Four big storms on the horizon

[ninakat]

The Peak Oil Crisis: The 4 Facets of Peak Oil
By Tom Whipple
Thursday, 01 March 2007

Looming just over the horizon are four great storms that soon will have a major impact on nearly all the world’s peoples and their descendents for decades to come. We know these storms are coming, for we can clearly see their outlines and some are already beginning to feel the winds.

We don’t know the exact timing nor the order of these storms’ arrival. We do know that the order in which they come will be important to how these storms interact with what our lifestyles will be like in the years ahead.

The first storm is what we talk about in this column: the balance between oil depletion and production from new oilfields that will determine how much longer the world’s economy can continue in its present form. For the last 140 years, the world has had nearly uninterrupted access to a virtually unlimited supply of oil. Except in times of war and similar crises, if you could pay for the oil, you could have as much as you wanted. Soon, this will not be the case

Our second storm, a corollary of the first, is the balance among the ability and willingness of oil exporters to export, the price of oil, and the demand and ability to pay of oil importers. This is not quite the same as the availability of oil, for there will come a point when today’s oil exporters will not be shipping the desired quantities of oil to today’s importers. This reduction in size of the oil trade can be for any of several reasons.

As production from the giant Cantarell oilfield is dropping rapidly, many forecast that Mexico soon will be out of the oil exporting business. This is not because Mexico’s wants to stop exporting to the US; they simply will not have excess oil to sell abroad. Here we will have a component of storm one directly causing storm two – the reduction in world exports.

As Mexican exports, and those of other countries, start to dry up, either they will be replaced by increased production elsewhere in the world, or the richer countries will simply outbid the poorer ones for the available oil. There are many other reasons, besides inability to maintain production, which might cause a reduction in the oil trade. Terrorists might blow up some vital oil installation. Iraq could deteriorate to a state where no oil is available for export. Or Iranian relations with the West could go really sour. In these cases export flows could slow for reasons other than oil depletion.

Our next big storm is global climate change, which can interact with peak oil and export flows in many ways. Large temperature-induced hurricanes have and could continue to tear up oil production and import or export facilities. A really large and well-placed hurricane might establish the peak of peak oil.

However, there is another side to the “storm” of global warming. Most governments and world organizations, except maybe ExxonMobil, are saying that we really need to do something “serious” and fast about global warming. Serious and fast can only mean major cutbacks in the consumption of non-carbon sequestered fossil fuels. Here the problem is that short of a scientific miracle, large reductions in fossil fuel consumption are almost certain to cause serious economic problems.

For those for whom economic growth has become the Holy Grail of civilization, deliberately slowing economic growth is unthinkable. There are many, who believe they would rather see their grandchildren bake, starve, drown or what have you, than deliberately crash the stock markets with some fool emissions-reducing cap or tax.

Although it does not seem imminent at the moment, somewhere along the line governments are going to start capping the release of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels unless peak oil production or “peak oil exports” do it first. Should governments mandate major reductions in fossil fuel consumption before the geological or geopolitical peak in world production, then we could have global warming induced peak rather than a geological or geopolitical induced peak.

Our final storm is a great economic recession. It’s clear much is out of balance in the world’s economy— deficits, money supplies, world trade, and exchange rates to name a few. Should a major world recession or worse set in before oil shortages begin, then obviously the demand for oil will be reduced, production will slow and oil reserves would be stretched out.

The other side of the coin says that major reductions in oil supplies for either geologic or geopolitical reasons will undoubtedly cause serious economic reverses.

So there we have the great four part mix that will be a major part of all our futures: peak oil production, peak oil exports, global warming, and economic recession. They are all coming and they are all tied inextricably together. It is not yet clear which will affect our lives first. Right now it looks as if recession and peak exports are in the lead but things are changing rapidly. The only thing that’s sure is when these four storms have passed through, life as we have known it will never be the same.

[slow_dazzle]

It is closely related to PO and it is food supply, both at production and distribution levels. I should add that Peak Gas has to be factored into this equation because of the fertiliser issue given that gas is the feedstock.

PO is a reality and I get sick and bloody tired of all those who bleat on about it being a bildabegaaaah, illoooominaaateee, ooooh look, sign of Satan, listen to the Led Zep records backwards scam. Oh yeah man, there's infinite amounts of oil and the laws of supply and depletion don't apply in the febrile imaginings of the adolescent doodz - let's have another game of "Doom" man...wiiikkkeeed! Sure, Big Oil is making a mint out of the situation but that does not negate the reality of PO. Only people who lack basic arithmetic and science skills think it's a scam. It is 100% real and it's coming to a town near you sometime soon, no matter how many ridiculous and uninformed stories about Abiotic Oil and other juvenile theories are put forward. Governments have known about PO for decades and they have been planning for it over a similar period.

Admittedly, there is the petrodollar issue which is intimately related to PO in any case. All it takes to understand that is a little understanding of how money works. A simple one at that - not rocket science. However, minting it in the short term does not in any way negate PO as a concept.

Once this bugger starts to bite expect some really shitty things to happen, including food shortages. And for those naysayers who think I'm talking bullshit do a little research on how food is produced and then transported. Once you understand that the whole process is "just in time" ask yourselves what would happen if there was an interruption in supply to a large city for a couple of months. We EAT oil whether we like it or not. No oil = no food. It's as simple as that.

As for global warming there does seem to be a consensus that it is real. If we think of oil "production" as oil "burning" the possibility of human activity influencing global warming becomes easy to accept. But maybe all the scientists are secret agents of the NWO and maybe all the scientists who have devoted their collective intellect to studying oil depletion are a bunch of shills who are lying to us on a grand scale. Our half-informed, amateur opinion trumps their scientific endeavours every time.

I'm sorry for the tenor of this post ninakat. But, I am sick and bloody tired of hearing from people who lack scientific education and who think they have a better understanding of a subject area on which there is a wide consensus amongst those who actually are trained to talk about the issues.

There are loads of shitty things going on in the world, the UFO phenomenon deserves close scrutiny, there are undoubtedly elites (I use plural rather than singular because I believe they exist but they are NOT homogeneous) and behaviour that appears to be occult in nature, but which might have more mundane underpinnings, does exist. All of these things, and more, are around us and we need to understand them. Notwithstanding all of these possible realities, we are hitting the plateau of oil extraction (not "production" because we DO NOT "produce" oil) and our entire civilisation is utterly, absolutely, dependent on constant access to cheap oil. That ain't going to be possible for much longer hence the apparently insane adventurism to secure what is left. That is all it is about - everything else is secondary.

The person who got closest to the truth is Mike Ruppert. Interesting that his site has become moribund isn't it? Another close runner for getting it right is Mark Rabonowitz at oilempire. Most of the rest are wasting their time arguing over what brought the WTC buildings down, whether there was a plane at the Pentagon or whether it was a laser show. If we don't collapse as a society the same pointless debate will be held five years from now without changing anything.

I often muse about cointelpro and how it works in the context of PO. The trick is to keep a lively debate going on that is going to lead absolutely nowhere just like the debate on JFK's killing has led...nowhere. And foment dissent amongst activists, cause disharmony, create divisions, sow the seeds of doubt. Keep them chattering excitedly but don't let them focus in on the one thing that might unite them. Don't let them all rally around the one thing that is easy to grasp - we are up shit creek because our oil-dependent society is starting to ship water and it will eventually start to sink.

On the other hand, if someone can convince me it's all going to be just hunky dory then please let me know and, in particular, let me know HOW and WHY.

Sorry if I hijacked your thread ninakat. I'm bloody sick of people ignoring the elephant in the room that is PO.

</rant>

[ninakat]

slow_dazzle, no problem with your rant. I happen to agree, and I share your frustration. I think what's interesting about this article is that, even if you don't believe peak oil is a real phenomenon, the reality that we're utterly dependent on the stuff is undeniable and Whipple is talking about the precarious situation we're in -- how, with any one small domino falling, an avalanche will ensue.

And, again, even if you don't believe in peak oil, don't you think that Cheney does? Don't you think that's what the wars are about? Securing as much of the stuff to consolidate power over the world -- especially to grab it before China and Russia do. Profits, of course. Global hegemony, absolutely. Win win..... for THEM.

In the end, I don't think it matters who wins the argument about Peak Oil. One way or another, we're all going to suffer as a result of our dependence on the stuff, because there are so many indicators that oil and the burning of it are at the heart of many of the world's worst problems (resource wars, global warming, environmental degradation, petrochemicals ruining farmland).