For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Unofficial spending including secret services about
$1 trillion 200 billion.
Very simply what is the primary purpose of all armies in the world today and certainly of the USA army ?
Is it not to guard the safe extraction and free flow of oil ?
Because without oil civilaization as we know it cannot work ?
Lets be on a conservative side and say that only half of the 1.2 trillion is really spend to safeguard oil instead of 60 or 70 %.
Let also pretend that none of the wars really happen for oil and lets not add that cost and the destruction of those wars. Let not add any terrorist cost or whatever.
Global consumption of oil
About 30 billion barrels per year.
Global expenditure to guard oil 600 billion.
Cost to guard oil per barrel = 20 $
Add this to the cost of an oil barrel .
Hey it is not so cheap after all.
Disclaimer ( I am really only guessing for the numbers below)
Now lets calculate the energy return of oil by adding the energy cost to guard the oil.
Lets pretend conservatively that creating all the weapons , maintaining them and having armies spends only 1/3 rd of all the oil of the world plus lots of energy from other sources lets say 1/5 of all other energy sources ( i am just guessing here )(i am assuming no dual use it should be MUCH more with dual use)
Lets say that 1/6 of all the oil in the world plus 1/10 of all other energy sources are then spend to GUARD oil.
Lets pretend that all that energy consumed to guard the oil is more than 1/3 rd of the world oil production. ( i am pretending for simplicity that all the energy cost of say coal,gas,hydro cost to build , maintain is converted to oil a really bogus calkculation but simplicity helps )
Therefore you need at least 1 barrel of oil to produce 3.
If you accept that then peak oil really gets a different meaning .
a) Oil is not the best energy source in the world not in the financial sense and certainly not in the return of energy sense for example wind energy is better ( you do not need to guard wind generators)
b) Oil is something needed for mainly DOMINATION and secondarily survival.
c)Peak oil could give us a better much better world if we find alternatives in time alternative that will not need huge armies to protect them (wind , solar , biodiesel)
d) The world will not end when peak oil happens just the globalization primarily (USA domination) will end and secondarily the priviledges that the industrialised countries enjoy over the non industrialised ones will cease to exist.
e) Perhaps all the above explain the resistance met for the world to invest in other sources of energy.(or at least on why the goverments do not help on that case) No big oil no big armies no big security agencies and no big goverment needed big goverments hate that because they want more power not less.
Chris - Spot on. The corporations' development of society's dependence on fossil fuels is, and I guess always has been, primarily about the centralization and extension of the control of energy supply at the expense of democratic choice.
For example, in the (alledged) seminal meeting between Messr.s Rockerfeller & Ford, given the latter's openly fascist politics, I doubt he took much persuading to remove the Model A Ford's Ethanol option from his subsequent models.
It's surely a black irony that Ethanol has only being allowed on the market as agriculture has become sufficiently controlled by corporations, and not by farmers.
New Scientist recently put up an article on renewables showing how their global market share has substantially declined since the '70s, despite all the mouthings of interest by status quo politicians.
In the UK, with Blair pretending to the status of 'leader of green technologies', his goal of cutting fossil fuel emissions by 60% by 2050 sounds great, until you twig that it actually means maintaining these fuels' use as long as oil & gas last, and allowing the level of atmospheric carbon to carry on getting worse for another two generations.
In reality, total UK gov.t spending on (Cliche warning) RENEWABLES has yet to catch up with the chickenfeed subsidy to rural bus services. So much for priority.
Once people on this site understand the critical relevance of the perspective you've posted, then God willing less time will be wasted discussing the utter irrelevance of agri-business biofuels, CLEAN & Sasol Coal, the Nuclear-Hydrogen hype, etc.
In the meanwhile, there's a thread in the Energy Forum called "The Windsor Field . . . . " on which, if you find time, I'd be interested to read your views.
Hmm, seems your forgetting that most of the money is created FIAT by the Federal Reserve in tandem with the Elected/Shadow Governments.
Other than the energy used to guard it (warships, planes, tanks etc.) ,I would put the paper dollars into Kaiser Wilheilms defintion of "only paper" (If that, most are electronic, saving yet more energy).
Now the ENERGY cost of OIL is INCREASING, much of it due to the PetroDollar vs. EuroDollar wars with a terrorist icing on the cake -which is to say manmade. However DEPLETION means that EROEI would go down no matter what...
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