What Does Obama Know About Peak Oil?

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/109323/what_does_barack_know_about_peak_oil_/

What Does Barack Know About Peak Oil?

By James Howard Kunstler, Kunstler.com. Posted December 2, 2008.

The economy may go back up, but the decline in oil production can't be stopped. Does the president-elect know this?

Note: In this adapted essay from his site, James Howard Kunstler asks what Barack Obama and his team really know about our energy predicament?

... For instance, does Mr. O know that global oil production appears to have peaked at around 85 million barrels a day, with poor prospects of ever getting beyond that? This single naked fact has broad ramifications, above all, whether we can continue to think in terms of industrial "growth" as the benchmark for economic health. There are many interpretations of the current financial fiasco. Some of them are based on long-term technical wave theories. A more down-to-earth view suggests the shock of peak oil -- though it doesn't exclude wave theories.

- snip -

Does Mr. O know that oil exports have been trending to decline at a steeper rate than oil depletion? That is, the exporting nations are losing their ability to send oil to the importers (like us) at a rate mathematically greater than the run-down in their production. They are using more of their own oil even while their production is going down. For example, Mexico is depleting overall at more than 9 percent a year (with the Cantarell field alone running down at more than 15 percent annually). Does he know Mexico's net exports are crashing? Mexico has been our No. 3 leading source of imports. In a very few years, they will not be able to send us any oil. A deluded American public has no idea that this is happening. Will Mr. O explain it to them?

Does Mr. O know that the "old major" oil companies (Exxon-Mobil, Texaco, Shell, et al.) produce less than 10 percent of the world's oil now -- the other 90 percent coming from the foreign nationals -- and that blaming them for the situation is a waste of time? The foreign national companies are changing the landscape of the oil markets. They're making special contracts with "favored customers" rather than just putting their oil up for auction on the futures markets. One thing you can infer from this is that we're entering a period of national oil hoarding based on coming scarcity. The futures markets were based on relative abundance, and they will not operate very well in a climate of scarcity. Consider that the U.S.A will probably not be among the "favored customers" for several oil-producing nations. Figure that in with the coming loss of imports from Mexico (and Venezuela and Nigeria).

Does Mr. O know that the current drop in oil prices (due to massive financial deleveraging) has resulted in the cancellation or postponement of the very oil production projects that were hoped to offset the coming depletions? It's not worth it for an oil enterprise (private or foreign) to drill in deep water or venture into arctic regions when oil is priced at $50 a barrel -- if it costs $80 to get the stuff out of the ground. It's not worth digging up tar sands in Canada at that price. This halt in activity is going to boomerang back on the United States in a year or so, with depletions ongoing everywhere and no new oil to take its place. Does Mr. O know that we're just as likely to see shortages as a resuming rise in oil prices here in the U.S. during his coming term?

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[cali]

1. Yes, I would imagine he does know.

His emphasis on moving from an oil based energy economy to alternatives is one clue. He's a well educated and informed person, who shows no sign of shutting out information. I can't imagine why the author would suppose he doesn't know about Peak Oil.

[DainBramaged]

2. Does he know about peak Starbucks?????

[Deja Q]

4. What an anti-coffee remark!

Just wait until people lash out at you for daring not to take an issue with end-of-the-universe seriousness!

(Actually, a little humor is what's needed - if peak oil is real, we can't do much except curb usage or use it responsibly and as we're presumably already doing that, all we can do is one of two things: Make a joke or wallow in crocodile tears. Fuck the latter.)

[DainBramaged]

5. I worry about peak-creamer!

:hi:

[Deja Q]

6. Hehehehehe

They say the quiet ones are best in bed... :spray:

:hi:

[Deja Q]

3. He knows far more than you or I.

Might be some valid reasons behind the people he's choosing and the decisions he's plan on setting (like more troops in Afghanistan).

Forgive me for not being popular and wallowing in cynicism like most.

[mrcheerful]

7. So according to James Howard Kunstler, peak oil is real but

because the price dropped to bellow $100 the oil companies are no longer seeking to drill baby drill, because theres not enough profits to be had at the current price of oil. What I have to wonder is there was a time when oil was sold at less then $10 and it caused the oil boom at the turn of the 19th century.

Sure there wasn't no deep sea platforms, nor could they drill in extreme conditions in 1900, but with the equipement at the time, what the oil companies managed to do was just shy of a miricle. Call me a doubting Thomas, but somehow I get the impression that the consumer is getting screwed. Which is why I support getting off green house feuls, the hell with oil companies who have a long history of manipulating oil production, time oil companies went the way of the big 3.

[Subdivisions]

9. '...deep sea platforms'? Why go to all that trouble and expense

to drill in the most inhospitable places? Why not just continue drilling on dry land for God's sake?

[Subdivisions]

8. Oil will never run out. They're making more as we speak. That's

why the price is going down. More supply, lower price.

[taterguy]

10. You forgot the sargasm emoticon

I hate it when people do that

:eyes:

[ThomWV]

11. Let us hope he doesn't know much about it

Because the Peak Oil folks exaggerate just about everything.

[JohnyCanuck]

12. "Peak oil is not about how much oil is left in reserves;

it is about the rate at which oil can be produced, that is, how many barrels per day. It is not the size of the tank that matters, it is the size of the tap."

Some time in the very near future half of the estimated two trillion barrels of oil originally on the planet will have been extracted. When this happens, the world's production of oil will have reached an all-time peak. We will be pumping oil out at the maximum possible rate. From that point production will begin an accelerating decline, with less oil available every year. The second half of the earth's available oil will be harder to find, extract and refine because all the easy oil will be exploited first. Global use of oil continues to accelerate.Half of all the oil ever consumed on the planet has been consumed since 1983. (my emphasis/JC) Peak oil is not about how much oil is left in reserves; it is about the rate at which oil can be produced, that is, how many barrels per day. It is not the size of the tank that matters, it is the size of the tap.

Above snip from Comments on the report from the Select Committee on the Impact of Peak Oil in South Australia by Hon. Sandra Kanck

This is a key concept:
"Half of all the oil ever consumed on the planet has been consumed since 1983."

So in other words, over the last 25 years the world used as much oil as was used in the 120 years from the start of the oil age (approx 1860) up to the early 1980's. That's exponential growth in action. To get an understanding (using very basic and simple mathematics) of how even small but continuous increases in consumption of oil or any other resource ads up to extremely big increases over relatively short periods of time (and over much shorter time frames than most people would intuitively think possible) watch Physics Professor Albert Bartlett's presentation on exponential growth patterns and doubling times.

You can see it here (Real Player format only):
http://globalpublicmedia.com/dr_albert_bartlett_arithmetic_population_and_energy

Or here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

Remember: to think there is no limit to growth on a finite planet is precisely, mathematically equivalent to thinking that you may have a stabilized, steady state economy on a perpetually shrinking planet. Both claims are precisely, equally ludicrous!

http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEFAQs.html#anchor_84