Peak oil

[Sean]

This post sank without trace a few days back...

Many peak oil thinkers are sceptical that much progress on alternative energies will be made at this late stage in the age of oil. Oil production is 84 million barrels a day, which is likely at its peak- it might just go to 90mbd, then no matter what the demand is, for example it'll be 120/ 150 etc in the coming decade or two, output will slip inexorably to 80, 75, 70, 65 and so on. Once the markets realize this is an inevitability and not a blip, the result could be no gentle slide but a rather catastrophic holding onto funds: trillions and trillions of dollars will disappear from the world, companies and stock markets losing value, possibly over only a period of a few months.

Once supermarket lorries are seen failing to make their deliveries and are abandoned and looted on roadsides, society will collapse- we are that precariously balanced, and of course that's the reality behind 9/11 'attacks' and the subsequent control of Middle East reserves, the last of the world's oil. D'you know what 84 million barrels x365 days looks like? If it was a building it would be 1 x 1 x 4.5 kilometers tall ,with this yearly consumption going up by 10 stories or more each year. How much oil do you think is in the world's rocks?

Here's a couple of things I came across in a Youtube oil video, paraphrased for you- made an impression on me:

Einstein pointed out that the phenomenon of exponential growth is one of the most powerful in nature- where a quantity is subject to an ongoing factor, usually x2. The question then, as Richard Heinman puts it, is whether humanity is smarter than yeast, which expands its numbers without regard for its food source: it doubles and doubles until it reaches half the size of its remaining food, then doubles once more (cf China and India), still thinking everything's great, finds there's nothing left to eat at all and the entire lot of it dies.

I like this example as well, futher illuminating how most people aren't noticing there's a problem. There's this lake you've always used, essential to your life for water, fish, plants, animals etc. Unknown to you or your village, a virulent foreign water lilly takes hold, which doubles its coverage overnight, blocking out all else and killing and poisening the lake: it begins with a single tiny spore on day 1 and will cover the lake completely on day 30.

On which day do you think you might notice there was problem? When an eighth of the lake was covered? A quarter? Arguably most people wouldn't notice until it was half covered. How long would this give you to do something about it before the lake and your livelihood was destroyed? One day- you'd be on day 29. How long would you have if you noticed when it was a quarter covered? Two days, or three days if you were sharp enough to see it an eighth covered.

In this time left you also have to draw other people's attention to the problem, convince them that an eighth coverage was indeed a problem at all, think of a solution, agree on the solution, work out how to bring it about, work out who will do what etc etc etc, all within three days, when 27 passed while everyone still thought things were just fine. It wouldn't happen of course and the village would be overcome- certainly not in a democratic situation with idiots endlessly debating, when a clear sighted decisive leader is needed.

Some info here
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/