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malfoy100 that I was going to write about my encounter with Aphrodite tonight, but first I thought I'd check out the details of an upcoming conference on oil depletion I'd read about. And now I'm just not in the mood to be whimsical.
I'd heard before, of course, that global oil production is predicted to peak within the next three years (apparently US production peaked in 1971, UK in 1999, Russia is doing so now and Saudi Arabia will peak soon), but I've been too numb in the last few months to really take it in.
It feels odd to remember that when I was at school, the textbooks were saying that we would run out of oil in 30 years time. When you're 12, that's an unimaginable period. And then more reserves were found, and consumption made more efficient, and the oil depletion date was revised further and further into the future until economists (who think that finance is more real than physics) were starting to predict that it was never going to run out. Fools.
In 1997, I went to a Petroleum Economist-run course on the gas industry, at which we were shown a graph showing inexorably increasing gas consumption with the merest blips in 1979 and 1989 and challenged to come up with a reason for it not to continue. So I stuck my hand up and suggested environmental concerns, at which I was sneered at and asked, 'Do you really think people are going to give up their cars?'
I was refering more to potential international/government-mandated emissions limits than voluntary actions, but I still find it incredible that seemingly sane and intelligent people think we're going to have a choice about this.
It's often said that 'the market will take care of it': as oil prices rise, it will become economically feasible to exploit less accessible fields. True - but 'less accessible' means 'more expensive' in energy as well as finance - eventually more energy is needed to extract oil than would be gained by using it. But anyhow, the problem isn't that we'll run out of oil per se, but that global demand will outstrip supply. Soon. And even if we can avoid a series of bitter wars over what's left (and given the events of the last few years, does that seem likely?), life in an economy with rapidly increasing oil prices is going to be harsh.
For those who live to see it, that is. Our system of food production is heavily oil dependent - farming uses more petrochemical energy than it produces in food energy. Apparently it's been estimated that an oil-less world economy could feed 2 billion people. We're now getting on for 6.5 billion people. (I can remember when the 5 billion mark was crossed - which is in itself mind-boggling when you consider that in 1950 it was about 2.5 billion.)
After years of glacial progress on 'environmental' issues, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that people and governments will only take radical action in the face of crisis. I can't help thinking of that Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. And I am interested to see what will happen at the end of civilisation as we know it. But I'm also bloody scared.
Depletion Scotland: Oil Myths and Facts
Not so vast as our failure - Jeff Berg (At the beginning of the last century the U.S. was the greatest oil exporter in the world. ... Today the U.S. is both the largest importer of oil in the world as well as by far the largest debtor nation in the world. These two facts being not at all coincidental.)
Historical estimates of world population
Current world population
* Escapism will resume tomorrow *
malfoy100 that I was going to write about my encounter with Aphrodite tonight, but first I thought I'd check out the details of an upcoming conference on oil depletion I'd read about. And now I'm just not in the mood to be whimsical.I'd heard before, of course, that global oil production is predicted to peak within the next three years (apparently US production peaked in 1971, UK in 1999, Russia is doing so now and Saudi Arabia will peak soon), but I've been too numb in the last few months to really take it in.
It feels odd to remember that when I was at school, the textbooks were saying that we would run out of oil in 30 years time. When you're 12, that's an unimaginable period. And then more reserves were found, and consumption made more efficient, and the oil depletion date was revised further and further into the future until economists (who think that finance is more real than physics) were starting to predict that it was never going to run out. Fools.
In 1997, I went to a Petroleum Economist-run course on the gas industry, at which we were shown a graph showing inexorably increasing gas consumption with the merest blips in 1979 and 1989 and challenged to come up with a reason for it not to continue. So I stuck my hand up and suggested environmental concerns, at which I was sneered at and asked, 'Do you really think people are going to give up their cars?'
I was refering more to potential international/government-mandated emissions limits than voluntary actions, but I still find it incredible that seemingly sane and intelligent people think we're going to have a choice about this.
It's often said that 'the market will take care of it': as oil prices rise, it will become economically feasible to exploit less accessible fields. True - but 'less accessible' means 'more expensive' in energy as well as finance - eventually more energy is needed to extract oil than would be gained by using it. But anyhow, the problem isn't that we'll run out of oil per se, but that global demand will outstrip supply. Soon. And even if we can avoid a series of bitter wars over what's left (and given the events of the last few years, does that seem likely?), life in an economy with rapidly increasing oil prices is going to be harsh.
For those who live to see it, that is. Our system of food production is heavily oil dependent - farming uses more petrochemical energy than it produces in food energy. Apparently it's been estimated that an oil-less world economy could feed 2 billion people. We're now getting on for 6.5 billion people. (I can remember when the 5 billion mark was crossed - which is in itself mind-boggling when you consider that in 1950 it was about 2.5 billion.)
After years of glacial progress on 'environmental' issues, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that people and governments will only take radical action in the face of crisis. I can't help thinking of that Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. And I am interested to see what will happen at the end of civilisation as we know it. But I'm also bloody scared.
Depletion Scotland: Oil Myths and Facts
Not so vast as our failure - Jeff Berg (At the beginning of the last century the U.S. was the greatest oil exporter in the world. ... Today the U.S. is both the largest importer of oil in the world as well as by far the largest debtor nation in the world. These two facts being not at all coincidental.)
Historical estimates of world population
Current world population
* Escapism will resume tomorrow *
