Peak Oil - the coming catastrophe

[HAL9000]

And yet a handful of quants predicted the 2008 collapse of the mortgage backed securities market and amassed billions in profits for newly created hedge funds designed to exploit anomalies in those same yield curves and credit spreads.

Even donkeys learn to avoid potholes along a familiar route.

[James Barber]

You, we, I need to cut our absolute carbon use by 80% by 2050.

If we nationally do that then we can afford carbon prices to rise by 500% and we'll still be spending the same ratio on energy as we do now. With expected productivity growth of 1 0r 2% in real terms pa that would mean nationally we can sustain even higher global prices.

The key is to start insulating now and building renewable energy generation now.

Nationally the Green Deal is coming starting with insulating 3m homes for the poorest. after a couple of year green mortgages tied to homes will be in place enabling us all to invest in bigger insulating projects such as all those solid East Dulwich Victorian walls.

In East Dulwich in January we'll have ?140,000 in place to offer insulation to the fifth of roofs in East Dulwich ward that don't even have loft insulation.

[louisiana]

Jeremy:

"Not if you've constructed an adequately fortified security perimiter... and of course, taken the appropriate measures to prevent detection."

Well gun training might not go amiss... but we do live on a small island with rather a lot of people in just about every nook and cranny.

HAL9000:

"It's a plausible scenario - the problem is no one knows how it will unfold: whether it will be gradual and controlled or swift and chaotic."

Yes, there's quite a range out there. Michael Greer's theory (originally described in a 2005 paper, and later in his book The Long Descent) is catabolic collapse, a self-reinforcing cycle of contraction.

www.dylan.org.uk/greer_on_collapse.pdf

"Of late, I?ve been wondering whether the western banks have already discounted the effect Peak Oil will have on future property prices ? hence their reluctance to lend on real estate in general?"

I doubt it. There a few corporates out there who are now looking at this, but AFAIK none of the banks are.

In my view, bank reluctance is owing to expected further major falls in prices (hence their demand for very large deposits) and general short-term economic uncertainty and existing shitty assets on the balance sheets which have yet to crystalise (known unknowns?).

I'd add that every bank has a chief economist, but none to my knowledge has a chief geologist. As a breed, economists tend to think that given enough money we will create the perpetual energy machine that is required for future survival etc. In other words, they don't see energy or fossil fuel as a constraining factor. So there's probably nobody whispering in the chief exec's ear anything about peak anything.

"Mortgages are long-term investments - the maturity dates of new mortgages fall in or around the projected Peak Crunch in population levels - coincidence or what?"

HAL, I'd remove your tin foil beanie if I were you. They are really not that bright or big-picture thinking.

Brendan:

"Guns."

That might work in the US mid west (lot of land, few people), but on a small island with lots of people perhaps co-operation might get us further.

Huguenot:

"So from a food perspective the transport oil thing wouldn't necessarily be a crisis, just a change of style."

First, while we produce a fair (but falling) amount of food, a lot of it is exported, while we then import a lot of what we use. Are you proposing imposing some kind of dictatorship? (i.e. abandoning the free market) And hundreds of our farmers are going bust or abandoning farming every year. We are not, as a nation, supporting the sustainability of agriculture in our country.

Second, and most importantly, most of the petroleum used in food production is not used for transport; it's for all the other stuff, such as drilling and other operation of field machinery, pesticides (made from petrochemicals) and a very long et cetera. Most UK farms (and all conventional farms) could not function without huge amounts of oil and gas-derived products. (Gas will also peak later, and is the feedstock for all conventional fertilizers.) We have built a model of industrial farming (extensive farms highly reliant on machinery and on petroleum and gas products - fertilizers and pesticides - and that cannot function without huge amounts of oil and gas.

Third, the governments of the world, including our own, seem to think that we're going to be producing copious quantities of bioethanol in the future (to feed all those hungry cars). The only place we can produce this from is our farmland. If you look at the targets on bioethanol, and measure how much land will be required... Some commentators consider that it has been policies such as US government subsidies to bio-ethanol production (yay, love the free market :) ) that cause price spikes in certain food crops in recent times (owing to land being turned from food production to bioethanol production). And you could say that in this regard, we ain't seen nothin' yet.

"The ones that aren't much good without oil are things like refrigerated overseas distribution."

Or pesticides or field machinery or... which our entire system is dependent on.

James Barber:

"You, we, I need to cut our absolute carbon use by 80% by 2050.

If we nationally do that then we can afford carbon prices to rise by 500% and we'll still be spending the same ratio on energy as we do now."

2050... Well, given that peak conventional oil has already occurred according to the IEA (so now it's officially admitted), and from now on it's all going to be more difficult and expensive, 2050 seems a bit of a long-term target and a bit of a head-in-the-sand position. (Compare the IEA position this year to last year - huge revision.) High prices are going to be hitting long before then; and 500% price rises are going to be hitting some considerable time before 2050, I predict.

That in turn is going to have a significant impact on how we do things, what we do, and the state of the economy. As HAL says, nobody knows if it's going to play out fast and dirty or slow and not so dirty. But the population issue is certainly going to speed things up. (I always wondered whether school maths would be of any use, and yes, understanding of exponential growth has proved useful.) The 'bumpy plateau theory' seems quite credible.

I think the only certainty is the longer we leave it to completely revolutionize how we do things and what we do, the nastier it's going to be. And it's not easy to make major changes in a worldwide recession with everyone and their dog loaded with debt. On the other hand, it is probably only the bad times that convince a large body of the population that 'Houston, we have a problem'. Maybe.

[HAL9000]

James Barber Wrote:

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> [we] need to cut our absolute carbon use by 80% by 2050.

By a strange coincidence this thread is about how Peak Oil will cut our numbers by 80% by 2050. That's one way of achieving that objective.

I am delighted to hear that East Dulwich will go down with a full quota of insulated lofts, though - keep up the good work.

[louisiana]

HAL, to a local councillor *everything* looks like an opportunity to swing votes. Even The End Of The World As We Know It. B)

[Huguenot]

Louisiana, no pookie, I'm proposing the opposite of a dictatorship, I'm proposing a free market. Exports will become less atractive to overseas customers, because they'll be more expensive, and imports will look less attractive to local customers for the same reason.

Don't get all one-sided about this.

We'll just be eating more cabbage, which despite Brenda's prejudice is an excellent food. Especially with vinegar and lemon.

On bioethanol, no. You're simply wrong on this. It was an interesting experiment that went wrong. As you correctly observe, food prices peaked, riots etc. (maybe not in the UK but certainly where I live). Won't happen again. Game over. We're all going nuclear, whether you like it or not. Especially SMG.

On farm machinery we'll all go electric, or hand picking east european vagrants. With pesticides, that's what poo is for. We already have the technology, it's just considered too expensive.

I get the idea you're staring down the end of a barrel, and you really don't need to. Air transport and kiwi fruit will be defunct. Sea travel will be very expensive, but railways will continue to deliver through euro-electrical.

[????]

Nuclear in proper societies (ie not decrepit socialist ones) with modern technology has produced safe energy for decades but still the shrill anti-cry goes on. No logic, no analysis just hand over ears Noooooooooo. How many people are killed mining each year? how many millions will die because of global warming. Behaviours never going to change but sources can.

[Huguenot]

That's a good point Quids.

In the world's worst nuclear disaster - Chernobyl - short of 300 people died as a result. Despite Greenpeace's best efforts to prove otherwise, rates of 'associated' diseases (like cancer) in the general public didn't exceed normal rates between affected and unaffected areas. (I pay Greenpeace a direct debit every month, I've got nothing against them).

Over 100 people a year die in the oil indsutry in the US alone - extrapolate that globally and I'll be betting it's 1000+

That's if you don't include the 500,000+ deaths in Iraq and at WTC that are directly attributable to the global instability generated by the oil trade.

Fear of nuclear is superstitious.

[mockney piers]

I agree that the superstitious arguments against nuclear are non sequitur, however there are perfectly good financial ones, as the massive decommissioning and clean up costs are paid a generation down the line.

Plus if we're serious about it we reLly want to be encouraging people to go to university, not either discouraging them or forcing them into banking merely to cover the costs. Our nuclear scientific generation are pretty much retired now, with no one to replace them, well, here at any rate. So the billions of pounds will be going to.....France!!!!

[nashoi]

Ok I'm being a bit pedantic here, as I do agree with ???? point, but it was the Three Mile Island accident in that famously decrepit socialist state of the USA that started the end of the expansion of the nuclear industry.

Just to add to Huguenot's earlier point there is bound to be significant changes coming from directions not immediately obvious. For example, Google's driverless car project can potentially make enormous savings in energy, destroying any economic case for private ownership of cars and allowing far more fuel efficient driving.

[Huguenot]

I agree nashoi.

The irony with Three Mile Island is that no-one died as an immediate effect, and there was no evidence of any long term health effects in the aftermath.

What probably destroyed confidence in the industry was the bloody film "The China Syndrome" which was released at the same time.

It doesn't help when otherwise decent programmes like "The West Wing" sustain and reinforce anti-nuclear convictions by portraying pro-nuclear politicians as misguided piteous clowns.

As with climate change deniers, anti-nuclear campaigners tried to sow doubt in the minds of the public by claiming there was a cover-up (something which government is notoriously bad at delivering).

[????]

Plus people who work in Nuclear plants live longer and have less cancer than the population to statistically significant degree's I believe...I'll go and find it when I've more time as the Macca will want citation.

[expat]

but do they not have to mine uranium ore to keep a nuclear power station running?

[Huguenot]

Apparently... "The estimates of remaining non-renewable worldwide energy resources vary, with the remaining fossil fuels totaling an estimated 0.4 YJ (1 YJ = 10 to the power 24 Joules) and the available nuclear fuel such as uranium exceeding 2.5 YJ."

So there's six times the amount of energy left in nuclear fuel than there is in fossil fuel.

More importantly is that it's more widely distributed, and highly enriched deposits are found in more politically stable countries like Canada and australia.

[Alec John Moore]

Mockney Piers wrote: "What happened to that solar farm in the sahara, sounded cool to me." The last I heard was that they are planning or installing cables that will bring the electricity to Europe. There's also a Desertec (the company or consortium behind the intitiative) plant making use of solar energy in the Australian desert. But, solar's only part of it. Some with serious reservations (whatever their basis) about nuclear may have to accept it as part of the integrated approach required to energy production as the oil and gas run out. Reducing consumption has always made sense to me because I see profligacy as misguided given we have finite resources.

[Dickensman]

Our greatest energy resource discounting the sun is flopping around several thousand miles of sea shore all around the coast.

Consecutive governments have ignored this non-vote catching reservois of free power for decades.

The Americans have been pushing to sell their nuclear system and latterly the French too.

Amazing how foreign corporations can manipulate the happenings in this country by purchasing a handful of our cheapskate politicians.

North sea oil revenues should have been invested into harvesting sea power, whilst simultaneously creating a new industry to offset the decline in mining and other failing industries.

[Huguenot]

With all due respect Dickensman, the lack of reinvestment in sea power wasn't due to politicians being bought out by foreign interests, but because UK voters wanted tax cuts and cheap petrol.

I often see posters commenting on the UK political system as if it were the US one - but it's not. The normal level of corruption in UK politics is small time expenses fraud. When larger scale corruption takes place it's rarely for the financial benefit of self-interested UK politicians, but the corruption of overseas politicians for British interests.

[Dickensman]

The cost of the bobbing duck was raised to a cost of x10 to get it dropped according to one of the documentaries featured many years after the event.

With all due respects Huguenot you are a French immigrant so cannot be taken seriously in this particular matter,

being your homeland is vying for the lead.

[katie1997]

North sea oil revenues should have been invested into harvesting sea power, whilst simultaneously creating a new industry to offset the decline in mining and other failing industries.

Unlike the UK, Norway has sensibly invested proceeds from their NS revenue. Their petroleum fund is now huge, mainly due to rising oil prices, so they have nothing to worry about when it comes to providing for state pensions.

Apart from the understandable concerns over diversity - and security - of our energy supplies, we need to have greater awareness of our energy use and become more energy efficient (eg better home insulation).

[katie1997]

Having read most of the thread from start to finish (responded above only on north sea revenue), I fully agree with James B's points on energy efficiency and ????s on nuclear - spot on.

There is a need for investment in other renewable technologies too (not wind); I personally support deep-sea drilling also.

Loz got it right - the human race needs energy, in a variety of sources.

[louisiana]

James Barber Wrote:

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>

> The key is to start insulating now and building

> renewable energy generation now.

I started insulating three years ago. I recently finished a whole round of underfloor insulation (against freezing voids), which was messy but fairly quick (as nothing unpleasant discovered).

Insulation really is much better than anything we can do with energy: it saves the need for that energy.

But I don't see too many neighbours doing it, although a few people have asked for my advice on certain kinds of insulation owing to the dearth of info out there in the public arena. I've promised a couple of people that have written to me by PM that I'd put something up about underfloor insulation, so I will... (in the Lounge)

[HAL9000]

The bobbing ducks are an evolutionary dead end. Economically feasible designs can't withstand extreme storms or rogue waves and quickly succumb to mechanical stress, flotsam and corrosion.

The cost of manufacturing and maintenance outweighs the value of the energy they generate before being smashed to pieces.

[Jeremy]

Salter's Duck was 70s technology, and the costs didn't add up. But it was a pioneering project nonetheless, and there are many other, more viable, modern systems.

[Dickensman]

There is not nearly enough capital invested in this type of essential research,

we would rather invest in failed, huge liability, banks and their bonas systems.

[Townleygreen]

Louisiana is right IMHO -we need to cut down as much as we can on energy use, and insulation is the most effective way because it means we need to produce less electricity. Don't bother with solar panels, insulate under you floors etc.