The Oil Drum

99 comments on Impressions of ASPO-USA

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Halfin on October 30, 2006 - 12:32am

Those are great comments, Nate. Far more nuanced than we often see here. I fully agree with the importance of recognizing the inherent uncertainty in our situation. The lack of transparency is unfortunately not something that we can expect to "fix" any time soon. Given that reality we have to accept that a wide range of possible future scenarios lies ahead.

It's good to see recognition of the natural gas situation. Even as recently as last year we were still seeing proposals that we would switch to natgas as oil ran out. In fact wasn't it in today's drumbeat that Chino, California is requiring all garages to be built with outlets to fuel CNG cars? How much sense does that make if we're going to run out of NG before oil?

That's also an interesting and provocative point that we may never see a geologic peak. I gather that this means that we may see a peak but the timing and details will be due to the economics and politics of the situation, rather than the classic Peak Oil scenario where we're pumping as hard as we can but we just can't get the oil to come out of the ground any faster.

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WinterIsComing on October 30, 2006 - 6:12am

From a public debate point of view, uncertainty speaks in favor of action: "We are heavily dependent on a resource the exact availability of which no-one seems to know - and people who insist there's no problem have not proven so. It is thus prudent to behave as if the resource was in short supply."

This creates an interesting dilemma with regards to communication efficiency: what is the optimal ratio between

supporting energy supply transparency, and
using supply uncertainty to support conservation & efficiency

By "optimal" I mean "making the greatest contribution to energy security".

There are a couple of factors that help resolve the dilemma. First, option 1 is fundamentally futile. There is no force on this planet that can force oil and gas producers to be transparent if they choose to obfuscate. Second, both options must first make the case that there is, indeed, a lack of transparency. The best strategy thus seems to be to go for option 1 (simpler to communicate) but switch to 2 as soon as the lack of transparency is well understood.