Excellent Article: The Breaking Point by Peter Maass

[TomClash]

The Breaking Point

By PETER MAASS

Published: August 21, 2005

The largest oil terminal in the world, Ras Tanura, is located on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, along the Persian Gulf. From Ras Tanura's control tower, you can see the classic totems of oil's dominion -- supertankers coming and going, row upon row of storage tanks and miles and miles of pipes. Ras Tanura, which I visited in June, is the funnel through which nearly 10 percent of the world's daily supply of petroleum flows. Standing in the control tower, you are surrounded by more than 50 million barrels of oil, yet not a drop can be seen.

The oil is there, of course. In a technological sleight of hand, oil can be extracted from the deserts of Arabia, processed to get rid of water and gas, sent through pipelines to a terminal on the gulf, loaded onto a supertanker and shipped to a port thousands of miles away, then run through a refinery and poured into a tanker truck that delivers it to a suburban gas station, where it is pumped into an S.U.V. -- all without anyone's actually glimpsing the stuff. So long as there is enough oil to fuel the global economy, it is not only out of sight but also out of mind, at least for consumers.

I visited Ras Tanura because oil is no longer out of mind, thanks to record prices caused by refinery shortages and surging demand -- most notably in the United States and China -- which has strained the capacity of oil producers and especially Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of all. Unlike the 1973 crisis, when the embargo by the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries created an artificial shortfall, today's shortage, or near-shortage, is real. If demand surges even more, or if a producer goes offline because of unrest or terrorism, there may suddenly not be enough oil to go around.

<snip>

In the past several years, the gap between demand and supply, once considerable, has steadily narrowed, and today is almost negligible. The consequences of an actual shortfall of supply would be immense. If consumption begins to exceed production by even a small amount, the price of a barrel of oil could soar to triple-digit levels. This, in turn, could bring on a global recession, a result of exorbitant prices for transport fuels and for products that rely on petrochemicals -- which is to say, almost every product on the market. The impact on the American way of life would be profound: cars cannot be propelled by roof-borne windmills. The suburban and exurban lifestyles, hinged to two-car families and constant trips to work, school and Wal-Mart, might become unaffordable or, if gas rationing is imposed, impossible. Carpools would be the least imposing of many inconveniences; the cost of home heating would soar -- assuming, of course, that climate-controlled habitats do not become just a fond memory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1124588192-+++KbWdgoBU19Mt7S0XMZQ

[wli]

1. here comes Peak Oil, so much for industrial civilization n/t

[Hardrada]

2. It wasn't really working out anyway.

Just a lot of urban sprawl and greed and plastic crap and stupid TV shows. And endless wars.

[wli]

3. well, that's not quite what happens

What goes on is basically a very large and very long crisis because there wasn't enough lead time for conversion to alternative fuel sources. The enormity of that crisis will be phenomenal. And it's largely as a result of the scale of the temporary disruption that it all goes south, not the fact it permanently breaks down industry, technology, and so on (doubtless, the super-rich will see life continue as usual regardless of how badly the rest of society suffers).

[The River]

4. Wasn't Enough Lead Time?

We have known how dependant we are on imported oil since
the gas "crises" of the 70's yet our so-called "leaders" have done
nothing to prepare, as usual.

[wli]

5. I had in mind the actual start, not potential start

Agreed on all counts apart from this clarification.

[tocqueville]

7. don't blame the leaders, people want cheap oil

Politicians remain in the dark. During the 2004 presidential campaign, which occurred as gas prices were rising to record levels, the debate on energy policy was all but nonexistent. The Bush campaign produced an advertisement that concluded: ''Some people have wacky ideas. Like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That's John Kerry.'' Although many environmentalists would have been delighted if Kerry had proposed that during the campaign, in fact the ad was referring to a 50-cents-a-gallon tax that Kerry supported 11 years ago as part of a package of measures to reduce the deficit. (The gas tax never made it to a vote in the Senate.) Kerry made no mention of taxing gasoline during the campaign; his proposal for doing something about high gas prices was to pressure OPEC to increase supplies.

Husseini, for one, doesn't buy that approach. ''Everybody is looking at the producers to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, as if it's our job to fix everybody's problems,'' he told me. ''It's not our problem to tell a democratically elected government that you have to do something about your runaway consumers. If your government can't do the job, you can't expect other governments to do it for them.'' Back in the 70's, President Carter called for the moral equivalent of war to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; he was not re-elected. Since then, few politicians have spoken of an energy crisis or suggested that major policy changes are necessary to avert one. The energy bill signed earlier this month by President Bush did not even raise fuel-efficiency standards for passenger cars. When a crisis comes -- whether in a year or 2 or 10 -- it will be all the more painful because we will have done little or nothing to prepare for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?pagewanted=10&adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=1124588192-+++KbWdgoBU19Mt7S0XMZQ

[pretzel4gore]

8. let's get them...

the super rich can be rounded up and dissappeared so easily, the tens of billions stolen money can e seized and....we should put everybody on earth with access to more then $10 million in jail...every damn one....reason? no reason, just for the hell of it (we can livecam the cells 24/7....imagine the audience)....in georgebushamerica, the law is an ass (or is that a elephant?)

[wli]

9. supposedly it would only take 40 billion to take care of everyone

Or at least that was the cost estimate in 1998. Healthcare, food, shelter, and everything.

The ongoing scams are far beyond immoral, they're genocide.

[bemildred]

6. Yes. A lot of stupid unnecessary shit. nt

[bpilgrim]

10. Free 'Peak Oil' presentation made available online

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/images/stories/presentations/campbellpeakoil.swf
PowerSwitch, a group campaigning to raise awareness of the imminence of the terminal decline of the rate of global oil production, have made available for free an online presentation by Dr. Colin Campbell about the phenomenon known as ‘Peak Oil’.

By combining slides with the audio file from Campbell’s speech at the Peak Oil UK conference in Edinburgh in April 2005, PowerSwitch have created a Flashmedia file that presents very clearly the causes and consequences of ‘Peak Oill’. It starts by looking at exactly how oil is formed then looks at the reality of oil discovery and oil depletion in action before moving on to the devastating consequences. It is an all-encompassing talk.

The presentation lasts 45 minutes. James Howard of PowerSwitch said, “ I remember seeing the presentation in Edinburgh and it was excellent. I had to make it available to more people so they can learn more themselves and then help educate other people about the stark nature of what we are facing.” PowerSwitch has been working since Autumn 2004 to raise awareness of ‘Peak Oil’. They have established a nationwide network of people prepared to speak about the issue and have made posters and DVDs such as ‘PEAK OIL – imposed by nature’ available too.

“ With rising oil prices becoming such a hot issue, people are looking to understand what is causing the increase. Many explanations are offered such as refinery limits, terrorism and increasing demand, but underlying them all is that we really are reaching the limit on how much oil we can globally supply in one day,” added James Howard, “ and after that point it goes into decline. Economic growth is linked with increasing energy usage so it is quite simple to understand what a terminal decline in the availability of oil will mean. What is not so clear is what we should do about it. I hope this presentation will make people think about it.”

To view the presentation in full go to http://tinyurl.co.uk/blgp and for further information on ‘Peak Oil’ visit www.PowerSwitch.org.uk

peace

[bpilgrim]

11. the world is fast approaching the inevitable PEAKING of conventional OIL

One of the starkest warnings came in a February report commissioned by the United States Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. ''Because oil prices have been relatively high for the past decade, oil companies have conducted extensive exploration over that period, but their results have been disappointing,'' stated the report, assembled by Science Applications International, a research company that works on security and energy issues. ''If recent trends hold, there is little reason to expect that exploration success will dramatically improve in the future. . . . The image is one of a world moving from a long period in which reserves additions were much greater than consumption to an era in which annual additions are falling increasingly short of annual consumption. This is but one of a number of trends that suggest the world is fast approaching the inevitable PEAKING of conventional world oil production.''

The reference to ''peaking'' is not a haphazard word choice -- ''peaking'' is a term used in oil geology to define the critical point at which reservoirs can no longer produce increasing amounts of oil. (This tends to happen when reservoirs are about half-empty.) ''Peak oil'' is the point at which maximum production is reached; afterward, no matter how many wells are drilled in a country, production begins to decline. Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members may have enough oil to last for generations, but that is no longer the issue. The eventual and painful shift to different sources of energy -- the start of the post-oil age -- does not begin when the last drop of oil is sucked from under the Arabian desert. It begins when producers are unable to continue increasing their output to meet rising demand. Crunch time comes long before the last drop.

''The world has never faced a problem like this,'' the report for the Energy Department concluded. ''Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.''

source...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?pagewanted=3&adxnnl=0&adxnnlx=1124588192-+++KbWdgoBU19Mt7S0XMZQ

if you can't get a hybrid get a deisel - jetta tdi 50mpg

peace