The Peak Oil Crisis: After The Peak?

[4dsc]

http://www.fcnp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2015&Itemid=35

Now we all should know that this publication is probably read by those in DC and I wonder if anyone is taking the clues Whipple is dealing out here?? I see Mr Whipple is a fan of the Land-export model..


I am frequently asked “What is going to happen to us?” and the honest answer of course is we really don’t know in any detail. The world has never been to peak oil before and there are so many factors that will affect a world in oil depletion, it is difficult, or better yet nigh impossible, to paint a picture of what life will be like 10 or 20 years from now.

However, as we get closer to the times when the real troubles stemming from the decline in oil availability begin, a broad outline of what could happen is starting to emerge. Throw in some logical deductions and a fragmentary insight or two starts to emerge.

First the overall magnitude of a swift transition from oil and natural gas to other, less plentiful, forms of energy is almost certain to be a very big problem. Most commentators on life with diminishing supplies of oil conclude it will take decades to transition our lifestyles to those of a more sustainable civilization and that there are some very hard times ahead.

The implication here is that we are going to have rapidly falling oil and gas imports no matter what happens to world oil production. Indeed there is evidence that world oil exports are already falling and that the importers are starting to live off of their stockpiles — a situation that will not last for long.

If exports do start to drop, the U.S. will quickly become highly vulnerable. It is time to start thinking that five years from now we will be importing significantly less oil and gasoline than the 12 million barrels a day we currently import. For the sake of argument let’s say that by 2012 we can only find 9 million barrels a day to import — a not unreasonable proposition. Domestic production 5 years from now looks like it will be roughly the same or down a bit so we are going to have to do with less.

[GliderGuider]

1. There must be something in the air (besides rising CO2 levels)

I hadn't seen this article until just now. Tom Whipple is right, you can't predict in any detail what's going to happen ("Predictions are hard, especially about the future.") But some of the large influences are now obvious enough to support fairly broad conjectures. The five things I see impacting our civilization over the nest few decades are: the net oil export crisis, the debt crisis, Peak Oil, Peak Gas and climate change in about that order.

Lat night, before I even knew of Tom's piece I posted this in another thread:

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Over the last few years I have developed very strong and pessimistic opinions about how things are going to unfold, which is why I'm trying to be extra-cautious in doing the analysis. For instance I think the effects of small but sharp disruptions in the world energy supply (short oil supply disruptions and electrical grid crashes in various places) will trigger cascades of failures in our civilization due to its lack of resilience.

Just for kicks, here's how I really, in my heart of hearts, suspect things will go:

A Tale Told by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

1. In five years or so a sharp drop in world oil exports (the "net oil export crisis") will coincide with a destabilization the world's debt structure to trigger a global depression.

2. In ten years, dropping oil supplies (the onset of the real post-peak slide) will prevent recovery and will deepen the depression.

3. This is also when the decline of the industrial and transportation infrastructure will start to interfere with the build-out of nuclear, solar and wind power. That will continue to get worse over the following decades.

4. The decline of gas supplies in 15 years will hit the world's fertilizer market with skyrocketing prices. This will trigger a decline in crop yields in the developing world (they have little discretionary income to reallocate for agriculture).

5. In twenty years the effects of Climate Chaos will become severe, amplifying the effects of the fertilizer and agri-fuel crisis. Famines will be in full bloom in Africa and Asia. Food and fuel riots become commonplace, resource wars break out in the affected regions, and floods of economic migrations will reach Biblical proportions.

6. At about the same time the continuing global depression will combine with the final crash of oil exports to create the conditions for a series of very intense regional wars. The likely participants will be everybody with nukes except maybe South Africa. I doubt it will turn into a classic global holocaust, but it will wreck many parts of the world.

7. In 30 years everyone that's left will be hunkered down in small isolated communities, trying to remember how to farm by hand and store food over the winter with no refrigerators. There will be about four billion of us by then, and our numbers will be dropping fast.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. I have the same opinion about future...

I'm sure enough that I am currently actively searching for a commune/group-farm/farm-hand employment in the NW (cause when climate change really hits, we'll still be able to grow food here).
My family will be safest if we can get out of the city and find a place we can be self-sufficient. That's my plan. How I manage that while being flat broke is causing a bit of a hiccup... :(

[nannah]

3. that is pretty much what my family has done

we live and own land in rural wa; we have wood, game, water, and land for planting and growing.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. Do you mind if I ask what area?

I've been scanning the foreclosure listings, and pricing land from the CA/OR border north up to the Seattle area. The eastern side of Oregon is way too dry, but it looks like Southern Central WA might be a good place to look. What do you think?

[nannah]

5. i've lived and worked in the Grays Harbor, Pacific, Thurston and Mason county areas

since the mid 70's. So i am very partial to this area; i love the misty coastal areas; perhaps that's my irish heritage.