Peak Oil Matters

Continuing with my recent theme of getting readers to recognize more “I didn’t think of that” moments as they relate to Peak Oil (while avoiding any kind of structured or overly-detailed approach that might discourage readers from continuing on), today I’d like to discuss the ubiquitous laptop/personal computer.

These almost-mandatory-for-our-lifestyles products are in no small measure made out polycarbonates and synthetic plastics—petrochemicals … oil. Microchips and housings and keyboards and many of the assorted other elementary components essential to the manufacturing of one of our greatest inventions do not exist without fossil fuels.

How many hours a day do you use this marvel of ingenuity and vision and technology? How many different uses and applications do you employ in the normal course of your day without thinking even once about your computer’s ready availability and its relative affordability? Turning on our computers at home and/or at work has become as commonplace and as taken for granted as brushing our teeth.

Can you imagine what your work and personal life would be like without the computer you rely upon to simplify work and daily living a hundred different ways?

So when we soon enough begin the inevitable decline of oil production owing to geology, geopolitical events, economic factors, natural depletion rates, business investment decisions (take your pick)—while we’re simultaneously confronted with increasing demand from other parts of the world for an ever-decreasing supply—who loses out?

When we no longer have at the ready all of the oil each and every one of us needs to satisfy all the demands and preferences and expectations of industry as well as our own lifestyles, what are we prepared to sacrifice? What if you now had to share one computer with your entire family or with the co-workers in your office or department? Are you prepared for that kind of possibility?

What production limitations is Dell or IBM or Apple going to impose when they no longer have the needed quantity of petrochemical-based components they need to manufacture their products in amounts sufficient to match demand—let alone the fossil fuels needed to run the machinery that builds and delivers their products?

Who in the distribution chain is either going to be left out entirely or forced to make all kinds of accommodations to a decreased supply of fossil fuels they need to manufacture and transport their own pieces of the puzzle? When the quantity of component parts is curtailed because we simply no longer have enough oil to satisfy the industrial food chain and thus personal and business demands for all kinds of computers can no longer be met, how are we to decide which components, suppliers, transportation modes, manufacturers, marketers, stores, and consumers have priority in the supply and acquisition of computers?

Is the investment department of your financial services firm more deserving of a couple of computers than the business you run, or the emergency room of your local hospital? Multiply that scenario by the countless legitimate needs of your family members and friends and acquaintances and local and national and international businesses, and then imagine what happens when someone has decreed that the computer industry and the entire supply and distribution chain it relies upon will from now have to make do with 15% or 25% or 40% less of everything needed to meet demand because oil producers worldwide simply cannot meet demand any longer.

What happens then?

How is this all supposed to work itself out of we don’t start taking steps to recognize the limitations and challenges we’re going to face and begin doing something about it now?

Do we really want to wait until we are forced to try and implement last-minute plans and endure drastic changes? Keep in mind that I’m just presenting a casual overview of personal computers. Multiply the disruptions by the countless products we all use every day….

How are we going to even produce all of these items when we don’t have enough fossil fuels to meet the production and transportation and marketing and delivery processes? How many people lose their jobs along the entire distribution and production chain when Apple and Dell and all the others simply cannot manufacture enough laptops to meet demand because their suppliers can’t meet their own quotas?

Which businesses along the chain of computer manufacture and distribution have to revise their business practices because they no longer have a sufficient number of computers to match and meet the needs of their employees? Which departments get shortchanged? How do you undo the benefits of computer technology required to manufacture and distribute those very products—benefits we completely take for granted now?

How much re-configuration and re-invention of the entire computer manufacturing and distribution process will be needed to meet demand if suppliers and manufacturers and all the other necessary parties have to figure out how to make do with either less energy resources or alternative energy sources that simply do not match the efficiency and productivity of fossil fuels?

What kind of substitutions might then be available to these computer manufacturers? What cost increases would be associated with alternative components? What kind of restructuring would be needed up and down the supply and distribution chains? How quickly can this entire chain of revised production and distribution fall into place?

The reality is that in the not-too-distant—as oil supplies continue their decline and manufacturers everywhere and in all industries are obliged to re-configure the work they produce and the products they supply—we will have nowhere near the alternative sources of energy in place to effect seamless transitions for manufacturing and delivering computers.

What happens then?

Seth Borenstein, science writer for the Associated Press, wrote a very interesting article this past Friday that dovetails nicely with the series of posts now being featured here in Peak Oil Matters.

Although written from the perspective of those who may wish to “punish” Big Oil as a result of the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Mr. Borenstein nonetheless shared some incisive observations about how pervasive is crude oil’s impact and effect in our daily lives. Shampoo, for example, was noted as being “100% chemical,” with crude oil serving as the source for almost everything that makes up a bottle of shampoo.

It’s a nice, concise look at how utterly dependent we have become on crude oil to do so much more than just fuel our automobiles.

Even more distressing an observation, however, is how crude oil now rests within us. According to the article, “When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested humans for environmental chemicals and metals, it recorded 212 different compounds. More than 180 of them are products that started as natural gas or oil.” As was further observed, these chemical cocktails are messing with the human body.

No chance that the increasing rates of all kinds of cancer over these many recent decades has anything to do with the chemicals we ingest, right? Aren’t we fairly certain that all the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez or now in the Gulf of Mexico is harmless to wildlife? No chance of any long-lasting impact on the hundreds of species in the Gulf coated with or ingesting all that oil, right? No harm to them, no harm to us.

How much more evidence do we need before we’re convinced that we must change how we live our lives and grow our economies?

What the hell are we doing to ourselves and our planet?

Just a quick note as a follow-up to yesterday’s post:

I came across an interesting article discussing how much of what we produce is so callously discarded without a first thought, let alone a second one. It’s worth the two minutes it will take anyone to read it.

In the days to come, when Peak Oil is having its impact on production across all industries and manufacturers, we will likely lament how careless we were in tossing away products and items that could have been preserved with only minimal effort on our part. But in keeping with our Damn-The-Consequences approach to too many aspects of our everyday choices, it’s not terribly surprising that we’re all too guilty of a failure to expend minimal effort or thought.

It’s late, but not too late, to make changes. Better that they be voluntary….

As I mentioned when this most recent series of posts began last week, my intention is to explore in non-technical terms Peak Oil’s impact in our lives. I want to provide readers with some concise, easy-to-read general themes/ideas/food for thought, without getting bogged down in technical details about manufacturing and the like. Some discussions (such as today’s on plastic) will likely pop up in several different posts. All are primarily designed to do one thing: help you to understand how Peak Oil will impact each and every one us in our day-to-day lives.

So let’s talk a bit about plastic. It is estimated that more than 200 billion pounds of it are manufactured each year. Thousands of products (including the computer you are likely using right now to read this) include plastic as a component. We don’t have plastic without a lot of crude oil first….

With that in mind, today I’m going to begin a discussion of this amazing creation by considering a ubiquitous off-shoot: water bottles. (I’ll avoid that part of the discussion where it’s clear that bottled water—minimally regulated as it is—is clearly no more pure than the vastly-more regulated and safe tap water; that it costs us hundreds of times more for bottled water than it does for tap water; or the fact that in “[a]ddition to the millions of gallons of water used in the plastic-making process, two gallons of water are wasted in the purification process for every gallon that goes into the bottles.” [1] There’s some food for thought! Good thing water resources are infinite, right? Right?)

In that just-referenced 2007 article by the Union of Concerned Scientists, it was stated that “[a]pproximately 1.5 million barrels of oil—enough to run 100,000 cars for a whole year—are used to make plastic water bottles….”

The Pacific Institute has estimated that more than seventeen million barrels of oil are used in the manufacture, transportation, and storage of those water bottles. “The amount of oil used for each plastic bottle would equal driving only half a mile. Producing one bottle requires 3 oz of crude oil, and if you fill a bottle 1/3 with oil that’s how much is used in just shipping requirements.” [2]

Estimates also suggest that almost 90 percent of the 50 billion bottles of water purchased in just this country each year wind up in landfills—that’s tens of millions of single-serve non-returnable containers each and every day. If it decomposes at all, that plastic will be there for thousands of years first. This is what we do this planet every day. As I quoted in a recent post: “When are we going to stop behaving so stupidly?”

I’m as guilty as anyone of this shopping foolishness, although in my defense I have now switched to eco-friendly reusable containers, to my children’s likely annoyance. (Just add it to this list, kids.)

In truth, our wild over-consumption of bottled water may be one of advertising’s great successes and a testament to our never-ending search for Damn-The-Costs-And-Consequences convenience, but Peak Oil is sure to have an impact on this lifestyle choice as it will with most other similar choices.

As I and many others have discussed ad nauseum, those who scoff at Peak Oil and cite their chapter and verse about all the fossil fuel resources yet to be produced (and the magic “undiscovered” resources), consistently and conveniently neglect to mention the costs, risks (hello Deepwater Horizon!), energy expenditures, and time delays in obtaining those no-longer-easy-to-find-and-produce resources (assuming they are correct about the size of the resources and the inherent obstacles are surmountable … big question marks.)

What that means in practical terms is that as demand continues to increase (think China and India, among others), supplies simply will not match that pace, and things are going to change. This will be a very long, drawn-out process, despite the false attributions of deniers who claim we believe we’re suddenly going to just run out of oil. But the harsh truth is that as increasing demand collides with decreasing availability, allocations and sacrifices are going to have to be made—sooner than we are likely to be prepared for.

Can we be so foolish as to think that items of convenience such as bottled water will continue to have priority among the thousands of products and transportation services currently utilizing oil/fossil fuels? I’m fairly confident that we can probably find at least a few items that will likely have spots higher up on the rungs of importance.

In practical terms, perhaps manufacturers will continue to provide water in plastic bottles, but surely not on their current scale and just as surely in more costly fashion. The “convenience factor” will certainly take a hit. Less production and more production costs mean less demand, which leads to less production, which costs jobs, and the dominoes in that industry will begin to tumble too. Up and down that supply, manufacturing, advertising, and transportation chain, the decline in demand will be felt. (Again: not an overnight phenomenon, but the decline will begin and it won’t stop.)

Soon enough, we’ll all be “inconvenienced” in one way or another at least several billion times a year because at least several billion bottles of water will no longer be either available or worth purchasing. Fifty billion produced bottles will eventually become … forty billion? Twenty billion? Five billion? More changes, more impact, more people and industries affected. What happens to all those employed in some capacity along that chain?

And we’re just talking bottled water….

Sources:

[1] http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/reasons_to_ditch_bottled_water.php: A World of Reasons to Ditch Bottled Water by Union of Concerned Scientists – July 9, 2007

[2] http://greenanswers.com/q/69378/products-shopping/manufacturing-materials/how-much-oil-used-make-one-pla

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/watershed-art-installation.php: The US Consumes 1500 Plastic Water Bottles Every Second, a fact by Watershed by Petz Scholtus, 10.15.09

In my last post, I took a first look at a “big ticket” item that will clearly suffer from the effects of Peak Oil: sports.

I touched on just a few aspects among many (travel, revenue) that will be adversely affected by the onset of Peak Oil and the challenges that will have to be confronted once relatively inexpensive fossil fuel is no longer available to support the myriad organizational components of athletic competition. Of course, not every adverse affect on products or industries will be irreconcilable or as potentially dramatic in its scope as I suggested in that essay.

The history of our industrial success has in no small part been a result of our capacity to improve upon that which came before. There’s no question that perfectly acceptable substitutes may already exist for many products, or can be fashioned with a relatively small amount of effort. (Per my last post, I’m not inclined to believe that once the manufacturing of basketballs and footballs declines, we’ll never find appropriate and suitable replacements—but it will surely be much more difficult to maintain supply and meet demand with the same efficiencies.)

The challenge will be not just to find those replacements, with the time and effort and testing and marketing required of any new product, but more importantly, doing so with less fossil fuel energy to support that entire process. That’s where the real challenge comes: having systems/infrastructure already in place (and we’re not even close) that will allow for product alternatives and the processes by which they are designed, created, tested, marketed, transported, and successfully utilized—and accomplishing all of this with much less fossil fuel available from start to finish.

As I have alluded to previously, when worldwide demand exceeds the oil industry’s capacity to effectively and feasibly produce enough oil at acceptable prices—as Peak Oil assures us it will, if it isn’t doing so already—sacrifices at all levels, in all nations, for all citizens, and in all industries will be the end result. The way we’re heading right now, most of those sacrifices will fall on the involuntary side of the ledger. No one will be pleased with that.

You and I may insist that we be allowed to run all the errands we want each and every day, or travel to this place or another, or buy this or that product as and when desired, but when demand is regularly exceeding supply, changes and sacrifices are going to happen no matter how strenuous you or I insist to the contrary. (If it’s a choice between my local fire department having ready and immediate access to fuel for their vehicles and putting gas in one of my family’s four vehicles, it’s pretty clear to me who “loses”.) That means more changes in how we live our daily lives.

Shouldn’t we start thinking about this now, while it’s only a bit too late to be doing so?

And at the micro level, our day-to-day lives are going to change measurably. In many instances the changes will just be changes. Different certainly, but not necessarily better, and not necessarily worse. It won’t all happen overnight, of course, but change is assured.

Let’s take a much more mundane example than major sporting events and the relevant organizations: let’s consider toothpaste and toothpaste tubes. These items are among the thousands of products utilizing fossil fuels/crude oil in the course of their manufacturing processes. (When you get right down to it, if it’s a product being transported in the marketplace, it uses fossil fuels, so that doesn’t leave out too many items!)

Is it likely that we’ll still be able to brush our teeth every day even if crude oil is no longer part of the manufacturing mix? I’d hazard a safe guess and suggest that yes, we probably will. The packaging may have to be different, there may be some aspects of the texture or quality of toothpaste that changes, but for you and me, as long as we can go to the local store and get the tube (or vat or container or bottle or whatever will “house” the new toothpaste), we may not notice much difference if it tastes pretty much the same and does the job about as well as does our current brand.

But how many steps in the process leading to the placement of that product on the local store shelf are going to change because toothpaste producers and toothpaste tube manufacturers have to re-design or re-formulate or re-process those products—or the means by which they are transported in the marketplace? For a “simple” product such as toothpaste, it may not be such a big deal, and perhaps we won’t even notice the cost difference—or indeed any difference at all.

Can we expect that to be the case in all instances, for all products? Even fools twice over would have trouble believing that.

This is where Peak Oil’s impact becomes formidable. I can’t say that I’ll care a whole lot if ingredient XYZ becomes necessary in the manufacturing of my favorite toothpaste in place of whatever element of crude oil is now used. But I will care more if transporting my favorite tube becomes prohibitively expensive because Crest or Tom’s of Maine or Colgate can no longer afford necessary components in the processing and (especially) the delivery of that product, leaving me with the choice of chewing gum or relying on the one or two local merchants manufacturing their best attempt at a suitable substitute (and who do so with far less resources than the major manufacturers).

This likely manufacturing and delivery conversion is not going to just affect toothpaste….A small day-to-day inconvenience on that front, perhaps, but it isn’t going to begin and end there.

What happens then?

When I first began this blog, my intention was to first (I hope) educate readers about the main issues of Peak Oil, offer commentary when necessary, and then devote most of my time exploring in non-technical terms Peak Oil’s impact in our lives. It’s time to begin doing that.

(And let me preface this entire series by declaring that I’m not a technical guy: how much crude oil is needed to manufacture all of these items, what the process is, whether substitutes might be available, etc., are all beyond my interest and expertise. I want to keep this simple, for me as much as anyone! I have no plans to get up to anyone’s eyeballs in manufacturing or processing details. I want to provide readers with some general themes and ideas … some food for thought. Fill in the details as much, or as little, as you wish on any of the scores of topics I’ll now be covering. Some discussions will span several posts; others will offer up a nugget or two for consideration before I move on to another topic. All of these posts are designed to do one thing above all else: get you to understand that Peak Oil is not an abstract concept. It is real, it will affect each and every one of us, and it will keep affecting each and every one of us from soon until forever….)

I have discussed in several posts already the issues of transportation and infrastructure as they relate to Peak Oil, and the urgent need for all of us to reflect on all that must—and will—change when Peak Oil is fully upon us. Without an established infrastructure designed to support commerce and our ways of life without fossil fuels as the driving source of energy, any hopes we have for continued growth (not that that’s a guarantee even with an appropriate infrastructure) are by the boards.

Peak Oil isn’t going to just affect some of us some of the time in some ways. Peak Oil is going to impact all of us—substantially—and irrevocably. Life will be different, and that won’t change. The good ‘ole days will remain the good ‘ole days. There will be no going back.

There is no special place where this must begin. So let’s jump in with a topic of interest to many of us. Let’s talk sports. (This is one of those topics much too broad to cover in just one post, so I’ll just begin with a few general ideas and considerations, and will return to this subject in future posts.)

It’s easy enough to mention the fact that footballs, and helmets, and cleats, and basketballs and what have you are all made with crude oil as an essential component. It’s also safe to assume that once we begin dealing with curtailed availability of fossil fuels, some needs will have lower priority than others. Ambulances will probably have access to fossil fuel-based crude oil (gasoline) before Spalding or Wilson get the fossil fuel-based crude oil they need to make basketballs and footballs. Obviously there will be ripple effects across the industry when this happens, and the end users (from the junior leaguers and the neighborhood kids all the way up to the professionals) will also have some problems to contend with: either the products will become less available, or they will become prohibitively expensive for many along the chain of users. What happens?

Ever try dribbling a basketball that no longer bounces? How easy and inexpensive will it be to replace that? What happens when high school sports programs with limited funds as it is have to replace cleats and helmets and other accessories and their prices have doubled, or tripled, or the helmets and cleats are simply not being manufactured any longer on a scale sufficient enough to meet demand? What happens then?

Let’s also take a broader view. How do teams (high school, college, the pros) deal with travel issues and schedules when gas is much too expensive to enable teams to transport their players even short distances, or when air travel is severely curtailed and wildly expensive because not enough jet fuel is being processed to meet demand (and airports are shuttered because air travel has diminished markedly*), or when the fans cannot afford to put the gasoline in their vehicles that in the past allowed them to attend the games without a second thought?

What happens when half, or a third, or one-tenth the number of fans can afford to attend games because budgeting all that money to drive to an in- or out-of-state stadium no longer makes financial sense? Pure supply and demand: when demand continues and supply is reduced, prices go up. Decisions are then made about where to allocate funds. Does a trip across the state to attend a Red Sox game make more sense than paying for your children’s basic needs for the next few months?

Where will the revenue to pay players come from when the majority of fans are no longer traveling to see the games either because limited gas supplies are now being allocated or it’s simply become too expensive for “frivolous” trips? How do owners continue to fund their vast operations (office staff, marketing, scouting staffs, minor leagues, utility services for the stadiums and training facilities, and on and on it goes)? What happens to the vendors and other suppliers when the majority of fans just stop attending … permanently?

For all their current revenue, what happens to the Red Sox or Yankees when they are scheduled to travel to Tampa Bay, or Texas, or to the West Coast, and it costs a small fortune in fuel costs alone for charter planes? What rail services currently exist that offer a practical alternative? Exactly how far out does the ripple effect extend?

No organization, no group of individuals no matter what their financial status, and no industry that currently utilizes fossil fuels to any extent will escape the effects of Peak Oil. For all the magic and excitement and joy of athletic events, sports will suffer the impact of Peak Oil every bit as much (if not more) than many or most other industries.

What happens then?

* See, for example: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/3018604/aviation_after_peak_oil_is_there_a.html?cat=15

Hello, and welcome to my new blog. Thank you for stopping by.

While I expect and plan to discuss other matters of import from time to time and as appropriate, this is first and foremost a blog about Peak Oil. My intent is to share information culled from various sources and then discuss the impact peak oil will have on our everyday lives.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Peak Oil is most often explained as the point when the maximum rate of oil extraction is reached because of technical and geological limitations, with a ceaseless global production decline thereafter. If we’re not at the maximum production levels now (facts would indicate we are), we will be in the not-too-distant future. At this moment, we have absolutely nothing in place to replace the vast amount of energy we derive from the tens of billions of barrels of oil used annually.

Let me state at the outset that I am not an energy or economic expert. I am likewise not a geologist or engineer; my professional and educational background does not suggest that I am “qualified” as a peak oil expert. I understand some will use that against me … but common sense, I hope, still counts for something. Having issued my disclaimer, I am nonetheless much more than just a casual observer. Not an expert, to be sure, but knowledgeable enough.

I first came across the concept of Peak Oil about a year ago, and since then have steadily immersed myself in the facts, opinions, claims, and observations of both its proponents and opponents. I am, in the end, a firm believer in peak oil’s basic premise: we have reached or will soon reach the point where we simply cannot and will not produce any more oil than we already have. However, I don’t think the sky is falling … yet. (But a steady decline will follow soon enough.)

We cannot effectively deal with a problem if we don’t understand how it will affect us, and relatively few understand the magnitude of oil’s influence and presence in their everyday lives. It’s not usually a topic of everyday conversation, so no need to feel as though you’ve been missing anything! But almost everything that sustains or assists us has oil as a basic component: food (fertilizers and transportation), furnishings, cosmetics, plastics … the list of oil-based products is almost endless. There are literally hundreds of thousands of them. Life as we know it does not run without oil … and that’s going to create some challenges for us.

I’d like to do my part to help increase awareness and understanding. That preparation is one of the best ways to deal with inevitable changes.

Peak oil is NOT about running out of oil. Those who dispute the concept invariably—and inaccurately—assert this. It’s a poor attempt to discredit those who are attempting in good faith to help others understand the issues and potential consequences.

I have no doubt that oil will be around for several decades to come. There are still hundreds of billions of barrels in the ground (although quality may be a serious factor, among other related challenges). How easily and inexpensively we get at the oil, extract it, refine it, and then utilize and distribute it to meet increasing demand are entirely different matters, however. Those are the core issues of Peak Oil.

Some who dispute Peak Oil’s looming impact share legitimate critiques, while others strain credulity in their wild-eyed denials and disingenuous claims. I’ll discuss those differing viewpoints and help you understand both sides so that you in turn can make an informed assessment about what we need to do.

I do not want to believe in peak oil for many reasons. For one, I usually find the topic quite depressing. Every informational piece or essay seems more disturbing than the last. I hope every proponent is wrong twice over, but I am not optimistic on that score. I find no solace or benefits in promoting doom and gloom scenarios, so I’m aiming to provide a different perspective about what we’re all going to be dealing with. I’ll leave the heavy-duty technical explanations to those better-qualified than me.

I like our way of life, and am dismayed that it may soon change forever—in quite dramatic ways (not that it hasn’t already). Soon doesn’t necessarily mean “soon” as we are accustomed to using that term, but it’s only a few short years before industry and lifestyles really change. It’s important that we understand why that is.

Let me also state that I am definitely not the peak oil movement’s poster child.

I’m an American consumer through and through, but/and yes, a political and social liberal. To our teens’ never-ending annoyance, we recycle religiously. Nearly every one of the seeming seven million light bulbs in our two homes is an energy-saving one. I installed them all myself. But that’s pretty much it for now.

We own two very nice, new luxury automobiles—one an SUV. We have a terrific second home a short walk from the ocean; less than an hour’s drive from our home in the ‘burbs of Boston. It takes a bus trip, two subway trips, a commuter rail trip, another bus trip at the tail end, and a several hundred yard walk thereafter for us to get to our beach house via public transportation … about 3 hours start to finish if we schedule it right, and that’s not counting the brutal walk up our very long and very steep hill when we return home.

We don’t make that trip … yet. In the summer heat, luggage and supplies get heavy, and quickly. We drive. Often. Always. Sometimes we make two round trips in the same day. Most times we take at least two if not all 3 vehicles (the third belongs to our 3 teenagers. A fourth—car, not teenager—will soon make its appearance in our driveway). We go to our summer home a lot between May and October.

We’ve traveled a fair amount, have lots of neat household toys, and in general have enjoyed a very nice lifestyle in recent years. I do not recite this to boast about what a great life we have, which we admittedly do—none of which I take credit for. We are indeed very, very lucky, and we know it. But I also understand that we won’t be donating or selling any of our possessions in the near or not-so-near future.

Peak Oil idealism often clashes with financial and family realities above ground—part of my dilemma as a peak oil advocate.

I share this to demonstrate at least in part that I am not a bug-eyed, tree-hugging, live off the fat-a-tha-land robe-wearing vegan anxious to shower everyone with liberal doom and gloom tidings while extolling how my family has shed all of its material possessions and has now learned to grow our own food by raising goats and corn on our front lawn and is using leaves and grass clippings to make our clothing while harvesting fire flies to store electricity and discarded branches to heat our animal-skin tent—and then either shaming or frightening you into doing the same. (Sorry, but you’ll have to look elsewhere for that.)

I have many selfish reasons to challenge both the veracity and inevitably of peak oil, and would much prefer that my pleasant, unremarkable suburban life continue undisturbed,  as is. None of that matters. Peak Oil is unforgiving that way. Denial is just … denial. Not particularly useful in the long run, but a wonderful tool of ignorance. It can no longer be one of our options.

So I’m writing this blog to share some ideas and information—or at least enlighten, so that the eventual challenges and problems we’ll have to confront are not all quite the surprise they will otherwise be. Peak oil does matter. We need to understand how, and why. Sooner would be best.

Call it a sense of obligation. I know some things; not necessarily a lot, but some things. I think others will benefit from that knowing, even if they refuse to believe it right now, or for even quite a while. That’s okay. I’ll offer what I have to offer, and leave it to you to decide what to do with it, if anything. No agenda. No strings. No shouting. Just some things to think about.

In my next post, we’ll take a look at some of the facts and considerations that cause many experts to believe we have now reached peak oil—giving you a more specific introduction to this issue. I’ll follow with an examination of the counter-arguments, and we’ll go from there….

I hope you’ll visit again, and share some thoughts, observations, and yes, even criticisms. It can only help us all find ways to treat the reality of peak oil as an opportunity and not a catastrophe. That’s a choice we all own.