[Peakoil] Scientists' warnings unheeded

[Antony Barry]

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20870561-3122,00.html


Scientists' warnings unheeded

James McCausland

December 04, 2006 11:00pm
Article from: The Courier-Mail

IN 1973, the Arab oil-producing nations convulsed most of the world  
by tightening the spigots on their wells and sharply reducing  
production.
Corporations, and nations including Japan, went into crisis mode and  
many started to think of ways to lessen their reliance on petroleum  
products.

As the after-shock waves began to subside and black gold started to  
flow again, most enterprises kicked petroleum replacement well down  
the agenda.

Yet there were further signs of the desperate measures individuals  
would take to ensure mobility. A couple of oil strikes that hit many  
pumps revealed the ferocity with which Australians would defend their  
right to fill a tank. Long queues formed at the stations with petrol  
– and anyone who tried to sneak ahead in the queue met raw violence.

A couple of years later, George Miller conceived the scenario for Mad  
Max. Max (a very young Mel Gibson) was the antihero out on roads that  
had become battlefields where the prize was fuel. Society had  
corroded as a result of the reduction of supply and the rule of law  
deteriorated into chaos.Res Publica, put out by the Centre for  
Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of  
Melbourne.Mad Max may have been a fantasy with apocalyptic overtones,  
keep an eye out on the road for people in leather jackets and souped- 
up cars chasing bike gangs – with the price being a few hundred  
litres of petrol.

George and I wrote the script based on the thesis that people would  
do almost anything to keep vehicles moving and the assumption that  
nations would not consider the huge costs of providing infrastructure  
for alternative energy until it was too late.

Sure, it contained a large element of geeks' own adventures; but at  
its core was a sizeable kernel of truth. That kernel has taken root,  
and it's called peak oil.

When an oil well is discovered, it is at peak production until it  
reaches about 50 per cent of its total output. After this, the  
remaining half becomes more difficult to extract – and much more  
expensive – as the ratio of water to oil expands. Ultimately the well  
is abandoned and the search for a new well begins.

Easier said than done.

According to many experts, the discovery of oil fields worthy of the  
name reached it zenith in the middle of the 1960s. As a consequence,  
consumption of oil is already outpacing reserves.

Peter Newman, professor in city policy and director of the Institute  
of Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdoch University, points  
out that the US now imports half of its oil needs. The price tag for  
the first 10 months of 2005 was $US144 billion ($A185 billion), up 32  
per cent on the previous year.

Much of this can be attributed to the rapidly rising price of oil;  
but he posits the possibility that the underlying reason may be that  
the world oil production peak is occurring right now. At any rate,  
with reserves growing much more slowly than consumption, a peak in  
global oil production is inevitable

Professor Newman published his paper in

He quotes C.J. Campbell, an oil geophysicist and founder of the  
Association for the Study of Peak Oil, as claiming that conventional  
oil peaked in 2004 and all oil liquids will peak in 2010

: "The real point is not so much the exact date of peak but . . .  
that the first half of the oil age, which was characterised by  
growing production, is about to be followed by the second half when  
oil production is set to decline with all that depends upon it. On  
that at least we can stand firm."

Professor Newman argues that global oil seems to be at full capacity,  
and that that level may hold for a few years before the inevitable  
downward spiral.

To make gloomy matters grimmer. this is happening at a time when the  
previously dormant economies of the global economy's behemoths, China  
and India, are growing exponentially. China is now the world's second- 
biggest consumer of oil.

Of course, there are sceptics: those who believe something will turn  
up to mitigate the problem.

Professor Newman is hearing none of this. He quotes BP Exploration  
manager Richard Miller. "This is the classical economist's view;  
something will turn up, when the price of oil is high enough, because  
something always does. But there isn't anything conceivable that  
could replace conventional oil in the same quantities or energy  
densities at any meaningful price. We can't mine the oil sands in  
sufficient quantity because there isn't enough water to process them.  
We can't grow bio-fuels because there would be no land left to grow  
food. Solar, hydro, wind and geothermal don't yield enough energy,  
hydrogen (from water) takes more energy to make than it can yield,  
and nuclear fission and fusion are presently off most political  
agendas. When oil gets too expensive, surviving Americans will still  
obtain energy from alternative sources, but in much smaller amounts  
and at much higher prices."

One of the pernicious problems about peaking is that we will only be  
able to identify the problem after it has occurred. So preparing for  
alternatives has to be well under way years before the peak is reached.

So if we don't recognise the problem well in advance, a disaster of  
unforeseen magnitude could befall us.

Last year a report prepared for the US Department of Energy spelled  
it out in terms that could be plucked from Armageddon. "The world has  
never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than  
a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not  
be temporary. Previous energy transitions were gradual and  
evolutionary. Oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."

The sombre fact is that no matter how dramatic the consequences, it  
is difficult to get anyone excited to the point of taking action.


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