Collection of decreasingly optimistic peak oil scenarios

davidyson

1. Peak Oil doesn't just happen for a very long time (> 2039)

Bad news in this scenario: Though the crash will be later, it will only be harder, because more people will have been born, using up more of our precious earth more quickly before the sad "solution" of massive dieoffs sets in.

2. Peak Oil does happen very slowly and actually not at all for a very long time, as rising prices make more and more difficult-to-get-at resources economical. Due to the slow development of the effect, signals come in time and all necessary infrastructure buildup for alternatives comes in time to prevent real physical shortages of energy.

Bad news in this scenario: Yes, there will be oil, but at an increasingly high price. I guess if the price is rising only slowly enough, economy will cope and will eventually end with the bad news of scenario 1

3. Peak Oil happens fairly quickly (medium fast drop in production, maybe 1.5-5%). All sorts of frenetic wind turbine building, exploration, development and technology use will be started, but it will be too late to really compensate for a passing decline in available net energy, given the 10-25 years lead times to build up the necessary infrastructure. Economy will suffer and go into a bad recession. If the US monetary system holds, we will reach the point when all the compensation measures together can again rise net energy to pre-peak levels and above - for a while and at much higher price levels.

4. Peak Oil happens very quickly (with high decline rates, like 6-10%). All compensation measures will be too little, too late. We might see some sort of "runaway" effect which means that we can't afford the energy for the transition anymore, the global economy goes into a nightmare depression and 30 years later, the survivors will wake up within completely transformed societies, which no one can imagine today.

Any more scenarios on this level of analysis, anyone?

Davidyson

StayOnTarget · Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 10:16 am Post subject:

Here's one.

Demand outstrips supply 2-3 years before peak production. Price volatility increases with a sharp upward trend. Everyone and their brother becomes an oil trader. This mereley adds to the upward price pressures. Recession, demand destruction, and conservation converge to drop demand back in line with supply. At the same time new production emerges from previously uneconomical sources. A half-hearted attempt will be made to increase alternative energy investment. Small patches of new rail capacity will be built. By and large though, capital will continue to flow into fossil fuels. Oil fields that had sat dormant for decades due to the high costs of production will be leased, sold and produced for astronomical premiums. Prices will then begin to abate. Everyone will be talking about how the oil bubble is about to burst, how there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Insane reserve figures will be paraded in front of the public from a dozen talking heads. Mention will be made of how the oil market mimics the exhuberance of the .com tech stocks a decade ago. The PR campaign will appeal to the general publics sensibilities, postponing the panic but not the anger. Poverty will be quickly expanding at this point. The energy price pressure will have added to inflationary pressures (core inflation my ass). Capital flowing out the stock markets will flow primarily into the oil markets.

Over this 2-3 year time period accelerating depletion will begin to tighten its grip on the old great prolific fields of the earth. Peak will not be realized for 3-5 years after it has passed. The message will be that supply is adjusting for lower demand. There will be a depression by this point, but it will still be referred to as a recession. None of the alternative energy investments made will make a significant dent in the energy equation. Net available energy will continue to drop, accelerating year after year for many years. I expect some technological breathroughs at this point, whereby more oil can be recovered from 'depleted' fields. But the rate of extraction will not keep pace with the rate of depletion. There will be alot of wishful thinking and snakeoil salesment. What little capital is left will be poured into renewables.

Man, I could go on and on and talk about natural gas depletion, resource wars, population decline... ad infinitum.

Hegel · Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 10:28 am Post subject:

Roll-Overs will happen for each resource mankind uses, regardless whether it is a fossil energy or not. Each occurance of a Roll-Over event for a certain resource will kill off all systems depended on it and seen expendable by mankind. It is safe to assume the contest of the survival of the fittest will see a major revival in near future.

Rest assure the law of the Minimum and the Theory of Thermodynamics will put a boot in mankind ass like there is no tomorrow. Mother nature is going to teach us how not to mess with her. So it really doesn't matter to theorize about scenarios, we will be part of the utmost cruel one Razz

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Ayoob · Expert Joined: Jul 15, 2004 Posts: 1143

How quickly can Canada start exporting 2-5 MBD from the tar sands? Could they replace SA as the world's major oil exporting nation? Is that possible? It is possible that even after the easy to pump stuff gets pumped, we'll be able to get along for quite a while with oil at 60-80 a barrel from Canada or other nonconventional sources. It could be a decade at that rate.

I wonder what that would look like? Could that be the end of Suburbia? Or would Suburbia limp along for another 20 years under those conditions?