"It’s enough to make certain people want to pack up their belongings and move up into the mountains. Dunlap has some advice for them too: “My advice is to practice first. You are not Grizzly Adams and this is not Little House on the Prairie.”
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The Scenario: The world has effectively run out of oil – the cheap, easy to produce kind that is. The price of oil has risen so high that the average family can no longer afford to fill their cars up with gas. Our roads lay empty. The machines that produce our goods run on oil that is too expensive to buy, so the products we are all used to buying – from packaged food to clothes to video games – are no longer being seriously manufactured and those that do exist cost a small fortune. Our nation is in virtual shock, attempting to adjust to this new lifestyle. The economy comes to a halt and millions lose their jobs. Rumours abound that our allies are preparing to go to war to get more of the black stuff that has ground our way of life to a halt.
The Likelihood: “The important thing to note, is that nobody, (with a few fringe exceptions), claim Peak Oil won't happen,” PeakOil.com administrator Aaron Dunlap says. “We argue about when it will happen.”
Dunlap is a technology consultant and an energy news publisher who lives in Houston, Texas. He is also one of the people that helps to run PeakOil.com – a website that provides anyone who is interested in learning more about the decline of oil with information on that very subject. For the past few years, Dunlap has been educating himself and others on the impact of what he believes is the inevitable – the end of the oil age as we know it.
Not that everyone is as strong a believer as he is. “The problem with hydrocarbon depletion issues like Peak Oil, is that the sound byte describing it is more than 15 seconds long,” he explains. “As unsettling as it is, this ‘seconds long’ barrier to understanding prevents many from ‘getting it’. It is perhaps the most important issue on our radar save none. If the thoughts and predictions of some very well informed, serious scientists are correct... we have a problem which overshadows almost everything else.”
Everyone is wary of the rising price of gas at the pump, and some probably even showed some concern over the historic and record high price of oil a few weeks ago (nearly $60 US a barrel). We all know that oil is a finite resource, in that it cannot be pumped from the ground for eternity. At some point, the pumps will have nothing left to pump and the world will no longer have what has somehow become our most important resource. Some believe when that day comes, the end of modern civilization will be nigh.
Dunlap takes the more educated view. “Peak oil does not speak to the ‘End of Oil’,” he explains patiently. “We probably will never see the actual last barrel. Peak oil is about the halfway point.” Which is where he says we are right now and if not now, then very, very soon. Author Ken Deffeyes wrote in his book Beyond Oil that the world will reach this point on Thanksgiving 2005. Others say we surpassed the point of Peak Oil years ago.
So what, exactly, is Peak Oil? Perhaps PeakOil.com’s main page explains it best: “Peak oil theory states: that any finite resource, (including oil), will have a beginning, a middle, and an end of production, and at some point it will reach a level of maximum output.
"Oil production typically follows a bell shaped curve when charted on a graph, with the peak of production occurring when approximately half of the oil has been extracted. With some exceptions, this holds true for a single well, a whole field, an entire region, and presumably the world. The underlying reasons are many and beyond the scope of this primer, suffice to say that oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract as a field ages past the mid-point of its life.”
The page goes on to list some sobering statistics: “The amount of oil discovered in the US has dropped since the late 1930s. 40 years later, US oil production had peaked, and has fallen ever since. World discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s, and has declined since then. If the 40 year cycle seen in the US holds true for world oil production, that puts global peak oil production, right about now; after which oil becomes less available, and more expensive. Today we consume around 6 times as much oil as we discover.”
Which is bad news no matter which way you roll the dice. The question on everyone’s mind is when Peak Oil will occur. The US Geologic Survey says 2030. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil says 2007. And then we have Ken Deffeyes who says it will happen in the fall of this year.
Aaron Dunlap suggests the actual date of Peak Oil might be less important than what is done before that point is reached. “Professor Deffey's point is perhaps even more ominous than peak oil itself. That there is a point in time preceding peak oil, where we lose the ability to steer clear of the most potent consequences of midpoint oil production; and that this happens long before the actual peak. A sobering thought.”
More sobering might be how casually the world is dealing with the oil problem. Plans to reduce emissions and find alternative energy sources have not even passed the debate stage. And the media still treat Peak Oil and its inevitable consequences like theories from doomsday theorists, despite the evidence from studies and scientific reports. In this day and age, Michael Jackson is a more pressing concern to the average North American than Peak Oil.
No surprise, says Dunlap. “The business as usual attitude is pervasive throughout our world. As my father likes to say, ‘what you are doing today, is most likely what you'll be doing tomorrow.’” So what happens when there is no tomorrow? What happens when suddenly, one day, our roads are empty and our neighbourhoods are divided as average citizens fight over a dwindling supply of personal resources?
There are all sorts of doomsday predictions about anarchy and nuclear war, but Dunlap warns against falling into that particular trap. “The problem with making predictions is that the further into the future you try and predict, the worse your predictions tend to be. Unexpected things can and do happen. This applies to predictions of Armageddon and to predictions of utopia. The real question here should be, 'Do nations fight over scarce resources?' A brief study of western civilization's history provides the answer. At the end of the day, I'm much more worried about how my fellow humans will react to oil depletion, than of depletion itself. Be aware of depletion. Be afraid of how our world will react to it.”
He elaborates: “Let me ask you a question. What sounds more reasonable to you: That humanity will band together like never before in history, and confront our collective energy challenges for the benefit of all humanity? Or that people & nations will compete with one another just like they always have throughout history, up to and including going to war against each other over resources?”
While you’re thinking about that, consider his next point: “The only possible argument against armed conflict developing, are those which suppose some oil substitute will emerge to replace oil and avert the consequences of peak oil. Oil is simply an amazing power source & manufacturing feedstock. So amazing in fact, that all other energy sources currently in use pale by comparison in every category.”
Dunlap says waiting for the magic bullet of a great and holy alternative energy source is probably not a productive exercise. “We can't even seem to make nuclear fission breeder programs work. Hydrogen takes more energy to produce that it delivers. All of solar & wind technologies can be rolled up in a tiny fraction of our global energy budget. It's not that these alternatives are bad energy sources; it's that oil is such a great source that by comparison they look bad.”
So what’s the average person to do to avoid this coming cataclysm? “This depends on your individual situation,” Dunlap says. “For the average person, I'd set a list of priorities: 1) Get out of debt. 2) Get out of debt. 3) Get out of debt. We won't be conserving or recycling our way out of this situation, and absent some new breakthrough in energy technology, we can expect economic consequences as oil prices climb higher & higher. If you feel the need to build a bunker and stockpile supplies go right ahead... but don't go into debt to do so.”
His advice for those planning to buy an SUV is equally as succinct: “Go right ahead. SUV's are not the problem.” If Aaron comes across as being a little bitter and jaded, well, maybe he is. He has done his homework and fully believes that Peak Oil is the inescapable destiny of our modern world. He says it was a hard lesson to learn, but favours having he knowledge of Peak Oil over his days as an ignorant daydreamer.
"If I gotta choose between this and the Matrix... I choose the Matrix," he says, quoting the popular movie. "As far as I'm concerned, Peak Oil should be headline news every day. And although I do miss my ignorance in some ways... you can't go home again."
Still, it is only natural for humankind to resist believing in something that affects them in so many negative ways. There are those who have made careers attempting to debunk Peak Oil. Perhaps they know something Aaron doesn’t, but Mr. Dunlap didn’t come to his position flippantly, either.
“It can be easy to dismiss some crackpot Internet conspiracy theories. But when noted geologists like Colin Campbell, investment bankers like Matt Simmons and oil insiders like T. Boone Pickens take this seriously... I'm all ears. Dr. Richard Smalley, Director of Rice University's Nano Technology Lab and winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering nanotubes & buckey balls, thinks Peak Oil is very real. Lee Raymond of Exxon thinks it's real. So does the US Department of Energy. Representative Bartlett thinks so too.” After hearing from sources like that, Dunlap came to his own educated opinion. “Peak oil is headed this way, and not a soul on Earth can hide from it.”
It’s enough to make certain people want to pack up their belongings and move up into the mountains. Dunlap has some advice for them too: “My advice is to practice first. You are not Grizzly Adams and this is not Little House on the Prairie.” As the end of this oil age approaches, he suggests you might want to think practically and pack light: “Bring a gun and a shovel... you'll need both.”
Fred Johns
somethingcool.ca |
