The case against peak oil gloom and doom
In the wake of ever-rising petroleum prices, people are casting about for explanations and wondering what the future holds. While some say we can just increase production, the truth is that more and more of the remaining reserves of oil are in places where it is increasingly expensive to extract–such as the deep ocean or in countries that have suddenly discovered the use of oil as a political weapon.
Additionally, a new idea is gaining traction in mainstream consciousness: the concept of “peak oil.” Peak oil, roughly defined, is the idea that worldwide oil production will increase only up to the point at which we have extracted half of the Earth’s oil reserves. After that point arrives, production will begin to decline at an increasingly sharp rate despite our best efforts to maintain it, with potentially very serious consequences for a population with an ever-growing thirst for oil. The theory was first developed by Shell geologist Marion King Hubbert for predicting peak US oil production. It was later expanded to include world production as explained by Kenneth Deffeyes’ book, “Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert’s Peak.” Other publications have fueled the fire and have essentially validated the theory, including Matthew Simmons’ “Twlight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock And The World Economy;” The Department of Energy’s Hirsch Report urging the US to begin now in moving to alternative fuels to minimize the economic shocks of peak oil; and even the US Army Corps of Engineers’ report titled “Energy Trends And Implications for U.S. Army Installations.”
The big problems are that nobody can quite agree on when peak oil will occur, or on just how serious consequences will be when it does. Some experts like Deffeyes believe peak oil already occurred in late 2005, which they believe explains the current extreme oil price volatility and which makes it very late for beginning mitigation strategies. Other experts estimate its occurrence five, ten, twenty or more years in the future.
On the issue of consequences, the Hirsch Report and websites like Life After The Oil Crash (LATOC) and dieoff.org ring some very serious alarm bells. Republican Congressman Roscoe Bartlett has given presentations to Congress and others on peak oil, and has used information from the LATOC site. The websites essentially predict the collapse of modern civilization as it is quickly and increasingly cut off from its most precious resource, given that everything in our civilization from food growth and transport to plastics rely on petroleum. They believe we are already too late to save ourselves by switching to alternative energy sources that would in any event be inadequate to replace oil.
I’ve often wondered whether so-called peak oil “alarmists” were being overly pessimistic. The pessimism seems especially obvious in light of how amazingly quickly we are moving closer to an ethanol infrastructure as a result of higher oil prices. Other rays of hope are out there too, such as companies moving entirely to wind-powered energy.
The Peak Oil Debunked blog has published an excellent counter-argument to the peak oil pessimists that is well worth a read. While not denying the inevitability of peak oil, the main arguments are essentially that a) using less energy than we do now would not be catastrophic, given the huge amount of waste currently built into the system; b) we use oil for so much now only because its cheap and convenient, and when that is no longer true we will re-prioritize our energy use and make do with alternatives; c) the energy used to switch to alternative energy can be in the alternative of what we would use energy for, instead of on top of it (for example, we could build an electric train instead of a fuel-guzzling airport rather than creating both); and d) we need not find a single alternative to oil when multiple technologies together can fill the void.
The article is a great read, and I always appreciate challenges to established dogma.
Sphere: Related ContentTags: alternative-energy, deffeyes, Energy, hirsch-report, hubbert, markets, oil-crash, oil-prices, peak-oil, petroleum, saudi-arabia, US-Army-Corps-of-Engineers, us-department-of-energy, wind-power
I’m not nearly as well read on the matter of peak oil as you are, but if I understand the point you’re making here, you’re saying that we shouldn’t be too alarmed about the prospect of exhausting the extractable oil supply because alternatives are beginning to emerge.
If that’s the case, it reminds me of the kind of circular argument that surfaced about the Y2K problem. A lot of people point to the fact that we didn’t have a lot of calamity when the year 2000 arrived to say that the alarms were overstated. Of course, I’d argue that when you sound the alarm and people take action to prevent catastrophy, we would hope the logical outcome of that scenario is the avoidance of catastrophy. The fact that we didn’t have a Y2K meltdown should be perhaps seen that we responded to stave off the looming crisis rather than proof that there was no crisis in the first place.
The only thing that makes me hopeful that we will avoid the peak oil problem is that oil companies understand we will eventually extract all the crude oil there is to extract and their continued business depends on moving to new sources of energy. That they are responding by moving to alternatives should not be seen as proof that the problem is overstated but that we might for once be responding intelligently to head the crisis off at the pass.
I didn’t do a good job of expressing my own view on peak oil and what we should do about it.
My belief is that peak oil is imminent or close to it. We should do everything possible right now to get ourselves off our oil addiction and onto other more renewable sources of fuel. Not only is it good for the environment and good as a hedge against peak oil, but it is not in our national security interests to be so addicted to foreign oil.
If we don’t start now by implementing the recommendations in the Hirsch Report, and if we wait until peak has passed (as it will only be obvious it was peak in retrospect), the world economy will be in for some very serious pain as it attempts to deal with the shortfall. Ideally we should begin the movement to other energy sources 20 years before peak…and we are already less than 20 years away for all but the most optimistic peak estimates. In other words, I agree with you.
The reason I posted this article is because of the “what happens after peak oil” question. Folks like that LATOC website predict nothing short of the end of human civilization as we know it; as oil dries up, so does our ability to grow and transport food, transport ourselves, etc. Further, they argue that we are already too late to do anything, and that no alternative energy source can adequately compensate for our oil use. So essentially we are doomed. I have a lot of trouble believing that, though. I’m a big believer in the markets and the power of technology to provide answers ever more quickly as new inventions come to market. We are already seeing remarkable advances in ethanol production, extended battery storage, etc. Materials just around the corner like nanotubes will allow us to create much more powerful fuel cells, batteries, and solar cells than are possible today. The article I posted, then, was to say “ok the situation is bad..but not THAT bad” if that makes sense.
I hadn’t previously seen a counterargument to the peak oil “doomers”, which is why I found it interesting enough to post about.
(warning, nitpicking ahead)
“Peak Oil” is not a theory, is a fact, a phenomenon well known in the oil industry for years. What can be labeled as a theory is its timing and its effects, but that oil will peak is a fact like the suns rises every morning.
But don’t worry, even peak oil advocates get it wrong!