ACT Peak Oil

This week a study on peak oil by a German military think tank was leaked on the Internet. The document shows that the German government is closely studying the issue of peak oil, and is aware of the potential for serious consequences as oil production declines. The study is reminiscent of the Hirsch Report, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, that warned of the risks posed by peak oil. ... Below is a friend's translation of the major points in the report.

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Iowa is to corn ethanol what Saudi Arabia is to oil. At present Iowa has the capacity to produce 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year, which is 26% of the nation's total. This is of course due to the large amount of corn production in Iowa, enabled by ample rainfall and rich topsoil.

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It is manifestly the case that I have never fully mastered keeping things from getting overwhelming, but I get better at it every year (mostly). And there is a lot you can do to make sure that the canning and preserving don't make you crazy!

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Food systems can be a very powerful tool for resilience. In a revolutionary way, you can completely transform things without people realizing what's happening--they are aware, but it just makes intuitive sense this way. It's also not about just going out and fighting the proverbial "man," or continuing an academic dialogue about what could happen or should happen; you don't have time for this because you've got a lot to do.

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The Australia Institute has released a paper - Running on empty ? The peak oil debate (pdf) - looking at peak oil and suggesting the best way of spurring early adaptation is to adopt a carbon tax, thus encouraging faster uptake of renewables and energy efficiency measures.

From the introduction :

Like climate change, the possibility of peak oil poses an uncomfortable challenge to citizens and governments alike in the 21st century. 'Peak oil' is the term first used by M K Hubbert in the 1950s to describe the point in time at which the worldwide production of crude oil extraction will be maximised. But while it is inevitable that production will peak at some point, it is uncertain when that point will be reached.

Peak oil concerns exploded during the rapid escalation of oil prices prior to the 2007 global financial crisis (GFC), and resurfaced recently when oil prices appeared to resume their upward trend. These concerns have been underscored by official bodies such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) warning of a possible 'supply crunch' brought about by a lack of new investment following the GFC.

The paper suggests that a carbon tax rather than a trading system is the optimal method for pricing carbon, but ultimately the method is not as important as the existence of a price that is relatively uniform across countries and is sufficiently high to materially affect production and consumption decisions, particularly the decision as to whether or not to pursue the development of emission-intensive alternatives to oil. In the medium term, the circumstances created by a price on carbon will likely expand the use of natural gas, both for power generation and transport; in the long term, it is likely to expand the role of electric vehicles and non-fossil forms of power generation.

As with climate change, the most cost-effective response to the inevitable but uncertain timing of peak oil is to invest in early adaptation. It will be impossible to redesign cities, switch the vehicle fleet to new forms of fuel and transform the location decisions of producers in a timely manner after the oil supply has peaked. Early investment in adaptation measures will pay high dividends in the future, whether in response to peak oil, climate change or simply better city design and reduced congestion on roads.

The paper concludes by suggesting that the peak-oil issue is sufficiently important for regular official re-assessments of the situation to be designed and implemented. If mitigation actions are not planned in advance, the alternative may be for a future where periodic price spikes and shortages affect the nation's ability to manage the economic cycle by causing the re-emergence of 'stop-start' economic conditions such as those experienced in the 1970s.

Crikey has some commentary on the paper - The dirty topic of peak oil: get ready to reduce your reliance.

Wouldn’t it be funny if we spent so long arguing about what to do about climate change that we ran out of cheap oil first? No, it wouldn’t really, it would be catastrophic.

But given the government’s delay in producing an Energy White Paper and the steady backsliding on the need to actually reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, it is not beyond the realms of possibility. Even the usually optimistic International Energy Agency (IEA) is starting to sound a little nervous.

No one can say with certainty how much oil is left in the ground nor how much it will cost to take it out. As with climate change, the search for certainty in relation to oil supply is a fool’s errand. But while no-one can say with certainty how much is left, virtually no economists or oil industry analysts disagree with the statement that oil production cannot keep growing forever. The notion that oil production must one day peak is now referred to as ‘peak oil’.

While there is virtually no debate that oil production must one day peak, there is much debate about the timing and significance of such a peak. For those who have become accustomed to talking about emission reduction targets for 2020 and 2050 it may come as some surprise to learn that the mid-range forecasts for the peak in global oil production are 10-15 years. This does not mean that there will be no oil in 10 or 15 years time, but it means oil is going to get a LOT more expensive. Put simply, if demand continues to rise and supply starts to fall the days of the average Australian driving their Landcruiser to work will be over.

Cross-posted from Peak Energy.

A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China continues to grow

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There are days I wonder if I'm out of my depth homesteading. (I'm a new homesteader in rural Ontario. You can read what that's looking like here.) So much of my natural occupation has been about documents and computers. I'm at home in that world and understand it. But here in DIY-land there's so many parts I don't know, so many systems Like the Fool, my friend in the tarot deck, I step out with unknown perils ahead.

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Boulder, where I live, is approximately 5,430 feet above sea level, or just over a mile. This flatlander is a rather nervous high mountain roads passenger but the other day I looked forward to the opportunity to see a garden at 7,400 feet. What was being accomplished at this site far exceeded my expectations. The property, at nearly the top of a mountain road, was being gardened both ornamentally and for food growing.

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Brenda Boardman continues to do pioneering work in the field of fuel poverty in Britain. She is Emeritus Fellow with the Lower Carbon Futures at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. Twenty years ago, Boardman wrote her landmark study, Fuel Poverty: From Cold Homes to Affordable Warmth, which provided the first quantifiable definition of fuel poverty (ie. when a household spends more than 10% of its income on energy services).

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Over the past two years economic pundits have said we are in a recession, defined flippantly as starting when your neighbor loses his job. Certainly today, with US unemployment at around 10%, and Canadian unemployment in the high single digits, you may know people who have lost their jobs. A depression is said to be signaled when you lose your own job. That is where I am today.

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Rob Hopkins' critique of the "Green Wizards" project explored in recent Archdruid Report posts raises challenging questions: some of them about the project in question, others about the relationship between differing efforts to respond to a challenging future. The Archdruid offers his take on both subjects.

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- Bill McKibben on David Letterman: "Thanks for scaring the crap out of me, Bill!"
- Bjørn Lomborg's about face on climate
- The Lomborg Deception
- Poorer nations hit with 'exorbitant' consultancy fees for carbon offset projects
- The Coming Flood of Climate Refugees
- At a climate camp convergence and protest in Quebec

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A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis. (excerpts)
Update: English translation of table of contents and lead paragraphs.

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I have a hunch that readers thought I was joking when I wrote recently about growing tree seedlings in roof gutters. The picture proves that it works.

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Next week sees the publication of the next book in the Transition Books series, ‘Local Sustainable Homes: how to make them happen in your community’ by Chris Bird. More details to follow (including how to order your copy), but as a taster, here is my foreword to the book...

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I teach at a prestigious (high-on-ranking-lists) Swedish technical university, but when I mention peak oil, the students just don't "get it", or refuse to contemplate it. I have thus had to think about starting points I personally take for granted and emphasize these in my talks so as to increase the likelihood of my audience "getting it". These 4+1 assumptions are interrelated and they form a logical chain that is easy to follow but hard(er) to refute.

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Although climate change, decreasing exports, and depleting mineral resources will all eventually impact China's ability to grow economically, the availability and affordability of oil is still likely to impact first.

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Across my native USA, I whenever neighbours or townspeople lobby for more bus and rail services, pundits and politicians usually sputter something like this: "Trains and buses are a waste of taxpayers’ money. There’s no reason for them to exist. Look at the ones we have now – they’re mostly empty."

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Too much to read? Try these picks from the EB co-editors.

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This paper has two goals. First, it provides a systematic review of oil depletion models produced to date. This serves to make obscure past works (often difficult to find) available to a wider audience so as to limit repetition of past efforts. Second, this paper provides synthesizing critique of previous modeling efforts, with the aim of improving future oil depletion modeling.

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