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TechnoratiIt's Official: The Era of Cheap Oil Is Over
Energy Department Changes Tune on Peak Oil
Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO) -- a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation. For those with the background to interpret its key statistical findings, the release of the IEO can provide a unique opportunity to gauge important shifts in global energy trends, much as reports of routine Communist Party functions in the party journal Pravda once provided America's Kremlin watchers with insights into changes in the Soviet Union's top leadership circle.
As it happens, the recent release of the 2009 IEO has provided energy watchers with a feast of significant revelations. By far the most significant disclosure: the IEO predicts a sharp drop in projected future world oil output (compared to previous expectations) and a corresponding increase in reliance on what are called "unconventional fuels" -- oil sands, ultra-deep oil, shale oil, and biofuels.
So here's the headline for you: For the first time, the well-respected Energy Information Administration appears to be joining with those experts who have long argued that the era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close. Almost as notable, when it comes to news, the 2009 report highlights Asia's insatiable demand for energy and suggests that China is moving ever closer to the point at which it will overtake the United States as the world's number one energy consumer. Clearly, a new era of cutthroat energy competition is upon us.
Peak Oil Becomes the New Norm
As recently as 2007, the IEO projected that the global production of conventional oil (the stuff that comes gushing out of the ground in liquid form) would reach 107.2 million barrels per day in 2030, a substantial increase from the 81.5 million barrels produced in 2006. Now, in 2009, the latest edition of the report has grimly dropped that projected 2030 figure to just 93.1 million barrels per day -- in future-output terms, an eye-popping decline of 14.1 million expected barrels per day.
Even when you add in the 2009 report's projection of a larger increase than once expected in the output of unconventional fuels, you still end up with a net projected decline of 11.1 million barrels per day in the global supply of liquid fuels (when compared to the IEO's soaring 2007 projected figures). What does this decline signify -- other than growing pessimism by energy experts when it comes to the international supply of petroleum liquids?
Very simply, it indicates that the usually optimistic analysts at the Department of Energy now believe global fuel supplies will simply not be able to keep pace with rising world energy demands. For years now, assorted petroleum geologists and other energy types have been warning that world oil output is approaching a maximum sustainable daily level -- a peak -- and will subsequently go into decline, possibly producing global economic chaos. Whatever the timing of the arrival of peak oil's actual peak, there is growing agreement that we have, at last, made it into peak-oil territory, if not yet to the moment of irreversible decline.
Until recently, Energy Information Administration officials scoffed at the notion that a peak in global oil output was imminent or that we should anticipate a contraction in the future availability of petroleum any time soon. "[We] expect conventional oil to peak closer to the middle than to the beginning of the 21st century," the 2004 IEO report stated emphatically.
Consistent with this view, the EIA reported one year later that global production would reach a staggering 122.2 million barrels per day in 2025, more than 50% above the 2002 level of 80.0 million barrels per day. This was about as close to an explicit rejection of peak oil that you could get from the EIA's experts.
Where Did All the Oil Go?
Now, let's turn back to the 2009 edition. In 2025, according to this new report, world liquids output, conventional and unconventional, will reach only a relatively dismal 101.1 million barrels per day. Worse yet, conventional oil output will be just 89.6 million barrels per day. In EIA terms, this is pure gloom and doom, about as deeply pessimistic when it comes to the world's future oil output capacity as you're likely to get.
The
agency's experts claim, however, that this will not prove quite the
challenge it might seem, because they have also revised downward their
projections of future energy demand. Back in 2005, they were
projecting world oil consumption in 2025 at 119.2 million barrels per
day, just below anticipated output at that time. This year -- and we
should all theoretically breathe a deep sigh of relief -- the report
projects that 2025 figure at only 101.1 million barrels per day,
conveniently just what the world is expected to produce at that time.
If this actually proves the case, then oil prices will presumably
remain within a manageable range.
In fact, however, the consumption part of this equation seems like the less reliable calculation, especially if economic growth continues at anything like its recent pace in China and India. Indeed, all evidence suggests that growth in these countries will resume its pre-crisis pace by the end of 2009 or early 2010. Under those circumstances, global oil demand will eventually outpace supply, driving up prices again and threatening recurring and potentially disastrous economic disorders -- possibly on the scale of the present global economic meltdown.
To have the slightest chance of averting such disasters means seeing a sharp rise in unconventional fuel output. Such fuels include Canadian oil sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy oil, deep-offshore oil, Arctic oil, shale oil, liquids derived from coal (coal-to-liquids or CTL), and biofuels. At present, these cumulatively constitute only about 4% of the world's liquid fuel supply but are expected to reach nearly 13% by 2030. All told, according to estimates in the new IEO report, unconventional liquid production will reach an estimated 13.4 million barrels per day in 2030, up from a projected 9.7 million barrels in the 2008 edition.
But for an expansion on this scale to occur, whole new industries will have to be created to manufacture such fuels at a cost of several trillion dollars. This undertaking, in turn, is provoking a wide-ranging debate over the environmental consequences of producing such fuels.
For example, any significant increase in biofuels use -- assuming such fuels were produced by chemical means rather than, as now, by cooking -- could substantially reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, actually slowing the tempo of future climate change. On the other hand, any increase in the production of Canadian oil sands, Venezuelan extra-heavy oil, and Rocky Mountain shale oil will entail energy-intensive activities at staggering levels, sure to emit vast amounts of CO2, which might more than cancel out any gains from the biofuels.
In addition, increased biofuels production risks the diversion of vast tracts of arable land from the crucial cultivation of basic food staples to the manufacture of transportation fuel. If, as is likely, oil prices continue to rise, expect it to be ever more attractive for farmers to grow more corn and other crops for eventual conversion to transportation fuels, which means rises in food costs that could price basics out of the range of the very poor, while stretching working families to the limit. As in May and June of 2008, when food riots spread across the planet in response to high food prices -- caused, in part, by the diversion of vast amounts of corn acreage to biofuel production -- this could well lead to mass unrest and mass starvation.
A Heavy Energy Footprint on the Planet
The geopolitical implications of this transformation could well be striking. Among other developments, the global clout of Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil -- all key producers of unconventional fuels -- is bound to be strengthened.
Canada is becoming increasingly important as the world's leading producer of oil sands, or bitumen -- a thick, gooey, viscous material that must be dug out of the ground and treated in various energy-intensive ways before it can be converted into synthetic petroleum fuel (synfuel). According to the IEO report, oil sands production, now at 1.3 million barrels a day and barely profitable, could hit the 4.4 million barrel mark (or even, according to the most optimistic scenarios, 6.5 million barrels) by 2030.
Given the IEA's new projections, this would represent an extraordinary addition to global energy supplies just when key sources of conventional oil in places like Mexico and the North Sea are expected to suffer severe declines. The extraction of oil sands, however, could prove a pollution disaster of the first order. For one thing, remarkable infusions of old-style energy are needed to extract this new energy, huge forest tracts would have to be cleared, and vast quantities of water used for the steam necessary to dislodge the buried goo (just as the equivalent of "peak water" may be arriving).
What this means is that the accelerated production of oil sands is sure to be linked to environmental despoliation, pollution, and global warming. There is considerable doubt that Canadian officials and the general public will, in the end, be willing to pay the economic and environmental price involved. In other words, whatever the IEA may project now, no one can know whether synfuels will really be available in the necessary quantities 15 or 20 years down the road.
Venezuela has long been an important source of crude oil for the United States, generating much of the revenue used by President Hugo Chávez to sustain his social experiments at home and an ambitious anti-American political agenda abroad. In the coming years, however, its production of conventional petroleum is expected to fall, leaving the country increasingly reliant on the exploitation of large deposits of bitumen in the eastern Orinoco River basin. Just to develop these "extra-heavy oil" deposits will require significant financial and energy investments and, as with Canadian oil sands, the environmental impact could be devastating. Nevertheless, successful development of these deposits could prove an economic bonanza for Venezuela.
The big winner in these grim energy sweepstakes, however, is likely to be Brazil. Already a major producer of ethanol, it is expected to see a huge increase in unconventional oil output once its new ultra-deep fields in the "subsalt" Campos and Santos basins come on-line. These are massive offshore oil deposits buried beneath thick layers of salt some 100 miles off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and several miles beneath the ocean's surface.
When the substantial technical challenges to exploiting these undersea fields are overcome, Brazil's output could soar by as much as three million barrels per day. By 2030, Brazil should be a major player in the world energy equation, having succeeded Venezuela as South America's leading petroleum producer.
New Powers, New Problems
The IEO report hints at other geopolitical changes occurring in the global energy landscape, especially an expected stunning increase in the share of the global energy supply consumed in Asia and a corresponding decline by the United States, Japan, and other "First World" powers. In 1990, the developing nations of Asia and the Middle East accounted for only 17% of world energy consumption; by 2030, that number, the report suggests, should reach 41%, matching that of the major First World powers.
All recent editions of the report have predicted that China would eventually overtake the United States as number one energy consumer. What's notable is how quickly the 2009 edition expects that to happen. The 2006 report had China assuming the leadership position in a 2026-2030 timeframe; in 2007, it was 2021-2024; in 2008, it was 2016-2020. This year, the EIA is projecting that China will overtake the United States between 2010 and 2014.
It's easy enough to overlook these shifting estimates, since the reports don't emphasize how they have changed from year to year. What they suggest, however, is that the United States will face ever fiercer competition from China in the global struggle to secure adequate supplies of energy to meet national needs.
Given what we have learned about the dwindling prospects for adequate future oil supplies, we are sure to face increased geopolitical competition and strife between the two countries in those few areas that are capable of producing additional quantities of oil (and undoubtedly genuine desperation among many other countries with far less resources and power).
And much else follows: As the world's leading energy consumer, Beijing will undoubtedly play a far more critical role in setting international energy policies and prices, undercutting the pivotal role long played by Washington. It is not hard to imagine, then, that major oil producers in the Middle East and Africa will see it as in their interest to deepen political and economic ties with China at the expense of the United States. China can also be expected to maintain close ties with oil providers like Iran and Sudan, no matter how this clashes with American foreign policy objectives.
At first glance, the International Energy Outlook for 2009 hardly looks different from previous editions: a tedious compendium of tables and text on global energy trends. Looked at another way, however, it trumpets the headlines of the future -- and their news is not comforting.
The global energy equation is changing rapidly, and with it is likely to come great power competition, economic peril, rising starvation, growing unrest, environmental disaster, and shrinking energy supplies, no matter what steps are taken. No doubt the 2010 edition of the report and those that follow will reveal far more, but the new trends in energy on the planet are already increasingly evident -- and unsettling.
43 Comments so far
Show All"Great power competition" = Dead Pastuns
USA is becoming a scorpion armadilla realizing China can withdraw the beast's feeding tube at any moment.
Nuclear bombs, the threat of annihilation is the USA's only strategy.
Anyone who is surprised by this hasn't been paying attention.
Michael T. Klare; “By far the most significant disclosure: the IEO predicts a sharp drop in projected future world oil output (compared to previous expectations) and a corresponding increase in reliance on what are called "unconventional fuels" -- oil sands, ultra-deep oil, shale oil, and biofuels.”
Producing usable energy from these sources is very expensive. For it to be profitable to exploit these sources then the cost of energy is also going to be very expensive. Note that the recent fall of energy prices forced America’s second largest producer of ethanol from corn, VeraSun, into bankruptcy where VeraSun’s ethanol plants were sold for half the cost of building them.
Michael T. Klare continues; “Very simply, it indicates that the usually optimistic analysts at the Department of Energy now believe global fuel supplies will simply not be able to keep pace with rising world energy demands. For years now, assorted petroleum geologists and other energy types have been warning that world oil output is approaching a maximum sustainable daily level -- a peak -- and will subsequently go into decline, possibly producing global economic chaos. Whatever the timing of the arrival of peak oil's actual peak, there is growing agreement that we have, at last, made it into peak-oil territory, if not yet to the moment of irreversible decline.”
From an earlier Michael T Klare article; “No other source of energy, including natural gas, nuclear power, biofuels, wind power, and solar power is currently capable of supplanting our oil and coal consumption, even if a decision is made to reduce their importance in our energy mix.”
Given these reality it is obvious that the solutions to future energy challenges lies on the other side of the energy equation; CONSERVATION!
The automobile, as the primary device for human land transportation, will no longer be viable in the very near future. Last year I watched “The Amazing Race” on CBS. The contestants were in Delhi India and had to travel to several different locations. The streets of Delhi were completely packed with bicycles, scooters, three wheeled scooters, cars and trucks. I have little doubt that nearly as much fuel was used waiting for traffic to move as was used for transportation. In most of America’s major metropolitan centers the exact same problem occurs, except the vehicles sitting still in the gridlock are gas guzzling SUV’s, full sized cars, trucks, minivans and 18 wheelers.
Secondly, as long as autos and trucks have gas pedals, brake pedals and steering wheels they are inherently unsafe. Every two years automobiles kill as many Americans as died in the Viet Nam War. In addition it is simply ludicrous to transport thousands of pounds of steel, glass and plastic to transport one or two people, finally pneumatic tires, when compared to steel wheels on rails are very energy inefficient. The rail company CSX boasts that it can transport one ton of cargo 423 miles on just one gallon of fuel in a an advertising campaign that is currently appearing on TV.
At our current levels of computing power, communication technology, motion detection capabilities, GPS capabilities, along with carbon fiber, titanium, Kevlar and other super strong component technologies a transportation system rebuilt from the ground up could reduce energy consumption for transportation by 80% or more.
First, by eliminating virtually all crashes the weight of cars could be reduced by more than half, to eliminate crashes the vehicle would need to be controlled by computers integrated with GPS, motion and range detectors, wireless communications and a locally centralized computing system that would balance traffic flow with the available routs. Placing the vehicles on light rails would make it much easier for the computerized control system, instead of using a steering system vehicles would be switched from rail, to rail, to rail to arrive at their chosen destination.
By employing state of the art materials like carbon fiber, titanium and Kevlar weight could then be reduced even more. Secondly, by eliminating gridlock stop and go driving, energy consumption could be reduced by nearly half again. By elimination crashes soccer moms would no longer think they needed giant SUVs to keep the family safe so the size of transportation vehicles could be greatly reduced and by eliminating pneumatic tires another significant reduction of energy consumption could be achieved.
Without the steering wheel brake and gas pedals people would no longer “drive” instead they would punch in the address they wanted to go to and the computerized navigation and switching system would do the rest, charting the quickest route while balancing with the larger picture of traffic flow. People would then be free to get a head start on their work, browse online catalogs while on the way to the mall, text their friends, surf the net watch TV or truly listen to music. Reducing the stress of driving would go a long way to reducing stress levels of the nation.
Similarly, huge savings of energy can be obtained with the decentralized implementation of solar, wind, micro-hydro and bio-energy. Unlike the supposedly highly skilled jobs in the automobile industry, most of which can be mastered in one half of a day, these new technologies will required new and complex sets of skills.
The real challenge facing the world is will we have the foresight to rebuild our societies from the ground up, or will we be doomed to fail by trying to salvage technologies that are obsolete?
I think we have to take all alternatives seriously. Thank you for the details. My aunt lives in Valparaiso, IN and she has to travel to Chicago every day because of the lack of jobs even in NW Indiana. You ideas would put the state back to life since I assume that most of IN is like the rural areas of VA.
We could end the drug war and bring hempseed oil for fuel into the market. There's also algae for oil, aka algoil, which is supposed to produce carbon neutral chemical equivalent of light sweet crude oil. Both plants would require localization and decentralization to improve the energy yields but both can be grown almost anywhere on the planet.
One caveat with those two plants are that because decentralization and localization will be needed, despite the enormous true green jobs they will generate, society will not agree to this overnight. A better idea is to stick to some conservation, improving fuel efficiency, and switching corn ethanol to switchgrass ethanol.
Observing Klare deconstruct the propaganda of the EIA is like a study guide on how Orwell's 1984 applies to our everyday lives. It will be both educational and amusing to observe the similar rationalizations and adjustments to economic forecasts in 2010 and 2011 used to 'splain both the continuing economic chaos and why "change we can believe in" is just around the corner.
Meanwhile Mitt Romney is polishing his SS collar pins, Sarah Palin is perfecting her upscale white trash image, and Newton the Gingrich is awaiting a spontaneous groundswell of Americans ready to get in touch with their inner religio-rascist-fascist to come and beg him to be their Feuhrer. May God deliver us from ourselves.
Poet
Poet, I really have to agree with you. What the republican party has devolved into is truly frighting. They will do anything to get back into power and to keep it. Every time the regain power they will push the country further to the right. They will suppress human rights, fight wars of choice, and increase the power of corporations over peoples lives. In my opinion they are a true fascist party.
Poet is absolutely right. That is the long-term Republican plan. But "They will suppress human rights, fight wars of choice, and increase the power of corporations over peoples lives." Sounds as much like the Dems as the Rs. Different rhetoric, different style, S.O.S.
He actually did a terrible job of debunking them. He sited a bunch of their new claims without bothering to debunk their obvious bogusness. He did this even while they just came out with their paper verifying that they were lying for years.
Oil sands are worth NIL energy. They'll actually require more energy to develop than they will be worth. They are an energy drain. Most of everything the EIA lists as being solutions are nonsolutions. He didn't bother to detail that, nor did he spend much energy in detailing the lie they've been telling for years, about oil lasting into the second half of the century; which any geologist worth his wheaties could have told you a decade ago, was VERY wrong, based on declining discovery as Hubbert predicted the US oil production decline.
Solar Energy by Heat Engine (aka Stirling Engine) in combination with parabolic mirrors, Wind turbines, Hydro Turbines... Those are the REAL energy solutions that across their lifetime will produce more energy than they cost to build. So, chase your tail with the EIA and the rest of this follower society? Or do the research and build your own wind turbine or Stirling engine... and establish your home in self sufficiency then prepare for the onslaught that is sure to follow as the establishment seeks to dissuade the masses from following you...
We have to stop grasping at straws- algae, solar, wind, micro-hydro, and bio-energy- even if they end up being viable on any kind of scale, none of these could replace but a tiny fraction of the fossil fuels we now use for transportation. We have to stop using our last hurrah of $$$ (Recovery Act funds) on new roads and multi-lane bridges. The Personal Transport Vehicle (CAR) is very soon going to be obsolete.
Hindsight is going to be SO painful!
Public rail is best transport mode,(airships?).
Yet, the mantra that Solar, Wind, etc. cannot replace the current poison fossil fuels is ignorance and propaganda.
American Scientific '08 Jan. $400 billion will get USA 69% electricity by 2050, this includes powering 40 (400?)million electric cars.
And this is only Solar electric, not including wind or tide.
People have been saying impossible for fifty years now only because they want it to be impossible.
My state is building the largest Photovoltaic array in the world and has plans for Green Smart DC grids.
The technology has existed for decades all that is needed is the will and finance.
Algae, solar, wind and transit aren't straws. Taken together, they could easily drive the world cost of energy cheaper, and soon. This would of course bankrupt quite a few OPEC countries and the dumbest oil companies too, but whatever. In hindsight we will say that these technological improvements were inevitable.
Future generations are going to look back at us and wonder "What were they thinking!"
We squandered precious oil reserves shipping "crap" all over the world in a folly called the Global Economy. All that energy wasted just so a few fat cats that ran large companies could make bigger short term profits. What a sad joke.
this is really funny...
"Venezuela has long been an important source of crude oil for the United States, generating much of the revenue used by President Hugo Chávez to sustain his social experiments at home."
i didn't know that cutting poverty in half in only 6 years and increasing literacy to 85% or higher was a "social experiment"
if you want to express your opinions to the author.
here is his contact info.
http://pawss.hampshire.edu/klare/
while we're busy promoting books, it's quite safe to say that this news is as old or older than the publication date of crossing the rubicon. 2004.
pay special attention to the correlation between peak oil and peak population growth. in other words, the effects of energy starvation on a greed-oriented consumer-driven population.
"the fifth revolution will come when we have spent the stores of coal and oil that have been accumulating in the earth during hundreds of millions of years .... it is to be hoped that before then other sources of energy will have been developed .... but without considering the detail (here), it is obvious that there will be a very great difference in ways of life .... whether a convenient substitute for the present fuels is found or not, there can be no doubt that there will have to be a great change is ways of life. this change may justly be called a revolution, but it differs from all the preceding ones in that there is no likelihood of its leading to increases of population, but even perhaps to the reverse." - sir charles galton darwin, 1952
"the earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite." - richard preston, 1994
one can go on. and i might.
and kivals, if you are out there today, a continuation from our discussion earlier in the week. and it's sad to see the reality being prepped and unfolding before our eyes:
- walter youngquiist, in 1999 wrote: world population will have to adjust to lesser food supplies by a reduction in population. pimentel and pimentel (1996) stated: "the nations of the world must develop a plan to reduce the global population from near 6 billion to about 2 billion. if humans do not control their numbers, nature will." because stopping and then turning around the freight train of population growth can only be done gradually, this is a project that should be started now (cohen 1995. if it is not done famine is likely to ensue.
that was written in 1999. now, we're up to about 6 and a half billion, and counting. then, we have this:
- "but when the above scenario seems inevitable, the elites will simply depopulate most of the planet with bioweapons, when the time comes, it will be the only logical solution to their problem. it's a first-strike tactic that leaves built-in infrastructure and other species in place and allows the elites to perpetuate their own genes into the foreeseable future."
jay hanson, "the 'longage of critters' problem"
meanwhiile, the american sheople continue to procreate in search of that 20 year tax credit, or the charm of being a grandparent.
Glad to see someone mention the role of population for a change. It doesn't get the press it should. We can cut consumptions but if we grow the population, we're nowhere since we can't grow oil.
Good points. I am no youngster and I have been aware of strategies for depopulation for decades. The more humane have advocated worldwide birth control and gradual depopulation, while the ruthless, reckless cretins on the right fought birth control for short-term political gains as well as for the advantages of surplus labor for the capitalists, knowing there would be a reckoning at some point, but hoping the burdens and horrors would fall on others or the descendants of others. And the past couple of decades have seen an incredible degree of accumulation and hoarding, by means more foul than fair, as if to create a clear demarcation between the haves and have-nots, or between the "deserving" and the "undeserving." Of course the common people have been kept divided by social issues and otherwise distracted so that they would offer little or no resistance until it would be too late to make much difference.
The latest Oil Watch Monthly that provides an extraordinary amount of very useful data is here, http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5416 and more than confirms Klare's assessment that we are at or have already passed Peak Oil. Klare doesn't come right out and say so, but the EIA's projections for the future amount to wishful thinking. We are also quickly approaching the point of Peak Energy as relates to fossil fuels. For ongoing close scutinization of energy issues, theoildrum.com is the place to visit. This years annual ASPO-USA conference to be held in Denver will be a doubleheader as ASPO-International will present its annual meeting at the same time at the same venue. Info about ASPO-USA and this years conference can be found here, http://aspo-usa.com/
Earlier this year, the IEA announced, subtly to be sure, the onset of Peak Oil. Now, we have the EIA saying in a similar manner the same thing. The US Empire's current wars and occupations are all about energy, as are all the torture and lies from BushCo and ObamaInc--indeed the whole direction of US Imperial policy is about trying to maintain the US Empire's using far more than its fair share while denying energy and infulence to its rivals. Most intelligent people can see that trying to do that is a losing proposition, with massive wastage of resources that could be put to much better use, not to mention all the mayhem and blowback that policy is generating.
"It is not hard to imagine, then, that major oil producers in the Middle East and Africa will see it as in their interest to deepen political and economic ties with China at the expense of the United States."
I'm confused...isn't the United States now a major oil producer in the Middle East? I thought that's what all the killing was for...
Seriously, we were given a garden, which we've just about trashed to completion...the only way forward is back...
"Very simply, it indicates that the usually optimistic analysts at the Department of Energy now believe global fuel supplies will simply not be able to keep pace with rising world energy demands."
What if world energy demands were to fall? No chance, huh?
Sex, pot and music don't require it...neither does gardening, beyond bodily and solar energy, of course...solar, as in from the actual sun to the actual leaf, with no panels or batteries or wires in between...the old fashioned way...water (needed for gardening, needed for almost every living thing) is an entirely different, and vital, subject...we all know, do we not, that industry is the obese elephant when it comes to resource consumption, and that the resources required for the survival of the entire human race (and the rest of this wondrous planet's plants and animals) are incredibly small in comparison...what it means, very simply, is living without the industrially manufactured and electrified shit to which we've become addicted...
Personally, I find your idea that music requires no energy to be quite absurd. I've had an acoustic guitar for 40 years and while I sometimes make a joyful sound when I actually hit 3 notes in a row, I find my talent amazingly limited. I need some good tunes now and again. They require electricity or batteries.
But think how good you might be if you practiced more because the TV, Radio, and other energy using pursuits were limited?? Just giving you a hard time, I'm addicted to the energy consuming entertainment as well to the detriment of developing other talents...
Maybe you could be one of the naked singer\dancers, while others play? Can you sing or dance? What about magic or juggling? Standup comedy? Storytelling or acting? If Tom Cruise can do it...
There will, hopefully, be lots of sexual activity...how does that work for you?
"For those with the background to interpret its key statistical findings"
We should not need a background and we should not have to interpret the info. The info should be free, presented clearly, and placed above the garbage and noise. This particular set of shoulds is crucial as a foundation of a progressive society. We should think for ourselves is an extra should crucial for mass adoption of the whole set. But we should check out the 2010 model Range Rovers is the should that gets priority in the USA.
Too little oil? Or too many people?
Either way, the workable solution: vasectomies!
After two kids, I got mine. That puts our family's "population growth footprint" at zero. Europe's been doing it for years.
Human population is going to decline. Our only choice is the hard way or the easy way.
I don't know that the 'hard' way will do much to lower population...
Interesting that we have parallel debates...population and healthcare...how to resolve? If we were to forego 'modern' healthcare...more death? We all die...
I have not had a vasectomy, although my wife has 'firmly' suggested it as a way to avoid condoms...I have been told that it does NOT inhibit the libido...true?
Vasectomy = Vast yecch to me...(oh, that's bad...)
"increased biofuels production risks the diversion of vast tracts of arable land from the crucial cultivation of basic food staples"
Michael T. Klare at Tomdispatch is reinforcing a hidden assumption that we want to be and should remain tethered to the elite establishment controlling production. Perhaps Mr. Klare has invested his retirement savings in energy index funds.
Elite production of anything is going to be destructive. But local production of biofuels by small farmers is crucial to strengthening local economies, to help make local communities independent of the elite establishment. Widespread economic independence along with free information flow are the foundation of self-determination and fulfillment.
Small scale producers are more efficient than large scale and tend to do the right thing, such as embracing permaculture methods. The world is moving toward permaculture despite Tomdispatch's hidden propaganda.
Anybody with the slightest understanding of Biofuels knows that the direction is to use vegetation that can be harvested from "waste" ( not arable)lands or algae.
DRILL BABY DRILL!! LAY SOME PIPE WITH ME!! THat's what Sara Palin will run on in 2012. You get the picture ;)!
USA drills 15,000 oil wells in the USA each year just to maintain the current level of production.
The wars in the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent are directly attributable to our petroleum future.
Iraq with massive current reserves, Afghanistan as the key transit country for Central Asian Reserves, and Pakistan as the key transit point for oil and natural gas to China.
Pepe Escobar's "Pipelinestan" is more reality than fiction.
Pepe's writings have been featured in Tom Dispatch and Asian Times.
Very few Americans understand the significance of Guadar, the already built (by Chinese)oil port in Baluchistan. This port is not only a key node on the IPI pipleine that should run from the South Pars Gas Fields in Iran (massive) to the southern cities of Pakistan (i.e.Karachi) to India, but it is also a major link in the proposed pipelines, through the northern territories of Pakistan to China.
Once the "war" in Afghanistan comes under control - note the surge - we should see a resumption of the US pipeline through Herat, Kandahar, Quetta (Taliban Central) to Guadar
By keeping Iran on edge - nuclear threat or not - and by destabilizing the "Tribal Areas" of Pakistan, we can keep the Chinese in check..
We cannot afford to let world energy get out of western control ....
Meanwhile, we have saved the Saudi Economy through the manipulation of oil prices - they made massive profits by selling oil at up to $140 per barrel and further money by shorting the oil markets on the way down..
The past eight years may have been the creation of the secret Cheney Energy meetings when Bush took office.
The release of this info may be more revealing than we ever imagined.
population pressure is the biggest driver in the downward spiral. since chindia has embraced the deathstyle based upon fossil fuels the spiral will accelerate. china, as others stated, has been aggressively pursuing access to fossil fuels with just about every producer. they are a key factor in nothing much being done about darfur as they have an agreement with the sudanese government and as such do not wish to see anything get in their way. iran and venezuela have also started to dance with beijing. further beijing has internal population pressure issues which are exacerbated by the suppression of wages caused by the state-directed brand of capitalism. the poor in western china have travelled east to find work and discovered there isn't much there. this large pool of flexible labor has helped with the wage suppression. the same applies to india as well. suggest that you read klare's "resource wars" and "rising powers, shrinking planet".
as for comments regarding klare and alternative energy the issues are far more complex. do we have the ability to build electric powereds heavy construction equipment that can build and maintain roads? do we have the technology and economic ability to manufacture all of the materials that are derived from fossil fuels that makes our current deathstyle possible?
or will we learn that the deathstyle is unsustainable? that globalization is unsustainable? that population growth has a finite limit? the, as bill mckibben puts it, more=better as the basis for economy is unsustainable?
one doubts that we have learned.
but we will be forced to learn in a relatively short time. whether we want to or not.
Population has relatively little to do with oil consumption. The top five countries or territories in consumption per capita are: 1. Vigin islands 2.Gibralter 3.Dutch Antilles. 4)Singapore; 5 Qatar.
The United States is #23 with @69 bbl/day/1000 people and China is #144 with @5.8 bbl/day/1000 people.
Most energy consumption in China is coal, not petroleum.
As China modernizes, oil consumption will increase. It will have to increase more than 12 fold to catch up with the US.
Since China's population is not growing 12 times faster than the US, catching up will involve massive industrialization - not population increase.
But who can blame the Chinese peasant for wanting to use more oil to live a better life? They have an awful long way to go before they catch up with the US and Canada
Who needs fukkin oil anyway? Bikes don't need but a squirt on the chain once a week or so. Yes, I'm suggesting you ride a bike. I don't want to hear no excuses.
"Oh, but I live 36 miles from work". How lame. Either move closer to work, or work closer to (or at) home. No excuses!
And what, you want some lame intellectual 450 word post? Sorry. You have ADD and your butt is getting numb and FAT.
Your bike is calling you. Pump up those tires, dust off the saddle, oil that chain and ride that thang! NOW! DO IT!
And join the World Naked Bike Ride - photo top left of the CD Home Page
That's not too hard for me to do everyday. Of course, I live in NYC and 1 mile away from work. Your mileage may vary though.
You only live 1 mile from work? That's only about 2,000 steps. They say for optimum health you need to take 10,000 steps per day.
I once read about a guy who trained for climbing Mount Everest by walking to work every day. He never took an elevator, but always ran up the stairs.
My cousin tells me he lost "130 pounds".
I'm like "holy shit dude, I remember when you weighed 130 pounds! How'd you do it?" He told me he quit driving to work and started riding his bike. And he quit stopping at Micky D's for lunch.
He was once "supersized", and now he's super stud!
It's a simple equation.
Oil was never cheap; what we pay at the pump does not reflect, and has never reflected, the mountains of dollars spent on weapons and warfare, the rivers of Middle Eastern and rivulets of American blood, the oceans of tears, the wounded planet or the ruthless abuses of our client petrostates. And most of all, the price of gas has always covertly included the selling off of our claims to the moral high ground.
Excellent post...!
I was about to say the same thing in different words...
On the contrary, oil was cheap, in the "good old days". In the 50's and 60's it was what - about $1.82 /barrel. Out of that we gave our "colonies" in the Middle East about 12 cents /barrel. When they had the gall to attempt nationalisation of their oil, because they thought they were getting stiffed - they were, it was coup time. No wonder why they love us.
History is a wise teacher; our whole way of life, our very civilisation has always depended on cheap, plentiful oil. Those days are over. Most people just don't realise the impact and importance of oil. Just before WWII (1939 for the West, 1937 for the Far East) the U.S. produced some 70% of the world's oil, Venezuela was number 2 at 12%. The U.S. supplied 90% of Allied oil during the war. The two largest consumers of oil (not withstanding the tiny nations listed in one of the posts above) are Canada and the U.S.. The United States, having 5% of the world's population, consumes 25% of all world oil production. Fully 70% of this oil consumption is for transportation fuels (50% for gasoline alone).
There are no miracles on the horizon, no green answer whatsoever. There is nothing, nada, zip which can replace the oil we have come to know, love and eventually be cursed by. I could go on and on but, what is the point. 95% have no idea of the impact of oil and the problems we face due to it's eventual production decline. Don't be misled by grandioise targets of 100 million+ barrels/day production - it ain't going to happen. I'd love to see this kind of production but, I know better than to believe this "forecast".
The era of cheap oil was over as soon as our cheapskate President Reagan gave the seven sisters the green light to re-merge in 1982. Read the Tyranny of Oil by Antonia Juhasz.
WE DON'T NEED OIL FOR FUEL! Oil is only needed for lubrication (less than 1% of current use). We will be price gouged until we eliminate the Oil corporation free-for-all bribing of our politicians for war.
You're absolutely right, we don't need oil for fuel.
I might add, we don't need fuel. We have more than what we need bombarding the planet every *day*. If you spend too much time in it your skin will burn and blister. If you stare at it you'll go blind.
Bright goddamn star just 93 million miles from here.
Wonder how long it'll take 'em to notice it...
Americans have never paid the true cost of oil.
We subsidize the lower cost of oil by keeping standing armies in the major oil-producing areas in the Middle East, Northern and Western Africa, Indonesia, and South America - paid for by taxpayers (an increasingly regressive tax) - to ensure our access and control. We will, and have gone to war over this access and control and being a very warlike people (when your only tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail) who are quite willing to bomb brown or black folks for what they've got that we want - ethics and morality can easily be damned as 'naive'. The truly 'naive' are those who believe that problems can be solved by using drones to missile them.
And it will only get worse as China's demand for oil increases - which it does year by year (a staggering 20% in 2005 alone). Before long, we will be sacrificing far more blood for oil than we currently do. Then we will all see the real cost of oil.