The latest production data
analysis by the Oil Drum makes it clear that we are now at the peak of
oil production (about 85 mbbd or 30 bbby), and we can expect a rapid
drop-off over the next twenty years (back to about 60 mbbd, 1980s
levels, by 2030, but shared among almost twice as many humans as were
alive in 1980), and a radical and involuntary change to our way of
doing almost everything, as described in Jim Kunstler's Agenda.
There
are two things we can do in response to this. The first, which we are
already doing, is to try to stretch the peak out to a plateau.
The problem with this is that new production is increasingly expensive
to bring on-line. This isn't just a matter of throwing more money at
the problem. It's a matter of throwing more energy at it, as this chart shows:
The
amount of energy needed to produce each barrel of oil has increased
from the equivalent of 0.04 barrels at the start of the oil boom (when
we were busy converting our economy to be oil-powered) to over half
a barrel today. If this trend continues (and there is nothing to lead
us to believe it won't), by 2030 we will be using more than a barrel of
oil equivalent energy to produce every barrel of oil. If that sounds
crazy, it is, but consider this:
- The oil consortium building
the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline has acknowledged that their passion
for this project isn't to deliver more natural gas to consumers, but to
use the relatively clean natural gas (setting aside the potential
ecological disasters the Mackenzie Valley project promises for Canada's
Arctic) plus nuclear power to power the extraction machinery for Canada's eco-holocaust, the Alberta Tar Sands,
which are now being counted on by oil analysts to produce ten times the
volume of dirty oil (and environmental destruction) they are currently
producing, and which are already consuming vast amounts of energy and
water at current production levels.
- The Russian energy
department is proposing to build underwater nuclear plants to power
underwater deep-sea oil drilling platforms (reported on CBC radio news
today, report not yet online).
So to slake our insatiable
thirst for the liquid stuff, we're prepared to construct colossally
expensive and dangerous nukes and vulnerable gas pipelines through
fragile permafrost, to produce less energy than the projects that power them consume. Just so we can get it in a form we can dump in our gas tanks.
The
same folly lies behind the use of corn as a bio-fuel – it costs more
energy to grow, fertilize, harvest and convert corn into fuel than the
fuel that it produces gives us, but we're willing to do it because
we're utterly dependent on liquid hydrocarbons. How is this
economically viable? Because we the taxpayers are subsidizing it
(through agricultural and other subsidies, financing of wars to keep
the Middle East destabilized and oil prices artificially low, tax gifts
to rich corporations, and indemnifying the corporate plunderers
producing the oil from the costs and damages they are causing to our
environment). We are paying Big Oil and Big Agribusiness for the
privilege of letting them keep us addicted to liquid fuels and an
unsustainable way of life – for a little longer.
Eventually
the stress of this system will pass the breaking point, and the
combination of global warming disasters, skyrocketing prices, global
oil wars, ecological devastation and massive vulnerability to sabotage,
natural disasters and system breakdowns will catch up to us. Then the
plateau will end quickly, and it will be worse than just a normal curve
downslope – it will be like falling off a cliff.
The other thing
we can do, of course, is to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil. A
recent study suggests that corporations can, on average, reduce their
energy costs by four times the cost of the reduction programs. And most
citizens seem prepared to change if it can be done relatively
painlessly, or if it becomes too painful to continue to squander oil
(as the inverse correlations between SUV demand and oil prices
demonstrate). As Amory Lovins recently showed, government utilities can
actual save money by giving away compact fluorescent bulbs, and
replacing hot water tanks with European style instant hot water
dispensers could pay for itself in less than a year. George Monbiot's Heat has a hundred other viable ways to conserve.
But
the lack of political will to be a true leader, the first to make hard
decisions that neither corporatist campaign funders nor financially
struggling citizens will be too fond of, is evident everywhere,
especially in the most extravagant users of oil (North America), and in
the struggling nations of the world (notably Asia).
So we have a
choice: Stretch the End of Oil out a little longer, at tremendous
financial and ecological cost, and face an even worse and protracted
withdrawal crisis after that, or begin now to seriously change our
lifestyles, everything we do, our very way of thinking. Since it is
human nature to do only what we must when we must, this is not really a
choice at all. We will
continue our short-sighted attempts to put off the fall of the oil
economy until we are poised on the edge of the cliff with no way back.
Only then will we embrace conservation seriously.
It's going
to be ugly for our grandchildren. We're lucky we probably won't be
around to have to face up to them for what we've done.
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8:59:27 PM 
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
