Oil peak lastest

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by bazman, Nov 22, 2005.

  1. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    Hi All

    We all know it, it's just when will it happen, this is taken from ABC news australia's website.

    Snip
    Association president Professor Kjell Aleklett says 54 out of the 65 major oil producing countries have already reached their peak production levels and supply could fail to meet demand between 2010 and 2020.

    "We personally think that 2010 is more likely than 2020 but when it comes to planning of energy issues, energy in the future and so on, this is a very short time and we must act now," he said.
    Snip
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/20 ... 513195.htm

    Some rading if your interested
    https://www.aspo-usa.com/
    If we were to list the most important issues facing humanity, resource depletion has to rank in the top three. And among the long list of dwindling resources, declining oil production presents us with one of the most significant challenges.

    https://www.peakoil.net/
    Kuwait Times: It was an incredible revelation last week that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field.

    Want to put in a big dam in the back yard, now might be the time to do it...

    Everything these days revolves around oil (well almost) but I can see things getting really messy as the big counties grab for whats left.

    What can I do, use less oil? well yeah i'm trying too, but I think planning for a future without it would be a better idea, getting a job close to home that does not rely on driving or oil based products, live close to public transport, so many industries rely on transport be it truck, ship, planes. many companies will be burnt due to total focus on transport or relying on it.

    I have been thinking how this would effect me and how I could develop a plan on how to live without it and how those industries that use it would effect me and my income.

    How many things these days use oil as a base element?
    Plastics
    Rubbers
    I can see many things around the house the and shed that would use oil somewhere in the production process.

    The mining industry including coal often need oil for running mining equipment and transport, most of Queenslands power comes from coal, I can see living costs going up and up, I think it could turn into a real mess.

    How would you fine people cope without oil?
     
  2. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Bazman,

    OOOOOOHHHH Deeeeep Topic!

    This was discussed a while back, I think in the wake of Hurrican Katrina and Nawlins getting flooded, but your post had a tone of urgency to it that post lacked.

    Oil is in everything. Plastics, rubber, clothes, everything.

    When oil runs out, there will be huge problems because the food system is so heavily dependent on oil, in biocides, fertilizers, transport costs, mechanization, etc, so there will be problems. That is why I hate biocides bacause they displace traditional food systems, and the foundation is so hollow.

    This was gone over, and I wrote long on it, so won't recap, but will say that we intend to grow oil crops, like oil palm, jatropha cucris, etc, and make biodiesel. And I think we would travel alot less, and then on sailing craft....

    The Old Order Mennonites have horse and buggies and basically, for whatever reason, stopped the clock sometime in the 19th century. They are very hard working, good business people, and scrupulously honest pacifists. There is so much I admire about them, but... I would not want to live that way, even though I respect and admire them, and I am not a Christian.

    Their work ethic is second to none. Unfortunately, being isolationist, they exist in Belize but also apart from Belize, and much of their agricultural practices are temperate climate centered.

    Their is a settlement near us, called Pine Hill, and they have raise dairy cattle, and, except for the palm trees, it looks like what I imagine pioneering days in Iowa looked like, rolling treeless hills with houses and horses.

    They have a 12 horse power saw mill, a band saw hooked up to a set of gears and axles, to a transmission, with clutch, and 12 horses. It ia my favorite post petroleum scavenge! They are masters of this type of thing.

    Will we all be able to live like that? I don't know. I know if I had to I could.... but I like my electricity... and my truck.... and I like being able to go places....

    We could do alot to reduce our impact, as they have.
     
  3. bjgnome

    bjgnome Junior Member

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    I think the thing to remember here is that we aren't just going to fall off a cliff in terms of global oil production. The Hubberts Peak is the top of a bell curve. We can expect, for the most part, that oil production will descend at a rate roughly equivalent to the rate that it ascended. In other words, it will be a long, slow descent. Production will fall off by, say 2% a year for the next 100 years.

    As a consumer its not so daunting to think of consuming 2% less each year. However, at a global economic level, contracting at 3% a year is a catastrophe. I have no doubt we are headed for a global depression far worse than anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes. And it won't go away until the current ecomic system is done for. Recent spike in gold prices in all currencies is a signal that there are very troubled waters ahead. Prepare now, or regret it.
     
  4. Jez

    Jez Junior Member

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    I feel the most for those people who have planned and saved all their lives thinking that their retirement fund will make ends meet because the cost of living will always remain fairly constant.

    The ones that have semi-retired to tiny little flats and units and no longer have any land whatsoever...whereas maybe they had 1/4 acre to do something in before they 'down-sized'...

    The ones that are going to be flooding talk-back radio and the letter sections of the newspaper a few years from now...hollering blue murder that it's $5 for a scungy iceburg lettuce, $5 for 1ltr of milk, $5 for a loaf of bread, crap cuts of meat are $30 a kilo and they can no longer afford to eat like they used to.

    That's until the supply of all the above inflated items becomes strictly limited because those who can afford it are loading up at the supermarket enough food for a month every week and stockpiling.

    Then things will really get ugly...

    These people have been so comprehensively misled by the system they've slaved for...I'm sure we all know plenty of 'em...damn it makes me sad to see so many basically decent people cheated so thoroughly.
     
  5. Caite

    Caite Junior Member

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    life after oil

    this seems to be a discussion had by many at the moment...one that has been discussed with varying intensity and depth for many years too...how will we live without oil and all the luxuries that it brings?

    i find myself often having discussions along these lines with friends...and am pretty much consistantly astonished at the issues raised in its light...or shaddow :wink:

    people talking obsessively about how to find ways to live without the oil giants...always trying to find alternative ways to suppliment current creature comforts...afraid even to step outside of existing comfort zones...or perceptual traps that our society has left our minds entrenched in...

    there will be those of us that dont survive without oil...different people have differing ideas of how many people the earth can support sustainably...in my ignorannce i believe that we currently have at least 6 times as many people as is sustainable...so no doubt we will witness an escalation in the numbers of people starving to death within our lifetimes...

    but humans are a bit like pigeons, or rats...were highly adaptive...so i also believe that we will adapt to whatever situation arises, be it in smaller numbers that the 6 plus billion that we currently are,...

    the solution to the oil crisis is perhaps one comparable to communism (the philosophy, not the russian / chinese practical political communism)...i belive that it will be through decentralisation that we survive,,,communities of people working togther with common goals to live closer to our own senses of humanity, the land, spirituality, community...

    i find it difficult to belive that we will find alternatives to many of the things that we now consider to be "vital" to our existance...rubber, latex, plastic, etc...as a species we have (and still do in many areas) existed without these things...sure, itd be great to have a red plastic bucket to soak your feet in...but hey, a ceramic one would do just fine...

    i believe that living and working and trading on a local level with those things that are practical will be how we survive the crash...relearning the wisdoms of our ancestors, relearning all the things that we have forgotton socially, including not only HOW to grow/build/survive physically, but how to share, care, give and receive with respect and without expected return...

    we live in an age of information. international resources from many cultures and many way of being and living in the world are practically at our fingertips...being amongst the most privelaged idividuals to have ever strolled on the earth...internet, books, radio...informed people travelling further afield than ever before with an ease unprecedented...planes trains and automobiles...

    we have access to this information...i guess its up to people like us to tapo into it...to trawl through the collective information of many different cultures and extract the best that we can...from spirulina farming in west africa, to mud and straw bail yurt construction in mongolia and everything inbetween...

    if we can gather what we see as progressive information while we still have easy access to this information, and live collectively in interactive ciommunities, then surely there will rarely be a problem or situation that cant be addressed with some element of collective imagination...

    so mayhap we will bid farewell to rainbow gumboots and cars that run 100km p/hour, to plastic bottles of water and seemingly endless energy for refrigerators and climate control...hello to all the imaginative solutions tht we will no doubtably try, fail, explore and succeed...memory fails me on the names of 'famous' people...the fellow that invented the light bulb once said something that struck a chord in me: 'i have not failed 10,000 times, but successfully found 10,000 ways that do not work'...

    so heres to us, to making the mistakes, to going back to the earth, to finding out how to live in ways that sustains our bodies our minds and our spirits
     
  6. Anissa

    Anissa Junior Member

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    If a couple of weeks at $1.40 a litre for petrol almost raised the interest rates, what will happen to interest rates when it gets to $3 a litre and keeps climbing. Fancy a $500k morgage st 18%?? Resession/depression to end them all!
     
  7. spritegal

    spritegal Junior Member

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    Great discussion

    I think we have failed though to take into account the developments in reneweble energy, hydrogen driven vehicles (limited by water availablility), and other technology not yet off the drawing board.

    I do agree that air travel will be phased out and that a lot more people will use the sea and the wind to transport commodities and travel anywhere. After all, with the sealevel rising, there will be far more sea real estate to go around.

    Aquaponics will be the way of the future because as sea level surface temperatures rise, oxygen availability to fish will become less, and that means less fish and far less marine life in general.

    There is an inverse relationship between gold and precious metals and consumer confidence and economic stability. But like all things, gold will only be of value if society believes it to be. Who says that in the future gold will be the main currency? Perhaps water will be the currency?

    The social changes I don't even want to think about, its in the too hard basket, but rest assured just because we are forward thinkers and self sufficient to a degree, it does not protect us from our greatest enemy: ourselves. Land (arable land) will become a priceless commodity, and those that hold it will have to devise strategies or communities to protect it from those that have little respect for it (the high consuming end of the population), and also from the government (of that day) (shades of Orwell's 1984)

    I'll leave the rest to your very vivid and laterally thinking imaginations.
     
  8. earthbound

    earthbound Junior Member

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    Hydrogen vehicles are not a viable alternative though....

    As was said previously, we are a resiliant adaptive species and we'll find ways to do things.. Was it in one of the mad max movies where they had all of the pigs in a room where they were collecting the methane..? During the war gassing off of woodchips was used to get farm and public transport vehicles around when there was no other fuel.

    It will be interesting times if any of us ever see any type of major colapse, a time when suddenly all these self sufficiency skills learnt over time will become invaluable.
     
  9. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    My thoughts in random order:

    First, hydrogen is not an energy source. It is an energy storage. Once you have a source to generate electricity, you can separate hydrogen from water via hydrolysis. Wind is the most effective answer, but to replace current thermal and nuclear plants with wind would take a huge investment. To replace current rates of oil used for transport with hydrogen derived from wind power is beyond the scope of the world economy.


    [​IMG]
    Next, I'm currently in Tokyo. As the photo shows, the city, which spills over the boundaries of Tokyo prefecture, has close to 30 million people and is nearly wall-to-wall buildings from Tokyo Bay to the mountains. Without oil, this city is screwed. Although there is an excellent train and subway system, most commercial tranport is via truck fleets. Should they replace that with the trains, and they could in part, they run into the problem of food. Most of the food is imported - Japan cannot feed itself - and what is grown domestically relies on petroleum to power farm machinery and of course natural gas to synthesise nitrogenous fertilisers.

    In other words, I do not want to be here post peak. Unfortunately, I and one of my friends are the only people in the nation that I know of talking about the problem (apart from the "Peak Oil Debunked" guy). When I do mention it to Japanese people, I come up against the quintessential Japanese debuttal: "Yes, but..." "Yes, but solar power." "Yes, but wind power." "Yes, but I don't have a car, so it won't affect me." It takes a long, long time to make them understand that they are about to be faced with radical change. Most people I talk to think I'm nuts, I suspect.

    To be totally honest, the media is talking about peak oil. Rather I should say the Nikkei Shimbun (newspaper) is busy pooh-poohing peak oil. Their latest was to repeat the claims of the abiotic oil hypothesis as hard fact: "Don't worry, there is an endless supply of oil beneath the earth's crust." I guess reality is too scary to face for the nation's media.

    My future is in Canada. With a passive solar home and a masonry stove, there will be nothing to fear from the Canadian winters. I hope to set up a collective strategy there whereby the community I'll live in can meet most of its needs together using a parecon structure. It looks like the pension system will be kaput, so we'll have to care for our own people when they need it (you won't retire if you've got something uselful left in you).

    Health care is a big concern. Treating minor ailments and even some chronic illnesses is relatively simple, inexpensive and highly effective (compared to conventional medicine) using "alternative" medicine. However, TCM, etc. is not very effective in treating compound fractures of the femur or in treating bacterial infection, to give two examples.

    I suspect a lot us the readers here are activists. If so, you likely have groups that you trust and are close to. If so, I think that one way to tackle the future is through collective strategies with these people. If you like them enough, you could form a coop to buy a block of degraded land, rehabilitate it, and build a cohousing community on it.
     
  10. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    Just look at what the USA has done to try and secure oil, and we have not yet hit oil peak, China has tried to buy up USA oil compnaies only to be stopped by the gov there.

    As soon as supply no longer meets demand, demand is what the counties with power will do, Chinas energy use is increasing at a massive rate so is most of the developing world, my thoughts are global economics will be left in a real mess.

    I have 25yrs left on my home loan, I really don't want to have to deal with 18-20% interest rates and no job, I see reducing my over heads as my main focus as the bank owns this land still, oh and developing my gardens and food/fuel sources.

    I have heard many people talk about other ways to fuel cars and trucks, if you look at how a car is made from development to the final product this takes years 4-5 years in some cases, and that is based on standard engineering, not new engine designs and fuel sources, if we are in a global down turn whos going to be buying new cars?

    I think the effect will be like letting a bowling ball roll down a hill, it's slow at first then it will speed up and becomes out of control.
     
  11. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    Look what the USA has done to secure oil???

    lol look at what Australia has done!

    Don't get me wrong..am not protecting any one country....but USA bashing is just too easy a game, when there's harder better targets :)

    :)
     
  12. heuristics

    heuristics Junior Member

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    Oil Peak latest

    Caught News Hour with Jim Lehrer on SBS TV last night – big news story was how GM is sacking 25,000 workers and closing a dozen or so plants.
    Then the interview turned to “hope for the future”. Yes, said Mr Expert-in-a Suit, GM shareholders could expect better returns in 2006 as GM's new SUV came on the market. (bigger, and fuel-hungrier than ever)
    OMG OMG OMG OMG.
     
  13. ejanea

    ejanea Junior Member

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    I have read all of these comments, with my head nodding in agreement.
    I have had such discussions with many people over the years.
    I am considered to be pretty extreme around here.... growing my own food, refusing to buy imported products and so on.
    When I actually explain to some people why I do it, I occasionally get some understading.

    Most of the time I get complete non-comprehension. I think that there are a lot of places in Australia where attitudes are like those of the Tokyo non comprehenders. Friends and acquaintances and relatives of mine who are "coffee shop trendies", well-heeled 4wd drivers, soap opera junkies or believers in the wonders of modern science (we'll solve it) are all part of the Australian community too. All good and well meaning people who wouldn't intentionally harm anyone, even pay money to support children in foreign countries, though they seem just the same as the Tokyo residents that Douglas J.E. Barnes has described.
     
  14. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    I shudder to think how some people are going to get their food. Six billion plus people? What were we thinking? I remember being shocked as a child to learn that there were 4 billion of us. Then it hit five. Then six. Now more than six. And when I tell people that I don't have children (a decision I made at age 9) because there are too many people already, they look at me like I'm crazy and try to explain to me how I am exempt from the problem.

    At any rate, we all know the gloom and doom side of the issue. But is there any upside?

    I look forward to regaining my sanity. As novelist Booth Tarkington said in 1900, "Within only two or three years, every one of you will have yielded to the horseless craze and be the boastful owner of a metal demon... Restfulness will have entirely disappeared from your lives; the quiet of the world is ending forever."

    I look forward to dancing a jig when I see the end of entities like Monsanto and Lockheed Martin.

    I look forward to an end of acid rain from motor vehicle emissions.

    I look forward to an end to pleasure boaters and their 500hp Mercurys. Oh, and let's not forget an end to the jet-ski person (see below).

    I look forward to air that does not give me fits of broncitis.

    I look forward to an end to comercialism.

    I look forward to the rebuilding of communities.

    I look forward to telling shallow people to shut up when they whinge about how they miss their "products."

    I look forward to teaching people how to cope with the new world they are in.



    Ode To A Jet-Ski Person

    Jet-ski person, selfish fink,
    May your silly jet-ski sink,
    May you hit a pile of rocks,
    Oh hoonish, summer, coastal pox.

    Noisy smoking, dickhead fool
    On your loathsome leisure tool,
    Give us all a jolly lark
    And sink beside a hungry shark.

    Scream as in its fangs you go,
    Your last attention-seeking show,
    While on the beach we all join in
    With 'Three cheers for the dorsal fin!'
     
  15. murray

    murray Junior Member

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    on thing that occured to me about what bjgnome said:

    what about china, india and the rest of asia?

    aren't they exploding in terms of oil usage? if what i've been reading is accurate, their oil needs will be expanding by at least 10% every year for the forseeable future.

    this will definately impact the west and mean that available oil will decline at a rate of more than 2% a year.

    guess what i'm saying is that the situation's a lot worse than we think with a lot of things. climate change, oil, you name it.

    at least i have a nice stockpile of coffee.
     
  16. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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  17. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    There are many targets around this globe, the reason I picked the USA is the whole Iraq mess and the fact Iraq has the 3rd or 4th largest useable oil fields on the planet, controlling these has become more and more important and will be more so in the future.
     
  18. heuristics

    heuristics Junior Member

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    Oil Peak latest

    Douglas JE Barnes: It was you who mentioned a “tipping point” in another post some weeks ago. With regard to the 6billion+ of us, what about the news that 40 million now have HIV-AIDS.
    It seems we might have reached a “tipping point” with this disease, as the rate of infection is set to accelerate exponentially, especially as the big drug companies have not been willing to provide what remedies exist to the poorer nations. So disease will take out a fair few of us.

    Another term that comes to mind is “Perfect Storm”. So many of these issues or crisis points seem to be coalescing. Peak Oil meets climate change meets health epidemics (HIV/ bird flu) meets financial collapse meets emerging China/India.

    On the point of emerging China, I enjoy the witticism that “China just had a couple of bad centuries, its now back” (back in its rightful place as the leading nation of the world). A historical perspective is that China has dominated East Asia for 5000+ years, and while so doing, has also influenced Eurasia. The US as the dominant nation and region is recent, and an aberration.
    Even though China's energy consumption potential is enormous, once confronted with Peak Oil, surely this is a nation with a people and government more able to adapt to this reality?
    Our Ms Products and Meat-os will have a lot of adjusting to do, but the bulk of people in China will find a Peak Oil world not so very different to them than their present system????
     
  19. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    Wasn't having a go ta ya Baz :)

    just pointing out Australia is just as bad....take a look at Timor

    :)
     
  20. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    Re: Oil Peak latest

    I don't seem to remember that, but I could be losing my mind. :wink:
     

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