Peak oil talk
Here’s a headline from the Fabius Maximus blog:
Red Alert: the Saudi Princes have announced the arrival of Peak Oil.
The BusinessWeek story cited below, along with King Abdullah’s April announcement that they will not be opening new fields, provides evidence that we are near — or perhaps even at — Peak Oil.
1. It may be political peaking;: perhaps the Saudi’s could invest to increase production, but choose not to (an obviously sensible decision).
2. It may be geological peaking, if the Saudi’s are unable to increase production. But whether geological or political peaking, the long-discussed event may be starting now.
He presents an interesting discussion on what peak oil means, on how peak oil could affect the health and wealth of nations, on how much planning for the obvious future is being done. Lots of links and additional discussions.
Peak Oil is here now and here is what it means:
Global oil production is now declining, from 85 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%. This is like a 45% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always be higher than production; thus the depletion rate will continue until all recoverable oil is extracted.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from “outside,” and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
I used to live in NH, but moved to a safer place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area, good climate with much rain and good soil?