Transition
of the industrialised countries
of the temperate zone into a post-fossil-fuel world
"The first half of the
oil age now closes...It lasted 150 years and saw the
rapid expansion of industry, transport, trade, agriculture and
financial capital, allowing the population to expand six-fold. The
second half now dawns, and will be marked by the decline of oil and all
that depends on it, including financial capital."
- Colin Campbell, co-founder of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
The Human Animal has burnt most of the black
sunlight
from long ago
For the last 2,000,000 years or so we were literally wild
animals,
gathering and hunting food, living in rock or vegetation shelters.
Daily
life was our work. The sun and fire were our only energy sources.
150 or
so years ago, we transitioned into the petrol and diesel age.
Using internal
combustion engines, we in the industrialised countries have unleashed
huge 'horsepower' to
create our oil based economy. Today, we burn over 700 000 barrels of
oil every 10 minutes. We burn about four times more oil than is
being discovered to replace it. We haven't run out because of the truly
enormous reserves in the Middle East. Within 5 to 10 years from now, we
will have used over half those reserves. Oil will become permanently
expensive
as supply diminishes and demand continues to grow.
Eventually it will become
prohibitively expensive for all but the most essential purposes.
The actual timeframe
of just when this inevitability will cut in is fuzzy, as the data is
not
very good. Estimates may be out by a few years in either direction, but
these errors are trivially small. The huge facts are true. We have used
up close to half the existing oil reserves, demand is huge and will
exceed supply very soon, and only relatively small oil deposits are
left to find. The only option then
left is to look for energy sources and human practises that are
sustainable
- that can continue over time without depending on a resource that will
be used up. The options are limited and cannot re-create our existing
lifestyle.
Tropical countries are less affected Tropical countries are generally far less developed, and are much
closer to a peasant land-based economy. When oil-based industries
become uneconomic, it is much easier for significant numbers of people
to return to village life. Tropical countries do not have to consume
huge numbers of calories in burning fuels to stay warm in sub zero
temperatures. No expensive insulation is needed for housing. Tropical
countries can take two crops - or more - a year from the land, where
temperate
countries can only take one. Intensive agriculture using human labour
and thousands of years of knowledge has made village scale tropical
rice agriculture the most truly efficient and sustainable agriculture
on earth. So long as land is protected from erosion, and nutrients are
returned from the cities and re-cycled, it is a self-sustaining system.
Some tropical countries are overpopulated due to a high birthrate. This
is a seperate issue, as no amount of cheap oil can solve the issues
that arise from of overpopulation.
Industrialised temperate zone
countries are most affected
The increases in population of the industrialised countries of the
temperate and warm temperate zones have been underpinned by cheap food
from cheap energy. Cheap energy has enabled vast crops of grain from
the plains of USA, Canada, and Australia. Unlike many tropical
countries, small scale, labour intensive production is simply not an
option. The entire industrial-manufacturing base and all its support
services is predicated on cheap oil. Heating, electricity, car
ownership, travel, holidays, comfortable housing - almost all our
experiences of daily living that we take for granted - are due to cheap
oil.
We are unprepared for the shock of adjustment to 'doing without'. The
dissonance between what we thought was normal and would go on forever,
and a different, upsetting, reality will be much greater if we don't
think about it now. The idea that we are going to experience dramatic
and painful changes to our familiar and comfortable conditions of life
seems utterly absurd, an alarmist fantasy. The data is hard to refute.
Examining the data, a reasonable person cannot but conclude "I
certainly don't like it, but it looks like we're stuck with it". The
next thing to do is to try to deal with it as effectively as we can.
And that is why this site exists.
Short outline of the
unfolding
situation
Oil prices have risen recently, and some people have complained
bitterly about oil company 'price gouging'. The prices seem to have
been pushed up by futures traders. Traders only push a price upward if
they reasonably expect prices to continue to rise. Why should
they believe that?
Probably because they have followed the analysis of the depletion of
finite oil reserves in an industrial world whose demand for increased
output has gone up year on year.
Easiest to find and most profitable
giant fields and large fields have all been found, pump pressure is
falling as they deplete
The essence of the analysis is based on the prediction made many years
ago by a geophysicist from
Shell oil that the amount of oil that was physically able to be pumped
out of the US oilfields would rise as new wells came on stream, but as
the oldest fields were the biggest
(oil geologists go for the largest basins first as this brings most
profit quickest), and as all major oil reservoirs had been found, then
when the
large fields passed the mid point of production (the peak of
production) total production must decline in spite of new mid sized
and smaller fields being drilled.
Compounding it, as older reservoirs
go past the 'half-drained' point, they start to
lose pressure in the reservoir and yeild progressively less - no matter
how large a quantity is still in the reserve waiting to be sucked out.
There is no longer enough pressure. The rate
of production of the remaining half then tails off. Once substantially
drained, the residual oil in the field may even be too expensive to
extract. He described this
bell-shaped production curve in 1956, and calculated the US national
oil resource would peak sometime between 1965 and 1972.
As Hubberts theory predicted, US oil production peaked in 1970. And as
predicted, in spite of best efforts, the US oil fields have produced
progressively less since that time, so that they can now yeild only
half the amount produced in 1970, at the top of the bell curve for US
oil production. This curve could be extended out a little if there were
major new oil deposits found in USA. The US is one of the most
oil-explored countries on earth. There are no significant or
economically extractable significant reserves in USA. A reasonable
sized field exists in an Arctic national park, and this will almost
certainly eventually be produced. But it only adds half a million
barrels a day to the US (declining) production of 5 million barrels a
day.
The fields with the vast reservoirs
and high pressure to pump huge volumes are losing pressure. New fields
are too small to pump at high volume for long.
The situation in the USA is simply an illustration of a universal
principle. The same early drilling of major and even 'giant' fields
happened all over the world. Most of the large fields in Venezuela,
Canada, North Sea, Russia, China and Indonesia have either reached
their peak point, or are about to peak within the next few years. Some
giant fields in Saudi Arabia and Iran have peaked, but others will not
peak for many years yet. Even so, most of todays oil is 'old' oil.
Most world production is supplied by 'old' fields. 70% of oil put on
the market every day of the week comes from fields that have been
producing for 30 years or even longer. Around 20% of world supply comes
from truly massive 'giant' fields mostly discovered in the 1950's (the
Saudi Ghawar field alone provides 5% of world oil consumption). By
definition, the remaining 80% of fields are not 'massive', although a
few are large. These relatively smaller fields will reach their halfway
point (peak of production) sooner than the giant fields. The more
demand for oil, the sooner these medium and small fields will peak.
This means that giant fields with giant pumping capacity are of crucial
importance
in meeting world demand.
There are no giant fields left to find. Oil companies have spent
billions recently, and with superior technology, trying to find them.
They appear now to be unwilling to throw good money after bad, and the
number of exploration rigs has fallen dramatically. While more fields
will come on
stream, some quite big, the best seismic technology has found what
would be expected in a well prospected world - relatively small fields.
World oil consumption has increased
to
levels which in theory will empty all reserves within 40 years
The world consumed 25 billion barrels of oil in the year 2000. By 2004
the figure had risen to about 30 billion barrels consumed. At this rate
of consumption, all
existing global oil reserves will be gone in less than 40 years.
Oil is added to reserves as new medium and small fields are found, but
the rate of draw off of existing fields is such that for every barrel
of oil added to the reserve pool, 3 barrels are withdrawn from the pool.
The real crisis is a pumping crisis
Obviously, freeflowing oil in abundance will cease long before the pool
is emptied down to equal the tiny refill rate. The primary determinant
of a happy world market is a situation where the world demand is met by
the pumping capacity. Demand is far less than the amount under the
ground
that is in theory available to be pumped. But as demand increases, so
pumping capacity must increase. But it physically can't. Some mega
fields are only still pumping at historic pumping levels because they
are being pressurised with millions of gallons of salt water every day.
There are physical limits to this process. Oil can only be drawn from
reservoirs at a rate that the unique physical characteristic of each
reservoir allows. Initial pumping is of pooled 'easy' oil. Trying to
accelerate pumping can leave oil 'stranded'
in the formation as it doesn't have time to trickle into reservoirs
from sponge-like rock, resulting in the well ultimately producing much
less
than it would otherwise if it were pumped at a safe rate.
The pumping capacity limitation is the real crisis. Virtually all
global oilfields are pumping at safe full capacity right now. But taken
as a whole, the oil fields of the world are able to pump 3%-5% less
volume every year. Every percentage increase in world demand can only
come out of unused existing pumping capacity.
Fortunately, in 2004, world demand was 100 million barrels less than
current pumping capacity.
No problem.
Growth in world oil demand will almost certainly be greater than the100
million barrel buffer that existed in 2004. Worse, the maturing fields
lose ability to pump relative to their peak production. They lose from
2% to 3% of their pumping ability ever year after peak. Indications are
that most non - OPEC fields large fields have either peaked, or will
peak soon.
World demand will therefore exceed ability to supply. The oil will be
there, in the ground, but 'unproducible' at the rate the world wants.
Big problem.
When will demand exceed supply?
Big question. It depends on the accuracy of figures on pumping rates.
It depends on the accuracy of figures on expected reserves for fields
due to come on stream over the next few years.It depends on the
accuracy of claims about the pumping capacity of the mega fields. It
depends on whether world demand continues to rise, or goes flat - in
other worlds, if there is a global 'economic slowdown'. Usually, when
uncertainties are co-influential, the confidence in the prediction
becomes weaker than might be thought. We can be almost certain it will
occur within 20 years. If all information to hand is fairly true, and
if consumption continues at the present rate, there are sound arguments
to estimate it a supply/demand mismatch somewhere around the end of
2005, or early in 2006.
Put it this way -
at the end of 2004, oil demand (which equals consumption) was 83
million barrels per day. On present demand projections, 86 million
barrels a day may be required by the end of 2005. The maximum
physically possible global oil pumping rate is said to be in the region
of 89 million barrels a day. 3 million barrels a day of that rate is an
unused pumping capacity claimed by Saudi Arabia. They have not
demonstrated that this 'spare pumping capacity' really exists. If it
doesn't, supply and demand about match by the end of 2005.
This is only the beginning of the story, not the end. How
governments do - or don't - respond to a situation that will cause
both immediate and imperative societal failures will starkly mark out
their respective abilities to analyse, strategise, prioritise and lead.
Later, absolute supply will be the
crisis
As oil can't be produced as fast as the world wants it, there will be a
shortfall. The laws of supply and demand say this will increase the
price. Recession
inevitably follows. Demand drops. Price per barrel
falls again. Demand increases. Slowly falling pumping capacity at some
point once more means demand - even lower demand - can no longer be
met. Prices rise again. And so the cycle continues. But at each point,
there is less and less oil to in the reservoirs. While prices of oil
rise dramatically and then fall, they will not fall right back. Every
price fall is to a higher plateau than previously. Eventually, oil will
be available to anyone who wants it. But relatively few will be able to
afford it. Oil will never run out. But the ability of most people in
the world to pay its ever-increasing scarcity value will certainly run
out.
There
are still people who say that
if oil prices rose too much (whatever that may mean) oil would price
itself out of the market; but it is perfectly obvious that there is no
ready substitute for oil to take its place on a quantitatively
significant scale, so that oil, in fact, cannot price itself out of the
market.
-E.W.Schumacher, author of 'Small is Beautiful', 1973.
No other source of energy can
substitute for cheap, energy-dense oil
We reflexively think "some other" power source can be used. Maybe
electricity from nuclear
power, hydro electricity, or coal or gas fired power stations can
be used to split water into hydrogen gas, which can then be used to
power our cars the same way compressed natural gaas is right now.
Sadly, much of the Wests' electricity creation is itself dependant on
burning diminishing supplies of suitable coal and gas. It will have
it's own supply crisis in years to come. There is absolutely no 'spare
capacity' left over to make huge amounts of hydrogen gas to run
vehicles.
DISCLAIMER The information in
this
site is largely informed opinion, although it is written
in good faith. It is up to the reader to criticize, read alternative
opinions
and assertions, and come to an independent view. Do not rely on anything
in this site being current, correct or factual.
Any action
you take after reading the material here is solely your responsibility
- seek advice from others, read critically and widely, don't accept
everything
you read here. You have been warned! Question everything. Form your own opinion
on these matters after reading widely and consulting appropriate
professional
advice, including advice of appropriate professionals.