Peak Oil Matters

[Second in a series]

Last week, an especially egregious but all-too-typical article found its way into the blogosphere, echoing the same tired, fact-free nonsense which now serves as the biblical foundation for denying the reality of what’s happening to a finite (as in NOT infinite) resource used each and every day for nearly two centuries by billions of people, industries, and governments. It’s a simple mathematical premise which continues to confound too many with prominent public voices. Their efforts cannot go unchallenged.

Because it does so fine a job outlining many of the standard misrepresentations employed by those denying the truth about peak oil production, I’m devoting the first two posts in this series to a discussion of Mr. Cantu’s Why We Shouldn’t be Worrying About Peak Oil article [NOTE: all quotes following are taken from there unless noted otherwise]. The first post is here, and next week I’ll conclude this latest series on Peak Oil Denial by discussing issues related to the themes developed from this referenced article.

Picking up where we left off….

The author scoffs at the notion of our nation’s energy security being compromised by our dependence on foreign oil (the argument that we “fund our own enemies”), although I’ll confess to not being entirely clear on where he’s going with his argument that “terrorist attacks are so inexpensive that a decrease in Middle Eastern oil revenues would have virtually no impact on al-Qaeda’s fundraising capabilities.” I’ll leave that one alone.

Mr. Cantu then points out:

… [T]wo of the largest suppliers of crude to the United States are Canada and Mexico, among our staunchest allies and countries that are hardly terrorist breeding grounds. All of the talk about the benefits of choking malevolent countries from U.S. oil demand borders on ignorant isolationism.

A couple of observations on that argument: Mexico’s largest oil field is Cantarell. I discussed it in one of my first blogs posts, and noted that:

Cantarell in Mexico has long been considered of the supergiant oil fields on the planet. As recently as 2004 it was producing about 2.5 million barrels a day of oil, and about half of that was shipped here. Production has fallen off a cliff since then, and in 2 – 3 years, it’s expected that production will have declined by close to 80%. Aside from the enormous financial, political, and social problems that will create for our neighbor south of the border (Cantarell was the major source of income to the Mexican government), this also poses a dilemma for us. Where and how do we make up that shortfall?

Roger Blanchard recently offered more up-to-date production details about Mexico’s total production:

Mexico’s oil production peaked in 2004 at 3.48 mb/d. By 2010, it was down to 2.62 mb/d, a decline of ~860,000 b/d. In 2010, Mexico’s total liquid hydrocarbons production was down to 2.98 mb/d according to US DOE/EIA data. [1]

So … should we just pretend that all is well with our friendly neighbor to the south and make no plans for declining imports from Mexico? So I’ll ask again (and keep in mind that the situation and facts are not unique to Mexico’s oil production): Where and how do we make up that shortfall?

As for the tar sands of Alberta, Kurt Cobb offers this:

The hydrocarbons locked in the tar sands and the Orinoco oil belt in Venezuela aren’t what we call oil and must be heavily processed at high cost using enormous amounts of energy….
The hard-to-get oil resources are large, but they take a long time to develop and require strenuous, expensive and energy-intensive methods to extract. All this, when combined with the relentless depletion of existing fields, spells little or no growth in the worldwide rate of oil production in the coming years. [2]

Tom Murphy adds these observations:

Presently, Canadian production is a little over 1 million barrels per day (Mbpd)
….Optimistic projections expect 3–4 Mbpd by 2020 in Canada. For scale, ten years of conventional oil decline at 3% per year will leave a shortfall over 20 Mbpd….
Heavy oil and tar sands require more effort to extract and process than conventional oil, lowering the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) to something in the neighborhood of 5:1 (citation). At least it’s net-positive, but nowhere near the 100:1 originally enjoyed by conventional oil, or even the 20:1 levels we find in conventional fields of today’s caliber.
Heavy oil and tar sands will no doubt relieve some pressure on declining conventional oil, but they are capable of only partial relief. In other words, just because we believe the resource to be half-a-trillion barrels, rate-limited extraction will limit its ability to mitigate conventional oil decline. [3]

Mr. Cantu concludes his essay with these statements:

All of this is not to suggest that we should abandon hopes for a more renewable and sustainable energy future. Indeed, there are many promises in the prospects of renewable energies. Yet, we must not kid ourselves to think that we can transform a crucial part of the global economy overnight, nor that our reliance of fossil fuels creates more problems than it does solutions.
Nearly every source of energy comes with its own risks. And with this in mind we can conclude that the risks posed by fossil fuels are far outweighed by their benefits. While this may come across as heretical, the cold truth is that for the time being, there is little to no cause for alarm in how we consume our current energy supply.

And therein the problem. Those who dispute the imminent onset of Peak Oil production (check your rearview mirror) seem entirely incapable of appreciating not how much we rely on fossil fuels for just about everything we do; rather, they seem to have no concept of how much will have to transition from conventional fossil fuel reliance to the various Plan B’s we eventually decide upon. And for anyone to think that we can just ramp up our efforts and transition our entire industrial/commercial/transportation/production/manufacturing/travel/cultural foundations away from fossil fuel dependence to “other” in a matter of a few weeks is beyond delusional.

No one is suggesting that “we can transform a crucial part of the global economy overnight.” That’s the problem! We can’t, which is all the more reason why shunting Peak Oil to the back of the closet for now is about as self-destructive an endeavor as we could undertake.

The simple math is that the finite resource once available to us in nearly-inconceivable abundance and affordability nonetheless has now passed its tipping point. We’re not running out of it for decades, but “nearly-inconceivable abundance and affordability” have left the building. What’s left isn’t as abundant, easy to access, inexpensive, or always available no matter what the circumstances. And what we think might potentially hopefully possibly could if only replace that astonishing resource just isn’t as “good” or efficient or affordable. Those are the facts, unpleasant though they are to consider.

“For the time being” there may be “no cause for alarm”, but that’s a very tiny, narrow window that is all but closed now and forevermore. Denying the facts prevents not only leaders from engaging in the critical dialogue, planning, and implementation needed to transform how we do everything, it prevents citizens from having any appreciation whatsoever about the challenges looming and the consequences we’ll all have to deal with somewhere in the much too-near future.

More to come….

Sources:

[1] http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2012/02/how-reliable-are-us-department-of-energy-oil-production-forecasts/; How Reliable are U.S. Department of Energy Oil Production Forecasts? by Roger Blanchard – 02.15.12
[2] http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2012/01/fossil-fuels-vs-renewables/; Fossil Fuels vs. Renewables: The Key Argument That Environmentalists are Missing by Kurt Cobb – 01.23.12
[3] http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/02/fossil-fuels-im-not-dead-yet/; Fossil Fuels: I’m Not Dead Yet – 02.14.12

(A continuation of my two posts from last week)

In this third and final part of my look at The Hirsch Report, a series of “Wildcards” (all from p. 63) were offered which the authors believed might have the effect of either minimizing the adverse consequences of Peak Oil (“Upsides,” which were covered in my last post), or making it much worse (“Downsides”). I’ll offer a comment or two on the “Downsides” today, as they apply to current conditions.

“World oil production peaking is occurring now or will happen soon.”

Two words: Already there.

“Middle East reserves are much less than stated.”

As I wrote in Part 2 of this series on The Hirsch Report: “After decades of already-questionable representations and a complete inability for outside sources to verify those stated reserves, we shouldn’t be counting on more magical discoveries or even a half-rational explanation as to how Middle East reserves magically increased by substantial amounts when OPEC production quotas were changed in the 1980s to tie in with stated reserves: higher reserves = more oil allowed to be sold = more revenue.” What’s the more likely and logical answer? Seems pretty obvious to me….

“Terrorism stays at current levels or increases and concentrates on damaging oil production, transportation, refining and distribution.”

Terrorism is of course always an issue, sad to say. Given the current political turmoil throughout the Middle East, it may be a more pronounced consideration than it has been in recent years. More likely, however, the general discord in that region is cause enough for concerns about oil production and related issues. Recent price spikes are but one indication of how fragile our supply sources have become.

“Political instability in major oil producing countries results in unexpected, sustained world-scale oil shortages.”

Hello! As of this writing, significant sustained shortages are not an immediate concern, but there’s no doubt that if the upheavals in the Middle East spread into Saudi Arabia in particular, we may very well be dealing with that kind of a crisis very quickly.

“Market signals and terrorism delay the realization of peaking, delaying the initiation of mitigation.”

The same considerations stated above would apply here as well, although evidence that we’ve reached peak seems clear enough. Whether our leaders and the majority of citizens realize (or at least acknowledge) it is a different issue. Initiating mitigation is not a concern because we haven’t even gotten there, yet, and that is a problem having nothing to do with market signals or terrorists.

“Large-scale, sustained Middle East political instability hinders oil production.”

I’m thinking there isn’t a need for me to say much about this….

“Consumers demand even larger, less fuel-efficient cars and SUVs.”

There are indications that this is exactly what is happening now. I don’t think we’re prepared yet to underestimate the sense of entitlement which governs much of our behavior—notwithstanding a solid body of evidence about climate change and the ongoing challenges we face in providing adequate energy resources for increasing demand.

“Expansion of energy production is hindered by increasing environmental challenges, creating shortages beyond just liquid fuels.”

This is certainly within the realm of possibility. Increases in oil shale production here in the U.S., along with increased production from the tar sands of Canada notwithstanding, the amounts available now and for a number of years to come is not going to meet demand. Oil depletion from existing fields marches on, and just maintaining current levels of supply is challenging enough.

I won’t bother reiterating too many of the points I and others have raised in recent months about current oil supplies and future prospects. Suffice it to say, demand has exceeded discovery for several decades now; “giant” oil fields discovered in recent years aren’t even close to matching the giant oil finds of forty, fifty, and even seventy years ago. The fact that we continue to rely on those giants many, many decades after their discovery ought to raise at least one obvious question: How much longer can they produce at current/past rates? (See this good summary.)

I wrote this more than a year ago, and it’s safe to assume the situation is not any better today: “Cantarell in Mexico has long been considered of the supergiant oil fields on the planet. As recently as 2004 it was producing about 2.5 million barrels a day of oil, and about half of that was shipped here. Production has fallen off a cliff since then, and in 2 – 3 years, it’s expected that production will have declined by close to 80%. Aside from the enormous financial, political, and social problems that will create for our neighbor south of the border (Cantarell was the major source of income to the Mexican government), this also poses a dilemma for us. Where and how do we make up that shortfall?”

“According to the report [the International Energy Agency’s World Outlook 2010], by 2035 three quarters of currently operating oil fields won’t be producing anymore. In fact, current fields are only expected to account for less than one fifth of that year’s production.
“That leaves over 80 per cent of the IEA’s 2035 production projection coming from new oil fields, ones that either haven’t yet been developed or haven’t even been discovered. And the contribution from that undiscovered category alone is still far greater than the one from currently producing fields. That’s a tall order for new field discovery.
“Undeveloped or undiscovered oil fields, growth in tar sands production and increased reliance on natural gas liquids account for all the expected growth in world oil production over the next two and a half decades.” [1]

‘Nuff said.

Spin is good only for so much and for so long. The sooner we recognize the challenges we’ll be dealing with in the not-too-distant future, the sooner we can start having an intelligent, meaningful, and productive national dialogue about what we need to do. Now is as good a time as any, because later won’t be a better alternative.

Sources:

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-rubin/even-the-international-en_b_787450.html; Even the International Energy Agency Forecasts Peak Oil by Jeffrey Rubin – November 23, 2010

In conjunction with the recent ASPO annual conference in Washington, two articles (here and here) were offered on the subject of getting the Peak Oil message out, and what some of the strategies might be, given that, as the article by Molly Davis suggested: “… almost all of the messaging experts say the movement’s narrative has failed to influence policymakers — or even the major environmental groups.”

Certainly the level of bipartisan political hostility—as we were reminded of in that piece—contributes to the messaging problems. Others advised that finding an “enemy” might be the most effective strategy. The accepted target was the fossil fuel industry. One rationale offered is that facts alone are not enough (true, sad to say), and by demonizing an easily-demonized entity, the peak oil movement may find more sympathetic listeners. I can’t argue with the rationale, but I wonder if the convenience and expediency of targeting the usual bad-guy is the best choice.

I’d like to offer a different enemy—one also easy enough to aim at for a variety of reasons, but critical to those of us who carry legitimate concerns about what life will be like in the years to come as declining oil production becomes apparent. Explaining that we may not really start to feel the pinch of declining oil production for a few—or more—years down the road is a message that needs to be brought home more vividly and urgently. “Peak Oil” won’t show up in the headlines next week, but that provides us with all the motivation we need to help others understand why now it must become a cause célèbre long before its impact begins.

The extremist right-wing is an easy target for those of us who value things like integrity and facts and reality. My favorite blogger, Steve Benen, offered a piece on this topic (here) yesterday, and after I’d completed my first draft of this post, I came across Ron Chusid’s post offering his own take on the same theme.

In his piece, Chusid quoted Michael Hirschorn’s article in The Atlantic:

“Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said (or is famously reputed to have said) that we may each be entitled to our own set of opinions, but we are not entitled to our own set of facts. In a time when mainstream news organizations have already ceded a substantial chunk of their opinion-shaping influence to Web-based partisans on the left and right, does each side now feel entitled to its own facts as well? And thanks to the emergence of social media as the increasingly dominant mode of information dissemination, are we nearing a time when truth itself will become just another commodity to be bought and sold on the social-media markets?…More far-reachingly, how does society function (as it has since the Enlightenment gave primacy to the link between reason and provable fact) when there is no commonly accepted set of facts and assumptions to drive discourse? [1]

Why not go after those for whom facts are mere inconveniences to be disregarded when they conflict with a narrow-minded and clearly self-serving agenda? At the risk of starting a cat fight where truth may too quickly become a casualty, why don’t we more forcefully challenge those who deny peak oil (and global warming) and who do so for reasons that generally ignore reality in favor of narrowly-defined interests? Those motivations will ultimately do nothing but promote more eventual harm by denying the truths to those who clearly need them the most.

What causes me more despair than perhaps anything is not the stupidity exhibited by politicians who clearly have forsaken integrity (remember when that mattered?) and truth in order to pander to the least enlightened among us. That groveling for short-term gratification in November is endemic in our political system. The dysfunctions exhibited regularly as indicative of the political norm are certainly discouraging enough. (How does Georgia Senator Richard Shelby, for example, manage a straight face when placing a hold on a Fed Reserve nominee because the man is “not qualified” … when the Nobel Committee has seen fit to award that nominee this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics? If it didn’t affect all of us, this kind of disgraceful nuttiness would just be laughable. Hypocrisy is now high art.)

The shamelessness of politicians is now sadly all-too-routine, but the fact that there are so many among us who manage not much more than a shrug is perhaps even more disheartening.

A recent online opinion published on a notorious right wing website (my first—and I hope last—exposure to that particular mainstay of barefaced nonsense) demonstrated what has now become the usual level of factually challenged, paranoid-laden, and depressingly shortsighted commentary about the energy crisis. I then forced myself (a distinctly unpleasant experience, I might add) to read through several dozen comments in support of the author’s inane pseudo-factual tripe about electric cars and fossil fuel resources. The narrow-mindedness those contributors likewise exhibited in marching lock step with the author, replete with their own brand of paranoia; snarky, self-righteous drivel; and an utter disregard for anything even in the vicinity of truth or rational thought, is breathtaking in its scope! I know all too well this wasn’t an isolated incident.

I won’t dignify the commentary or increase traffic to the site by providing the link here (I’ll do so upon request so you can read it yourself), but that pseudo-factual essay suggested (as have others who don’t really understand the problem, and don’t understand that they don’t understand) that we should just expand our oil “imports from friendly nations” as a solution to the problems of reliance on oil from nations whose politics and policies we oppose.

Just like that!? So … what needs to be done? A phone call … will that take care of it? (Gee, why didn’t we think of that sooner?) So what if these friendly nations have to break their agreements with other nations? We’re Americans … we’re entitled to get what we want! A wave of the wand and presto! More imports!

The far right all-too-consistently tosses out these oh-so-helpful hints without bothering to discuss all the (or even any) facts which, in the real world we inhabit, make their suggestions ludicrously impossible to fulfill. Of course, we run the risk of getting bogged down in he said/she-said arguments that quickly devolve into the lowest forms of “debate”, but why let those types of offerings go unchallenged? They feed on themselves, and it is tiresome and time-consuming to have to rebut all the nonsense. But if we don’t, uninformed readers and listeners have no reason to at least consider the possibility that there may indeed be other facts out there that should at least be examined in order to make informed assessments, rather than accepting the words of the few. More information is rarely a bad thing, and giving everyone the opportunity to examine the facts and engage in rational discourse as a means of seeking common ground makes for a healthier and more productive society.

Seems like a decent enough concept….

This same author also helpfully urges us to just boost our domestic production, conveniently neglecting to offer even one fact as to how that’s to be accomplished in a nation that reached peak forty years ago! The strategy of “just utter it and hope no one asks” has been very effective, but it’s hard to find legitimate defenses for that approach if one genuinely cares about the well-being of our fellow travelers.

This writer also cites the U.S. Geological Survey estimate that the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska has “10.4 billion barrels of oil.” Wheeee! We just found about 16 months worth of oil, just like that! (And of course we’ll hoard it all for ourselves, right? I didn’t catch any suggestion that it would go to market.) And what … two, maybe three weeks of drilling on a tiny plot of land oughtta take care of that, correct? Curious that the facts regarding the costs and efforts and time and consequences of drilling in ANWR somehow didn’t make it into the article. (Space restrictions really suck, don’t they?) Disingenuosly (I’m trying to be kind here), he then mentions that this “will replace imports from Saudi Arabia for 20 years” … conveniently omitting the fact that Saudi is just one of our suppliers—and not our leading provider, by the way, so not-so-subtly painting the Saudis as one of our bogeymen may not be quite as effective as he’d hoped. (Damn those facts!)

Using his math—unchallenged—that means in his world we get about 500 million barrels of Saudi oil per year, or about a month’s worth, give or take. (Rounded up, we currently use about 20 million barrels per day here in the U.S. The rest of the math is easy.)

“Saudi Arabia sends 360,934,000 barrels of oil per year (989,000 barrels per day), 20 percent of its total oil exports, to the United States, according to the EIA.”[2]

But what’s a 150 billion barrel exaggeration/40% overstatement of facts among friends, right? It makes the story better, and isn’t that all that really matters? Why worry about the veracity of the narrative when you don’t really care about the present and future plight of your readers and listeners?

As for other suggestions? He did offer that Canada and Mexico could help out by exporting more to the U.S. … the same Canada whose tar sand production shows no indication of reaching a level anywhere near enough to satisfy just our own demands let alone worldwide increasing demand anytime this century; and the same Mexico whose production levels from its largest oil field, Cantarell, has fallen off the cliff in the last few years.

“Pemex says it is getting Cantarell under control, noting that the field’s decline has stabilised at 12 per cent per year – a number many analysts find difficult to believe.
“Cantarell’s production peaked seven years ago at 2.2m barrels a day. Today the field struggles to produce a quarter of that.”[3]

And, oh, by the way:

“Canada reigns as the United States’ leading oil supplier, exporting some 707,316,000 barrels of oil per year (1,938,000 barrels per day) —a whopping 99 percent of its annual oil exports, according to the EIA” [4]

I’m guessing there’s not a lot of room for Canada to do much more than 99%, but why let reality get in the way of some pretty good nonsense. Tweak a few numbers, and our wonderful neighbors to the north should be able to get us somewhere around … what … maybe 162% of their exports? That’s a good number! (If you’re going to make stuff up, try not to go too far over the top.)

Those suggestions oughtta work out just dandy! Thanks!

And just to round out the nonsense (all in one paragraph, mind you) this same writer also informs us that the “continental US has 163 billion barrels of unproven reserves.” Unproven? Why not 163 kajillion barrels; that’s unproven too! He’s relying on “unproven” reserves to bolster his argument? Seriously? Are any of his readers paying any attention at all? Yikes!

The fears of many who feel woefully out of touch and helpless in the face of the current economic crisis (and certainly not without good reason) make it easy to latch onto these “facts” without once taking a deep breath to consider the validity or logic behind the utterances—especially when they’re extended by those in seeming positions of authority or knowledge (and who coincidentally share—and play to—their same intense dislike for government and liberals and assorted other popular bogeymen). To what end?

What is this nonsense designed to accomplish? How does this help us in any way? It would be so helpful if integrity still counted for something when dealing with issues that require a broad consensus (and understanding) for resolution. How can we effectively help enlighten and prepare others who do not have the means or opportunities to learn the truth, especially when one side seems so intent on obliterating it? Where’s the honor in that? So I’ll ask again: How does this help?

How can we as a society hope to properly address the challenges we’ll face when the lack of knowledge in a sizeable portion of our society is so rampant and is so consistently encouraged by a not-insignificant segment of public officials and their sycophant media counterparts?

How do we reach those who clearly need a greater understanding? Peak Oil is not a progressive or liberal agenda. It’s about the facts on and in the ground—facts that affect (and benefit) all of us now, even Tea Partiers and the right-wing machine that works so hard and effectively to cloud the truth. Peak Oil’s impact will also just as surely and adversely affect ardent deniers when the consequences of declining oil production and a warming Earth begin to make their inevitable appearance. By then it will be much too late….

How do we convince the currently un-/ill-informed to empower themselves, to learn that there is in fact other evidence about peak oil that is not (surprise!) about conspiracies, or liberal evil, or an alien, black, Muslim-loving, Socialist-leaning, apologist Martian President? That evidence is what it is: the disturbing truth about our fossil fuel resources and the declining production coupled with increasing demand which will in the years to come make our lives a lot more challenging than we’re prepared to acknowledge or deal with. That’s not pleasant for peak oil proponents either!

What can we do and say to help them understand that peak oil and the climate crisis are not figments of their imaginations easily scorned, but real-life conditions based on real-life facts in a real-life world that will have real-life consequences in their own real lives … much sooner than they’ll be prepared for? We’re all in this, and one’s political leanings or thoughts about government and all the rest will not matter. Peak Oil is not going to single out the fear-mongering, sky-is-falling, loony liberals and preserve the rest!

What help can these citizens expect then from their so-called leaders who so artfully disseminated their fact-free nonsense at a time when genuine leadership and integrity were most needed? Conducting themselves in this manner in crystal-clear reliance on their hope and belief that their followers simply lack the ability or inclination to ferret out the truths for themselves is beyond appalling! And we let it happen! What kind of a nation do we choose to be?

How do you look at a broad swath of an industrial or urban landscape in these times (knowing that there are literally tens of millions of identical scenes playing out across our planet) and honestly believe that the products and production spewing smoke and carbon and exhaust and pollutants into the air—all flowing from our genuinely magnificent innovations and creativity and skill and dedication—have no effect on our atmosphere—cumulatively or otherwise? What kind of delusions are needed to honestly believe that our astonishing levels of progress do not simultaneously carry with them the risks so obvious to so many others among us? What kind of denial mechanisms do these people have in place that allow them to just simply ignore the truth and facts and irrefutable evidence?

Why is the decline of oil production so hard to imagine when we’ve all been exposed to shortages of one kind or another along the way, especially when in this case we are dealing with a finite resource being used with greater demand than ever before? Take a look at those same urban/industrial vistas and ask yourself how can we possibly continue to supply ourselves with enough fossil fuels to keep it all going effortlessly and endlessly—especially when so many millions more seek to emulate our lifestyles in years to come?

How deep must one’s fears and sense of helplessness be that they allow themselves to be manipulated by those who prey on those same fears in order to exploit them for their own selfish gains? How can we help those so clearly in need of truths about our future find their better selves, in the process enabling them to offer their own needed contributions to the dialogue we must continue to engage in?

More worrisome still: How difficult will it be for these people to adjust to declining supplies of energy and the consequences of our warming planet when the people they rely on most have been at best disingenuous, but more truthfully complicit in the slow and steady damage to our society and civilization by exploiting the lack of understanding across the citizenry for their own economic or political gain? These are the people revered as patriots and leaders? How can we expect them to be of any help at all?

Now is the time when citizens need to understand what is at stake. Once we’re up to our eyeballs in declining production and its myriad impacts it’s way, way too late to only then start becoming aware and wonder what to do.

The “What’s The Matter With Kansas Syndrome” has to be among the most disturbingly fascinating themes of modern society. Tens of millions of followers routinely elect officials or hang on the words of those who so clearly do not have their best interests at heart! It’s almost comical in its brazenness now. And come November, we’re likely to see even more demonstrations of this phenomenon. That so many allow themselves to be persuaded of “facts” that are so clearly detrimental to their self-interests, and that they are so unwilling to take time to exercise their own independent gift of thought and reason as we all move closer to cliffs of our own making is amazing! I just wish it were happening in some other place at some other time in history, rather than on my dime!

So what do we do? What kind of nation do we honestly choose to be?

How do we get the message across to so many who are blindly heading for the cliffs?

Sources:

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/truth-lies-here/8246; Truth Lies Here: How can Americans talk to one another—let alone engage in political debate—when the Web allows every side to invent its own facts? By Michael Hirschorn

[2] http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/100726/top-7-us-oil-importers; Top 7 suppliers of oil to the US. Really big oil: Where does the US get its crude? Here’s what you need to know. By News Desk — GlobalPost Editors, Published: July 28, 2010

[3] http://money.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=1033627; Mexico’s Pemex wrestles with oil decline By Carola Hoyos in Campeche, Mexico , Financial Times, 29 Mar 2010

[4] http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/100726/top-7-us-oil-importers; Top 7 suppliers of oil to the US.

A brief “interruption” to the flow of planned posts in the upcoming days:

I came across 3 separate articles (here, here, and here) in the past 24 hours that are worth reading in their entirety. Not much commentary is needed … the articles speak for themselves.

It is noteworthy that Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group—and an international business leader with a decidedly vested interest in oil supply and pricing—is now warning that we are soon going to find ourselves on the business end of oil supply shortages. He joins an increasing chorus of prominent international business leaders in oil-related industries making the same claims.

Chris Nelder’s article echoes themes I’ve raised previously (here and here): we will soon be facing an import shortage due to production declines in both Mexico and Venezuela. The facts he recites are worth paying attention to. Those who scoff at the notion of Peak Oil rarely get around to providing the level of detail Nelder offers us. Funny how that works….

The Frederick Banks piece offers information on an area I have not yet discussed: Russian oil production. The information he shares about Russia and production elsewhere dovetails nicely with these other two articles, giving added authority and weight to the fact that we continue to ignore the imminent consequences of declining production and supply at our peril.

Unlike the fact-free declarations of those who deny the impending onset of Peak Oil, these prominent voices provide us with more solid evidence indicating that we are indeed on the cusp of dramatic changes, and more arguments in support of meeting the challenges head-on … now.

Facts: what a concept!

In order for us to begin thinking differently about Peak Oil and its implications, and to begin envisioning what kinds of changes we can make (and will likely have no choice about), we should first understand our oil situation and consumption. This post is an introduction.

If the Peak Oil proponents are correct, we are in for a rude awakening in the near or immediate future (as measured against our ability to transition effortlessly to new energy sources).  Many of us won’t understand why. I’d like to help.

At first glance, addressing the potential fuel/oil replacement problems will appear to be quite daunting. A second glance will suggest that we have incredible opportunities to effect changes that could carry us for decades to come into a safer, cleaner, prosperous future.

At the risk of excess hyperbole, we may very well be at the dawn of a potentially new industrial and economic revolution, if we all understand what’s involved and what’s at stake….I won’t even pretend that this will be easy. It won’t be. But we own the choices. We can prepare, or we can ignore and keep our fingers and toes crossed that some way and some how, we’re going to find the tens of millions of barrels of oil everyone is going to need each and every day, and that we will continue to find those same/increasing amounts … well, forever. I’m an optimist, but not that much.

For those of us more familiar with peak oil statistics, this is a popular one: The United States represents approximately 4% of the world’s population, yet it consumes more than a quarter of the world’s oil each year. (By way of comparison, Europe’s population is nearly 50% greater than ours, yet it uses less than half of the oil we do.)

We own more than a quarter of a billion 2-axle vehicles, and have approximately 200 million drivers. For those of us near large cities, most days it seems as though all 200 million drivers are parked on the same highways as we are.

Two-thirds of the nearly seven billion barrels of oil we use each year is used by those same quarter of a billion cars, trucks, and vans. That’s more than any other nation’s total usage! Almost 90% of America’s workforce uses those cars and trucks to get to work. Our gas mileage standards are remarkably poor for a nation such as ours, and so we waste a tremendous amount of oil and gas. (One estimate suggests that lost productivity and wasted fuel caused by traffic congestion in the U.S. costs us more than $80 billion per year. And German auto mileage standards, for example, are nearly twice as high as ours.) This is not good math.

Another estimate suggests that the 20 million or so barrels of oil we use each day translates into 10,000 barrels of oil per second!  (I won’t do the math to verify it, but feel free to do so on your own.)

About 60% of our oil is now imported, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Those numbers will only increase as time passes. Fifteen years from now, it’s expected that we’ll be importing close to 75% of the oil we need. Some suggest the amount will be much higher. Other nations (notably China and India) are increasing their oil consumption exponentially. At some point limited supply will crash headfirst into increasing worldwide demand as more and more nations seek to improve their standards and emulate our way of life. What happens then?

Our military alone uses close to half a million barrels of oil each and every day. Its entire infrastructure has been built on the foundation of readily-available oil. Limit oil’s availability or supply and what happens to our military operations, our national and international commitments, and the protection of oil transport from the Middle East?

Fortunately, we’re already seeing signs that the military leadership understands this. The rest of us ought to start doing so as well. As I try to emphasize, this is either a disaster in the making or an incredible opportunity. I am an optimist on that score.

We’re sending hundreds of billions of our dollars to Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and many other nations each year—dollars we no doubt could find good use for here in the United States. We do so in part because our oil peaked in production about 40 years ago. (Even Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, our largest oil field, is now at about one-fifth of its peak production.) We are still finding oil, as the there’s-more-than-enough-oil optimists like to point out in their snarky criticisms of peak oil proponents. We’re just not finding enough, and that hasn’t changed for decades. We’re using more and finding less, and third-grade arithmetic will tell you that that is not a good outcome.

For all the talk of  the “massive” amounts of oil offshore and in Alaska and the “obvious” need for us to just “drill, baby, drill”, we’re several decades away from full production in those regions, and the amounts anticipated will wind up meeting far less than even 5% of our needs. None of it will come cheaply. Drilling in the Arctic is a wee bit more challenging than punching a hole in the ground in Texas, and one does not require an engineering degree to understand that. The “drill, baby, drill” crowd never gets around to spelling any of that out for us. Magical thinking is nice, as is a denial of pesky truths, but on the planet we occupy, it’s a fairly useless exercise.

Data from the Energy Information Agency as of 2007 indicates that our “proven” reserves of conventional oil are about 21 billion barrels. That’s about a 3 year supply for us. More bad math.

One-third of those reserves are “light sweet crude,” which is considered the easy, good stuff. The rest is the not-so-easy and not-so-good stuff … the kind of oil that isn’t produced or refined very efficiently, or inexpensively. Few of our refineries can convert that heavy crude oil into gasoline. None of this is good news.

Opportunity….

There just aren’t any more places on this planet where we can find bottomless pools of oil flowing freely, easily, and inexpensively. That’s certainly true here in the U.S. We’re tapped out. It’s starting to take a lot more effort, many more years, and a lot more money to find and produce what was once so readily available. We’re paying for that, too. Even more bad math.

Cantarell in Mexico has long been considered of the supergiant oil fields on the planet. As recently as 2004 it was producing about 2.5 million barrels a day of oil, and about half of that was shipped here. Production has fallen off a cliff since then, and in 2 – 3 years, it’s expected that production will have declined by close to 80%. Aside from the enormous financial, political, and social problems that will create for our neighbor south of the border (Cantarell was the major source of income to the Mexican government), this also poses a dilemma for us. Where and how do we make up that shortfall?

None of these statistics are especially pleasant to consider. Potential bad news rarely is. But if we understand our situation, if we understand our needs, if we understand that we must individually and collectively begin making better choices and devoting our incredible talents to creating and implementing new means of energy production while revising and improving how we use energy, the bumps in the road we’re destined to confront might be a bit smoother. And in these times, that may not be such a bad option.

Next: More Considerations About American Oil Consumption