Many readers will be familiar with Nate's writings here on The Oil Drum (read his articles here), but it's worth reiterating Julian's point. Perhaps it was because neuroscience was a new subject for an ASPO conference or that he just told us what we already knew to be true but hadn't had articulated but in discussions after his speech it was clear he had made a real impact with the ASPO delegates.

I had some time to speak with Schlesinger after the conference and as Julian says he’s not too concerned about the date. He recognises the problem but more seriously he recognises how we aren’t addressing it. It makes no difference if peak oil 5, 10 or 15 years away if we do nothing to address it. He said it’s going to “hit us between the eyes like a two by four”.

I heartily applaud Jeremy Leggett for comparing "our" understanding of fossil fuel reserves with that of the IPCC and showing the IPCC numbers most likely in error on the high side. This critical conclusion - that there likely isn't enough oil and gas as cause calamity - is very important for understanding and formulating a response to energy depletion and climate change. Leggett's conclusion that it is all about coal is exactly right and where the climate change debate needs to focus in my opinion. This is the same conclusion reached by NASA's Dr James Hansen earlier this year in his paper Implications of "Peak Oil" for Atmospheric CO2 and Climate.

Two barrels of oil are used for each one found. $100 oil anyone?

"September 21, 2007

ROME -- For the peak-oil crowd, that merry band of doomsters who believe global oil production is about to go into irreversible decline and plunge us into a new Stone Age, the timing couldn't have been better. As the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas was holding its conference in Cork, Ireland, earlier this week, oil prices conveniently set record prices.
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The predictions for oil at $100-plus a barrel are now no more far-fetched than oil at $50.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070921.IBREGULY21/TPS...

With regard to uranium, production will almost certainly exceed supply by 2015.

At the world biggest discovered deposit, Olympic Dam reserves have been upgraded to 2.2 million tonnes from the 750 thousand tones in the 2006 IAEA report. BHP-B still haven't defined the resource, 2.2 million tonnes is their latest minimum estimate.

Does anyone detect the desire for a calamity among humanity?

I believe indeed we may march along until the alarms are ringing loudly, then panic. But human nature wants a shock, to break the emptiness of the current consumerist world. And the poor nations are also consumerists in many ways, just without the funds to express it. Of course there are pockets of societies that live in a more enlightened way, but they are the exception.

Too bad that we as a world society are not sophisticated enough to realize that improvement can occur without requiring a calamity in the environment. The real hard work is to change the nature of society and improve the experience of life, and to make that change despite the absence of a major crisis. But we may not acquire that understanding soon enough, and will eagerly march into calamity, with the hope that there is a better world on the other side.

Please let me know if more exposition is needed, as I realize these ideas may seem a bit mysterious.

David Alexander
http://www.PlanetThoughts.org
Love your Planet

Are both these guys sleeping walking into doom? Well a huge brain has to be an advantage over huge antlers.

Julian, thanks for this excellent overview.

Skrebowski’s April 2006 estimates are a net gain of less than 2mbpd till 2009 declining thereafter.

I'd just point out that 83+2+2+2 = 89 mmbpd in 2009. So this is not a million miles away from leonard's 90-100 mm. I believe, Leonard saw plateau extending to 2020 - and that I believe is a major difficulty cos that will need 4.0 to 4.5 mmbpd new capacity every year to compensate for decline from 2009 just to maintain plateau.

The other day, a post on The Oil Drum, GLT149, gave us a fascinating link....

http://bp3.blogger.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RiR7L_dyCLI/AAAAAAAAAdU/2COTRQtZAk8/...

This was a copy of an article published in 1901 in the Ladie’s Home Journal predicting the future in the next century (out to 2001)

More interesting than the audacity of many of the predictions was the failure of the ability to “think outside the box” on the part of the contributing experts in their respective fields of the time.

The narrowness of thinking regarding energy was most noticable: There was little mention of oil. There was absolutlely no mention of natural gas, propane or nuclear energy, these having not yet been discovered. Energy predictions involved coal (whiich was predicted to be very rare by now). The prediction was that we would live in a world powered by electriicity provided by hydro electric power from every river and stream and tidal power from the oceans. (“Just as Niagra provides today” it was said in 1901)

The participants at the ASPO 6 Conference in Cork seemed very well meaning, very thoughtful IF the thought remained inside the current framework, much like the thinkers of 1901. I say this not rudely, but the most surprising aspect of the ASPO Conference is that there was virtually nothing on the agenda that showed breakthrough thinking or consideration of the possibility of breakthrough thinking. This conference could have been done in 1975, and would have been right in step with the times a third of a century ago.

For anyone willing to actually read the literature and with an ability to visualize at all, the picture out in the real world is incredibly different. The advances in PV solar, Concentrating Mirror Solar, and batteries in themselves put the creation of a new energy industry within years away, not decades. And they are just the tip of the iceberg. Nano technology developments in these areas and in advanced materials, in gene technology, in understanding of energy conversion and efficiency design, in information systems applied to drivetrains in power supply and in transportation are just now beginning to be applied to product design and development.

Why is it not happening more quickly? Because oil and gas are still abundant enough to be givaway cheap, so cheap that it can be wasted almost without thought. It has been said that real change occurs when technical ability meets economic need or advantage.

The technical ability is already there, waiting, developing, growing. But there is no economic advantage in using it. YET.

Sadly, we live in a world in which so called “leaders” know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Use advanced technology to assure our nations security? Not if it costs an extra dime a mile to travel. Use advanced technology to protect the climate? Not if it costs an extra few cents per killowatt hour....
“Ron Oxburgh said that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology increases the capital cost of a coal-fired power station by 30% and reduces efficiency by around 10%. So that’s the breaking point? Is that really the logic we now use?
Sickening.

Of course, the United States must now know that it is falling behind. Several years ago, when the hybrid drive technology was being developed by Toyota, the Americans laughed it off. Yeah, they will sell a few, but it’s too complex, it won’t scale....that was a million units ago. What does it now take to prove scale....10 million units, 100 million? What will our next excuse be?

Yeah, but hybrids really don’t save that much fuel...a little car or a Diesel does as well.

Anyone with vision could see that the gas electric hybrid per se was not the end of the development path. It was the first step to a potentical grid based transportation system. To the use of portable liquid fuel as a “range and performance enhancer” not as the foundation fuel for propulsion. But, in our cyncial disbelief in any potential forward development, the U.S. passed it up and missed the advantage. Now, we lack a developed battery and hybrid drive control industry, and have to purchase the advanced components from another nation.

“I had some time to speak with Schlesinger after the conference and as Julian says he’s not too concerned about the date. He recognises the problem but more seriously he recognises how we aren’t addressing it. It makes no difference if peak oil 5, 10 or 15 years away if we do nothing to address it. He said it’s going to “hit us between the eyes like a two by four”.

The pivotal words in the above paragraph are “if we do nothing to address it”. This implies that something can be done to address it, making Schlesinger the likely target of doomsterist ridicule. But I think Schlesinger is VERY wrong when he says “It makes no difference if peak oil 5, 10 or 15 years away.” That is, IF we do something to address it. I said in a my first posts over a year ago here on TOD that if Peak oil does not occur within 10 years, it is essentially a non event.

I would now shorten that time to 7 years. The technical development is moving MUCH faster than I thought possible at that time.

Of course, I will be riduculed for saying that, as someone who dreams of gettng methane from Titan or some such ignorant comparison. The difference should be clear between what is not technically achievable and what is being held up by the unwillingness to pay a few extra pennies a kilowatt or mile for real energy security and independence.

We have only two choices, really....attemp to cower and hide in the hills, or to educate our young, and take on the challenge of the advanced design that we know is possible for a very small price compared to the price we will pay if we give away our leadership and out ability to achieve.
RC

The success of the Transition Towns movement (Rob Hopkins described it as the fastest-growing political movement he’d ever experienced) shows that there is movement at the grassroots but it is not being mirrored by sufficient intensity at national government level. Several speakers and conference attendees I talked to were not impressed by the Irish government’s apparent inability to recognise the precarious position of Ireland’s electricity generation system, so it is not just the UK government which has blinkers on.

http://www.transitiontowns.org/

List of Transition Towns
Towns

Totnes, Devon, UK
Kinsale, Co. Cork, Ireland.
Ivybridge, Devon, UK
Falmouth, Cornwall, UK
Moretonhampstead, Devon, UK
Lewes, East Sussex, UK
Ottery St. Mary, Devon, UK
Stroud, Gloucestershire,UK
Ashburton, Devon, UK
Mayfield, East Sussex, UK
Glastonbury, Somerset, UK
Wrington, UK
Dunster, UK
Maidenhead , UK
Brampton, UK
Portobello, UK
Cities

Bristol, UK
Exeter, UK
Nottingham, UK
In London

Brixton, UK
Villages

Forest Row, East Sussex, UK
Places Not a town or a village? Perhaps you're a rural area?

Penwith, Cornwall, UK which is not a town as such but is an area of Cornwall following this process. We also have our own website.

I posted following yesterday on TOD drum beat comments:

Have only little time to post give the time ddiffernece from Germany and that I post from work. I have had the following idea for a while now. To do a sort of local assessment of my local area by googling around and getting up a lot of information to be able to do a sort of "Transition Town" planning. I thought perhaps if a wiki was made with following template or similar as a template, everybody could participate. For instance the template could be standard with links to various cities.In every town or city different peiople with knowledge of an area (public transit, farming, electricity generation, water resources, foot or bike paths, hman resources) could edit the wiki according to theeir knowledge. This could orgaincally grow and be available ot local transition groups for lanning and eventually political purposes. Given the first two links above by Leanan I thought it was an appropriate day to make the contribution.

PEAK OIL REGIONAL ASSESSMENT
POST PEAK LOCAL RESOURCES CATALOGUE

1) Arable land in and around city
a)Gardening plots/allottments
b)Farms
c) Lawns
d)Parks
e)Forests- berries, animals, mushrooms
f)number of trees in city dispersed along streets, lawns, parks for cooling
g)fruit trees
h) food sources –where does most food come from?
i)farm animals available –sheeps, goats , cows, chickens- number
j) how much local per capita production possible given available arable land and precipitation-can the existing population survive on the 100 mile diet?
k) Horses for transport and carts

2)Water resources
a) rivers, streams
b)lakes
c) ponds
d) canals(transport of goods))
e) natural water table depths, aquifers
f) water collectors manmade, dams,etc.
g) precipitation total –distribution physically, seasonally
h)fishing grounds- types of fish and amount available as renewable resource, fish farming
i) water works

3)Human resources
a)population density and distribution
b) zoning, mixed business residential or separated
c) housing density, apartment buildings or SFH, DFH
d) sidewalks, bike paths along most or all streets
e) public transport available-buses, subway, trams with plans
f) shopping for foodstuffs in walking biking distance to residential areas
g)schools, hospitals, entertainment, churches mixed into residential areas
h)noise pollution from traffic
i)Psychological and physical fitness of population
j)average/mean age, educational level and types
k) Training programmes for community adjustment in terms of education in simple agricultural/horticultural techniques or making of own clothing from traditional techniques

4)Energy resources-electrical systems/networks
a) Coal- area and amounts available for mining, power plants-capacity, avg. output total and per capita
b) Nuclear –plants- sources of uranium, enrichment, power pants capacity, output total and per capita
c) Hydropower-source power plants-capacity, avg. output total and per capita
d) Is source politically reliable?
e) Maintenance standard and replacement costs of electrical systems and power plants- are resources to replace and maintain available locally(copper wire, steel smelter)?
f) renewables-wind,solar,etc.

I got a few interesting responses including following:

Under 1) Arable land, add 'seed sources'
Under 3) Human resources, add 'skills inventory, incl. food preservation, hand carpentry, stonemasonry, etc.'

If projected requirements could be identified for a community, a fairly straightforward gap analysis could then assist with prioritization during planning.

For projected requirements, there may well be some starting points in the gaming world, eg. Simcity simulations.

I think the suggeestion was very productive and if people start doing wikipedia entriesor joining the Transition Town wikis we could geet a real steamroller going.

other links offered for North American sites were:

http://postcarboncities.net/guidebook
http://www.relocalize.net/
http://relocalize.net/maps/groups
http://www.portlandonline.com/osd/index.cfm?c=ecije

Both sides of the ocean are working the same angle.

“Without a video the people perish”-Is. 13:24

ASPO06 Conference
Cork, September 17-18, 2007
Dr. Michael Dittmar
The Nuclear Energy Option facts and fantasies

http://ihp-lx2.ethz.ch/energy21/nuclearoption.pdf

We all need to understand that rate of technology advancement in a society is directly proportional to the rate of increase in energy consumption of that society. In pre-industrial world rate of increase in energy consumption was very low as population rise slowly and so more lands brought under cultivation at low speed, as a result technology advancement was slow. Once upon a time we did not know how to make fire, make home, raise cattle, do farming, use metals etc. Each of these technologies came at a matter of thousand years of progress. Then with using these technologies already in grip of humanity we began to take fruits of world's resources at a faster rate, making empires, increasing ourselves in numbers etc so technology advancements starts coming at a matter of a few centuries. Think about better ploughs, cross bows, castles etc. As industrial age started energy consumption growth accelerated an order of magnitude as we shifted to coal instead of wood and so technology advancement rate also increases to a much higher rate. By start of 20th century we switched to better fossil fuels, oil and gas, both energy consumption rate and technology advancement rate increases.

On the other side of curve, as we run out of major energy resources, following the pattern of direct relationship between energy consumption rate and technology advancement rate spread on entire human industry till date its a must that technology advancement slows down then stops and then go backwards.

Another way to look at it is that without enough energy available to make use of a technology there is no incentive towards research of advancement in technology. Some person centuries before Christ invented the steam engine but since he did not had an energy resource to make use of that engine no further advancement was made in that technology. Leonardo di vinci discovered the principles of flight and actually tried to fly by wearing wings and jumping from a cliff. He knew the principles correct and made the machine correct, what he lacked was simply enough energy to make that machince work. The energy needed is too high that simple movement of arms can't provide enough of it to fly entire human body. Birds fly because there wings are large and main body is small and their bones are hollow so are of less weight.

There exist a question why not early human civilizations made used of fossil fuels when it was there and aundant. Its well known that oil was known coming out of wells in iraq as long as atleast 5000 bc. Alexander was known to be shown a show in which water was spread on water and made to burn. Was an amazing and unbelievable thing for greeks of the time to see fire on surface of water.

I think why early human civilizations not made use of fossil fuels was that there was enough land available back then to brought under cultivation, to increase humans' and animals' numbers which can be more versatily and easily used in economy and military than fossil fuels. As we occupied and made use of all available arable land by 1800 in major civilizations' centers in europe and america, we had to switch towards fossil fuels if we wanted to have more power.

So, as industrial age ends with decline in major energy resources, we can't rely on technology advancement to save us. Thats because the independent variable here is energy not technology. So thinking that technology will save us is like using the effect to control the cause, an upside-down view of reality.

That is ofcouse assuming that there is no other energy resource waiting out there, other than fossil fuels and radioactive elements, that we just have to locate and mine, using current technology available.

I just have to say that this is one of the best posts and collections of comments I have seen on TOD. Really insightful. Great work Julian and all you TOD'ers.

Jeremy Leggett of Solar Century alleviated some concern about the possible rise in temperature, because the IPCC models rely on IEA figures which put the amount of natural gas and oil around much higher than most peakers.

This is very little consolation. All IPCC scenarios above 2-3 degrees warming are a "different planet Earth" anyway (James Hansen)

It makes no difference if peak oil is 5, 10 or 15 years away if we do nothing to address it

It will sure make a difference for global warming reasons.
James Hansen took in one of his peak oil and gas scenarios
http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.2782
a 2016 peak from those long term EIA supply scenarios. (I call them "geometric" scenarios)
If we burn that "low" estimate oil and gas, coal must be phased out starting in 2025 and be completely zero by 2050, except for geo-sequestered coal. How tight the situation is shows this: 0.6 degrees warming from PAST emissions. 1 degree warming is several metres sea level rises. Every Gt of CO2 we blow into the atmosphere is 1 GT too much.

The 450 ppm CO2e stabilization path of the Stern Review requires annual emissions must be made to peak around 2010.

If the oil plateau is very long, there is enough time to go back to coal and we have had it. Only an immediate, moderate oil decline at a certain annual percentage can rescue us. It must not be too steep, otherwise the financial system gets damaged and we don't have enough funds to de-carbonise the economy.

Meet the New Mexico PNM "head shed" people and get a take on their ideas about the 20 year future of PNM energy.

PNM revises its projection every three years ... just in case they make a mistake.

PNM uses Monte Carlo simulations to do this.

Cheers

The Global Warming tipping point is not what most people believe it to be. The reality is that we will be experiencing Peak Warming in conjunction with Peak Oil, a situation much more serious than a state of continued warming. Declining planet temperatures over the next few decades will result in increasing demand for heating fuels, even as availability of those fuels declines. Solar warming models, proven with centuries of proxy data from around the planet, support this forecast. Emerging cooling trend data from around the globe bear this out. Like the observed warming over the past several decades, the forecast cooling will be moderate and will result from natural fluctuations, driven by the sun, around a dynamic long cycle equilibrium. Funding from proposed carbon offset taxes, as well as proposed cap and trade Ponzi schemes, would be better spent on operationally and economically viable programs to motivate improved building insulation and to develop new energy sources, including carbon based fuels.