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Friday Open Thread: Hemenway's "Apocalypse, Not"
Posted by Prof. Goose on April 7, 2006 - 12:55pm
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: peak oil [list all tags]
Today from our friends at The Energy Bulletin we get this article from Toby Hemenway:
The phrase "the end of the world as we know it" has been uttered so often in the last decade that some Peak Oil advocates simply use its acronym, TEOTWAWKI. This awkward shorthand was once employed by Y2k catastrophists, and that heritage alone--the most unnecessary "sky is falling" panic in my lifetime--is enough to make me skeptical of the negativism embraced by many of my fellow Peak Oil believers. Peak Oil is as inevitable as death and taxes. But for every convert that Peak Oil's doom-and-gloom extremism sweeps up, it alienates plenty of people who might otherwise climb down from their SUVs. Peak-Oil catastrophism's repetition of doubtful facts and its sometimes muddied thinking betray a lack of critical analysis that discredits the Peak Oil movement. I'd like to delve into some of the errors and half-truths surrounding Peak Oil catastrophism, not as encouragement for those who want to party on blindly into the end of oil, which would be tragic, but as a way of refining and bolstering those arguments around Peak Oil that are valid.Discuss. I happen to think he makes some very good points.
There is no doubt that oil is running out. But to believe that it will surely bring the end of the world, you must believe that:
- Our demand for oil is unchangeable and is not significantly affected by price.
- We are so badly addicted to oil that we will watch our civilization collapse rather than change our behavior.
- Significant oil conservation is not possible in the time frame needed.
- Even with conservation, demand will be more than oil plus alternatives can possibly meet.
- Society is so fragile that it cannot withstand large shocks.
OK, here are some thoughts. In general, I think that Hemenway's approach is through the looking glasses of the First World Middle Class, and "on the average". Thus some major points get missed, e.g., that resources are not and will not be equitably distributed, and that major unemployment (that even he predicts) means some people will starve.
Referring to the numbered points above:
- Depends what counts as a "significant" change in demand. If the demand is inflexible enough to cause a major price increase, as very clearly is the case, then I'd say this can cause major life-threatening problems to poorer people around the world. E.g., we already see many go back from cooking on kerosene to spending hours a day collecting the little that is left of the woods in their area. Also, many depend on cheap food imports, and their price is rising. Sugar price has doubled due to the ethanol craze.
- This too is observable. Watch the world's richest country plunge into multiple desparate wars, and destroy its own societal values, in a futile attempt to secure what's left of the oil. Watch the people of China destroy their air and water in order to industrialize and buy cars.
- It would take a lot of time and a HUGE amount of resources to rebuild not just our transportation infrastructure but also our housing. The Hirsch Report specifically addresses the time issue, and concludes that we need a CRASH program to start 20 years before the peak to avoid major, "unprecedented", problems.
- conservation is good and can achieve a lot, but until we get a cultural shift, the gains will be spent elsewhere, thus no reduction in energy use. Moreover, one person's savings through conservation are another person's income denied. It will be a long time before we'll voluntarily work half time so others can work too. During the Great Depression most people had full time jobs (at lower pay) while a large minority had nothing. See also the next point.
- I forget whether it was AA Bartlett or MK Hubbert who said this: we don't have an energy crisis, we have an energy shortage resulting in a cultural crisis. The reason our society is indeed very fragile is that we've built an economic/financial system that depends on endless exponential growth, and will collapse without it. This has happened in the 1930's, with great suffering resulting, despite no lack of physical resources. Imagine what it would be like, and the societal reaction, if a depression goes on for a long time with no visible solution, while the few rich party on.
I missed responding to the discussion here about "money" on the Wednesday open thread, but here is a relevant writeup on "how money works" and why we need to radically change it: Climate and Currency: Proposals for Global Monetary Reform - from FEASTASee also:
The Ecology of Money by Richard Douthwaite
more articles from FEASTA
Some quoted text from the first one:
Feasta believes that the present world financial and monetary system is so gravely dysfunctional that it makes the achievement of sustainability impossible. We have three main reasons for this belief:
a) The Earth is finite, and, as all economic growth requires some use of the Earth's resources, perpetual growth is not compatible with sustainability. Unfortunately, most of the money used around the world is created on the basis of debt and ... it needs to grow continually by enough to ensure that investors can always find attractive opportunities and consequently always borrow more than they repay. ...
b) National and multinational currencies created by some of the wealthiest countries in the world are used as if they were world currencies. The countries issuing the pseudo-world currencies gain enormous power and advantages at the expense of the rest of the world.
c) Individual governments cannot afford to take account of whether the growth required to stop the global system from collapsing is socially or environmentally sustainable because current account and capital account money flows are lumped together when the market determines their currencies' exchange rates. This gives the owners of mobile capital an excessive amount of power over exchange rates and hence over governments. ...
Another major flaw in logic in the article IMHO.
In 1965, world oil production was 12 billion barrels. It may peak soon at 30 billion. Estimates project that in 2040, production will have slipped to 12 billion barrels--back to 1965 levels. To descend to that point would require a drop in consumption of 2.2% per year for 35 years. Can we do this? I think so. From 1973 to 1975, and again from 1979 to 1983, consumption fell by roughly this much per year. When prices fell, consumption rose again. For a glimpse of the future, note that when gasoline prices briefly spiked 30% due to Hurricane Katrina, US usage dropped 6% over two weeks. Saving 2.2% each year is well within reach.
The math is not this simple. There were a lot less people in the world in 1965 than today. We have already made large gains in efficiency. To decrease oil usage at the same time as maintaining or increasing population is going to require a lot more savings than 2.2% per year because most of that usage is not distributed equally among the worlds population. This is assuming a fixed rate decline on the backside of peak, which I question as well.
Try running a world of 6.5-9 Billion people on 12 billion barrels per year, the same as many fewer Billion people in 1965 and see how successful you are. Something has to give quickly, either population declines or we get super efficient very quickly.
The problem with banking on efficiency is that you get most of your gains early in the process. Doubling the fuel economy of a 50mpg car doesn't save you near as much gas as doubling a 25 mpg car. Same increase in efficiency big difference in consumption gain.
Your point about efficiency is spot-on as well. The classic example is Southwest's ordering its pilots to save fuel by running only one engine when the plane is taxiing. Easy way to save fuel. But then what? You can't cut back to no engines.
Actually you could if you were referring to the main engines. Just utilize a tug which admittedly currently run on fossil fuels. There would be safety issues as more wheeled vehicles would be on runways and taxiways, but it is possible and almost undoubtedly would save some fuel.
It would still be necessary to allow the main engines to reach an optimal thermal state amd be run up prior to take off.
BTW, IIRC Southwest used to run their auxilliary power units almost continuously rather than plugging in to ground power. The theory was that this enabled faster turn around. This may no longer be the case.
To quibble a bit further still, you could use an electric tug to get the plane to the runway, then use a tow-cable to help pull the plane up to speed. There probably hundreds of ways to play this game, and I'm sure we'll end up playing most of them.
These themes have been discussed elsehwhere, so I don't quite understand.
Just observe any other addict. They will spiral down and down and die to get their very last death bringing fix. I have seen it happen. I know people that are now dead because they could not change an addictive behavior. Be it drugs legal and illegal, We are addicted to OIL just witness that fact and cringe that we will not stop till we are dead.
The facts speak for themselves
1. 1965 vs. 2006. In 1965, there were approx. 3.3 billion people on the planent. Today, there are approx. 6.6 billion, i.e. double the population.
In 1965, a much smaller percentage of the planets food and energy crops were genetic varieties requiring lavish dosages of synthetic fertilizer, fungicides, insecticides and herbicides, and generous (and energy intensive due to pumping) amounts of irrigation. Norman Borlaug's "green revolution" essentially transformed world agriculture creating vulnerable, but high yielding varieties that could never survive on their own in the wild. More primitive plant breeding techniques pre-Borlaug had given us lower yielding varieties, but at least these varieties weren't so weak, so drought intolerant, and so dependent on petro-derived chemical protection. In 2006, we can look back at the last 30+ years and see how we have simply delayed the day of reckoning to stabilize world population - instead we were lulled to sleep by leveraging agriculture with a diminishing resource - fossil fuel. As oil & gas get more scarce, there will most certainly be a frantic return to less chemical dependent means of crop production. The question is, with such a high percentage of the world dependent on the status quo (Archer Daniels Midland, etc) and upon imports of food aid: will there be chaos? widespread starvation in places like Egypt? It would seem to be highly likely. We really don't know how many people the planet can support using permaculture, or more hollistic methods of food production. But, the last time we tried (pre-1965), the population was less than half of today's, and even then, there was considerable hardship in the developing world.
2. Diminishing Returns of Technology for Efficiency. Regarding the potential for conservation via technology, Hemenway is at best naive. Sure, as energy gets expensive, lots more people may drive less, or carpool. But don't be delusional about constantly doubling fuel efficiency.
The best examples we have for efficient cars are from Honda & Toyota - Honda's Insight gives at best 70 mpg, but only carries two people and little else. This is a 3 cyl. engine with a big battery. If you just want a 3 cyl engine you can dredge up the old Geo Metro from the early 90s - it got 54 mpg tops. The old Civic VX got 50 mpg, and the smallest Toyota Yaris maybe 52 mpg. Anyway, Honda's & Toyota's engineers have been working on the efficiency thing for decades, and we are likely to only see tiny increments of improvement going forward. The most likely scenario is that people will be replacing their cars with 1 cylinder motorbikes to carry two persons plus a bit of stuff. With these you could eke out 100 mpg. But before we retreat to these more minimalist modes of transportation, what will become of the hundreds of millions of existing gas guzzlers? Will they be magically recycled, just in time?
In terms of home heating, we may see people retreating into smaller portions of their homes in the winter, and draining the plumbing from parts they can't afford to heat. Also, they could thicken the walls with scraps from other construction, but again, where are the huge leaps in efficiency going to come from?
3. There are legitimate weaknesses in the scenarios laid out by the more "catastrophist" wing of the peak oil milieu, but Hemenway misses them. On Savinar's site, for example, he mentions what the world or US population is likely to be (based on a UN estimate) by the year 2020 and juxtaposes this with how small oil reserves are likely to be at this time. What Savinar fails to grasp is that once oil prices pass a certain threshold, say, $100 per barrel, maybe higher, the growth in world population is likely to stop in its tracks, and begin reversing. Many countries in Africa, and parts of Asia are going to suffer unprecedented levels of austerity once the industrial agricultural complex begins to falter, and first world nations can no longer give food aid or even sell much food for export. When this happens, people who might be considering having children simply won't be able to. Their own survival, and where to find their next meal will their only thought.
You may be partly right about the behaviour of poor people in times of austerity. Clearly things have been brutal in countries like Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan for decades, yet these countries populations keep increasing. It is hard to know exactly how much more marginal a person's existence needs to become before a person consciously decides not to have children. Typically though, once a woman's physiology is compromised by lack of adequate food energy their body is either too weak to procreate or conception does not occur.
It is a too-oft forgotten fact that during the oil shocks of the 70s there were short periods of starvation in countries dependent on food aid. Clearly, countries like Egypt with population sizes that have gone far beyond their lands carrying capacity will suffer immensely if US & Euro food aid is cut off. Initially there may be rationing...later there may be an attempted exodus north to Turkey and Greece.
If you want a recoverable reserve estimate for the total US, you should use total US production. If you want a model for the world, which is what I am after, you should use the Lower 48. In any case, in subsequent interviews, Hubbert made clear that he was talking about Lower 48 production when he made his prediction.
Using HL, Deffeyes is now predicting that we are slightly past the 50% of Qt mark worldwide, using crude + condensate. Everyone has endlessly discussed the Hubbert prediction, but what no one, as far as I know, had discussed is the accuracy of the HL method on post-peak Lower 48 production. In the article that Khebab and I coauthored, link below, we addressed this issue.
We (my idea, Khebab did the math) used only 1942 through 1970 production data to predict post-1970 cumulative Lower 48 production. You can see the HL plot in the Energy Bulletin article, and I think that you will agree that there is not much room for argument regarding the linearization plot. Using only 1942 to 1970 data, the HL method was 99% accurate in predicting post-peak Lower 48 oil production. Some have suggested that we used "curve fitting" to derive this result. This is categorically untrue. Khebab is a completely objective scientist, and the data are there for anyone to review.
Today, the world--in regard to production data--is where the Lower 48 was at in 1970. The mathematical proof that Khebab and I provided suggests that Deffeyes' estimate of 1,000 Gb of remaining conventional recoverable crude oil + condensate reserves should be on the order of 99% accurate.
What we know is that:
All of the large fields currently producing one mbpd or more are old;
Cantarell, the second highest producing field in the world, is probably is probably now declining at a rate of up to 40% or more per year;
Oil prices are in a record high (nominal) trading range of $60 to $70 per barrel;
The world, at 50% of Qt, is at about same point at which the Lower 48 started declining (49%);
The current swing producer, Saudi Arabia, at 55% of Qt, is at about the same point at which the former swing producer, Texas, started declining (54%);
Most recently, as predicted by the HL model, the North Sea peaked at 52% of Qt, and it has been following the predicted decline curve.
If you believe the HL guys, you should cut your spending, get out of debt, reduce your commute to and from work and home, consider starting a garden and try to reduce your spending to 50% or less of your income.
If we are wrong, you will have more money in the bank, less debt and a lower stress way of life.
If the cornucopian guys are wrong. . .
"M. King Hubbert's Lower 48 Prediction Revisited"
http://www.energybulletin.net/13575.html
However, I predict that some countries, such as Russia and Mexico, are poised for very steep declines, and I think that overall net export capacity will be a severe problem starting this year.
Yeah, that's been my argument for a long time. And a lot of people don't see that problem at all. Export capacity will decline much faster than world production due to increased internal demand in producing countries.
E.G. Indonesia now should be expelled from the OPEC and should join the OPIC, now being an oil importer instead of an exporter;-) Join the club....
1) The data is exceptional. 2) Start, peak and tail are a time and geographically bound event 3) Most oil is a light sweet crude and flows well 4) Most of the good oil reservoirs are clastics (sand grains with pore spaces, relatively little cementation). This helps flow rates. (Most reservoirs in the Middle East are Carbonates with very different characteristics for permeability and porosity).
Almost all are offshore and took significantly large amounts of capital to develope in the form of large, hostile weather proofed structures.
Once discovered and developed, production flows were ramped up. The reasons were Financial and Political.
The Oil companies required a prompt return on capital expenditure (big platforms cost money). The Thatcher Government required as much money as they could get to help offset the costs of slash and burn of the older , rust-belt type industries, recession, loss of tax revenue, increased social security burden etc.
Each oilfield was essentially well bounded, understood and recoverable reserves relatively easy to calculate. If you look at production curves for most individual UKCS fields, then you see three phases: Intitial ramping up of production, followed by a brief plateau phase, followed by a decline phase with a slope which is gentler going down than the initial ramping phase going up.
It is likey that overall production (area under the curve) does not increase by much whichever way you produce the oil. Though this is highly debatable since high ramping can inflict damage on resevoirs and producing wells. It is fair to say that operators did take this into account and optimised flow rates to avoid killing the goose.
Oil extracted can be either slow and steady, or fast and furious. The extractable amount in place does not budge much. What happens next is infill drilling to hit sweet spots missed in the intial development. Horizontal / Extended reach / Geosteering drilling all helps. Also, you can occassionally identify stranded , isolated geological traps that contain oil and drill to them from existing platforms (common). Also, maybe you can drill deeper and pick up other oil bearing strata that was missed in the initial development phase (rarer).
However, what is clear is that no field ever went through a
'renaissance' where the initial maximum peak was either matched or equalled. The classic Hubbert curve is exhibited in almost all fields. The curve may be skewed, but the eventual outcome is always the same.
The Chessboard scenario of discovery sequence is also fairly evident in the UKCS. Initially each King or Queeen is developed, and the knights and pawns in smaller , stranded traps become attractive and are developed.
Decline rates on the downward slope after a field peaks in the UKCS has caught a lot of people on the hop. Not least the UK Gov. UKCS appears to have peaked circa 1999. Actuality occurred at least 5 years before theory.
Some of the individual field production graphs are very startling and can vary from 5% per annum YOY to 13% per annum YOY.
Go to Matt Simmons Website and look through his power point presentations. He has quite a few production curves for The UKCS. They are quite a good graphic representation of just how fast a 'major' field can peak and decline.
Carbonate reservoirs do behave differently to clastic reservoirs. The bulk of the middle eastern oil is trapped in Carbonates. One of the main reservoirs in the USA is/was the Austin Chalk. This was very significant in the history of the lower 48 (and indeed the history of the world and especially World War Two...) and I am sure 'WestTexas' could illuminate the story of the Austin Chalk better than I.
Yes, depletion can happen very fast: When we started , we were listening to the Sex Pistols and Souxsi and the Banshees. Morris Marinas were common (ugh). My first car was a Richthoven Red Truimph Dolomite 1500 cc with twin overhead camms...
I think the world depletion rate could be faster than many experts expect, but I am not expecting it to be as fast as the North Sea.
Let's use a very simple example, a bottle of water. You can pour the water out at a minimal rate all the way up to the maximum rate. Regardless of the rate at which you pour out the water, it does not affect the volume inside the bottle.
Of course, oil fields don't react precisely this way; a low rate of production can increase the recovery in some cases and very high rates can damage the reservoir, reducing ultimate recovery, but those are effects on the margin. Unless one produces a field at a truly irresponsible rate, the rate of production (in most cases) won't have a major impact on ultimate recovery.
Consider the US versus Russia.
US oil fields have been pretty much produced at the steady maximum efficient rate, and as outlined above, the HL method, using only 1970 and earlier data, accurately predicted 99% of post-1970 cumulative production.
Russian production collapsed in the early Nineties, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it then rebounded. It looks like overall 2006 production will, at best, be up slightly or flat year over year. I expect it to be down, year over year, by yearend.
The HL method, using only 1984 and earlier data, accurately predicted 97% of post-1984 cumulative Russian production, through 2004. (All technical work done by Khebab.)
In other words, if we focus on the volume of liquid inside the bottle, rather than the rate at which we are pouring it out, the HL method was remarkably accurate in predicting the cumulative production for both the Lower 48 and Russia.
Therefore, IMO Deffeyes' estimate of 1,000 Gb for remaining world conventional crude + condensate reserves is going to be quite accurate.
But I think that the top of the peak and the onset of decline will be such a major event in human history that it is very well worth to look at what will happen right after the peak.
Most people don't look that far ahead in the future.
So I think that 5-10 years ahead is pretty long to look ahead.
And if the decline truely sets in this year (as many seem to expect now), the major point will be: how much will production decline (platteau vs steep decline discussion).
But when the world runs out of oil, there is no "elsewhere" to go. Some people conclude from this that we're doomed. My thinking is that it means that people will work much harder to get the remaining oil out of the ground.
The situation of one state or one country running out of oil is not analogous to the whole world running out, and you can't extrapolate from one circumstance to the other.
BTW if anyone's in the Huntington Beach/Newport Beach area, check out Cappy's Cafe next to the Pacific Coast Highway - you can sit at your table and watch oil rigs working about 100 feet from your table. If I still lived down there, I'd hold Peak Oil meetups there.
Just like CERA, if you can't point to existing tech that will help, you can't count on it. Otherwise it's no more than wishful thinking, much more dangerous than guarded pessimism.
I will have 1,5 city lots to plan and plant the way I like if I can make the plant purchases from a no money angle. I can trade a nd barter for anything and I am getting better at it around here. The City I will be in is 1/20th the size of the one I am in now. Any distances in it are completely walkable for me even with my blood clot damage. I can survive on a shoe string budget and be just fine.
And When I get the house in working order, I might have a GF to live in it with me ot I stay in the Shed and livein grounds keeper. Laughs. The easy life. In snow country.
Higher prices will no doubt focus people's minds on energy issues to an extent that might not be imaginable now if only for the war production analogy.
I guess my main problem with his position is that the infrastructure to make the adjustments necessary is simply not there. It's not just the fuel that we need to worry about, its how we've adapted everything in our lives around it.
And he really leaves our the population/food issue.