Truthout article on Peak Oil (sort of)

[pstans]

The article looks at Peak Oil in terms of ordering a pizza. A little quirky, but somewhat effective.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071405I.shtml

Here are some snips from the article:

Imagine you are hungry and don't want to cook. You decide you are going to order pizza to be delivered. They don't take credit cards, and so you start scrounging money. First you grab the quarters in the change dish, then you get serious and pillage your wallet. Finally, you start turning over the couch and checking pockets. It is at this point that your significant other asks you what you are doing, and you explain. Immediately there is the suggestion to turn your medium cheese pizza into a large green peppers and olives. And, while you are at it, why don't you ask some friends over? Make that two large pizzas. So you tap into your penny bottle, and you count out enough.

This little hunt for change highlights the important elements of the energy problem. The first is the peak oil problem itself: there is only so much money in your house. You might be more or less efficient at looking for it, but there is still a fixed amount of ultimately recoverable money.

But there is another component, one underlined by the driver not taking credit cards or coins. That problem is that not all of the money in the house is of the same usability. Some of it is more usable than the rest. This has been called a "quality" of energy problem. The same is true with petroleum. Some petroleum is "light" and "sweet," that is, easy to turn into gasoline and other forms of transportation fuel. Some is "heavy" and/or "sour," meaning harder to refine. When the Saudis and the Republicans push more refineries, they aren't saying that right now there is much of a refinery bottleneck; there is slightly, but not enough to push down the price of gasoline much once you factor in the cost of building the refineries. It is that the Saudis are admitting that in order to be able to pump more oil, they are going to have to put on line the sour crude they have. Previously, it wasn't worth it to them. Now it is.

So the real dangers attached to petroleum are quantity, quality, demand and sink. We are running out of in, and we are running out of out. Right now we have a choice - scrounge the house for yet more dollars and call a different pizza place, or set about doing some cooking - that is place our faith in "capital energy.

I think using an anology to describe the complicated issue of Peak Oil is a good idea. The author doesn't put all of the pieces to gether in this article, but comes close. So next time when talking to a newbie about Peak Oil, maybe you can use the Pizza anology, but refine it a little.

[Delphinus]

1. Thanks, pstans.

That's a pretty good analogy.