Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Why all the risky U.S. behavior? Peak oil, says Mardle
Australian Earl Mardle lays out at least six risky behaviors that the U.S. is doing, and brings in some thinking about why some extremely well connected Brits (like Margaret Thatcher's son) are working hard to foment a coup in Equitorial Guinea (which could soon be Africa's third largest oil producer). Answer: Hubbert's Peak.
Mardle makes some plausible speculations about what actually went on at Cheney's secret energy task force. Of course Cheney & friends knew about the coming peak of global oil production! Mardle observes:
Mardle makes some plausible speculations about what actually went on at Cheney's secret energy task force. Of course Cheney & friends knew about the coming peak of global oil production! Mardle observes:
The concept that there is no longer a tap we can open a bit more every time we need more oil, is never addressed for a moment in mainstream media, but [were someone to suggest] that the available amounts of oil are now shrinking, and will never again reach current levels; that will start a major panic . . . imagine you are the President and your energy task force comes to tell you the effect of oil at a realistic price and the fact that within your term of office, oil production will fall, not rise, and keep on falling forever. The age of business growth is over, the security implications for the west in being dependent on a resource that is in the hands of people who are not necessarily well disposed, and in some cases outright hostile, and you have, in the words of Apollo 13, a problem.Mardle connects a lot of dots! But I take exception to what he appears to conclude: that the current U.S. actions somehow increase the energy security of the U.S. oil supply! There are lots of things that the U.S. could do -- politically feasible things with the right kind of leadership (e.g., a crash conservation program) -- that would be more effective national security moves. But Cheney's men were hammer men, and no solution was acceptable to them that did not put pounding nails front and center.
Comments:
I've been curious about the silence about Hubbert's Peak since I saw Kenneth Deffeyes' persuasive talk about it at a workshop last April.
However, there was a piece on oil production on NPR in the past week or so. It presented Hubbert's original prediction of peak production in the 1970's, followed by unspecified references to predictions of production peaking in 30 or 40 years, and then, finally, a short mention of Ken Deffeyes prediction of the peak of production around Thanksgiving, 2005.
This kind of news article implies that the data are too scattered to make a judgement about a reasonable and rational prediction for peak oil production. It reminds me of the ongoing discussion of climate change, except that, today, most people accept the fact that the climate is changing. It's going to take some time for us to just take in the fact of peaking production. Isen is so right; leadership is required.
However, there was a piece on oil production on NPR in the past week or so. It presented Hubbert's original prediction of peak production in the 1970's, followed by unspecified references to predictions of production peaking in 30 or 40 years, and then, finally, a short mention of Ken Deffeyes prediction of the peak of production around Thanksgiving, 2005.
This kind of news article implies that the data are too scattered to make a judgement about a reasonable and rational prediction for peak oil production. It reminds me of the ongoing discussion of climate change, except that, today, most people accept the fact that the climate is changing. It's going to take some time for us to just take in the fact of peaking production. Isen is so right; leadership is required.
I believe Hubbert predicted, back in the late 1940's or early '50's, that U.S. peak oil would occur between 1966 and 1972. It did in fact peak in 1970. I don't recall what his exact prediction was for world peak oil, but I think that it was sometime around 2000. Others, using his methods, have predicted that it will occur before the end of this decade, and some say it will be this year or next.
I heard Richard Heinberg speak persuasively on the subject at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Wisconsin in June. Heinberg wrote the book "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies," which I read after hearing him speak. He says that not only will oil production decline irreversibly, and soon, but that none of the alternatives--coal, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, or hydrogen (not really an energy source, anyway)--will come close to keeping our energy-guzzling society going in its current form.
I heard Richard Heinberg speak persuasively on the subject at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair in Wisconsin in June. Heinberg wrote the book "The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies," which I read after hearing him speak. He says that not only will oil production decline irreversibly, and soon, but that none of the alternatives--coal, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, or hydrogen (not really an energy source, anyway)--will come close to keeping our energy-guzzling society going in its current form.
There's a fascinating artice, 'Is 'Peak Oil' A Scam? Oil Fields Are Re-Filling Naturally And Rapidly', on the 'Current News You Need To Know' page at SurvivalistSkills.Com.
Makes for interesting reading!
Makes for interesting reading!
# posted by 
: 5/06/2005 3:53 PM
: 5/06/2005 3:53 PM
Peak is b.s. John D. Rockefeller Sr. made it up in the 1870s. He knew it would never run out, wasn't biogenic in origin, where it really came from -- the mantle of the earth -- and from what. Rock.
That's why he made up that name. (Also, it reps Reich Fuhrer: Reich is Empire, Freyr is a Norse God, noted for having a huge Fertility derrick.
Peak oil is gross; heinberg is a pig whose father was an industrial chemist.
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That's why he made up that name. (Also, it reps Reich Fuhrer: Reich is Empire, Freyr is a Norse God, noted for having a huge Fertility derrick.
Peak oil is gross; heinberg is a pig whose father was an industrial chemist.
# posted by : 5/29/2005 10:16 AM
: 5/29/2005 10:16 AM
