|
|
|
|
|
______________ |
|
|
Beyond Peak Oil
|
|
What is Peak Oil?
Colin Campbell Founder of ASPO |
|
|
|
" NEOCON IMPERIALISM OR APOCALYPSE NOW ________
|
|
|
|
"Let's look at it simply. The most
important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that
economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims
on a sea of oil." *
_________
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shocking documentary uncovers the
subversion of Americas democracy.
"You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe."
"You take the
red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I"ll show
you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
In most of the last hundred and fifty years
humans have taken more oil petroleum from the Earth each year than in
any preceding year. Oil is becoming more difficult to take from the
Earth. At some time in the near future humans will be forced to start
taking less oil from the Earth each
year than in the year before. This
turning point is called peak oil. The most credible estimates of the
year of peak oil are from 2005 to 2015. After peak oil there may be
short plateaus of oil production, and occasional brief upturns, but the
downward trend will be unmistakable. Peak oil will not be the end of
oil. It will be the end of growth of oil production, and the beginning
of permanent decline. At peak oil there will be as much oil remaining to
be taken from the Earth as we have already taken, but we will no longer
be able to take it as quickly as we like, and will have to take less and
less as the years go by.
Oil petroleum is the most important non-renewable resource in the world economy. Burning oil powers virtually all transportation machinery cars, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes. Burning oil powers virtually all construction machinery and all agricultural machinery. Although oil is the raw material for many important industrial and agricultural chemicals, it is the use of oil as a fuel in mobile machines that makes oil indispensable to the world economy. At least 70% of all the oil we use fuels mobile machines. There does not seem to be any substitute for oil-as-a-fuel that will be available in the quantities in which oil has been available. Growth of the world economy requires growth of the work done by mobile machines. The indefinite shrinking of oil production after peak oil means the work done by mobile machines will likely shrink indefinitely. As a consequence, sustained economic contraction seems likely to start about the time of peak oil, sometime in the next few years. Sustained economic contraction will cause severe unemployment, together with social and political unrest. Awareness, planning, and collective anticipation may be able to mitigate these problems.
Peak Oil Fliers and Information
The
Party's Over: Oil, War, and The Fate of Industrial Societies- by
Richard Heinberg. This article is adapted from Richard's excellent book,
of the same title.
The Party’s Over, Realvideo, 29:28
Richard Heinberg is one of America's foremost experts on peak oil, the anticipated peak and decline of the global oil supply. Heinberg teaches courses on energy and sustainability at the New College of California, and is the author of The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies and Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World. More
Oil Depletion and The Fate of The World - A synopsis of Richard Heinberg's The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies by the Post Carbon Institute.
The Hirsch Report - "Peaking of
world Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management -
Dr. Robert L. Hirsch is a Senior Energy Program Advisor at SAIC and a
consultant in energy, technology, and management. Previously, he was a
senior staff member at RAND (energy policy analysis), Executive Advisor
at Advanced Power Technologies, Inc. (environmental and defense R & D),
Vice President of the Electric Power Research Institute, Vice President
and Manager of Research and Technical Services for Atlantic Richfield
Co. (oil and gas exploration and production), Founder and CEO of APTI
(commercial & Defense Department technologies), Manager of Exxon’s
synthetic fuels research laboratory, Manager of Petroleum Exploratory
Research at Exxon (refining R & D), Assistant Administrator of the U.S.
Energy Research and Development Administration responsible for
renewables, fusion, geothermal and basic research (Presidential
Appointment), and Director of fusion research at the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission and ERDA.
"The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world
with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached,
liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and
without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political cost will
be unprecedented."
"Oil peaking presents a unique challenge. The world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more then a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal, coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.:
"The Peaking of World Oil" U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, research scientist and chair of the House Armed Services Projection Forces panel Congressional Record to the House of Representatives February 8, 2006
"We are all in the same boat on this little planet earth traveling through space. There is only so much oil. There are about 7 billion people, and clearly we would do better to engage the nations of the world in a competition to achieve sustainability instead of a consumption contest, which is now what we are doing: Who can use the most oil to grow their economy the fastest."
"By the way Mr. Speaker, I think if we do not have a national and indeed international program which kind of has the breadth of putting a man on the moon and the intensity of the Manhattan Project, I think we are in for a pretty rough landing."
"The ultimate goal, and we will get to that goal, we will transition. When the age of oil is finished and there is no more oil that can be gotten without paying more for the oil then you get out of it, we will have transitioned to renewables. What will life be like then? What will like be like in that transition?
Rep. Bartlett's Peak Oil Presentation to the US Congress March 14, 2005 (realvideo)
Author:
Paul Thompson of
www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/ offers a detailed explanation of how he
believes modern society will break down and how to handle it.
"When considering what to do about the upcoming collapse of modern society, we have to be aware of what will happen. When speculating on the future, we can envisage four stages which can be defined by the three factors of energy source, interdependence and security."
The Four stages are:
Two-sided leaflet on national and personal
strategies for reducing the cost of peak oil.
(From Greens.org)
1. What is Peak Oil?
2. What happens at the "peak"?
3. When will this happen?
4. How will it affect me?
Heinberg on Peak Oil at the Vancouver Planetarium 25:07 (realvideo)
Richard Heinberg on Powerdown 47:00 (realvideo)
Hudson Institute presents: Saudi Arabia in Crisis, Matt Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Co.International -- CSPAN July 9, 2004 1:11:42 (realvideo)
Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency
Oil, The Iraq War and American Foreign Policy, Realvideo, 29:25
U.S. Oil Dependence, Fresh Air (NPR)
(realaudio and windows media)
European scientists from The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas predict Peak Oil for this year -- May 11, 2005 (realaudio and MP3)