Waiting for Peak Oil...Quietly Waiting

Buff · Coal Joined: Nov 26, 2006 Posts: 16

Ludi - answers to your questions could be very long. Too long. But as examples what we are doing at our home is reducing our carbon footprint. We have cut electricity consumption by 30% by installing a more efficent heating/cooling system and switching out most of our light bulbs to florescent. We recycle glass, steel, plastic and aluminum. There are a lot of other examples and I think we have only begun.
At work I am a heating/air conditioning contractor. We get to eductate customers on how to reduce energy use, with and without our products and services. We directly do system maintenance - we found one beverage distributor with 8 10-ton rooftop systems that were not being maintained correctly. We did it correctly and they saved $20,000 in electricity in 2005 ( a very hot summer) as compared to 2004. We help our customers identify ways to cut energy use including insulating, duct improvements, and much more. Again I could go on but it gets too long.
At work we also recycle cardboard, paper, batteries, computers, steel, aluminum and copper. We invested in a new Sprinter service vehicle that gets 24 mpg deisel instead of another gasoline van that gets 12 mpg. This year we are changing our flourescent lights in the office from T12 to T8, which will cut electricity consumption, perhaps 10-20%. 2 years ago we added a new rubber roof with 2" of foam insulation saving on heating and cooling costs. This year we are adding 1.5" of foam along with new siding to our building. These are just examples of real things that can be done. Again, I feel we are just beginning and the opportunities to save energy are mind boggling.

As far as where people will work I believe there will be plenty of job opportunities as there are now. There has always been and will always be "churn" as technology changes, and with it the number and types of jobs people have. The old example of buggy whip manufacturers being put out of business by the change to automobiles. Isn't it amazing that with the loss of 10's of thousands of jobs (or even 100's of thousands) in the last 20 years due to corporate downsizing and "offshoring" that the unemployment rate in the US is in the low 5% range?

Or course there will be the statement that the official unemployment rate does not count "discouraged" workers, and it will be pointed out that losing a $30/hr manufacturing job and replacing it with a $10/hr service sector job has its own problems. The official unemployment rate also does not count the huge amount of workers in the underground economy. The change from losing jobs in some sectors while growing jobs in other sectors only reinforces that there is tremendous churn.

I think we have plenty of jobs that need to be done that are not wasteful (including mine). It is not possible but think of the large number of jobs we would have as teachers and workers engaged in rebuilding our infrastructure, as well as the myriad of other jobs that would be available if we were trasitioning - jobs in alternative energy, conservation and all the new technologies we are not even aware of yet.

I think the transition has started and will accelerate only as traditional energy costs increase. There is investment growing now in alternatives but are restricted by risk (of collapsing prices like we saw this month) in the energy arena. So the answer to your question is the transition has started but only is only in its infancy.

I think the difference between transition and collapse is with transition we have the opportunity to live comfortable lives and with collapse we would be relegated to pre-industrial living standards.

thuja

Well Buff- I think most people here would like to see some sort of transition to sustainability and you mention a way that comes up frequently.

1- Energy prices rise dramatically as fossil fuel production peak and decline.

2- Conservation and efficiency measures ramp up accordingly. New job sectors are created. There may be some recessions but no dramatic collapse.

I agree that this very well may be the first approach and may let us in the First World linger around for another 10-20 years. (The Third World will not be as lucky as there is very little fat to cut.) But lets move on to the next phase.

3- Fossil fuels start becoming scarce. There is only so much fat to cut. Prices of basic commodities- food, gasoline, gas for cooking, heating, cooling go through the roof.

4- The working and middle classes are forced to cut back on everything except the basics. Massive job loss. Depression. Hunger and even starvation in some sectors. We'll still be able to outbid the Third World for basic goods so that's where we'll see the real pain. Massive epidemics, starvation, warfare...actually that's already started.

Your transition ideas only really work for the first phase. They won't stop the massive depletion of fossil fuels. We can't survive as an industrialized world without them. At some point, we won't have enough of those fuels to run a functional globalized civilization. Collapse.

Buff · Coal Joined: Nov 26, 2006 Posts: 16

You are of course correct that even with conservation etc that eventually the use of fossil fuels is no longer an option to sustain us. The energy would have to be some combination of renewables. some type or types of nuclear. or perhaps something we are not yet aware of.

I would respectfully disagree with "10 or 20 years" but then that is the basis of disagreement of many here. I think the transition will have to be to non-fossil fuels but I think it is more likely to take 100 years than 20.

I am familiar with some of the arguments of why the collapse is inevitable and imminent. There are also some arguments that there will be fossil fuels along with alternatives for a much longer time than those who believe in the collapse find plausible.

I guess everyone has a right to choose who they believe. Paul Ehrlich told us in the early 1970's that there would be "massive starvation" (what is now called a die-off) due to population growth. He predicted this would happen in the 1980's. His belief was based on population growth trends and his data on resource availability including food. Especially food. He was certain he was right.

thuja

You know Buff- I don't entuirely disagree. I said 10-20 years rather flippantly and I do believe that continuum of deterioration could take quite a bit longer. Humans are rather crafty and there is a lot of fat to cut. I could extend my prediction out to perhaps 30-50 years before severe threats to First World civilization.

In terms of the effects of shrinking resources, we do not have to wait for the future. Look to Subsaharan Africa and the middle East for study cases of resource wars, droughts, famines, pestilence, the whole 9 yards.

However...you're going to find some very hard headed and smart people will disagree with you entirely on the idea of a valid alternative or set of alternatives that will be able to keep the civilization as we know it functioning.

One of the main reasons you will hear about has little to do with finding alternative energy sources. It has to do with agriculture, and the need for fossil fuel based fertilizers to prop up the "Green Revolution" that allowed for a massive bloom in human population. Take out these inputs, along with difficulty in processing, packaging and distribution, and you will see the beginnings of true hardship that will affect the First World as well.

We are seeing the first stirrings of this problem right now. Because of our need for liquid fuel (sorry- nuclear, wind and solar won't cut it), there is a huge push towards ethanol made from corn. Because of this push to use crops for fuel, the price of corn in terms of feed and food has risen dramatically. Mexican citizens are seeing their tortillas go dramatically up in price. Farmers who need corn for their animals are feeling the pinch. Once we really get underway, food costs will start to skyrocket.

The problem is, once you really dig into this, you realize that we can't keep up our modern civilization without massive inputs of liquid fossil fuels, and no basket of alternatives will suffice.

I agree that the First World will somehow muddle through far quite a while. But is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Nobody has convinced me or most of the people on this board up to now. In fact the optimists hope for some pre-industrial semi-agrarian existence after decades of turmoil and pain.

So please let us know...transition? To what?

Ludi

Thankyou, Buff.

You honestly think air conditioning is not "waste"?

Shocked

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Buff · Coal Joined: Nov 26, 2006 Posts: 16

Ludi you are killing me! Smile

No I don't think of air conditioning as waste, but I get what you are saying. Do you think of heating as waste? Or only the part that keeps the pipes from freezing - all excess above that being waste? Air conditioning (making it warmer or cooler) could be considered waste if want to define it that way - homo sapiens has certainly survived without either. Beyond survival how does one define waste? Refrigeration is also waste if you want to go to extremes.

I am biased but no, honestly I choose not to define air conditioning as waste. I would say the difference in energy used to stay comfortable between an energy efficient building and the same buiding not as efficient as waste.

Thuja - I have only lurked on a few threads but yes there are some strong opinions about from some very smart and folks who disagree with the idea that it is possible to keep our civilization functioning. I really think it is possible it could go either way. But I don't tend to agree with the most pessimistic of estimates of how long the fossil fuels will last, and therfore I think it is possible we will transition successfully.

One example of the disagreement is how long we could use coal as an alternative liquid fuel. CTL - coal to liquid is an example of using a fossil fuel to replace oil. Of course it too will someday be exhausted but there is disagreement on how much coal there is (in barrel of oil equivalents), disagreement on the EROEI, disagreements on how or if we can use the coal in a more environmentally sensitive way, etc. etc.

Some say there is coal to last hundreds of years. Some say not. Some say our population growth will go on indefinitely. Some say not, that the trend is slowing growth that will end in zero growth within 50 years. Some believe energy consumption per person can only grow with the industrializing of the 3rd world. Some say our per capita energy use is declining. Some say we can extend the use of the remaining oil by using alternatives for non-liquid applications and through conservation. Others say that the amounts needed are so large that the alternatives don't have a chance of meeting our needs.

I don't know. But as you say people are crafty. Never know what they are capable of when the chips are down. I don't know if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Transition to what? I really don't know. A future where the energy inputs are from the sun and possibly from fission or fusion. A future with a sustainble economy that does not depend on growth to function. What unknowns are out there? What has our species discovered and invented that would have been unimaginable 50 years ago, 100 years ago or more?

OK - I am guilty of being an optimist.

Ludi

Buff, to me air-conditioning is a luxury, and I live in a very hot part of the country. So, I guess one person's necessity is another person's "waste." Refrigeration is also a luxury - billions of people do not have it.
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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy

EnergyUnlimited · Fusion Joined: May 15, 2006 Posts: 3391

Ludi

That's free if you have a cellar. Smile

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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy

MonteQuest

Ok, we have been quietly waiting for peak oil to arrive. The numbers say we are there...so far.

Many have cried, "See?" "Two years post -peak and no zombies, no collapse.

Will we only know the peak in hindsight, thus it will come like a thief in the night?

Is it here when Saudi Arabia says they have no spare capacity?

Is it when the markets implode when the CW is no more growth?

What are the signs or events that signal the peak has truly arrived?

What say you?
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Zardoz

XOVERX · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 18, 2006 Posts: 175

PO became inevitable when the first oil well was drilled in Poland.

The question then became one of timing.

The actual Peak, at least for liquids, has likely already passed, July of 2006.

If so, then where are PO's "deleterious effects?"

Well, they're here right now. Accumulating in civilization like plaque in arteries. Slowing. Imperceptibly. But surely.

Great instability in the oil markets. A shortage here. A brownout there. Short-lived. But real.

And a massive infarction can happen, literally any day, with a simple miscalculation in the body politic.

For example, the US could bomb Iran. Maybe Iran really can take out whole parts of the ME oilfields? Maybe Pakistan and all of its nuclear weapons fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists?

And there you have it. The patient falls to the floor, clutching at his chest. Maybe he dies. Maybe he stays alive.

But he's never the same.

PO is here. We can only hope that it's worst manifestations might somehow, someway, be avoided. At least for a while longer.

And so is demonstrated the nature of wishful thinking.

Patience. If one lives long enough, he will see all things.

MonteQuest

bobcousins

Valdemar

You think the crash will take centuries? We don't have centuries of oil in even the most blatantly optimistic scenario. That, and applying the standard Hubbert curve doesn't fit when we're talking about export-land and related geo-political factors. There's no reason to say anyone will even get access to $200 oil even if that price came about, because the exporters will be too busy trying to look after their own as is the case today.
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