[Peakoil] letter published in Canberra Times today

[Jenny Goldie]

Tom Stayner (letters, April 29) is right to call on our leaders to stop talking and start building light rail in Canberra, for all the reasons he cites. 

The bottom line, of course, is that oil products - including diesel to run buses - will becoming increasingly expensive. Currently, we are on a plateau in supply with even the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) admitting that since 2005, global crude oil production has been trapped below a ceiling of 74 mbpd (million barrels per day). Production from new fields and new discoveries have not been at a rate fast enough to overcome declines from existing fields. 

If demand increases while supply stalls, prices increase. Given that oil supplies 95 per cent of our current transport needs, we have to think differently about getting around. Many biofuels compete with food crops and should not be considered on a large scale. Other biofuels, such as from algae, are simply not up to scale yet. Electrified transport is really the only viable option at this stage, providing more effort is put into producing the electricity from renewables rather than coal to minimise greenhouse emissions. 

The ACT Government could off-set the costs of light-rail by increasing densities along its route(s). While we may need suburbia in the near future to produce food for people in Canberra, nevertheless, there if a case for densification along transport routes in order to encourage people onto public transport and out of their cars unless, of course, the cars too are electric. 

Jenny Goldie
President
ACT Peak Oil
Michelago  NSW  2620