[Pops]

So for the 10 or so members still frequenting this forum here is my question:

What will be the effects of peak oil becoming a mainstream idea.

Anyone who has a few peak oil news blogs on their list (not necessarily this one any more) has seen the uptick in stories from “authoritative” sources lately, the DOE, the US Military Joint Forces Command, and even stock market gurus like this guy on CNBC. And of course there is The Flying Virgin & the UK taskforce, the Kuwati University study and KSA installing solar panels. Not influential sources like Saturday Night Live, Leno, or John Stewart mind you, but still the sort of rumors that might start cracking the official silence on depletion.

So now along comes this big mainstream headline The Spill, right on the heels of Drill, 'Bama, Drill and both are really about the fact that 50 miles out and 6 miles down is how far we have to go nowadays because the big, easy oil fields are history. Seems to me, that along with the possibility of another peak in production this year or next and of course the resultant run up in price and inevitable drop back to a higher low, these stories are going to continue becoming more and more common and more toward page one.

So what will be the result of peak oil on page one?

Are we on the verge of the .gov switching to the stick instead of the carrot? We've had Energy Star and upgrade incentives but the carrot only gets you so far. Is something big in the way of sticks coming on the heels of the CAFE increase, maybe big gas/energy hog taxes for a "Hirsch" infrastructure revolution a la Moon Mission?

What about the markets? We are in legislative Change Mode so we're told, what about punishing those evil speculators? How will that effect on the already sour credit markets and the uncertainty that will probably be the oil exploration and development business from here on out as we go Bumpty Bump along the Plateau?

Since we're legislating, will the "Horizon" spill affect rules on oil companies' operations? Will the cost to BP, Deepwater, Haliburton (who I think was cementing the casing when the blowout happened) affect the cost/benefit analysis and slow offshore for some period?

Some effects of bouncing along the peak that we kind of guessed at are apparent, whether caused by oil price in total or not: some part of the recession, some part of demand fluctuations, some part of attempting to scratch out the last hydrocarbons from whatever unlikely or uneconomical or unpopular source, some part of denial (see! the price of oil went down because demand ((read employment)) went down!), China buying up more resources, etc, etc.

What other effects will we see as the understanding of PO becomes more mainstream?


BTW, I don't know if anyone remembers but these are the kinds of things we used to talk about, so instead of whining about the lack of traffic, add something relevant for people to read and comment on. Keep it somewhat on topic please. Oh and petty personality squabbles will be deleted.

[shortonsense]

So what will be the result of peak oil on page one?

Absolutely nothing.

The idea is to conceptual for most people, so it doesn't matter at all how much its talked about, studied, pontificated on or explained in baby talk, and it doesn't matter where. Newspaper article, talking head TV program, nightly news, or even at websites like this, it just doesn't matter.

Now....have gas stations put up signs saying "Only $5 gasoline per customer" and THEN there will be interesting results. The transition from conceptual to reality....THATS where the action is.

[dorlomin]

What other effects will we see as the understanding of PO becomes more mainstream?

New political and economic realties rarely produce the results those who see them first anticipate. Almost all peak oilers will be dissapointed by the results of an acceptance of declining energy availability. Almost every political stripe will claim their solution to all other problems will be the answer to peak oil.

In terms of the public the movement to acknowledging that energy availability will decrease will be taken on board with some reluctance but they it has a natural template to to it, people inherently understand non renewable resources have limits. They can deal with it.

The impacts of peak oil for the west will initially be mild and easily adjusted for. Its one of those things people will quickly forget they ever disagreed with.

The one postive I see from it is that people wil begin to take longer term planning far more seriously.

When the constriction of available energy begins to bite in perhaps 20 years down the line thing will change more markedly.

In my opinion.....

[eastbay]

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/vi ... id/4081544

Peak oil is getting under the skin of investors all over the world, including this one in Hong Kong who wrote the excellent above essay on peak cheap oil ... a concept we've been tossing around back here for 6 years.

I like his stair step down analysis (our friend lowem, who I'll see next month, has mentioned this a few times on his website) suggesting as energy prices rise, the economy will correct resulting in lower energy prices ... then it will recover although to a somewhat lower level than previously but once again again setting the stage for another round of higher energy prices which will again batter the economy.

This disaster in the gulf will result in higher insurance rates for drillers and rig operators, lower public interest in pushing the 'drill baby drill' mantra, and higher oil prices. As we enter the hurricane season I doubt people will initially have the stomach to demand more deep water drilling near fragile areas.

But as depletion and a recovering economy force higher oil prices over the coming months, the mantra will again be heard ever louder and we'll move ahead drilling where ever we can regardless of ecological impact forcing us into scrounging around for the most dangerous and difficult to reach remaining crumbs. It's a fascinating process to witness.

Pops: Nice one. I especially like the part about petty personality nonsense getting deleted. I'm behind you 100% on that. And I'm getting an increasingly hair trigger regarding my response to unkindly personalizing postings.

[timmac]

I don't like higher fuel prices anymore than the next guy, especially when I own a service business with 4 vans on the road 5 days a week, you need to see my monthly fuel cost..

That being said I believe higher fuel prices is what is needed to make people really change their habits, when fuel hit north of $4 a gal only than did demand drop and alternatives market shot up and SUV sells tanked, but when it dipped back below $3 a gal SUV sells went back up and so has demand.

So the only real way of changing habits is higher prices at the pump and higher electric cost at the meter than and only than will people change..

My 2 Cents.

[GoghGoner]

I think peak oil has hit mainstream. I have read or heard about PO in JAMA, CNN, all major newspapers, Rolling Stone, etc... Heck, at the grocery store a few months ago, I picked up a copy of National Geographic that was a special edition about energy resources with solid coverage of oil supply issues. If I tell folks about it and say that this is going to cause (is causing) a fast change in our lives, they say "I have heard that before and it hasn't happened", "the oil companies are sitting on oil", or "oh, like that Y2k stuff, eh"...

I also think when shortages start then the blame will be placed on oil companies, environmentalists, and China -- you have to be fairly optimistic about humans to think they will recognize the problem.

[Nano]

In order for peak oil to go mainstream, a lot of people need a lot of good education. You have to have solid knowledge on a number difficult subjects.

At least in political developments the coin is starting to drop. In the Netherlands, we have a multipartisan group now, vowing to start taking energy issues much more seriously after the next general elections, nomatter which parties get in the parlaiment. They have written a pretty good general manifesto (its in Dutch):

http://www.duurzaamheidsoverleg.nl/NL_k ... nergie.pdf

[mos6507]

I don't think peak oil is mainstream in the US. I mean, it wasn't long ago that Michael Lynch posted his scathing denialist piece in the WSJ. Earth 2100 came and went without a ripple. Obama has never uttered the words "peak oil" nor has he been asked point blank about it in all of his town hall meetings. Chu thinks we can innovate our way out of it. Awareness of peak oil as a buzzword is modest, and peak oil doomerism in particular is positively fringe.

Remember when Revi was on cable news? Remember when that LATOC member was on, and they showed a closeup of peakoil.com scrolling by? We're still, at best, a curiosity that news outlets like to cover in order to be able to shake their heads and go "tsk tsk" over our irrational anxieties. The context is always along the lines of "How sad their lives are for powering down. What joys of life they are mising! What ever can we do to reintegrate these doomers back into mainstream society?"

At best, we're on the cusp of passing the "first they ignore you" and entering the "then they laugh at you" phases from the Gandhi quotable.

[eastbay]

At best, we're on the cusp of passing the "first they ignore you" and entering the "then they laugh at you" phases from the Gandhi quotable.

..... then after a time, they become you.

[Pops]

Yea, I don't think we are mainstream, but I agree with ebay that the financial world is on it - (the story from his link was what promoted this post actually). And just like CC chugged along in the background for years, a fringe story, but then it was there big time, I think po could do the same.

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of the response of government to that big headline (which I can see coming - just over the "Horizon" ;^) not some kumbia moment of rapturous communitarian zeal on the part of the citizenry. It's obvious there will be no hand holding agreement on anything, any more than there will be a Great Unleashing (isn't that the TT term for the outbreak of mass resilience?)


Many times we talk about reaction to the embargoes (of the '70s) as an indicator of future reactions. But we also look at that time as if embargoes were the whole story. I'd say right up there was the peak of conventional oil production in the lower 48, Germany, Canada, Venezuela, etc at that time. More importantly, the US dollar, pegged to gold, was the world standard currency but we were trying to inflate away the costs of an unpopular elective war and inflation made the public unhappy. Further devaluation and destabilization of the US dollar resulted from Nixon's dumping the gold standard, which of course, messed with price stability and oil producers' profits even more. Then there were Nixon's wage and price controls, increased social spending, the stock market crash...

Oh, and then along came the Yom Kipur war and... oil embargoes.

.
So anyway, given that the US public won't voluntarily or preemptively move away from reliance on oil in any meaningful way, and, certainly will once agin howl like a stepped on cat when prices rise over a certain level (like 2 years ago and similar to how they howled as the US dollar's value was inflated away in the late '60s) what might be the reaction from the Great Fathers and what might be the consequence?



Like eliminating the gas tax for example. A perfectly logical and politically expedient short term way to prop up the economy until we can become "Energy Independent". With, of course, the added benefit of kicking the "change" can down the road where we will necessarily have fewer options.

What else?

.
P.S. Link to TOD presentation, "Industry Leaders Seem to be Showing More Openness to Energy Descent Issues"

[AirlinePilot]

Right now the "Bailout mentality" rules. ....until it cant. I hold no real hope that we can manage PO any better than anything else we have as a nation or as independent national governments.

To me the only common sense solution is to ease into using less. Unfortunately all the common sense methods to do that further hurt the economy. Until the realization sets in that decline is here, and here to stay, I frankly doubt there will be any real political will to do anything in this venue. All of the solutions hurt growth and the economy which is number one on the political list right at the moment.

I still believe we will not truly acknowledge it (PO) with any political or corporate leadership until we have crisis. It is very much a catch 22, damned if you do and damned if you dont, at least from a political perspective. Call me jaded but the political machine in this country is still too corrupt and concerned with itself succeeding rather than doing what is right for the nation.

At some point that will likely change, (I HOPE!)at least a bit and we'll attempt to do the right thing. I just dont think by then the timing will be good as we will already be dealing with a crisis in imports and price, and possibly sporadic shortages, even in the US.

If the current system has a track record it isn't a good one when it needs to roll up its sleeves and do the right thing. Instead it does the greedy, corrupt thing more often than not. I expect no less in the face of PO, at least until it's too late. I for one think we are already past the event horizon on this one.

[Pops]

P.P.S.
Editorial in Scandinavia’s largest newspaper putting together the Horizon spill, deepwater oil and po - on Aleklett's blog

[Timo]

The understanding of Peak Oil will never become mainstream. It'll probably be mentioned a few times by the media, but the public's reaction to it will be denial, coupled with blame. Our bastardized democratic system has only managed to produce a public ready and willing to place blame on the other side. Peak Oil will be a political problem, not a geological problem. When plastics shoot up in price, when gas rises past $4/gal., when New Zealand and Chilean fruit cease to be on grocery shelves, when an ever growing share of our incomes go toward the purchase of energy, people will assume someone is to blame for their misfortune. They'll band together and start some political movement, like the Tea Potty, yelling and screaming that if only ya-di-da-di-da-di-da......... Everyone will have an answer which can only be revealed after the next election. This cycle will go on for several decades without any meaningful change. Oh, except for very legitimate movements by certain states to leave the union and become their own countries. Texas is having a movement right now, lead by Black Belt Neanderthal Chuck Norris. I, for one, will be more than happy to flush the toilet and be done with that movement, once and for all.

[shortonsense]

The understanding of Peak Oil will never become mainstream.

Well, I'm witch ya! Heck, the understanding of peak oil doesn't usually exist among its most strident advocates in my opinion.

Peak Oil will be a political problem, not a geological problem.

Now THAT is a new take on the issue I haven't seen before.

They'll band together and start some political movement, like the Tea Potty, yelling and screaming that if only ya-di-da-di-da-di-da......... Everyone will have an answer which can only be revealed after the next election. This cycle will go on for several decades without any meaningful change.

Quite a dreary scenario.

[Newfie]

While Peak Oil is not nor may not become mainstream the rising fuel price will be. The question then is how will the rise be seen by the public. As an inevitable event of our way of life or as us getting cheated out of something we deserve by someone else? Will we accept responsibility and change our ways or will we try to find a scape goat?

I'm betting the later, we will try to find a scape goat. Eventually we may learn that is or was of our own making but right now I think that the denial is far to strong to be overcome by rational thought. Listening to PBS talk radio today about the oil spill I was surprised at how many of the callers were blase about the spill. Perhaps something needs to be done but we need to get the oil.

If there are politicians who want to win bad enough then they will tell the public exactly what they want to hear which is that there is some solution and we can control it if you vote for me.

For the record I think (guess? intuit) that Obama does "get it" on both Peak Oil and Climate Change. He is not doing more simply because he can't politically get that far ahead of the country.

[bobcousins]

So what will be the result of peak oil on page one?

Absolutely nothing.

The idea is to conceptual for most people, so it doesn't matter at all how much its talked about, studied, pontificated on or explained in baby talk, and it doesn't matter where. Newspaper article, talking head TV program, nightly news, or even at websites like this, it just doesn't matter.

Now....have gas stations put up signs saying "Only $5 gasoline per customer" and THEN there will be interesting results. The transition from conceptual to reality....THATS where the action is.

I think you pretty much said it.

My model would be climate change. Attempts by the scientists, politicians and media to scare, um, inform the public have backfired. The effect has been to create a sort of psychological immunity. So even with a decade of record high temperatures, this is dismissed as irrelevant, and even described as being a "slight downtrend".

Most people have their opinions set in their 20's and keep them for life. It takes a generation raised in hardship with an obvious cause before any desire for change occurs.

[Pops]

If there are politicians who want to win bad enough then they will tell the public exactly what they want to hear which is that there is some solution and we can control it if you vote for me.

Yea, that's what I meant when I said "what might be the reaction from the Great Fathers and what might be the consequence?"

So now we have a moratorium on drilling permits in the GOM for a few weeks. You can bet we'll have more regulations / higher cost when the next deepwater well gets poked. Right now that's not a good sign what with the stock market wobbles and shallow water GOM production about gone.


I borrowed that chart from Decline of the Empire

That's what I'm talking about.

[dinopello]

Yea, that's what I meant when I said "what might be the reaction from the Great Fathers and what might be the consequence?"

Yes, so

one camp will say we are killing the planet so we have to stop drilling

one camp will say the economy needs the deep water oil so we must continue drilliing

one camp will say "I have a techno-fix that will help", just give me money

one camp will say we have to remake our society to survive on the relatively spartan energy diet of the future

one camp will say it's already too late to do anything that would help

one camp will say it's in God's hands and the Rapture is nigh.

and so on.

The Great Fathers will be swayed by the camp(s) most likely to help keep them employed.

[sparky]

.
The Peak Oil concept , by the time it get to the front page or the first ten minutes of the news , would come out as " we are running out of oil , gas at 10$ a gallon ! "
that's not acceptable information to give to the ordinary joeys in an unemployment line

The front page will rather be filled with the flip side of the coin , the demand destruction by recession , even if the small fact that this recession will be permanent ( more or less ) will not be mentioned

News are not censured but there is a " code of conduct " well understood by all the major medias
if you want to real a serious discussion on Peak Oil go upmarket and read financial or professional medias they are quite open about the crunch since 18 months or about

.

[DarkDawg]

.
The Peak Oil concept , by the time it get to the front page or the first ten minutes of the news , would come out as " we are running out of oil , gas at 10$ a gallon ! "
that's not acceptable information to give to the ordinary joeys in an unemployment line

The front page will rather be filled with the flip side of the coin , the demand destruction by recession , even if the small fact that this recession will be permanent ( more or less ) will not be mentioned

.

Agreed. Try turning on a TV and NOT see a car commercial within the first ten minutes. Try opening a mainstream newspaper in this country and find NO car dealer ads. "Mainstream" media is bought and paid for by interests diametrically opposed to the concept of Peak Oil.

...and these are big interests remember, too big to fail