Facts and Figures: what Peak Oil means to us and the rest of the world...

[Solon]

OK, I'm going to attempt to combine all the good information out there because apparently, Peak Oil is a fact that can no longer be disputed, and apparently is happening at a much shorter timespan than most scientists and energy consultants realized. Couple of ground rules, first, I'm going to cite sources as links in this manner: <1> so that the post will be readable and you can review the information yourself in as unobtrusive manner as possible.

This is probably as close to a scientific or research paper as I will get as far as sources cited, this post will also be long, so be warned about that. I can't use the traditional brackets for obvious reasons, also, I will try to be as brief as possible, however, this is a lot of information, and I'm going to try to cover as much ground as possible in as brief of words as possible. Another note of warning, some of the sites I cite(hey I'm a poet :)) will require either Open Office or MS Office. Just a warning.(xls files)

Oil: Supply, Demand and Consumption

First, a definition of the various types of oil reserves out there, first is conventional oil, the "Black Gold" that everyone is familiar with, the traditional derricks and pumps can be seen in many areas of the world. This oil is the most easily extracted, and also is the type being rapidly depleted in fields around the world. Next are the unconventional oil fields. These are divided up into two categories, Oil Sands/Heavy Oil, and then Oil Shale. These fields have more than enough oil to last us a while, however lets look at the faults in trying to extract them. Oil Sands/Heavy Oil is expensive, energy wise, to extract it, its more like mining than drilling, requiring usually hot water or steam to extract the oil from them. In addition to that, they have an extremely low extraction rate, usually in the hundreds of thousand of barrels a day, rather than the millions required for current consumption. Increasing that production to the levels required by the world today can lead to a large amount of environmental damage. Onto Shale Oil, this type of oil reserve has never been successfully extracted to date in an economical manner. The reason is obvious, shale oil requires you to first mine it out of the ground. Then you have to heat it to 900 degrees F and add hydrogen(from water) to make the oil flow out of it. This is obscenely expensive, and plus, the largest reserve of this type of oil is in the Colorado Plateau, a region that has little water to spare.<1>

As far as conventional reserves, there is approximately 1.277702 Trillion barrels left in the ground. <2> Seems like a lot, doesn't it? However, at the last time I checked, total consumption rate as of 3rd quarter of 2004 was 82.2 million barrels a day.<3> Assuming no growth rate as of this time I multiply that number by 365 days in the year. That equals 30.003 billion barrels a year. That equals a grand total of 42.6 years, rounded up, left for the oil age. Seems like plenty of time, except for a few things. First, this is assuming that oil is going to be equally easy to extract during all that time, and second, that we have ZERO energy growth in all that time. Back in the '70s, coal was estimated to last 500 years at the consumption rates of that time, now we will be lucky if it lasts 50 years at today's rates. BTW: These reserves estimates cannot be considered accurate as such, simply because since the 1980's OPEC countries have overestimated their reserves by as much as 50% or more. <4> This gives you the basic idea as to where we stand as far as production, and consumption of oil.

Oil: The Portable Fuel

Oil, unlike any other energy source on the planet, gives us more bang for our buck than either coal or natural gas. About 42 to 45 mega joules(MJ) per kilogram.<5> Contrast this with Coal, whose energy density is more like anywhere from 8 to 30 MJ/kg, or NG at 39 MJ per cubic meter.<6>

This means two things, one is that because of its energy density, oil is comparatively light to transport, and easy to use for vehicles. The only reason we have a working airline industry that isn't prohibitively expensive is because of oil. The Wright brothers did not leap into the air with a coal fired steam engine, internal combustion engines lead the way, there is simply no alternative at this time to replace oil based aircraft fuel. Automobiles and other vehicles have good ranges for the amount of fuel they have in their tanks because of oil's energy density. The other reason is that it is easy to import and export this fuel, unlike let's say Natural Gas, another Fossil Fuel that's on the decline.

Oil, The versatile resource

As many people know, oil is used in a variety of products, from toothbrushes to pesticides. In fact, the "Green Revolution" is one of the things that I want to cover. Right now the Earth has 6 billion humans on it. This is mostly thanks to the revolution in petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides that helped create this population boom. However, this dynamic changes when you realize that it takes about 10 calories of oil to feed us one calorie. That means, on an average day, a single American will eat about 20,000 calories of oil. This excludes transportation costs of oil. On average, food travels about 1500 miles before arriving on your plate. <7>

The Green Revolution replaced tried and true techniques of farming, along with replacing variety of seeds with ones that respond positively to petrochemicals in nearly half the world's food supply. Now, many of these "new" farms are facing soil degradation and fertility loss, the only thing sustaining current levels of food production is oil. Once that gets more expensive, so does the loaf of bread, once it gets too expensive and shortfalls occur, then starvation on a much larger scale, not based on politics or distribution, but on biology, sets in.<8>

Conclusion

I wanted to make myself clear here, there is no easy solution to the problem of peak oil. There is no "magic bullet" that will solve all our problems at one go. My first link gives an excellent analysis of much of the problems with oil usage, and the alternatives to fossil fuels. Part of the problem is this: Especially in North America, but in many other places, our lifestyles are too energy intense, our housing is too large, our zoning laws make no practical sense, and we waste far too much energy to fulfill basic needs. This isn't so much an inconvenience, but more a matter of meeting basic needs in housing, heating, and food plus water.<9>

The biggest obstacle is time, we simply do not have it. No matter what type of strategies we come up with to alleviate some of the problems, they will take time to implement. Whether its building new nuclear reactors, or solar and wind generators nationwide, it will take a decade or more to implement. How long would it take to replace EVERY gas station in the country with hydrogen stations? Years at least. One thing to remember is this, we ALREADY have the demand for a high energy lifestyle, however we are running short on the supply side. This isn't basic free market ideology, there is already a market that is preexisting, and there is no alternative at this time that can replace it. We are entering a crisis period where we are woefully inadequate in dealing with. So, are you depressed yet?

BTW: I know I didn't mention the sulfur rich sour oil, or the dregs in traditional reserves, more expensive to refine obviously.