<DrumBeat: July 31, 2007 The Oil Drum Sir David King’s View on Peak Oil>

151 comments on Peak Oil Booklet: Chapter 3: What's Ahead?

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MetaMeme on July 31, 2007 - 5:50am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

While it is not as obvious, It is also likely that there will be actual "outages" of some oil-related products.

I suspect that steadily increasing energy & raw material prices will begin to push small sales volume, low profit margin products out of the market.

Some of these products/services will be trivial ... but others might be indirectly crucial to certain industries.

For example, imagine a small unique company with many years of expertise which produces, say, special measuring tools for other companies which makes special equipment for the nuclear power industry. The owner might simply close the company & retire if raw materials become too expensive & energy costs rose too much.

The demise of this small company might not be noticed for a while ... but at some stage the intermediate companies might suddenly find that they can't calibrate their products destined for use in nuclear reactors. Oops!

Or imagine that a similar supply chain problem leads to, say, engine spark plugs no longer being available due to shortages of a special electrical isolating but thermally tough glue.

This reduction of "biodiversity" repeated across all industry sectors could lead to all sorts of unexpected - and very awkward - production & supply problems.

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mbkennel on July 31, 2007 - 6:38am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think the raw cost of petroleum inputs into those items are small compared to the use of petroleum for energy in transportation.

Suppose we banned the internal combustion engine. How many years of petrochemical use would the remaining oil reserves last? I'd guess centuries.

Why would a specialized nuclear power plant calibration device be a "low profit margin" product?

I'd think that for these kinds of things, the availability of capital would be much more important. High interest rates or low credit availability would do it.

W.r.t to nuclear plant suppliers in particular, I'd venture that GE itself would likely lend money to critical industries in such a situation.

If the owner wanted to close the company why not sell it to the critical buyer?

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Gail the Actuary on July 31, 2007 - 8:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I see a couple of big problems -

1. There is likely to be a decrease in availability of replacement parts and other manufactured goods from overseas, particularly from third world countries experiencing load sharing and the like.

2. Everyone in the US would like to build new factories and other types of infrastructure, but in total all we have in terms of resources is:

• What we can mine (or otherwise produce)
• What we can recycle
• What we can import from abroad

Lack of capital is just a symptom of lack of resources.

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auntiegrav on July 31, 2007 - 11:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

2. Everyone in the US would like to build new factories and other types of infrastructure, but in total all we have in terms of resources is:

• What we can mine (or otherwise produce)
• What we can recycle
• What we can import from abroad

Lack of capital is just a symptom of lack of resources.

or, HEAVEN FORBID!!
4. What we can grow with the work of our hands and the sweat of our brow, powered by the biggest hydrogen fusion source within 4 light years of us.

Speaking of resources, How much energy do we throw away 'treating' sewage when every human being produces 1500 lbs of fertilizer per year?
Our System of Systems is insane when it comes to resource use and waste.
We take our children off the land and pay for them to go to schools to learn about plants and animals from video screens. Then we send them off to war to get more oil to go to war. The ones that don't get killed on the highways to get to the wars spend their time driving to work to make money to buy cars to drive to work at jobs created by 'incentives' taxed from the landowners who buy oil-based machines to replace the labor which is paid a $40,000 bonus to die in a war to raise the price of oil.
(was that one sentence? ;-o)

"Other than working and paying, what are you good for?"

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eric blair on July 31, 2007 - 10:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

How much energy do we throw away 'treating' sewage when every human being produces 1500 lbs of fertilizer per year?

A whole lot (motors that move the sewage need to be started and stopped with the power grids knowledge so they can spin up and down the generation for the load) because 'we' are managing the process and shrinking the land used for treatment VS having acres of solar powered treatment or using $15 of electrical power per day to treat 35 tons of human waste a day and letting earthworms do the processing in a worm gin product. (Deployed in South Korea)

The waste treatment plant used to use a Mercury bearing (Yup, floated the aeration arm pivot point on Mercury) till the metal engineering was able to be handle the forces.

And NOT having a connection to the city sewer means you are illegally inhabiting a structure. (Same with a connection to the power grid)

And finally - you'd have to have a change in behavior - all the time with the backdrop of cholera and other disease outbreaks.

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PaulS on July 31, 2007 - 11:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You're partially right about this, of course, but really it's a bit more complicated, and not much to do with the direct petroleum cost, which is indeed usually negligible. The truth is that oftentimes, no one is really managing small and obscure supply chains even when they are highly critical. The items may even be highly profitable, but the dollar volume is just too small to get anyone's full attention. The "critical buyer" may not be listening. After all, nearly everything is ultimately run by finance guys, not engineers.

Some years ago, service was disrupted for quite a while on the Washington Metro because, just like that, the manufacturer of certain electromechanical relays no longer felt like making them. Metro had to run some lines at reduced headways in manual mode, making the rush-hour crowding even more awful than usual, until they found somebody else to make relays. There has yet to be any such thing as an economical, reliable, continuing supply of anything electronic.

I would guess that as ever more attention is diverted to the big stuff of energy supply - and complications such as increasing difficulty even getting employees in to work together - failures caused by the neglect of all sorts of little stuff will be on the rise.

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auntiegrav on July 31, 2007 - 12:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Kunstler says that the airlines are the "canary in the coal mine". I have said (years ago) that we will know when we reach The Hole when airplanes start dropping out of the sky.

There was a time when electronic supplies were reliable: When local manufacturers made the parts in house. Philo T. Farnsworth understood this when he invented television. He sent his brother-in-law to apprentice to blow glass for vacuum tubes, he wound every coil himself.

When things are too complex to make it yourself with reasonable skills, you don't need it. Customary comfort and convenience are not 'needs', and we should remember this when looking for ways to ameliorate resource loss. The first question every good inventor learns to ask himself is, "Does anyone need this, or do I have to create a market for it?"
We've let the oil companies and auto industries and energy companies "create the market" which mostly wasn't needed, and now the PTB use "consumption" statistics to tell us how much we will "need" in the future.

What will fit through The Hole?

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markincalgary on July 31, 2007 - 3:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Are you on crack or perfectly comfortable with the hypocrisy of posting your comment with a computer?

Now, I'm pretty fond of simple tools. For example, I'm really enjoying putting up loose hay for my small flock of sheep with a scythe, rake, hay fork, and wheelbarrow. I'm also a fan of bikes, reel mowers (although sheep are better), and hand tools for woodworking. My leaning is definitely towards depending on tools that can be built or at least serviced by the user. And I'm with you that there are huge lifestyle changes looming in our futures, but specialization will be part of that.

If our population was one tenth of what it is, we might be able to get by, but it will probably suck a lot less if we each choose to focus on areas that would benefit us most (ie. which may include benefiting others most).

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geewiz on August 1, 2007 - 1:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

When Southwest Airlines quits flying is when there is no more air travel. If Southwest goes under, they will be the last. No other airline in the USA will be flying.

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151 comments on Peak Oil Booklet: Chapter 3: What's Ahead?

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