<Driving In America The Oil Drum Klare: Less Oil==More Wars>
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208 comments on DrumBeat: May 17, 2006

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HKThom on May 17, 2006 - 1:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I try to get people used to the idea by trying to get them to see where "conventional wisdom" is flawed.

That is, when talking to most people, the opinion that "there is plenty of oil" typically comes up pretty soon. I ask them if they think there is an infinite amount.

If they truly believe that, I will never convince them of anything. But usually with a little prodding people will grudgingly admit that there must be some limit.

From here it is easy to conclude that we will start running out sometime. The response is often along the lines of "Yeah, but that is so long from now it doesn't matter."

How long is that? Even the most riduculous forecast, anyone they can mention (USGS, the Saudis, oil companies themselves), agree there is not much more that 50 years of oil left, prehaps 100 (obviously that is a crass statement, assuming an impossible amount of recoverable oil and ignoring all sorts of physical issues, but it is sufficient for our purposes here).

So is 50 years a long time?

That is in the (current expected) lifetime of many of us. Easily in that of our children. Very possibly, our grandchildren won't even be out of high school in 50 years. Your parents probably remember 50 years ago. 50 years is not long at all.

This make it more tangible. Even the using the farthest out, most pie-in-the-sky projections, we will "run out of oil" so soon you could be around see the day. After that we will have none. Nothing. No cars, no planes, nothing at all. And people we know and love, our kids, perhaps even us, will be dealing with it.

Most people will at least stop for a second here.

Then you go into why the extreme projection are likely way off (big fields peaking all around the world already). And how things like ANWR are so tiny as to not make much difference (85 million bpd vs perhaps 1).

And the ancedote about Hubbert predicting the peak of US oil is usually pretty good. I find many people don't realize that US oil production has been decreasing for almost 40 years.

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louGrinzo on May 17, 2006 - 1:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"This make it more tangible. Even the using the farthest out, most pie-in-the-sky projections, we will "run out of oil" so soon you could be around see the day. After that we will have none. Nothing. No cars, no planes, nothing at all. And people we know and love, our kids, perhaps even us, will be dealing with it."

I never tell newbies that one day the oil will run out.  I do tell them that it will become so expensive we'll have to find other solutions, which I believe is accurate.

I definitely would never tell them "no cars, no planes, nothing at all."  No electric cars?  No prop planes running on ethanol, biodiesel, or CTL fuel?  I don't think that's even close to being a reasonable prediction, and it only makes the peak oilers sound like frustrated Y2K-ers who are still upset that nothing bad happened on 1/1/2000.

I think the key is to lead newbies to the facts in as non-threatening a way as possible, and then walk them back from their knee-jerk leap into extreme pessimism.  If you hit them with the "sky is falling" stuff, even after going through most of the facts, you'll lose most of 'em instantly.

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HKThom on May 17, 2006 - 2:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Agreed, which is why I approach it as described, versus coming out and saying "The sky is falling!" That makes you the freak. I let them come to that conclusion, which goes against what they have been lead to believe. Which then gives them pause, as if to say "Hey, even under my assumptions, which I thought were sound, we are heading off a cliff sooner than I imagined. What is going on?"

Once that bridge is crossed, you can much more freely talk about what to do about it. This is where it gets lively. I have managed to get most of my coworkers Peak Oil Aware, and some have really taken to it (cutting driving, lowering thermostats, installing a rainwater system in one case, etc).

Saying "no nothing" is extreme, and not what I believe. I am sorry if I lead you to believe I was predicting that. But it accurately underlines how dependendent on oil our current situation is (in western, and western-aspiring, societies). To a large extent, there is very little we are comfortable with today that will eventually have to be rethought (electric cars or what have you).

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mshortridge on May 17, 2006 - 3:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I have had some luck with going from the idea that each deposit of oil large or small starts under high pressure and diminishes over time making the oil ever more difficult to extract.  That seems logical to most people.
Then the notion that each nation is an aggregate of all of its small fields and thus its national production follows the same pattern.
Then, logically, the earth is the aggregate of the nations that produce oil.  
So it follows pretty well for many people that the easy oil under pressure that flows the fastest, is less viscous etc.. is the first produced. What follows is slower, harder, lower quality.  
With that understood as groundwork, the details of Saudi ala Simmons, Cantarell decline, North Sea, US peak, etc help locate us in the historical moment we're in.  
That has been my method anyway...
Matt, DC
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208 comments on DrumBeat: May 17, 2006

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