Life After the Oil Crash (key words: Peak Oil) this is not a joke

[donsu]

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky conclusion of a religious cult, but rather the result of diligent analysis sourced by hard data and the scientists who study global “Peak Oil” and related geo-political events. The situation is so dire that even George W. Bush's Energy Adviser, Matthew Simmons, has acknowledged that "the situation is desperate. This is the world's biggest serious question."

-snip-

For the past 150 years, we have been moving up the upslope of the global oil production curve. "Peak Oil" is the industry term for the top of the curve. The peak will last for a year or so, at which time we will go down the very steep downslope. The further we go down the slope, the more it costs to produce oil, and its cousin, natural gas.

-snip-

The most wildly optimistic estimates indicate 2020 will be the year in which worldwide oil production peaks. Generally, these estimates come from the government.

A more realistic estimate is between the year 2004-2010. Unfortunately, we won't know that we hit the peak until 3-4 years after we actually hit it. Even on the upslope of the curve, oil production varies a bit from year to year. It is possible that the year 2000 was the year of peak oil production, as production has dipped every year since.

-snip-

This is known as the post-oil "die-off". The term "die-off" captures perfectly the nightmare that is at our doorstep. For a humorous portrayal of the die-off, read chapter 3 of Michael Moore's most recent book, "Dude, Where's My Country?"
-snip-
------------------------------------

seven or so years is not a long time.

sigh

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. If this were the case, the world media would be flipping out..

There is tons of natural gas and oil left to be exploited, and don't think we are near this yet.

However, we need to start now setting ourselves up for that day by investing in renewables and conserving.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Peak oil is a fact. And explains much of the horror of the Bush years.
Or do you think the war in Iraq really isn't about oil? After all, the media hasn't exactly been all over that story.

"The end of the oil road will not be the end of the world. Just be the end of the world as we know it."
http://www.gulland.ca/depletion/Endofroad.htm

[Sterling]

5. Like they did over the air quality in NYC after 9-11?

wake up man, the hour is late.

[liberalhistorian]

2. I don't know about this.

While I don't doubt that there will, indeed, be a crisis, I really don't think it will be nearly as dire and destructive and horrible as this guy claims it will be.

I don't doubt the part about the draft, however, and as the single mother of a 12-year-old boy whose freeper father idolizes the military, you better damn well believe that I intend to do EVERYTHING in my power to keep the military's greedy little hands off of my son!

[sybylla]

22. not dire?

Okay, I'm really not typically a Chicken Little type but thinking about the end of oil is something I find more than a little disturbing. Here is why.

Like many of the things we rely on every day, oil, natural gas, LP and fuel oil are commodities. The cost/value of commodities changes with the buyer's perception of the market. I can't imagine that a reduction in the availability of petroleum will be anything but a severe economic disaster for the industrialized world.

Just look at what happens when there is a percieved shortage now. If winter fuel oil reserves are short, the price as much as doubles in the spring. Since our invasions in the middle east, gas prices have spiked and have stayed high. Now imagine what will happen to that price when we wake up to the fact that we have crossed that peak in production and begin to realize that we only have about a 20-30 year supply left.

Think of all the things that you rely on every day that need a supply of petroleum by-products: home heating and hot water, transportation, electricity in some cases. And those are only the obvious. Everything you by that is farmed, packaged and made in a factory will suffer severe price spikes because each require heating and hot water, transportation and electricity in addition to fuel needs to operate certain machinery. And, considering that many plastics and other products are the bastard children of the petroleum industry, clothing, food packaging, toys, cars, siding, roofing, paints, appliances, carpets and so much more will jump in cost.

Now I've heard various estimates on how long the supply of oil available from this earth will last but suffice it to say that our great-grandchildren will be living entirely different lives from the way we live now in 50-75 years - unless we can come up with alternatives. Of course the oil industry is opposed to development of alternatives since they would reduced demand for oil which reduces its value in the world of commodities.

[Deja Q]

3. Why do they keep moving that peak number up and up and up?

MANY have said that we're at the peak RIGHT NOW.

And the reason why the media avoids it is because the media is repuke-friendly. Period.

A poll should read "Does America get what it deserves?"

[happyslug]

6. Who do you want to believe?

Every one in the Oil industry have had a reason to lie about the amount of oil in the ground. OPEC? How much each OPEC many export is based on how much oil their have in the ground. The greater the "Proven" Reserves, the more oil each OPEC member can export. This lead to a huge increase in OPEC "Proven Reserves" in the Mid 1980s. Each OPEC member wanted to export as much oil as possible so each OPEC member increased their "Proven Reserve" levels even as little or no extra oil was found.

The Oil Companies? In 1938 the Mexican Government took over the Oil fields from the Oil Companies. In 1954 Iran did the same. The dispute became how much should the oil companies be paid? The Mexican Government said what the cost of such fields as stated in the Books of the Oil companies. The Oil Companies said those numbers were kept low to meet the requirements of the New York Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission (The Requirement being that the value be kept at lower of cost or market). Given what happen with the Mexican Oil Situation (and to a more limited extend Iran). The Oil Companies had incentives to overstate the value of their foreign oil fields just in case the fields were ever taken over. If the field's value was overstated than the base to start negotiations as to the value of the Fields would start with numbers more in favor of the Oil Companies than if the SEC rules applied.

Thus both OPEC and the Oil Companies had incentives to lie about how much oil is in the ground. The Oil companies also had reasons to tell the truth for if the lie was ever caught their would have been banned from issuing stocks or bonds (Traditional means of the Oil Companies to raise money). Unlike the OPEC nations, the Oil Companies had reason both to lie and to tell the truth.

Thus divergence in numbers, if you believe OPEC fully (and almost no one does) than peak will occur in 2020. If you believe OPEC has been lying for 20 years (i.e. since the great increase in “proven reserves”) BUT that the Oil Companies incentives to lie (Nationalization of their holdings) was less than losing the right to raise money on Wall Street (i.e. SEC finding of Security Fraud) than the date is 2008. If you believe both OPEC and the Oil Companies both had more reasons to lie than tell the truth than 2002.

Please note all of the dates are approximates, i.e. may be off 2-3 years. Also the use of fuel goes down in recessions so if peak occurs during a recession, the recession will delay the onset of peak (another source of error maybe 1-2 years). Thus you may have 5 years error rates as to the onset of Peak.
.
See THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PEAK OIL&GAS for more details and a monthly news letter:
http://www.peakoil.net/

Another site that goes into details on the background of Oil depletion:
http://healthandenergy.com/oil_crisis.htm

Here is a nice site (but he updates rarely so may be months behind other web sites:
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

[brokensymmetry]

7. The peak is close.

I think it's very close, actually.

Matthew Simmons statement is one bit of information - but the movement of oil stocks over the last several years is also suggestive. The Vanguard Energy fund has more than doubled over the last several years - and is a lot stronger than the overall market.

I don't think I'd buy a Hummer right now, even if I could afford it...I also don't think I'd care for a big house, with big heating bills, even if I could afford it.

[TeeYiYi]

8. I've heard that Saddam lied about the amount of oil in Iraq.

And they're now discovering the harsh reality.

TYY

[Cleita]

9. Would being without oil be that bad for us?

I mean we can get alternate energy with technologies that exist today like solar, wind and other types of fuel. The losers are going to be the the huge consumers of oil, like the shipping industry, the airlines, the trucking industries. When you think about it, all those factory jobs that went overseas will have to come back to our shores because there won't be any ships to bring the goods in, unless we go back to sailing.

We might have to grow our food locally because there won't be any trucks to transport it. It will no doubt be a hard transformation if we don't start preparing for it, but in the long run will it really be that bad? Or, am I being ignorant and naive?

[maggrwaggr]

14. well I don't want to call you ignorant and naive, but ...

I dno't think you quite grasp the immensity of the situation.

Our food supply is dependent on oil. That's what people don't realize. It used to be one farmer fed five people, then it went up to fifty. Why? Oil. Mechanized farming, oil-intensive manufacturing of fertilizer, mechanized manufacture of herbicides and pesticides, a network of distribution that is 100% dependent on oil .....

etc. etc. etc.

Everything in our economy and I mean EVERYthing is dependent on oil. Why do you think we had massive inflation in the mid 70's? The price of oil went up, which means the price of EVERYthing went up.

The potato famine would be a good example. A population was wholly dependent on what was basically a monoculture, and when that went bad everybody starved. SURE there was other food. There was more in the world than potatoes. But nobody could get them there quickly enough (and the British didn't help the situation either). But with oil, there's no britain to fail to bail us out, there's only us, there's the world, and there's 6 billion people dependent on oil.

I studied this back in college, this is nothing new! It made me so depressed back then I felt like killing myself.

This has been known for decades, and what do we have to show for it?

Hummers. Ford Expeditions. More highways. More suburban sprawl.

It's a disgrace.

[Solon]

15. The Problem is...

that we have virtually no infrastructure or money to look to alternative energies. Theoretical technologies (Fusion) are decades away, and may require new technologies that do not exist yet. They cannot be relied upon. The others would require at least a decade of dedicated construction and effort, just to create the infrastructure needed in the United States. Also another problem, portability, it will soon (maybe five years?) be too expensive to travel by air, at all. At best, we could possibly synthesize oil, or at least specific fuels (bio-diesel), however, new types of fuel (hydrogen) would require new engines. That would mean that every automobile on the planet would be in the junkyard, or being recycled (assuming we have enough energy for that) and you would be REQUIRED to buy a new vehicle in order for you to travel at the level you do now (or overhaul an existing one). To be honest, it could be too late for a smooth transition, that means many people, most in the U.S. ironically, will suffer. Unlike many places in Europe, many people in the United State absolutely require the use of cars or trucks to get from home to necessities like grocery stores (assuming they are stocked). Such a change would require a radically different culture than consumerism. The days of growth are soon coming to an end, we must look to sustainability to survive.

[Mari333]

19. Yes the social engineering of the US layout is so dependent

on oil and gas...25% of the resources of the world used by the US which is only 5% of the worlds pop.
The layout of the cities and towns requires people drive everywhere to where they need to go.
I shudder to think of what my sons will have to face as they age..Im 52, I live on 13 acres of land and I try to use very little, but there are no more corner grocery stores, and the expressways built in the 50s are how people travel and what are used to ship food from one town to the other..
I wondered , sadly, why no administration demanded social responsibility from its citizens, since WW2, when my mother told me everyone had "Victory Farms" and cut down on using resources..she said everyone reused everything, and thats not happening now..I look at a Mall and all I see is the beginning of a landfill
I go into a supermarket and there is no accountability for how things are packaged and over packaged..
everything ends up in a landfill and our water table is poisoned
Agribusiness poisons , all the short term profit corporations have NO concern whatsoever for the future i.e. OUR children.
Its terrifying and angers me to no end.
Rule of thumb for my life.
"If you dont need it, dont buy it"/

[ixion]

20. well, that's true in part

But the thing is there are individual inventors out there who have come up with highly innovative solutions -- fuel cells, being one -- and what generally happens is Big Oil and Big Auto either buy the patents and bury them, or lobby congress to put a roadblock into the implementation of innovative alternatives to oil.
So it's not like there are not possible alternatives out there, it's just that the culture is controlled by a group of people who want to maintain the status quo junkie dependence on oil.

As long as that is the case, we're going to be in for a rough ride, indeed.

[the_real_38]

10. One thing that supports the thesis...

...is the nature of the ruling class - it's not so hard to believe that somebody like Bush who is free-and-easy with the blood of others would kill off all of us peasants, in a heartbeat. But I think you're being over-pessimistic about alternative energies. The Uppsala conference says we have until 2010 to develop them - and I still believe that we can, to some extent, at least enough for people to eat, if they organize now. There's also the possibility that the U.S. can just use it's military dominance to control what oil is left, by, say taking over Mideast countries (just kidding!) , and in that case maybe we'll be alright. But even with that , some type of dystopia is on the way. Peak Oil is coming, and there's no telling what to expect.

Ciao.

[theophilus]

11. Combine this info with the John Titor (see past threads)

"prophecies" and you get some interesting thought and reading. I would expect world media
would be sounding an alarm but they really might not know yet. When the hard truth starts
coming out, there will be a mad scramble and possibly WWIII for real. Titor said that about 3 Billion
died in the Nuclear Exchange in 2015. Maybe the number does not have to go down to 500
million? Maybe this is all just a good scary story? We do need to start doing something, IMO.

[dawgman]

12. Here's a link to a thread I started about this recently

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1001716

[OneBlueSky]

13. likewise . . . here's one I started a couple of days ago . . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=3999

[Silverhair]

16. Thermal Depolymerization

Check it out at:

http://www.changingworldtech.com/

The process is pollution free, and it converts any carbon based waste, inclucing sewage, animal byproducts, paper, toxic waste, plastic, etc, into OIL, PURE WATER, CARBON & minerals. It does it at 85% efficiency, which means that it only consumes 15% of the energy that it produces. It can produce oil at under $20 per barrel. USA agricultural waste alone would be enough to replace all imported oil making us energy independent. When combined with other forms of alternate energy, we could get off the habit of using fossile oil completely.

[stewert]

17. What About This ?

Could this be a lie so the oil and gas companies can justify raising the prices of oil
and natural gas ?

I understand we will run out of oil at some point, but could they be skewing the
peak oil numbers to justify higher prices ?

Just asking ?

[Silverhair]

18. Peak Oil is a definate reality.

The question of when we will hit it can be debated, but IT WON'T BE SUDDEN. The original poster is somewhat of an alarmist. As the demand for oil becomes greater than the amount available, the price will rise. (Supply & demand). The greater price for oil will give greater incentives for alternate energy methods and also for conservation. SUV's won't be so popular anymore. Technologies like TDP will be invested in more heavily, and after a few difficult years, we will adapt and keep on going quite nicely - thank you.

TDP plants do NOT require cutting edge technology for their manufacture. Old fashioned boilers & pipes works fine. It doesn't take super educated people to operate it. The same level of training as a current refinery workers should do nicely. Mostly high school workers and a few college degree types.

Time taken to build a TDP plant is only a year or two. In a few years there should be a lot of them going up all over the world. Then the market for ME oil will go way down, causing an economic depression in the ME. They will be able to go back to the 14th century like they want to, and nobody will care.

[Beam Me Up]

23. TDP?

By TDP do you mean "thermal depolymerization"?

"The TDP technology is a chemical reforming and separating process that uses heat and pressure in a water environment to convert organic wastes into water, gas, oil, and solid carbon.  The oil and gas may be used, among other things, to power the TDP process and the hemp processing facility.  The carbon may have industrial value in electronics manufacturing, plastic extrusion, activated charcoal, steel manufacturing, and power generation.  When biomass or organic compounds are processed, the mineral ash produced may find use in the fertilizer industry, which uses similar compounds."

Also, I'm not sure I agree with your optimistic forecast that the social, economic and geopolitical consequences of peak oil will NOT be SUDDEN. IF Peak Oil is a reality--and I believe our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is evidence that it IS a reality--the question is how can a global population of 6 BILLION people and growing make the transition to a new global economy without significant social, economic and geopolitical upheaval?

It looks to me like the answer is IT CAN NOT. UNLESS, that is, an EXTRAORDINARY grass roots effort to bring about this transition begins RIGHT NOW.

Here is what I believe:

PEAK OIL SIGNALS THE END OF GLOBAL CORPORATISM
Which means the end of GLOBAL MILITARISM
AND
THE END OF US GLOBAL SUPREMACY

From a certain perspective, this could be a "good thing," ultimately a return to more local and sustainable agrarian economies world wide. However, we have to keep in mind that it is going to mean not only "significant" but RADICAL changes in global social structures. Current history would indicate that the ELITES who have benefitted from and maintained the Global Banking/Corporate/Military Empire are not happy with this scenario and want to arrogate all remaining oil reserves FOR THEIR OWN ENDS. Thus, quite literally, leaving "the masses" out in the cold.

As I see it, we have a very very brief window of opportunity to address this man made "apocalypse." And, so far, when not in utter denial, we're finding it very difficult to get ACCURATE INFORMATION which would allow us to DEMOCRATICALLY begin to address these serious questions before us.

BMU

[MadHound]

21. Then now is the time for us to prepare

Yes, peak oil is a reality, yes, it will happen in the next twenty years, yes, we will all be royally screwed. But, since you know that this is the train coming down the track, why not start your preparations now. If you can afford it, buya small place out in the country so that you can raise your own food(don't forget livestock, manure is the fertelizer that is going to be needed). If you can afford it, invest in some alternative energy source on your property, ie solar or wind. By all means get yourself a wood stove. Go out and buy a diesel car, so that you can refine your own biodiesel from the old fry oil at restraunts(most are glad to give this to you). Make sure that you have an adequate hand tool for every power tool that you have, be it a lawn mower or a chainsaw.

You still have a decent amount of time to prepare, use it wisely.

[hatrack]

24. Interesting document from the British Ministry of Trade & Industry

It's a long PDF about energy supply and usage, but the key information is on pp. 29-30 and the discussion there of cumulative oil & gas production and reserves.

On page 29, the report notes that "In 2001, 8.2% of the UK's proven, probable and possible reserves were consumed. Of course, there's the obligatory note immediately after that these measures should not be taken as an indicator of the future life of reservoirs.

http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/inform/energy_indicators/indicators.pdf