What is peak oil?
The questions and answers in the sheet are based on those at the Community Solution site (US)
An excellent introduction is at the Energy Bulletin site.
Sheppard Bliss discusses the use of Peak Oil as metaphor.
When will peak oil occur?
We will know it has happened only in hindsight, perhaps 2-3 years after the event occurs. James Kunstler says it happened mid 2006. One early sign is fluctuating oil prices on a rising trend, with reasons given for the rises in the popular press being about anything other than peak oil. For a clear presentation of the data and its implications see Dr Albert Bartlett's presentation (US).
Why should I be concerned about peak oil?
After peak oil approximately half the original oil endowment from Earth's early history will be left, but it will be the more difficult and expensive reserves which require more energy to extract.
It has been claimed that manufacturing has become more energy-efficient over the last 30 years and that less oil consumption is built into the product chain today than in the past. However, this claim derives from single-country analyses and ignores the use of oil overseas in producing and transporting products to Australia.
Will this just mean higher petrol prices?
Oil prices can be tracked by the minute on nymex and 321energy and across the year. Futures prices are also available.
Oil prices around 1980 reached $US94 a barrel in 2005 US dollars.
A barrel of oil is 42 US gallons or 158.97 litres. One US gallon = 3.785 litres; one imperial gallon = 4.564 litres.
Aren't we discovering more oil?
We have taken all the 'easy pickings' of oil (and copper, guano phosphates, platinum, silver, lithium etc.) with the aid of oil. Can we mine the less accessible resources without oil?
Surely they'll find a technological fix?
A useful discussion of this topic is in the interview with Andrew McNamara MP (Aust)
Alternatives to oil:
Oil - The EROEI of oil is confidential industry information. Jim Kunstler quotes 28:1 for the US in the 1916 and 2:1 for the US today. A global figure of 5:1 is the best estimate on the information available. EPR is another term for EROEI.
The history of oil is outlined in an entertaining way by oil geologist Byron King (US)
Natural gas - Transport of natural gas by sea is more energy intensive and expensive that transport by pipeline over land. It requires chilling at the outgoing port and conversion back to gaseous form at the receiving port. The global liquified natural gas fleet is not as advanced as the global tanker fleet.
Uranium - Actual reserves are confidential commercial data. For more information see Dave Kimble's presentation here. (Aust)
When and how to act:
The dry dipstick site has a suggested program of action which may help (US).
Society and nation:
The reasons for inaction by the politician class are spelled out clearly by Andrew McNamara MP in a way that questions the appropriateness of our political system for dealing with issues like peak oil and the environment.
A one-week fuel oil blockade in Britain in 2000 has been analysed to help plan for future fuel shortages.
The manufacturing and retail sectors have sold off their warehouses
and substituted 'just in time' management that is vulnerable to disruption to cheap fuel for transport and reliable computer communications.
The contrast between the three-year electoral cycle and the 80-year human life cycle is brought out in this article (UK).
Community:
A post-peak world is imagined in positive and practical detail at the Community Solution site (US).
A community in Queensland is becoming a transition town and another of 15,000 people
is preparing thoroughly for peak oil (Willits, California).
Some people doubt that the post-peak world will see an orderly 'powerdown' into sustainability. A graphic prediction is in this paper (UK)
Economy:
LETS: Local Energy Trading Systems (Aust)
Family finances: These suggestions apply to the early period of cheap oil depletion.
Superannuation: Ask your superannuation fund (a) if it has factored peak oil and climate change into its risk assessment process and (b) if it has your money in sustainable investments. Unsustainable investments would include toll-roads, airports, large outer-suburban shopping centres, new car dealerships.
Banking: The implications of a fuel oil shortage for the finance sector and the sectors it services are described here (UK).
Shelter:
Derek Wrigley's book can be ordered from his site (Aust)
Location:
Ruralization is explained graphically by Folke Gunther (Sweden - explore other pages on his site)
Shifting houses onto streets and depaving are discussed in Culture Change Letter #105 (US)
Security:
Government controls introduced to combat terrorism may point to the shape of controls to deal with peak oil.
Rationing: The groups given priority for fuel in the UK crisis in September 2000 are listed here.
Health:
A one week fuel blockade in the UK in 2000 had these effects on their health services.
Water:
Solar dehydrating toilets are another way of eliminating one use of domestic water.
Food:
Food security is an emerging major issue and the impact of peak oil is outlined in this article (US).
Permaculture is described here (Aust). Bill Mollison's 1981 course notes are here. David Holmgren, in his video, explains that growing your own fresh food is political - it by-passes the food industry, fuel-intensive refrigerated transport and the supermarket chains. He recommends we change our food habits before changes are forced upon us, becoming accustomed to eating from a couple of dozen foods produced at home instead of thousands from the supermarket. He points out that food prices in the 1980s and 1990s were the cheapest relative to real wages in all of human history, setting us up for a shock.
Farmers' markets are described here (US).
Civil unrest: "It is estimated that after as little as four missed meals, a 'law of the jungle' would take over, in which citizens resorted to looting or violence to find food" according to the UK's MI5. An article in UK's Daily Mail newspaper up-dated this story as "nine meals from anarchy" in June 2008.
Localization: By buying local organic food you are supporting growers most likely able to maintain supplies when fuel prices or shortages disrupt food supplies.
John Jeavons' books are available through Green Harvest and Eden Seeds in Australia.
Australia's food producers employed 90% fewer people in 2005 than in 1970 - all on the basis of cheap energy. What a tragic loss of skills!
Plastic food containers can leach toxic substance like phthalates into food. Even food-grade plastics can leach oxygen into food, turning wet food rancid. (This is the reason for some food "use by" dates.)
Pet food scarcity may lead to the abandonment of many pets.
Recycling:
Thinking consumers are choosing to 'Refuse' before the three traditional 'Rs' of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Electric power:
Solar energy is explained on the Energy SA site.
Self sufficiency:
Three weeks food: This is a prudent measure for the early stages of peak oil. If food deliveries are unreliable there will be occasions to dip into your stock, replenishing it when supplies return. In 2004 the British government advised all its households to have bottled water and tinned food for several days.
Wind-up radios are available over the internet from these makers Eton, Freeplay, Info-mate, Grundig.
John Seymour's Complete book of Self-Sufficiency is a well-regarded classic, written for a UK audience.
Quality hand tools can be acquired through Hans Brunner (Australia), Dieter Schmid (Germany) and Lehmans (US).
Transport:
Hybrid vehicles are a weak response to peak oil; they have a greater embodied energy than standard vehicles and they still require the same energy inputs for road construction, fuel transport, garaging and parking. Past experience shows that when people buy cars (or other energy-saving devices) that use less fuel they tend to increase their mileage (or other use), up to or beyond their previous levels.
A one week fuel blockade in the UK in 2000 forced almost a third of motorists to cease driving.
Much transport of fresh food is by road in refrigerated vans.
Knowledge and skills:
Australia has for decades imported professionals from overseas. In the future, will we import Indian artisans to teach future generations of our apprentices the essential hand-tool skills in forgotten trades?
The Rural Store in Donvale, Victoria, has many books on self sufficiency (Aust).
How long will problems last?
Economists predict, on the historic evidence, that oil prices always cycle between high and low. But this pattern held only when extraction was increasing. Once we reach the peak of extraction, particularly when demand is increasing, there is no scope for prices to fall significantly.
One possible long-term scenario, post-peak, is explained in Paul Thompson's paper (UK).
Isn't much of the above fanciful?
Global warming's consequences are described soberly in Tim Dyson's July 2005 paper (UK).
A blockade of British oil supplies
lasting only one week had effects through the economy and society (UK).
David Lankshear in Sydney has these thoughts for those who find the notion of peak oil to be fanciful.
See what other readers thought about the Peak Oil sheet on this page.
Human characteristics and how they hinder long-term planning are outlined here (UK).
Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons pointed to the likelihood that people who 'tread lightly on the earth' will be creating a vacuum which those without the same scruples will rush to fill. The net effect on oil reserves and climate change will be negligible.
The world's five largest oil companies, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total, Shell and BP began in 2005 to explain, through wide advertising - but with cautious words - the challenges of peak oil.
More information - internet:
Other sites which contain a cross section of views include:
The Energy Bulletin (Australia and US; updated daily).
Life After the Oil Crash is one of the most popular sites and has convinced many skeptics
(US).
The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (Ireland).
Global Public Media (US).
The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (UK).
Powerswitch (UK).
Oil Crash covers action in New Zealand on peak oil
(NZ).
Energy Futures Ireland cover peak oil from an Irish perspective (Ireland).
The main discussion forum on peak oil in Australia is ROEOZ. There are also groups in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney.
More information - books and DVDs and other products:
'Overshoot' by William Catton (1980) provides the full theoretical framework for understanding peak oil (review here)
'What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire' movie realeased as a DVD in August 2007.
'Twilight in the desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy' by Matthew Simmons (2005).
'Powerdown - Options and Actions for a Post-carbon World' by Richard Heinberg (2004) .
'The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies' by Richard Heinberg (2005).
'The Coming Oil Crisis' by Colin Campbell (2005).
'The Long Emergency' by James Kunstler (2005) (review here).
'The End of Suburbia' (2004) (a DVD from the US).
'Peak Oil - Imposed by Nature' (2005) (a DVD from the UK and Norway) (review here).
'A Crude Awakening' movie and DVD (2007)
Peak oil t-shirts
(NZ).
More information - audio-visual over the internet:
Colin Campbell's presentation in April 2005
(focuses on geological facts) (UK).
More information - reports:
Is the World Running Out of Oil? (2005) from the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics, (Australia).
The Hirsch Report (February 2005) for the US government - 91 pages .pdf format.
Critique of the Hirsch report (August 2005).
The original of this sheet, by Ronald Greek for US readers, can be downloaded here.
More information - what you can do:
Download and read the .pdf document referred to at the top of this page. Pass it on to your friends.
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