises rapidly. But output has stalled. Call it de facto peak oil or peak oil lite. It means the U.S. is entering an age when it will have to scramble to maintain existing import levels.

We will know soon enough whether the capacity to raise production really exists. If not, basic math and the clock tell the story. All alternatives—geothermal, solar, wind, etc.—produce only 3% of the energy supplied by oil. If oil demand rises by 2% while output remains flat, generation of alternative energy would have to expand 60% a year. That's more than twice the rate of wind power, the fastest-growing alternative energy. And all this incremental energy would somehow have to be delivered to transportation (which consumes most of the oil produced each year) just to stay even with the growth in demand.

Nuclear and hydropower together produce 10 times the power of wind, geothermal, and solar power. But even if nations ignore environmental concerns, it takes years to build nuclear plants or even identify suitable undammed rivers.

There are many things we in the U.S. can do (and should have been doing) other than the present policy of crossing our fingers. If an oil tax makes sense from a climate change perspective, it seems doubly worthy if it extends supplies. Boosting efficiency and scaling up alternatives must also be a priority. And, recognizing that nations will turn to cheap coal (recently, 80% of growth in coal use has come from China), more work is needed to defang this fuel, which produces more carbon dioxide per ton than any other energy source.

Even if the peakists are wrong, we would still be better off taking these actions. And if they're right, major efforts right now may be the only way to avert a new Dark Age in an overheated world.

Perhaps enough are waking to the potential for trouble after all.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, if you want more hydropower, the USA should seriously look into investing in micro-hydro systems now. You can build profitable, productive generation stations for hydropower on extremely small irrigation dams, of which a lot more could be built. We could considerably expand our hydro generation in this fashion.

And if we want to toss in a few megaprojects for fun, there's always turning Death Valley into a height differential power generation project by drilling a massive canal/tunnel system to it. The same system could actually fill several valleys in that area which are below sea level, and a secondary branch could fill the Imperial Valley, which as at least some generating capacity even though it's not so deep. The increased evaporation would also heighten rainfall in an area which needs it badly.

I certainly plan to do that if I end up La Caudilla in fifteen or twenty years.

The Great Falls of the Missouri are also not fully tapped for generating power.

And there's probably a lot of excess capacity potential in Washington State, where I know of numerous undammed rivers of at least some capacity, even though there's already hordes of dams everywhere, but we're still talking about projects larger than micro-hydro. A few dams that have been taken out could be put back in, and irrigation-only structures could be converted to generate power.

Another great thing we could do if we had the political will is replace the generators. A lot of the generators are 1900 or 1930-vintage designs, and there are plans to increase the generation on our existing dams by 50% by replacing all the generators with modern designs.

This is of course ignoring tidal power, and wave power.

As the globe gets warmer, we'll be able to dam the Yukon like nobody's business. Actually, we could do that right now--there's at least one dam on its course in Yukon Territory--though they wouldn't be able to generate power all year long.

And now Shep will come in with a proposal to keep the resevoirs from freezing by setting off a-bombs over them, allowing us to use the dams year 'round.

[Edi]

One of the things that can help somewhat (not the average city-dweller, but in agriculture etc) are methane-burning systems that use the gas from animal droppings and other decomposing matter. The rest of the matter can be used as fertilizer and is generally not removed from the normal transition cycle.

Any attempts at using wood or oil compressed from wood on an industrial scale are completely unsustainable because you need to actually grow that forest, which requires nutrients in the soil, which have to be renewed, and if you're removing the end product of all those nutrients from the natural cycle, the topsoil will degrade and erode. A forest will generally run a complete natural cycle in about 400 years if left undisturbed, which would be roughly 25 cycles since the last ice age. Commercial logging is based on cutting the wood fairly young, then removing it, then tossing a shitload of fertilizer (oil-based, as most are) to replace some stuff and doing things again, and the process is about 4-5 times faster than the natural cycle. Unless we want serious deforestation as the end result, this is not an option, and deforestation is another big problem already...

[Admiral Valdemar]

It won't make any difference. That article, which I linked to in a post in N&P, is still a guest op-ed piece and while it's certainly bizarre seeing it printed in BW of all pieces, we've had USA Today and just yesterday, The Indy print front page articles on PO and energy issues. A lot of this can easily be filtered out by the regular readers, especially when the USA Today article was just after Katrina and the Indy one is likely overshadowed by more no-news reports on Madeleine McCann in other papers.

Until we see some hard investment and gov'ts moving to do something, we're still in the back seat, riding in a car with a deaf and blind driver heading towards a cliff. If you want to avoid the carnage, jump out now, because as soon as the masses pick up on this, all bets are off. Some even want a state of ignorance to remain so they can finish off preparations to life sustainably away from the cities without panic buying ruining plans.

There's something else.



Thanks to Khebab over at TOD for this, we can see a nice geological estimate on decline. See that line going straight up to Heaven? That would be what the IEA expects world production to follow. And that's not a simplification. Evidently rulers are quite useful there.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, again, oil shale can be reliably counted as an extension of coal reserves, so it isn't that bad.

Also, production depends on location. Once things start getting bad, autarkism will be the order of the day, and that means that countries with large reserves of coal won't be in serious straits (and the USA is one, thank the gods. We'd be truly fucked if we had to import coal, I don't want to even think about it), whereas the countries which have expended their coal or never had much to begin with are going to get assraped if they don't turn to other production sources for electricity.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If you want to run head first into climate change, go ahead. Burn oil shale. I wouldn't advise it, but no doubt it will happen.

You might wrestle free of a world losing cheap, abundant energy, but you sure as hell won't avoid the climate going into runaway feedback mode.

Choose your poison.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If you want to run head first into climate change, go ahead. Burn oil shale. I wouldn't advise it, but no doubt it will happen.

You might wrestle free of a world losing cheap, abundant energy, but you sure as hell won't avoid the climate going into runaway feedback mode.

Choose your poison.

*gallic shrug*


At least one problem will have solved. We can also remove the particulate filters from the coal plants and hope that dumping enough soot into the atmosphere mitigates global warming to some extent.

We both know the world isn't going to do anything else. All we can do is mitigate peak oil, and once the industrial situation has stabilized after that, proceed to mitigate global warming. Will mitigating peak oil make global warming worse? Indubitably. But what other choice do we have? We've squandered all our other options, and that means we have to keep the coal plants for decades to come, and even expand them, to make up for the loss of oil, and only when we've mitigated our loss of oil at every level can we turn around and worry about dealing with global warming.

If things get bad enough, we can always start massive fires in the Boreal forests of Alaska and a-bomb Africa (90% of the population will be dead anyway by then) in an effort to try and use nuclear winter to dampen the effects. Wild ass crazy scheme, but I'm not seriously proposing it.

I'm just pointing out that you shortchange human ingenuity in everything that you say here. No, I haven't become one of those pie in the sky "science will solve everything!" types and you know it.

I'm just of a mind that, as always, human civilization will muddle through it. By the end of this century we'll have 1/10th of the greenhouse gas output we do now, even with a population of 10 billions. The combination of peak oil and global warming will force use to completely end the use of all polluting petrochemicals, coal, gas, etc, and we can accomplish the end of their use without, in the first world, losing for the course of a century more than 30 - 40% of our current levels of wealth and prosperity. This will be a tremendous shock, which will end our current way of life, but western civilization will survive it.

Things will simply get worse before they get better. As someone said before the start of the First World War, I do believe, "the lights are going out all over Europe, and they will not be on again in our generation." Well, the lights are going out all over the world, and they will not be on again in our century.

But they'll be back.

One of the qualities of the human species is relentless adaptation, and adapt we shall.

[Admiral Valdemar]

To paraphrase Boromir: One does not simply mitigate climate change.

A recent report indicates it may be going up to three times faster than we predicted just a few years ago, once more casting the IPCC AR4 report into doubt for being too conservative.

But it's not that that worries me with coal and bitumen, more like the immediate effects of burning them. Ask the Chinese about the lovely acid rain, polluted rivers and alarming increase in aerosolised pollutants and heavy metals/radioisotopes. We're starting to feel China's production globally, imagine the modern world running on the dirtiest FF for even a few years full pelt. Ugh.

Nowt we can do about that, 'fraid.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

To paraphrase Boromir: One does not simply mitigate climate change.

A recent report indicates it may be going up to three times faster than we predicted just a few years ago, once more casting the IPCC AR4 report into doubt for being too conservative.

Mitigating climate change means eliminating the emission of greenhouse gasses and clogging the atmosphere with as much particulate matter as possible to try and cool things down. And then building levies and genetically engineering our crops so they keep on producing in changing climate conditions. And putting plans together for relocating about thirty million people to Alaska over the course of the next 100 years, in the United States at least.

But it's not that that worries me with coal and bitumen, more like the immediate effects of burning them. Ask the Chinese about the lovely acid rain, polluted rivers and alarming increase in aerosolised pollutants and heavy metals/radioisotopes. We're starting to feel China's production globally, imagine the modern world running on the dirtiest FF for even a few years full pelt. Ugh.

Nowt we can do about that, 'fraid.

As I observed, at least the particulate matter will slow the effects of global warming somewhat.

Though I seriously suggest having children before we start doing this, so they don't end up inflicted with serious birth defects like everyone else's.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That's that then.

Now we just need to deal with the extra three billion expected by 2050, the shortages of potable freshwater and eroding topsoil.

Who wants to suggest we just party and fuck the future generations? It worked for the baby boomers.

[Elaro]

"Return to the Dark Ages"? HA!

Barring unpredictable events, the worst thing that could happen post-PO is we revert to an 1800s-level of technology: using horses, trains, coal. Essentially, before the invention of the gasoline engine. At best, we will see governments or grassroot movements spearhead efforts to retrofit cars to run purely on electricity, and to set up solar/hydro/wind generators every which where.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If only it were that easy. Dark ages has a different context here, but many who say we will simply revert to a previous era seem to forget that a) there are FAR more people than even in 1900, b) we don't have anywhere near the percentage of farmers for that world, c) we don't have a world adapted to living like that.

You can't simply revert to 18th century living overnight from 21st century living. There's a reason just adapting to lower energy from fossil fuels would take at least two decades, ideally.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That's that then.

Now we just need to deal with the extra three billion expected by 2050, the shortages of potable freshwater and eroding topsoil.

Who wants to suggest we just party and fuck the future generations? It worked for the baby boomers.

I enjoy challenges, among other things. Come now, those of us who are most prepared for it all...

..Why, we can enter politics.

We can always look at dragging some of those collapsing sections of the arctic ice sheets as was proposed at numerous locations.

And, of course, as I've noted, if we build nuclear reactors and hook them directly up to massive banks of desalination equipment, we'll be bypassing the grid entirely, and won't need to upgrade it to handle the additional energy production. And we can use the old pipeline net for oil and gas for transporting water.

Eroding topsoil is something more difficult to deal with, but if we have enough water from the desal plants we can still produce enough food while we work on turning the suburbs back into cropland and resting some of our existing cropland.

If we have 600 - 700 die off in the aftereffects of peak oil, that will remove a few hundred million above that from the 2050 tally, also, and so I don't expect us to really get to more than 8.6 - 9 billion by 2050. We can probably feed them, if for nothing else that when all the Africans die off we can send in people to farm in those areas properly. And Brazil is adding farmland at a tremendous rate and poised to perhaps become the largest food exporter in the world. Granted, that's making global warming worse, but...

The historians of the 2200s will name the next hundred years as "The Long Crisis", to be sure. An unmitigated and continuous experience of mortality and suffering from which we will ultimately triumph, but which will be scarcely anything but hardship while it is going on.

[aerius]

The historians of the 2200s will name the next hundred years as "The Long Crisis", to be sure. An unmitigated and continuous experience of mortality and suffering from which we will ultimately triumph, but which will be scarcely anything but hardship while it is going on.

Have you by any chance read The Long Emergency? We have this book on our shelf along with several others dealing with oil & life in an oil-scarce world.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The historians of the 2200s will name the next hundred years as "The Long Crisis", to be sure. An unmitigated and continuous experience of mortality and suffering from which we will ultimately triumph, but which will be scarcely anything but hardship while it is going on.

Have you by any chance read The Long Emergency? We have this book on our shelf along with several others dealing with oil & life in an oil-scarce world.

No, I haven't. Fitting statistics provided by research sources into my tapestry of historical knowledge is sufficient for me to understand clearly the route of the future.

[Punkus]

Barring unpredictable events, the worst thing that could happen post-PO is we revert to an 1800s-level of technology: using horses, trains, coal. Essentially, before the invention of the gasoline engine. At best, we will see governments or grassroot movements spearhead efforts to retrofit cars to run purely on electricity, and to set up solar/hydro/wind generators every which where.

Does anyone remember the 1973 oil crisis? We can perhaps use hindsight to nitpick what happened, but it is still a great example of what might happen if one of the most vital economic items in this country begins to get pinched.

And that was a walk in the park compared to what might happen if oil reserves and/or production were to REALLY be in danger. Doomsayers are already running rampant. Just think how people will be reacting when they see for themselves that gas prices begin to double every 6 to 12 months, if not faster.

As for the economy, even if some level of activity might be sustainable on "1800s-level technology," that is ignoring the massive deflation that would occur in our economic capacity. I do not know how many millions of tons of freight are hauled by trucks, trains, plains, or ships every hour, but even a 5% hit in capacity could cause a significant recession.

The danger is double-edged because not only will a decline in available oil be a significant problem economically and socially, but the relatively good life we in the US have enjoyed will make us far more susceptible to any bottleneck in our lifestyle.

The question is not how we will react, the question is if the gloomy scenario of peak oil as it has sometimes been depicted will come to pass. I don't think it is debatable that oil reserves are disappearing or that new energy sources are not being sufficiently developed.

I wish we humans were more moderate and less willing to rush headlong into the dark. Unfortunately, we still have not reached the point where we can modify our own behavior in order to remain in sync with the systems in which we live.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I loved the report in one paper in the US this week, forget which, that stated we could see SIX DOLLAR GAS by 2015.

Oh my. They really don't get it, do they.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I loved the report in one paper in the US this week, forget which, that stated we could see SIX DOLLAR GAS by 2015.

Oh my. They really don't get it, do they.

Per ounce?

[Ariphaos]

Well, again, oil shale can be reliably counted as an extension of coal reserves, so it isn't that bad.

Main problem with shale is that to get the oil economically, it takes years to process. Predicting future needs has always been a bit touchy, even with the months figure we have now.

We might supplement it with coal liquification but that is only viable for a certain portion of our production.

Not saying this is a limiter, but it will create wild, large price swings, especially outside the US/Canada.

[Darth Raptor]

She's not talking about turning the oil shale into oil, she's talking about simply burning it, like coal.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, again, oil shale can be reliably counted as an extension of coal reserves, so it isn't that bad.

Main problem with shale is that to get the oil economically, it takes years to process. Predicting future needs has always been a bit touchy, even with the months figure we have now.

We might supplement it with coal liquification but that is only viable for a certain portion of our production.

Not saying this is a limiter, but it will create wild, large price swings, especially outside the US/Canada.

Read what I said, read what Darth Raptor said, and ask yourself why you have no comprehension of the english language.

[CmdrWilkens]

"Return to the Dark Ages"? HA!

Barring unpredictable events, the worst thing that could happen post-PO is we revert to an 1800s-level of technology: using horses, trains, coal. Essentially, before the invention of the gasoline engine. At best, we will see governments or grassroot movements spearhead efforts to retrofit cars to run purely on electricity, and to set up solar/hydro/wind generators every which where.

While its already been partially addressed the problme is not the "technology" level we end up using the problme is the inter-relation of economics, energy, and petroleum. The US economy literally LIVES on petroleum. Our entire system of transit and product delivery is based upon pertroleum transport (excepting certain amounts of long distance rail freight which is even then mostly diesel rather than electrified.). Simply put a reduction in available oil is going to cause an immediate loss in available transport capacity, in turn this raises the price of goods as well as the cost of production meaning corporations will be looking to shed expenses while the mom-and pop company's will have less purchasing power and the average consumer, likewise, will have less purchasing power. All this means greater unemployment, followed by rise in personal bankruptcy as the state of the average American's finances is based around a constantly expanding economy generating enough additional equity and investment money to sustain a consumption elvel in excess of actual means. Once we get into that cycle then you have rising foreclosures and an additonal hit on the housing market which is ALREADY shakey fueled by the subprime market of two-three years ago and which will not be recovering for another decade. We are talking about a basic breakdown in the entire fundamental basis upon which the American consumer society has operated for the last 25 years and THAT can have a huge number of possible outcomes not the least of which is a huge upswing in domestic upheaval the likes of which the US hasn't seen since the 1880s. Simply put oil underpins so much of what American's take for granted that when it goes away it will force the kind of deep seated change that will have almost unbelieveable consequences throughout the entirety of society not just economically and technologically.

[FireNexus]

Why are we not building nuke plants like we just foung out that the waste actually does give you superpowers?

[Darth Wong]

"Return to the Dark Ages"? HA!

Barring unpredictable events, the worst thing that could happen post-PO is we revert to an 1800s-level of technology: using horses, trains, coal.

Here's a little research project for you: look up the population and living standard of the US in the 1800s.

[Admiral Valdemar]

People seem to think that returning to 18/19th century living is somehow an okay contraction. It isn't. For two reasons:

1. There are FAR more people around today, even in developed nations with low birth rates and stable populations.

2. We don't HAVE the infrastructure or the know-how of those eras. This is like saying it's okay to take a 17th century person and throw them into the 21st century. The reverse is equally daunting psychologically, never mind the challenges in maintaining any semblance of modern society during this regress.

Oh, by the way. The US, EU and UN are all calling on OPEC to crank up output before the end of summer, or dire economic ramifications will arise. OPEC, for whatever reason, isn't complying. Either it is able, but not willing. Or it is willing, but not able.