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German Military Braces For Peak Oil
myrdos2 writes "A study by a German military think tank leaked to the Internet warns of the potential for a dire global economic crisis in as little as 15 years as a result of a peak and an irreversible decline in world oil supplies. The study states that there is 'some probability that peak oil will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later. ... In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse.' The report closely matches one from the US military earlier this year, which stated that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact."
At what point will it become cheaper to just turn our massive coal deposits into usable petroleum?
Nobody (except maybe the usual few paranoids, and perhaps the usual tabloid corporate mass media that loves them) said in the 1970s that oil would run out by the 1990s. What was said, by Kingman, who said in the 1950s that American oil would peak in the early 1970s and was right, was that global oil would peak in the 1990s. Peak does not mean end - it means the opposite, the maximum production. But Kingman's research showed in both cases that the peak would be followed immediately by a dropoff as steep and as short as was the ramp-up leading to the peak. However, demand continues to increase, so the shortfall grows even more rapidly, and immediately after the peak (once any relatively small surplus is consumed).
What Kingman's research did not have was the self-reflexive consequences of his research on the supply and demand curves. When America's oil peaked in the early 1970s, the resulting oil crunch not only changed the supply and demand curves that Kingman couldn't account for because the crunch and response data had never existed before. It also changed the appreciation of Kingman's research, and of his prediction that the global peak was coming. So that the world prepared in many ways for the next predicted peak, the global one. By the time the 1990s came, the effects were around: some peaking in large Saudi fields helped create the shortage pricing that we've never left since then. And the peak was delayed. But not for very long. Mainly what happened was that estimates of reserves were exaggerated (lies), in large amounts.
So we are indeed in the global peak oil period now, and in some ways have been since the 1990s.
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make install -not war
Gulf oil may run out. Which is good. No more money to sponsor Taleban and Hezbollah.
Other oil? Not so sure. Russians have always been operating a policy of "use 1, save 1". They have a considerable state reserve, so does USA in Alaska. Then there are all the fields that are in the Arctic or other places that are beyond current tech. Then there are all the fields that are not economically viable because of current land prices and environmental regs. Britain has petrol so does Germany, Netherlands, etc. However nobody wants to see an oil well in their backyard. Then there are all the places around the world with high density oil which are too difficult for current drilling processes. I own land on top of one of these fields in Eastern Europe and frankly I am eagerly waiting for oil to "run out". There is also a lot of high density leftovers which were never pumped out from fields that have been declared exhausted in Texas, Caucasus, etc. And so on.
Oil is not running out any time soon. It will just become more and more expensive. 200$ a barrel and 4-5$ per litre (not per gallon) at the pump are coming this way within the next 10 years and there is little we can do about that.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Its funny you should mention the steam engine. It made the Industrial Revolution possible, destroying civilization as it was known in the 19th century. Which as you pointed out WAS collapsing.
That is Exactly the kind of shake up I think the world needs, a change in the paradigm of life. A Mr.Fusion, Zero Point Modules, 80+% PV cells, any and all, or nothing, would cause a new Revolution, as our current civilization collapses and something new takes it's place.
I still get warm fuzzies either way, paradigm shift or extinction (yes, unlikely, highly), doesn't really matter to me. I'll probably be dead in less than 40 years anyway.
If you haven't already seen them, "Connections" and The Day The Universe Changed are well worth watching. IMNSHO.
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Can you document your inference that the vast majority of your generation, on the other hand, are more environmentally responsible? For instance, by providing proof that the fleet mileage of your generation greatly exceeds that of an equivalent random sample of "Baby Boomers"?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
In 15 years? We already have a dire global economic crisis right now, its roots, I believe, in the fact that global oil production has been on a plateau for the last 4 years instead of growing in step with the economy. It is only the government and Fed injection of trillions of dollars into the European and American economies that is (temporarily) masking the effects somewhat just now.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Petroleum is really convenient in terms of an energy source, but we have a whole lot of others. That means, when push comes to shove, we can find other ways of doing things. Thus we aren't likely to face a real wide shortage. Nuclear is a good example. There is lots and lots of power to be had from nuclear sources. No it isn't a 1:1 replacement for oil but that's ok, we can deal with that.
Some of it is economic. The more expensive oil gets, the more alternatives are attractive. You may notice that there's been a big upswing in biofuel research and such things. This isn't coincidence or just green funding. It is the fact that the more oil costs, the more attractive an alternative is. Some of it is also just not listening to the crazies. Nuclear is a bad word in America and the green types lobby heavily against it. Well if it is that or no power, people will stop listening in a hurry and demand more plants be built. Some of it is just technological progress. We are getting better and better at alternative energy, energy storage and so on.
Also please remember that this won't be a wall, as in suddenly we can't turn the lights on one morning. It'll be a gradual thing, an increase in prices as supplies dwindle and/or harder to reach deposits are tapped. That means that there is also time for replacements, and incentive for those, as prices rise. Gradual change is something economies cope with relatively well. It is sudden change that is the real problem. So if oil production has peaked and things start sliding down, that isn't likely to be a big issue unless for some unknown reason it is abrupt and production just grinds to a halt.
One thing you may notice is that humans are pretty good at solving problems. They aren't so good at mitigating problems, looking ahead and making sure they never happen, but when a problem does happen they are pretty good and solving that problems. Thus it seems pretty likely that this sort of thing will get solved too. Supply starts going down, prices go up, alternatives are more profitable, etc, etc.
``On a serious note, I keep hearing that the next World Wars will be fought over resources. It might be hard for us to imagine this right now, since most Slashdotters get to wake up in soft beds, in airconditioned/heated rooms, take hot showers with nice smelling bath products, and drive the 1-2 miles to Starbucks to enjoy over priced coffee and free Wi-Fi.
All of our amenities, seemingly abundant and unending, provide a natural barrier to understanding just how quickly and totally society can break down when the "basics" become extremely hard to obtain.''
Paradoxically, they are exactly what will bring about that breakdown. We _could_ live at a sustainable level, if we were (collectively) willing to give up some of our luxuries.
I, for one, am willing to reduce my footprint, but I need some help. A few years ago, I was a student, lived in a small apartment with my girlfriend, and we both went everywhere on foot, by bike, or, occasionally, by public transport. We cared about energy efficiency and had far below average energy consumption. I had everything I wanted, and, according to a test I did, lived at a sustainable level.
Now, I have a full-time job, drive a car, and live alone in an apartment that is much larger than I need. I still care about energy efficiency and have below-average energy consumption, but the changes really ruin it. I invest in new technologies that aim to obviate the need for burning fossil fuels in my car, and I buy carbon offsets for my gasoline, electricity, and gas use. Still, I am required to work on site (hence the car), and my income disqualifies me from living in a smaller (cheaper) place. These inefficiencies, which are pressed on me, have lifted me from living at a sustainable level to living at an unsustainable level. If I could move back to my old place (or to something similar) and have everything I need within cycling distance, I would jump at the opportunity. The challenge is doing that and making enough money to sustain myself (at the time, I was racking up debt, which I am now paying off).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
The problem is that that there are 2 ways to deal with a resource shortage :
1) the "gaia" way : you conserve. You limit your resource usage and try to save what's left.
2) the "american way" (investment if you like) : you spend MORE, not less, and go looking for a solution to the problem. And quite frankly, while one is to avoid going totally off the rail, you don't really care what (or even who) you destroy in the process and you promise yourself to "fix it later if I find a solution"
Now, intuitively you might think that 1) is the way to go. It's nicer. It's "green". It's "natural". It's everything the current media loves. It's "nice". It's "the right thing". It's "risk free". Unfortunately it's only risk free in the sense that it leads to the abyss with 100% certainty.
And then you start checking. Just how natural is it ? What do bacteria do, when their food source is threatened ? Well, with but a few exceptions they invest all their remaining energy in a desperate attempt to expand their territory. What do plants do ? The same (again 99.99999999% of plants do this). What do animals do ? ...
So after researching this you start thinking the "natural" way is definitely option 2). But why ?
Well, simple. While option 1) might look nice rationally, but it is a trap : it is guaranteed to fail. Option 2) has some unknown amount of chance (probably more than 50%) of failure. But NOT 100%. Humans don't like it. We really don't know what will happen. Easier to go with guaranteed failure where no-one can be blamed. But unfortunately, the reaction to running out of resources cannot be conservation : it won't work. Society will wither and die if you do that.
At every point in time, there are 2 forces in nature. A force that is trying to advance by advancing the "state of the art" (in nature's case, the DNA library), species are trying to expand into areas where they couldn't exist before. They're trying to discover, and consume, resources they couldn't consume before. They're learning to create or replace critical molecules by alternative, less demanding versions. They're competitive and "weird things" happen. Lots of survival matches between all sorts of different species, which are rarely ever entirely won or lost by one or the other species.
But there is also a part of nature, a significant part, that lives on conservation. The main tactic to conserve, in nature, is to poison everyone else's chances for expansion, so as to take more for yourself. Lots of species do this, including several well known ones, and everyone (should) know the consequences. There are oak forests, and there are beech forests. Oak forests are big, extremely rich in biodiversity and house lots and lots of animals. Beech forests, by contrast, are sad, empty things, that look as if they're heavily poisoned, except for the beech trees. That's because they are heavily poisoned. By the beech tree (but there are other species like this).
Humans work in the same way. Expansion leads to rich, open societies that, above most all else, encourage discovery and change. Conservation leads to what you might call a taliban society.
I think transportation will get so expensive, that the 100 mile economy will become fact. This will destroy the economy of scale because we will just not be able to afford to transport goods over long distances. The good news is that there will be jobs all over the place, the bad news is we will be living in the 19th Century again.