[Peakoil] The needs of global warming trump peak oil

[Antony Broughton Barry]

Folks

Over a decade ago I realized there were a number of existential threats facing human society and found a rich literature supporting this view with an added worry that many of them had likely impact within the next few decades or current century. The most immediate seemed to be resource depletion and the most significant resource under threat was crude oil, thence my interest in peak oil and my involvement in this movement. I am now considering that I was mistaken. Let me explain.

I had thought initially that as easy oil was extracted and more difficult sources utilized prices would rise to cover the higher extraction cost and supply and demand would do its thing and the economy would get progressively squeezed leading to a global depression with a risk of collapse. 

Fracking and a shift to gas has delayed the peak and cycles in the economy disguised what is happening but other things have also been happening mostly in relation to awareness of the need to respond to global warming and the consequent need to get out of fossil fuels. 

In no particular order a list of trends which indicate a concern for our vulnerability to difficulties with oil supply -

* Europe and the U.S. have set vehicular fuel standards to increase fuel efficiency. 

* In developed countries we have reach "peak car" in the kilometers driven has peaked and may be in decline.

* Demand for oil has dropped as a consequence so prices have dropped even though oil is being extracted from expensive places.

* Every major car manufacturer is developing electric models although Toyota is still trying fuel cells. Major firms like Google and Apple are eyeing this market and startups like Tesla plan to be a major player. They are not stupid. An electric car doesn't need a transmission , a cooling system, oil changes or much servicing. What it does need is cheap batteries and the IC engine is toast

* Batteries are declining in cost by 14%pa

* Best estimates for us to survive global warming give us a carbon budget of how much of the fossil fuels we can burn. These estimates would leave most of it in the ground _including_ most crude oil.

Where does that leave us?

* We are going to have to cut our oil use before the peak hits to cut global warming. Our need to react to oil depletion is trumped by the greater need to protect the climate

* The objective of the Peak Oil movement to alert society to the need to adapt to the certainty of scarcity of oil in the future is now overtaken by the need to tell people to stop burning the stuff to protect the climate.

In summary to cope with the threat of climate change we have to get out of oil. Rather than our oil use being restricted by supply constraints our demand must reduce faster than supply might drop. 

Peak oil has become a second order problem.

The first order problem is global warming and first we need to get out of fossil fuels as fast as we can so it won't get worse, and secondly plan to adapt to a new climate and a changing coastline. Even if we restrict to 2 degrees every port on the planet will need to be rebuilt and tens if not hundreds of millions of people displaced from their homes. 

The next thousand years will be hard.

Comments?

Tony