Peak Oil The Challenge

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Peak OilThe Challenge

• My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son
  flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel
  Saudi saying

KynetonOctober 6, 2006Adam Fenderson
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About Energy Bulletin

• A Peak Oil news clearinghouse
• Non-profit, entirely volunteer effort,
  unaffiliated with any institution
• Over 4000 articles in archives
• Over 600,000 'visits' a month
• Work with scientists, politicians, professionals,
  permaculturists, community activists
• www.EnergyBulletin.net

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Why is oil so important?
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A few oil facts

• They're not making any more of it. Oil is a
  non-renewable resource.
• We have been using ever more oil each year for
  the last 150 years
• Oil is cheap, convenient and versatile. It
  provides more energy return for less investment
  than any other fuel. It is storable, portable,
  pumpable, and made of complex hydrocarbons for
  feedstocks.
• Oil provides about 40 of total world energy and
  95 of transport energy

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The end of muscle power
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Energy slaves
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The Oil We Eat

• Every one joule of food takes ten joules of
  energy to grow, process and deliver to the
  consumer.

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First oil well
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Growth of yeast in a 10 sugar solution
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Are people smarter than yeast?
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So what is Peak Oil?
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Peak Oil

• The peak rate of oil production

'Peak Oil' concept originates with Shell oil
geologist M. King Hubbert, who in 1956 correctly
predicted that US lower 48 states oil production
would peak in 1970.
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Peak oil is not

• Peak oil is not the end of oil
• It is the end of cheap oil
• It is the end of energy growth, and the beginning
  of contraction

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Countries already past peak

• Germany 1966
• USA 1970
• Indonesia 1977
• Syria 1995
• UK 1999
• Norway 2001
• Mexico 2004
• Australia 2001
• Chevron oil production in 33 of the 48 largest
  oil producing countries is in decline

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When will global oil peak?
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Discovery production
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Association for the Study of Peak Oil Gas
(ASPO) projection
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Corroborating evidence

• Chris Skrebowski's Megafields project peak
  likely by 2010
• Matthew Simmon's analysis of Saudi Arabian oil
  fieldspeak between 2007-2009

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Saudi troubles

• Saudi Arabia had an average of 52 drilling rigs
  active in '04, 83 rigs in '05 and will have about
  120 by the end of '06.
• Meanwhile, the kingdom's oil output has fallen to
  less than 9 mb/d. Saudi output had averaged
  nearly 9.5 mb/d in the first quarter, according
  to the IEA.
• Oil minister Ali Naimi has attributed the trend
  to a drop in demand and denies the country has
  supply problems or aims to limit supply
  voluntarily.

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Australian senate enquiry

• Peak oil proponents have criticised official
  estimates of future oil supply with detailed and
  plausible arguments. The Committee is not aware
  of any official agency publications which attempt
  to rebut the peak oil arguments point by point in
  similar detail.http//www.aph.gov.au/Senate/comm
  ittee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/int_report/report.pdf

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How serious is the problem?
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The Hirsch Report

• Commissioned by the US DoE, released February
  2005. Executive summary
• The peaking of world oil production presents the
  U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk
  management problem. As peaking is approached,
  liquid fuel prices and price volatility will
  increase dramatically, and, without timely
  mitigation, the economic, social, and political
  costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation
  options exist on both the supply and demand
  sides, but to have substantial impact, they must
  be initiated more than a decade in advance of
  peaking.

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Australian situation
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Australian vs World production
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Where is it?
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Future Scenarios?
Some cultural reference points
vs.
Techno-topia
Mad Max
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Industrial tech vs. ecological tech

• Tree
• Provides shelter
• Provides mulch and holds soil
• Provides food for animals and humans
• Provides timber
• Captures and stores carbon
• Produces oxygen
• Stimulates rain
• Self replicates
• Solar panel
• Built in factory dependent on imports from around
  world, and massive industrial infrastructure
• Requires rare minerals and polluting industrial
  chemicals
• High embodied energy

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Politics and Peak Oil
Every speech should conclude with the message of
limitless dreams, unending possibilities and the
promise of a better future for ourselves and our
children --US Republican polster Frank Luntz
A couple of my less kind colleagues referred to
my first speech on the subject of Peak Oil, as
"Peak Career"
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Growth economics

• sustainable growth is an oxymoron
• Will the market overreact to bad news?

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In context

• Animal extinction, biodiversity loss
• Peak fish, ocean dead zones
• Topsoil loss
• Aquifer depletion
• Deforestation
• Pollution, GMOs, nuclear proliferation, nanotech,
  etc, etc...
• Climate change
• Resource wars, corporatisation, poverty, social
  anxiety, urban isolation

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we are here
Peak Oil