Guardian Utd (April 21): The end of oil is closer than you think

[Jack Rabbit]

EDITED to fix link

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Thursday April 21

The end of oil is closer than you think
Oil production could peak next year. Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye
By John Vidal

The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner. But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age.
They called Colin Campbell, who helped to found the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre because he is an industry man through and through, has no financial agenda and has spent most of a lifetime on the front line of oil exploration on three continents. He was chief geologist for Amoco, a vice-president of Fina, and has worked for BP, Texaco, Shell, ChevronTexaco and Exxon in a dozen different countries.

"Don't worry about oil running out; it won't for very many years," the Oxford PhD told the bankers in a message that he will repeat to businessmen, academics and investment analysts at a conference in Edinburgh next week. "The issue is the long downward slope that opens on the other side of peak production. Oil and gas dominate our lives, and their decline will change the world in radical and unpredictable ways," he says.

Campbell reckons global peak production of conventional oil - the kind associated with gushing oil wells - is approaching fast, perhaps even next year. His calculations are based on historical and present production data, published reserves and discoveries of companies and governments, estimates of reserves lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, speeches by oil chiefs and a deep knowledge of how the industry works.

Read more.

[acmejack]

1. Guardian Link

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Fixed in the root post

Thanks.

[mhr]

2. Related - Clarion Call On Peak Oil By Matthew Simmons

Matthew Simmons is an energy banker and served on the Cheney energy panel in 2001. He is as well connected as they come.

The following link is to his latest presentation on Peak Oil.

The bottom line: the world has no more room for guesswork and needs to act now!

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/Boston%20Committee%20on%20Foreign%20Relations.pdf

[IrateCitizen]

4. Good article -- eye opening, but not too overwhelming.

I've read other stuff -- like Kunstler's "Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles" and www.aftertheoilcrash.net -- which hits you like a sledgehammer. This article is much better to share with others who might be a bit skeptical or unwilling to believe.

Recommended for greatest page as well.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Peak oil has been one of those things that I have "known about"

but "ignored" since my "Geology 101 - Dummy Survey of Geology for Engineers who are not Civil Engrs, Mining Engrs, or Pet Engineers".

I tend to think that Colin Campbell and Ken Deffeyes are right - as we descend the downslope - there are still "petroleums" there - all of which have a much lower "Energy Recovered/Energy Expended" ratio - just in terms of dollars and BTUs. And when you figure in the environmental costs --- scary.

But all that means is that we won't hit Kunstler's proverbial "brick wall."

What we will see--->

1. Operating a passenger car will become more and expensive.
2. Buying a detached house in the remote suburbs on 1/4 acre will make even less sense then it does today; vast "country club" office parks will be insane. --> WE WILL GO BACK TO URBAN COMMUNITIES THAT WE ABANDONED.
3. Organic chemicals won't be that much more expensive because the cost of the petroleum is typically under 5% of the cost of the finished article.
4. Agriculture and food distribution are interesting.

a) Nowithstanding our nostalgia for the "family farm" of yore -- they were wasteful and inefficient.
b) I see factory farms growing genetically modified "Frankenfoods" under some kind of "hydroponic" conditions, that are then preserved by irradiation to withstand long, slow journeys to consumers.
c) Most of the agricultural chemicals are nitrogen based and ammonia (NH4OH) - no carbon, the hydrogen can come from elsewhere then petroleum, the "energy" can come from anything that pumps coulombs of electrons at some voltage above "ground."

5. Electricity. Coulombs and volts are transparent - coal, oil, natural gas, geothermal, hydro, photovoltaic, nuclear, Sabbatier-Peltier, whatever. I would bet on nuclear.

And, it doesn't "take petroleum" to fabricate the wonders of our civilization. If you follow the links and footnotes in the serious studies that conclude "it takes petroleum to fabricate the wonders of our modern civilization" - what the links and footnotes and charts and graphs say is "it takes ELECTRICITY to fabricate the wonders of our modern civilization - and most of that electricity comes from fossil fuels - which have heretofore been the cheapest and most convenient way to generate electricity." "Cheapest and most convenient" does not mean "only."

I think we will see major dislocations, and we will see major changes in how we live and work, and even more major changes in our "logistics" (how we move people and goods).

But society will not collapse -- and we will not see civil war in the streets along new fault lines (the old fault lines of choice, gay rights, medical marijuana, etc., - more likely then over energy or transportation)

But I do not see a Malthusian disaster or a Kunstler disaster.