It's scary in way that horror films cannot be, because it centers on disorientation and uncertainty.

Let them bring it up, in the form of high heating or gasoline costs.  If you start, it sounds like proselytizing.

Never use the term "peak oil."  It either introduces something they don't know, which you have to explain anyway, or they have heard it and think it's one of those weird online conspiracy things.

Tell them prices are high because of supply and demand--the amont of oil being produced can't keep up with the quickly rising worldwide demand, particularly from China.  They understand S&D, so you'll have no trouble there.

Then hit them with a fixating stat: The world uses 85 million barrels of oil per day.  That's old news to everyone here, but when non-energy geeks hear it for the first time it stops most of them dead in their tracks.  

Then tell them oil production has been declining in the US48 since 1970, and mention other exporting countries that are seeing big drops.  This is where they get the wide-eyed look.  

Finally, tell them that this isn't really old news--some geologist guy named Hubbert predicted the US48peak in 1956.

If they're still breathing, tell them they can find more information on TOD, EB, etc.

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.

I wonder how much this came into play last time?  There is a paper at NBER that concludes that the stagflation of the 70s could have been due to easy money in the 60s.  The argument was that the easy money allowed people to buy gas guzzling cars and move to big houses in the suburbs.  That greatly increased fuel consumption, which set us up for problems as the US went over peak.  If we did have a housing "bubble" in the 60s/early 70s, that might also help explain the difficulty the fed had in dealing with rising inflation.  We certainly had a lot of house building at that time.

I would guess we're somewhere between 1972 and 1976 at this point.  The worst of the oil price spikes was in 79-80.  If we say that we're basically at 1976, then 2010 corresponds to 1980.  Of course, ASPO expects all liquid fuels peak around 2010, right?

Energy and Money

Inflation is not only determined by the supply of goods available relative to the supply of money to buy them, but also

 the demand for the currency in which goods are priced relative to the supply of that currency.  It can be hard to tell which factor is primarily driving prices.
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We have plenty of oil.  But we're running out of cheap oil and there are no cheap alternatives.

But the list of countries who are more modern and better off than the US is a long one, IMO, despite the general sense of Americans that "it's the best place on God's green earth". So it goes.

Could someone inform us of the safe packing density of nuclear fuel?  This "few meters on a side" kind of statement must surely understate the limits of safely packing this stuff... it is "hot" both radiologically and thermally isn't it?

It's also interesting the way he tries to quantify the CO2 emissions... as this is the kind of volume (order of magnitude) the sequestration people are trying to achieve - and I suspect they would see it as an achievment!

plank, was there no mention of demand reduction or changes in behaviour -  or does his cycnicism extend to "the masses"?

Regarding nuclear energy, I think there are too many problems with it to make it a sound option:

• Cost: not competitive with coal and gas generation (I have to admit that this is mainly because coal and gas fired power plants doesn't pay for the C02 the produce) Also, uranium resources are finite, too, and when mining low grade ores of uranium with a concentration of less than 0,01%, the CO2 emissions are even bigger than those of coal and gas fired plants (source: Nuclear Power: The Energy Balance)
• Security: reports say the containment building can stand a 747 impact, but what about the pipes, the generators, all the things unprotected in the vicinity of the reactor building that provide support for operation? Regarding accidents, a MIT report on nuclear energy states that, considering a huge growth in nuclear capacity (1.500 nuclear plants), and in the best of cases (I am summarizing heavily here) we still have 5% chance of a Chernobyl type accident from here to 2055.
• Waste: probably the worst problem of nuclear energy, no single permament warehouse for radioactive waste has been sucsesfully devised.
• Proliferation: see Iran.
• Public oppinion: at least here in the EU, it seems that people doesn't like nuclear energy.

A final note: here in Europe MSM takes advantage of high oil prices and global warming to paint nuclear energy as the solution (here in Spain there are some energy companies that own newspapers and TV stations), when what we have as a short to medium term problem is one of liquid fuels, and nuclear produces only electricity (and our cars still use liquid fuels), also there are some voices that blame the oil crisis in the 70s for the demise of the nuclear industry... high oil prices are bad for the nuclear business!

There are workable solutions for dealing with the intermittency issue:

Compressed Air Energy Storage

RR

Oh man, that's disheartening.

The BIG problem with fission is the finite amount of high concentration ores, and the BIG problem with fusion is that it Doesn't Really Work Yet™. I'm an Engineer by trade and it makes me very uncomfortable to let a new widget I've built leave the building without a few days of testing, needless to say, I'm not the type to bet the future on a technology that might be ready in 30 years. If we've already peaked on oil, we might not have the industrial infrastructure to build Fusion plants in 30 years.

I'm also not so thrilled about building a flock of fission plants which well could run out of cheap uranium before you can light the fusion candle. I had pinned some hopes on breeder reactors, but an hour with Google left me wondering if any fast breeders that have been built were ever commercially successful. (Anyone have a link?) Mostly I found articles about shutdowns and technical problems, and it wasn't clear that there were any breeders operating in 2006 that could even refuel themselves, an that makes me worry even more about the real world engineering complexities of making fusion commercial.

I'm probably overly-enthusiastic about wind -- I find it comforting that it's a known technology that won't take another 30 years before it comes online. I ponder the storage issue -- we have successful compressed air and pumped water storage today, but I think we'll need to stamp a pretty huge footprint on the landscape to build enough capture and storage to maintain a reasonable level of technology. I vote we do that that, but I'm only one vote.

He described most things being said about Chernobyl as 'lies and propaganda'.

My chemistry professor used to rant quite often during lectures about how journalists, being clueless about all things important, would publish exaggerated stories about Chernobyl (and other technical things they didnt understand) that they had gotten from some extremist environmentalist organisation. I was surprised, because I had always thought that Chernobyl was a real disaster.

from chernobyl.info:
"The report concludes that, all in all, the Chernobyl disaster will claim roughly 4000 lives. By mid 2005, it says, just over 50 persons will have died as a direct consequence of nuclear exposure."

A bit like 9/11, the damage wasn't mainly done by the explosions themself, but more by the fear and anger that gripped millions of people worldwide in the aftermath.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

and here it is updated today!

i'd encourage people to check out Table A.  big changes in transportation and energy, but if you personally are buffered on those (high efficiency car and appliances) then you won't take the 'average hit.'

medical costs continue their cimb ... stay healthy ...

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs veraged over 15.3 million barrels per day during the week ending May 12, up 21,000 barrels per day from the previous week's average.  Refineries operated at 89.8 percent of their operable capacity last week.  Gasoline production increased last week, averaging nearly 9.2 million barrels per day, while distillate fuel production declined compared to the previous week, averaging over 3.9 million barrels per day.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged nearly 10.4 million barrels per day last week, up 376,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged over 10.0 million barrels per day, a decrease of 187,000 barrels per day from the comparable four weeks last year.  Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged 1.45 million barrels per day, the third highest weekly average ever.  Distillate fuel imports averaged 330,000 barrels per day last week.

"Gas prices pick up again. After taking a break for a week, pump prices nationwide scramble 3.8 cents higher; West Coast most expensive region, EIA survey reveals."
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/15/news/economy/eia_gas.reut/?cnn=yes

IMO, the Saudis have about 80 Gb in recoverable reserves left.

Graphs at:  http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/

"Brazil's Ethanol Lesson Is How to Manage Our Oil Addiction"
David G. Victor

The Brazilian government is declaring victory in its decades-long struggle to become self-sufficient in the supply of oil. The milestone is cause for celebration in a country that has long paid a high price for imported energy.

It will also reverberate here in the United States where policy-makers, too, are trying to wean the nation from costly imports, jittery markets and the foreign spigot.

But we must learn the right lessons. Brazil's success came not from treating oil as an addiction but by producing even more of the stuff and by becoming even more dependent on world markets.

Here in the United States, most attention to Brazil's fuel supply has focused on the country's aggressive program to replace oil with ethanol that is made by fermenting homegrown sugar. American newspapers are filled with stories about Brazil's famous "flex fuel" vehicles that make it easy to switch between ethanol and conventional gasoline.

Guided partly by Brazil's apparent success, American policy-makers are crafting new mandates for ethanol, and flex fuel vehicles are now taking shape. We have the impression that ethanol is king.

In reality, ethanol is a minor player in Brazilian energy supply. It accounts for less than one-tenth of all the country's energy liquids.

The real source of Brazil's self-sufficiency is the country's extraordinary success in producing more oil. After the 1970s oil shocks, when Brazil's fuel import bill soared, the government pushed Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, to look asunder for new energy sources.

Petrobras delivered, especially at home, where the firm pioneered the technologies that make it possible to extract oil locked in sediments under the seabed in extremely deep water.

In the middle 1970s Brazil struggled to produce just 180,000 barrels of oil per day while importing four times that amount. Today it produces about 2 million and is self-sufficient. Indeed, the current milestone of self-sufficiency arrives with the inauguration of Brazil's newest deep water platform, the P50.

When P50 reaches its full output later this year, that one platform will deliver more liquid to Brazil than the country's entire ethanol program.

Brazil's self-sufficiency offers three lessons for U.S. energy policy:

* First is that ethanol, with current technology, will do little to sever our dependence on imported energy. Today's approach involves growing a crop - sugar in Brazil, corn in the United States - and then fermenting the fruits to yield fuel.

Sugar plants in Brazil's climate are a lot more efficient at converting sunlight to biomass than is corn in the Midwest, but U.S. policy nonetheless favors corn (and imposes tariffs on imported sugar) because the program is really a scheme to deliver heartland votes rather than a commercially viable fuel.

Yet, even with Brazil's favorable climate and sugar's inviting biology, ethanol is already reaching the limit. That's because the land and other resources devoted to ethanol can be put to other uses such as growing food and cash crops.

Indeed, today the Brazilian government is actually reducing the share of ethanol that must be blended into gasoline because sugar growers prefer to make even more money by selling their product as sugar on the world market rather than fermenting it into alcohol.

New technologies - notably "cellulosic biomass" - could breathe fresh life into ethanol and replace still more oil. Cellulosic biomass is intriguing because it cuts costs by allowing the entire plant - the cellulose in the stalks, as well as the prized grain or sugar - to be fermented into fuel.

Advocates for this technology, including President Bush in his State of the Union address, have wrongly confused the sexy promise of this newfangled approach to making ethanol with the practical realities of fuel markets.

Schemes to produce cellulosic biomass, today, work only under special circumstances and nobody has delivered the fuel at the industrial scale that would be required for the technology to become commercially viable.

* Second, we should learn that, for now, the greatest force to loosen the world's oil markets lies with oil itself. We can use oil more efficiently, as would occur with a gasoline tax or wise fuel economy standards. But we can also find ways to produce more of the stuff - as Brazil did with Petrobras.

The problem for U.S. policy-makers is that the richest veins for new production lie mainly outside the United States and beyond our direct control.

Indeed, the Brazilian government made Petrobras more efficient by putting the firm partly beyond its control as well. When the government sold part of the company on international stock exchanges, it accepted Western accounting procedures and other strictures that have given Petrobras the autonomy and accountability to its shareholders that, in turn, helped make it an efficient company.

We have a stake in seeing other countries do the same - from Algeria to Mexico to Iran and even Russia. But we must remember that Brazil did this on its own, in response to internal pressures for reform, with little leverage from foreign governments.

* Third, we should learn from Brazil not to confuse the goal of greater self-sufficiency with the illusion of independence. Even as Brazil has become self-sufficient it has also, ironically, become more dependent on world markets.

That's because the Brazilian government has wisely relaxed price controls so that the prices of fuels within the country are set to the world market. Thus Brazilians see real world prices when they fill up at the pump, and the decisions about which cars to buy and how much to drive reflect real costs and benefits of the fuel they consume.

That is why, even as the country becomes self-sufficient, Brazilians are working ever harder to be more frugal with oil - because the price at the pump is high and rising.

Dependence on oil is a liability that must be managed. But it is not an addiction. Efficiency, sober policies toward modest alternatives such as ethanol, and more production - all tools of the manager, not the addict - are required. Brazil helps show the way, but only if we learn the right lessons.

Victor is director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs research on energy policy. His email for contact: dgvictor@stanford.edu"

http://www.offnews.info/verArticulo.php?contenidoID=4167

I laugh at the news!

Prices are having an impact on consumption.

Excellent, but depressing post!  Obviously, Peak Everything is gaining momentum: the question is how will the world respond?  Will the basic model be Zimbabwe, Sudan, Iraq, and other horrors?  Or will the world push be in the direction of modeling the energy independence efforts of Sweden and others?

I still believe triage in the form of large, distinct biosolar habitats with Earthmarine protection will arise in many areas globally.  Even if our global leaders and MSM went to broadcasting Peakoil and global warming 24/7/365: large numbers of detritovores would resist to the last moment of switching over to the new paradigm.  Thus a schism in society will inevitably arise as the biosolar pioneers will seek the safety of 'land lifeboats' while the detritovores, in true denial fashion, will cling to the sinking paradigm til the last second.  The extent of Overshoot relative to what is actually biodiversely sustainable will determine the levels of cooperation and violence as we descend the Hubbert Downslope.

It is easily foreseeable whereby the elites could abandon the American shores, and take their families and massive accumulations of wealth with them, so that it precipitates a rapid collapse the US society.  Those biosolar pioneers willing to labor and live off what nature purely provides daily will then be in an advantageous position and location to thrive the best.  Appropriate sized Earthmarine no-go buffer zones can then prevent the invasion of the hapless detritivores, who waited too long to shift to a biosolar lifestyle, and now have neither the required minimal natural resources and appropriate skill development to sustain themselves.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

I believe global warming poses a greater immediate threat than Peak Oil. I plan to submit an essay here within a few days explaining my position.

RR

"....To think that you could pull into your garage at the end of the day and 'fill 'er up' just by plugging your car into a regular, 110-volt socket in the garage is very appealing," said Rep. Judy Biggert (news, bio, voting record), R-Ill.,...."

I doubt if she and other proponents of plug-in hybrids have given much thought as to what is on the upstream side of that 110-volt socket. Even plain old run-of-the-mill coal fired power plants have quite a long lead time from decision to build to the time when electricity actually starts flowing. Nukes have an even longer lead time, plus the very real prospect of being tied up in lawsuits for years by various NIMBYs and greenies.  

So then, how do these people expect that all this massive increase in electricity is going to suddenly appear?  

Or is this like the 'hydrogen economy', where it is suppose to just 'happen'?