The UK has a 2 trillion dollar economy. 1 million barrels per day (nice round number, way more than the UK's oil deficit at the moment) equals about 1% of that. A steady increase in net oil imports isn't good news for the balance of trade, but it isn't exactly apocalyptic.
Sometimes I think ToD contributors forget that there is more to life than hydrocarbons. Somehow the UK survived many decades of importing ALL its oil.
Somehow the UK survived many decades of importing ALL its oil'.
It did indeed but your talking about a period before the late 1970s when
a) the UK had a large manufacturing base - ie when it actually made things (as I recall that base is now down to around 17% of the total economy)
b) the UK did from 'time to time' actually had surpluses in its balance of trades.
From what I recall the Uk economy has been in deficit in termes of balance of trade for a number of years now (and that position has been gradually wosening). Now that oil is going to be a net (and rapidly increasing) negative to that, rather than a positive, I think the consequences are going to be serious for the UK (and more specifically the pound). As crywolf points out its astonishing the mainstream media in the UK dont pick up on this.
After all the figures are very clear and the DTI publish them frequently - basically 2006 will be the first year in which imports exceed exports (2005 was only narrowly positive), barring an epic turnaround in the last few months of the year. And yet the DTI still adheres to the fiction that 2010 will mark the turnaround. By 2010 at present depletion rates of around 10% the gap between exports and imports will be vast........
UK gas imports already exceed those of oil (in BOE equivalent and doubtless also in dollar terms). This situation is likely to continue. On this basis we need to multiply the projected oil trade imbalance by around 2.25 to arrive at UK's likely combined oil and gas imports; it sure won't be pretty.
Sorry, I just don't see the sky falling. Every country is a special case, but the US has tolerated far larger trade deficits and oil deficits for 2-3 decades and multiple economic cycles. Check back in ten years and let's see if the world (or the UK) has come to an end. At worst, I expect to see a fraction of a point shaved off economic growth.
Like you, I don't expect any major turnround in the UK sector, in 2010 or any other year. Just steady composite-exponential decline (with some modest reduction of the overall annual percentage decline rate, for technical reasons I won't bore you with). Every so often there will be a discovery in the hundred million barrel range that gets blown out of proportion by the scandal-sheets.
If you are a ToD regular (like me), consider the possibility that oil looms larger in your overall worldview than its true importance would justify.
The US gets away (or has done till now) with running a large trade deficit because it has the great good fortune that its currency is in effect the world's reserve currency.
The UK has no such 'luck' to fall back on.
And yes trade deficits do eventually bite, generally via currency devaluations and then via their impact on long term interest rates (ask the good folk of Iceland).
I am no fan of the Euro, but Europhiles do finally have one coherent arguement now for the UK joining - to prevent the pound taking a caning as the trade balance begins a one way trip south.
The US gets away (or has done till now) with running a large trade deficit because it has the great good fortune that its currency is in effect the world's reserve currency.
The UK has no such 'luck' to fall back on.
I agree with you that the US 'gets away' with its huge trade deficit because of the dollars position as the world's currency. I also agree with your implication that this might not last forever.
I don't, however, think you are right about the UK having no such luck. The UK, in fact, also benefits massively from the dollar being the world's reserve currency: London is the main world centre for 'eurodollars' (ie. dollars which are deposited in banks outside of the US). This means that there are huge capital flows into the UK which would not exist if the dollar were not the world currency.
The bigger the US trade deficit gets, the more dollars there are likely to be being deposited outside of the US and the more money tends to flow into the UK. It is this capital surplus which allows the UK to run a persistent trade deficit without its currency collapsing. (Another reason is that the pound Sterling also has small reserve status itself).
This dependence of the UK economy on the dollar's reserve status is certainly one reason why the UK is not in the eurozone, and has a foreign policy which is so closely linked to that of the US. When the US went to war against the euro in Iraq, so did the UK.
...and when the UK was importing all of its oil the average citizen yearned for a Mini with a 750 cc engine and probably drove less than 5000 miles a year. How much oil do you suppose they imported?
... a lot more than they'll be importing any time soon. Of course, back then they were building oil-fired thermal power stations (Grain, Fawley, Ince, Pembroke).
But what was it in 1974, after the first oil crisis?
And against the average weekly wage?
The data shows that the real cost of motoring has fallen by about 10% since 1972 (and real per capita incomes have doubled, more or less)-- this includes insurance, fuel, road tax, depreciation*. Conversely the cost of train fares has risen 60% in real terms, and of buses 40%.
* the big drop has been in the price of a car, or to be specific, the price of a car with the level of equipment that we now take as standard (air conditioning, air bags, etc.).
I'm not sure where this is going - I can smell a "zinger" in the works - but I'll bite anyway...
Nigeria
Angola
Kuwait
Saudi
UAE
Russia
Chad
Sudan
Azerbaijan
Iraq
Iran
...amongst many others, and at vastly different rates and with vastly different resource bases and prospects for future growth (mostly none). If I wanted a comprehensive list I'd do the same as you and look at the BP Stat Rev, with an appropriately critical eye. And I'm well aware of the "decline steepening" effect that constant, yet alone increasing, domestic consumption has on export capacity. And yes I know Iran has been importing gasoline. Yawn.
What is your point? And please don't lump me in with the Cornucopians, 'cause I ain't.
Kuwait: I think that they are right around 50% of Qt (based on HL), and they have admitted their largest field is in termianl decline.
Saudi: They are about 58% depleted, and at the same point that the prior swing producer, Texas, started declining, and the Saudis are reporting new "voluntary" cuts every few months.
Russia: Hugely depleted (at least from existing basins), around 85% or so. The recent rebound in production just make up for what was not produced after the Soviet collapse. Recent news reports suggest that production and exports have started falling again. I predict that the big news next year will be the confirmed declines of both Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Russia.
Iraq: 'Nuff said
Iran: I believe that they are about 50% depleted.
In any case, my original TOD post in January focused on the top three net oil exporters--KSA; Russia and Norway.
I predicted, based on Khebab's work, that we would see continued declines in Norway, with KSA and Russia also showing declining production this year. KSA is definitely down. Five of the past eight months of EIA data have shown Russian C+C production to be below the 12/05 level, and as noted above recent news reports indicate production and export declines. As I have repeatedly predicted, Russian and KSA consumption are growing quite rapidly.
Is there no connection between Qt and reserves? Are Qt estimations solely based on HL predictions of total recoverable? Otherwise, given the huge reserve estimation difference in Kuwait, how can one say what Qt really is or determine where 50% is?
Yep, even Genesis are getting back together! Soon long hair (maybe because many people won't be able to afford a haircut) ... and long lines at the petrol pumps will be back too.
And if you think hydrocarbons don't matter to the Uk economy, consider that 28,000 people opted for bankruptcy in the second quarter of this year - multiply x5 for a US equivalent. If continued that would be 0.5% of the working population per year. There is a big chance IMHO that the personal debt and housing bubbles are going to burst horribly in the next 2-3 years.
I have been a stale bear of UK housing for 6 or so years now.
I can't see how prices in my neighbourhood can keep going up: at least triple since 1995. Although London is doing well (financial services) the average person just hasn't had that kind of income rise.
It seems to me a giant pyramid in the making. You can get 100% and even 120% mortgages now.
It is shocking how far people, especially the sub 35 crowd, seem to be willing to get into debt.
I think the banks know they have a problem: I have noted fewer credit card offers in the post.
however the rise of UK bankruptcies is in part due to new forms of personal voluntary arrangement. So it's a legal transition, as well as a sign of over indebtedness.
I believe residential housing prices in Tokyo are still 60% below that peak.
Toronto dropped 40% in the early 90s, and has yet to recover (adjusted for inflation) to that high.
German property prices are below where they were in 1990.
Now for a number of reasons I don't think the UK will be as bad (high immigration, low unemployment, relatively successful economy, tight planning controls). We still produce fewer new homes (about 140k pa) than net new demand (about 200-220k pa).
But there needs to be a valuation correction-- there is a lot of debt sitting on a lot of buy-to-let housing out there, and a lot of 'easy money' has been made.
The talk, and the market, reminds me so much of the dot com (or dot con) era.
However, I have been saying this for 6 years, and have been wrong all the way ;-).
VT - I am always astonished - is there anything you do not know? I'm sitting in an internet cafe off the Totenham Court Road toinght (Monday) going to the Oil Very Rapid Depletion Conference tomorrow.
The 5* sallary seems like an act of desperation to me - I think it was 1.5 or 2* when I bought my first flat for £12,500 almost 30 years ago. There has to be an upper limit to sallary multiples that cannot be crossed.
I've been waitying for 4 years to buy a cottage in the country - and have seen resources set aside for the purpose dwindle in that time.
nother sign of inflation in the housing market, just like in the late 80s:
- young people (not couples, just friends) buying flats together as a way to 'get on the ladder'
I know a bit about such arrangements-- when they unravel, they cause unholy messes. Friendships (and lives) are ruined by the disputes, the inability to sell, etc.
My prediction for the future: the rate of economic and social change that has been the norm since the Industrial Revolution, will continue unabated. Mass migrations, world wars, civil wars, dictatorships, recessions, depressions, epidemics, extinctions, population explosions, diebacks, genocides. And entire areas of economic activity will disappear without trace. What else is new?
In retrospect, the period we are living will be seen as a brief golden age between the self-destruction of the European imperial powers and whatever phase of conflict comes next. Might be a battle for the remaining oil, probably not: much more probably, oil will be one aspect of a series of big sphere-of-influence conflicts between Eurasia (Russia/China) and the West (US/EU) starting sometime in the 2030s. All that silly Islamist troublemaking will be swept aside once the real fighting begins.
My two grandfathers were intimately involved in the mass industrial killings of the two world wars, came home, and got on with their lives, job or no job. Our descendants will do the same.
Two hundred years from now the human population of the world could be anything between 1 billion and 25 billion (I'd bet on 4-8). And oil supply will be the last thing on their minds.
At first, it will be fun burning books, I'm sure. It's always fun to burn shit. Roman Candles. Fourth of July. Who doesn't love a campfire? A nice "romantic" fire. C'mon BABY, Light My Fiiiire! Then we say it is necessary. To save a little oil.
But at a certain point, we will have to make a choice. Between Tropic of Cancer and The Sun Also Rises. Between Simmons and Deffeyes. 1984 or The Road. Choices.
I'm a little surprised this didn't get a response. Perhaps nobody read it. These days, if you're not Hothgar, nobody pays attention to you. You have to make a name for yourself. Being one of the smartest TOD posters for ages just doesn't cut it anymore. Anyway, I always read you. I usually agree. And am never anything less than extremely amused. Keep it up. You are a serious source of joy...and that pain in my back just went away. Hmmm.
IMO, the ending of the 1970s (the ending of the public dialog over energy, population, natural resource, and environmental overshoot) was a great tragedy. The last quarter century has been just one long "pandemic of dumbassery" as AMPOD would say.
A FIERCE DEBATE has been raging, mainly on the internet, and for once it isn't about Princess Diana, September 11 or UFOs. The debate is about oil, and whether the world is about to run out of it.
Peak-oil theory postulates that the globe is at or close to its production peak and that it will be downhill from here. Peak oil's great guru is the late M King Hubbert (like John Wayne, his first name was Marion; like Wayne he chose not to emphasise it). He was the American geophysicist who predicted in 1956 that American oil production would peak about 1970 (it did) and that a global peak would be reached a quarter of a century or so later.
I sent Dave Smith a whole bunch of info on PO including a copy of the original Hubbert paper.
of course the tone of the Times implies that Peak Oil is the land of cranks. Condescending, implying it is up there with Diana and 9-11 conspiracies etc.
It's one of the reasons why I don't think people should cry 'peak oil' too early: when the sky really is falling, no one will be listening.
It denegrates everybody and everything, and David Smith has the inside track on everything, correcting everyone.
He attacks Stern's superfical analysis of Peak Oil (URR, vs production capacity (declining) and increasing demand, and inflated estimates of URR).
Coal is not usually included in reserves for Peak Oil and Peak Gas.
"There is enough fossil fuel in the ground to meet world consumption demand at reasonable cost until at least 2050," the report said.
While I don't think we are at an oil peak now, there is something close to an industry consensus that we could reach that point in 20 years.
I mention the oil point because it illustrates what I think is the problem with the Stern report.
But look at his conclusions:
I also believe there is more we should be doing than just adapting to climate change. Weaning ourselves gradually off fossil fuels makes sense, not just for climate reasons but because of security of supply and the eventual oil peak.
But nobody will do anything !
Just marvel at David Smith's perspicacity (look it up, my ego needs stroking too :P
Looked at more closely, the report's headline message -- spend 1% now to avoid 20% damage later -- does not stack up. I don't want to debate the science again, but the numbers given prominence are at the high end of what even scientific believers expect.
At this point, environmentalists will cite the precautionary principle. Better to be safe than sorry. Act now just in case there is a catastrophe later -- the millennium-bug principle.
Except that, as the report makes clear, the precautionary principle is highly sensitive to assumptions used, about the risks and the relationship between current spending and future benefits (the discount rate). If the cost now is low but the risks of future severe economic damage are high, that argues for action. If not, action may be unjustified, certainly on economic grounds. Spending 1% of global GDP every year from now, to avoid the loss of 2% or even 5% of global GDP in 2200 does not seem a great bargain.
1. the first paragraph is not correct. Scientific knowledge has moved very fast in the last 5-6 years. We have become aware that
a number of the 'damping' factors in the earth's system are now under threat (plants reduce their CO2 intake at higher levels of atmospheric CO2, the Amazon is threatened with severe drought, the methane release from the permafrost is much higher than expected, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are in worse shape than we thought, oceanic acidification is rising)
We have also become aware that climate changes are not long and slow (always) they are also, according to the glacial and sedimentary record, extremely violent and short.
5 degrees centigrade is no longer 'way out there' but a growing concern amongst a large number of the scientific community.
There seems to be a 'point of no return' where positive feedback loops will generate climate change without 'anthropogenic forcing' ie without human hand. We might be quite close to that level (ie it could be as little as 600ppm CO2+ other greenhouse gases, v. 380m ppm CO2 now, and 430ppm adjusted for other gases).
'Millenium Bug' is a straw man. One was an entirely human-defined and scoped problem. This is a systemic problem, of which only a small part can be seen by us. the consequences of our actions are deep and far-reaching, and we don't know what they might be.
Global GDP in 2200 will be 32 times what it is now (2% pa real growth ie less than the last 50 years).
So if GDP is $1 now, then spending 1 cent now, to save $0.64 in 2200, doesn't seem like a foolish bet.
But Stern is very careful to outline why he thinks we should value the future pretty much as the present. ie on ethical grounds, we should assume that future generations exist, and they have as much right to the planet as we do.
He suggests a low, positive discount rate (to reflect the chance that the world might not exist).
The other thing Smith raises is the old Bjorn Lomberg Canard about how we could fix the other problems of the world with much less money. But:
we aren't prepared to do so. There is no way the rich countries of the world are going to commit 1% of GDP to foreign aid (nor, necessarily, would it be well spent).
If the planet itself is significantly less habitable (the precautionary principle) then you can spend all of 1, and still have a massive environmental crisis.
In the end the thing breaks down to this disagreement:
those of us who think we are running an uncontrolled climate modification experiment on the planet (remember Michael Crichton testifying to the US Congress criticising the absense of 'double blind tests'? And being told that since we had one Earth, this was difficult?) and that there is an increasing body of evidence that this is unsustainable, and that the consequences will be sooner, rather than later
those who think it's too much money and too difficult to worry about it now*
(I discount the sceptics of the idea of man made global warming in this-- I really can't find any reasonable scientific doubt that we are changing the climate of this planet via CO2 emissions).
* to be fair, there is an argument that since the bulk of the solution will be about new technology, we ought to wait for that technology to emerge before doing anything precipitate.
However we aren't doing a lot to speed the progress of new energy technology. One of the strengths of the Stern Report is a thoroughgoing review of energy R&D (less than half the level of the 1970s, across government and industry) and the slow speed at which new energy technology is taken up (50-100 year life cycles of major technologies and capital assets like powerplants).
By the way, Bjorn Lomberg has a long editorial in the Wall Street Journal (Asian edition) today arguing against the conclusions of the Stern report. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but will tonight. FYI.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html#Econ
(Damn! https doesn't linkify automatically).
The UK has a 2 trillion dollar economy. 1 million barrels per day (nice round number, way more than the UK's oil deficit at the moment) equals about 1% of that. A steady increase in net oil imports isn't good news for the balance of trade, but it isn't exactly apocalyptic.
Sometimes I think ToD contributors forget that there is more to life than hydrocarbons. Somehow the UK survived many decades of importing ALL its oil.
It did indeed but your talking about a period before the late 1970s when
a) the UK had a large manufacturing base - ie when it actually made things (as I recall that base is now down to around 17% of the total economy)
b) the UK did from 'time to time' actually had surpluses in its balance of trades.
From what I recall the Uk economy has been in deficit in termes of balance of trade for a number of years now (and that position has been gradually wosening). Now that oil is going to be a net (and rapidly increasing) negative to that, rather than a positive, I think the consequences are going to be serious for the UK (and more specifically the pound). As crywolf points out its astonishing the mainstream media in the UK dont pick up on this.
After all the figures are very clear and the DTI publish them frequently - basically 2006 will be the first year in which imports exceed exports (2005 was only narrowly positive), barring an epic turnaround in the last few months of the year. And yet the DTI still adheres to the fiction that 2010 will mark the turnaround. By 2010 at present depletion rates of around 10% the gap between exports and imports will be vast........
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=199
That position can now only worsen as oil exports fall below imports (barring a collapse in the average John's desire for Chinese goods)
Like you, I don't expect any major turnround in the UK sector, in 2010 or any other year. Just steady composite-exponential decline (with some modest reduction of the overall annual percentage decline rate, for technical reasons I won't bore you with). Every so often there will be a discovery in the hundred million barrel range that gets blown out of proportion by the scandal-sheets.
If you are a ToD regular (like me), consider the possibility that oil looms larger in your overall worldview than its true importance would justify.
The UK has no such 'luck' to fall back on.
And yes trade deficits do eventually bite, generally via currency devaluations and then via their impact on long term interest rates (ask the good folk of Iceland).
I am no fan of the Euro, but Europhiles do finally have one coherent arguement now for the UK joining - to prevent the pound taking a caning as the trade balance begins a one way trip south.
I agree with you that the US 'gets away' with its huge trade deficit because of the dollars position as the world's currency. I also agree with your implication that this might not last forever.
I don't, however, think you are right about the UK having no such luck. The UK, in fact, also benefits massively from the dollar being the world's reserve currency: London is the main world centre for 'eurodollars' (ie. dollars which are deposited in banks outside of the US). This means that there are huge capital flows into the UK which would not exist if the dollar were not the world currency.
The bigger the US trade deficit gets, the more dollars there are likely to be being deposited outside of the US and the more money tends to flow into the UK. It is this capital surplus which allows the UK to run a persistent trade deficit without its currency collapsing. (Another reason is that the pound Sterling also has small reserve status itself).
This dependence of the UK economy on the dollar's reserve status is certainly one reason why the UK is not in the eurozone, and has a foreign policy which is so closely linked to that of the US. When the US went to war against the euro in Iraq, so did the UK.
If you're really interested in the answer to that question, look here...
http://uk.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/17/135527/399
... a lot more than they'll be importing any time soon. Of course, back then they were building oil-fired thermal power stations (Grain, Fawley, Ince, Pembroke).
Never could afford the 1275cc Cooper S...
Then, as now we drove ~12,000 miles a year... on mostly empty motorways... but then petrol at decimalisation in 1971... was 30p...
And against the average weekly wage?
The data shows that the real cost of motoring has fallen by about 10% since 1972 (and real per capita incomes have doubled, more or less)-- this includes insurance, fuel, road tax, depreciation*. Conversely the cost of train fares has risen 60% in real terms, and of buses 40%.
* the big drop has been in the price of a car, or to be specific, the price of a car with the level of equipment that we now take as standard (air conditioning, air bags, etc.).
If almost everyone is importing, who is exporting?
You can find others by searching under authors for Jeffrey Brown.
- Nigeria
- Angola
- Kuwait
- Saudi
- UAE
- Russia
- Chad
- Sudan
- Azerbaijan
- Iraq
- Iran
...amongst many others, and at vastly different rates and with vastly different resource bases and prospects for future growth (mostly none). If I wanted a comprehensive list I'd do the same as you and look at the BP Stat Rev, with an appropriately critical eye. And I'm well aware of the "decline steepening" effect that constant, yet alone increasing, domestic consumption has on export capacity. And yes I know Iran has been importing gasoline. Yawn.What is your point? And please don't lump me in with the Cornucopians, 'cause I ain't.
Saudi: They are about 58% depleted, and at the same point that the prior swing producer, Texas, started declining, and the Saudis are reporting new "voluntary" cuts every few months.
Russia: Hugely depleted (at least from existing basins), around 85% or so. The recent rebound in production just make up for what was not produced after the Soviet collapse. Recent news reports suggest that production and exports have started falling again. I predict that the big news next year will be the confirmed declines of both Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Russia.
Iraq: 'Nuff said
Iran: I believe that they are about 50% depleted.
In any case, my original TOD post in January focused on the top three net oil exporters--KSA; Russia and Norway.
I predicted, based on Khebab's work, that we would see continued declines in Norway, with KSA and Russia also showing declining production this year. KSA is definitely down. Five of the past eight months of EIA data have shown Russian C+C production to be below the 12/05 level, and as noted above recent news reports indicate production and export declines. As I have repeatedly predicted, Russian and KSA consumption are growing quite rapidly.
Is there no connection between Qt and reserves? Are Qt estimations solely based on HL predictions of total recoverable? Otherwise, given the huge reserve estimation difference in Kuwait, how can one say what Qt really is or determine where 50% is?
Yep, even Genesis are getting back together! Soon long hair (maybe because many people won't be able to afford a haircut) ... and long lines at the petrol pumps will be back too.
And if you think hydrocarbons don't matter to the Uk economy, consider that 28,000 people opted for bankruptcy in the second quarter of this year - multiply x5 for a US equivalent. If continued that would be 0.5% of the working population per year. There is a big chance IMHO that the personal debt and housing bubbles are going to burst horribly in the next 2-3 years.
I have been a stale bear of UK housing for 6 or so years now.
I can't see how prices in my neighbourhood can keep going up: at least triple since 1995. Although London is doing well (financial services) the average person just hasn't had that kind of income rise.
It seems to me a giant pyramid in the making. You can get 100% and even 120% mortgages now.
It is shocking how far people, especially the sub 35 crowd, seem to be willing to get into debt.
I think the banks know they have a problem: I have noted fewer credit card offers in the post.
however the rise of UK bankruptcies is in part due to new forms of personal voluntary arrangement. So it's a legal transition, as well as a sign of over indebtedness.
I believe residential housing prices in Tokyo are still 60% below that peak.
Toronto dropped 40% in the early 90s, and has yet to recover (adjusted for inflation) to that high.
German property prices are below where they were in 1990.
Now for a number of reasons I don't think the UK will be as bad (high immigration, low unemployment, relatively successful economy, tight planning controls). We still produce fewer new homes (about 140k pa) than net new demand (about 200-220k pa).
But there needs to be a valuation correction-- there is a lot of debt sitting on a lot of buy-to-let housing out there, and a lot of 'easy money' has been made.
The talk, and the market, reminds me so much of the dot com (or dot con) era.
However, I have been saying this for 6 years, and have been wrong all the way ;-).
The 5* sallary seems like an act of desperation to me - I think it was 1.5 or 2* when I bought my first flat for £12,500 almost 30 years ago. There has to be an upper limit to sallary multiples that cannot be crossed.
I've been waitying for 4 years to buy a cottage in the country - and have seen resources set aside for the purpose dwindle in that time.
CW
- young people (not couples, just friends) buying flats together as a way to 'get on the ladder'
I know a bit about such arrangements-- when they unravel, they cause unholy messes. Friendships (and lives) are ruined by the disputes, the inability to sell, etc.
In retrospect, the period we are living will be seen as a brief golden age between the self-destruction of the European imperial powers and whatever phase of conflict comes next. Might be a battle for the remaining oil, probably not: much more probably, oil will be one aspect of a series of big sphere-of-influence conflicts between Eurasia (Russia/China) and the West (US/EU) starting sometime in the 2030s. All that silly Islamist troublemaking will be swept aside once the real fighting begins.
My two grandfathers were intimately involved in the mass industrial killings of the two world wars, came home, and got on with their lives, job or no job. Our descendants will do the same.
Two hundred years from now the human population of the world could be anything between 1 billion and 25 billion (I'd bet on 4-8). And oil supply will be the last thing on their minds.
But at a certain point, we will have to make a choice. Between Tropic of Cancer and The Sun Also Rises. Between Simmons and Deffeyes. 1984 or The Road. Choices.
Stay warm and your Kids will never read this.
I welcome a return to reality.
And anyway, since oil has 'dropped' to 60 from 80, the great and the good seem to dismiss PO:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2437519.html
A FIERCE DEBATE has been raging, mainly on the internet, and for once it isn't about Princess Diana, September 11 or UFOs. The debate is about oil, and whether the world is about to run out of it.
Peak-oil theory postulates that the globe is at or close to its production peak and that it will be downhill from here. Peak oil's great guru is the late M King Hubbert (like John Wayne, his first name was Marion; like Wayne he chose not to emphasise it). He was the American geophysicist who predicted in 1956 that American oil production would peak about 1970 (it did) and that a global peak would be reached a quarter of a century or so later.
I sent Dave Smith a whole bunch of info on PO including a copy of the original Hubbert paper.
Fat lot of good that did.
Maybe I should have written it in crayon
It's one of the reasons why I don't think people should cry 'peak oil' too early: when the sky really is falling, no one will be listening.
It denegrates everybody and everything, and David Smith has the inside track on everything, correcting everyone.
He attacks Stern's superfical analysis of Peak Oil (URR, vs production capacity (declining) and increasing demand, and inflated estimates of URR).
Coal is not usually included in reserves for Peak Oil and Peak Gas.
But look at his conclusions:
But nobody will do anything !
Just marvel at David Smith's perspicacity (look it up, my ego needs stroking too :P
1. the first paragraph is not correct. Scientific knowledge has moved very fast in the last 5-6 years. We have become aware that
- a number of the 'damping' factors in the earth's system are now under threat (plants reduce their CO2 intake at higher levels of atmospheric CO2, the Amazon is threatened with severe drought, the methane release from the permafrost is much higher than expected, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are in worse shape than we thought, oceanic acidification is rising)
- We have also become aware that climate changes are not long and slow (always) they are also, according to the glacial and sedimentary record, extremely violent and short.
5 degrees centigrade is no longer 'way out there' but a growing concern amongst a large number of the scientific community.There seems to be a 'point of no return' where positive feedback loops will generate climate change without 'anthropogenic forcing' ie without human hand. We might be quite close to that level (ie it could be as little as 600ppm CO2+ other greenhouse gases, v. 380m ppm CO2 now, and 430ppm adjusted for other gases).
- 'Millenium Bug' is a straw man. One was an entirely human-defined and scoped problem. This is a systemic problem, of which only a small part can be seen by us. the consequences of our actions are deep and far-reaching, and we don't know what they might be.
- Global GDP in 2200 will be 32 times what it is now (2% pa real growth ie less than the last 50 years).
So if GDP is $1 now, then spending 1 cent now, to save $0.64 in 2200, doesn't seem like a foolish bet.But Stern is very careful to outline why he thinks we should value the future pretty much as the present. ie on ethical grounds, we should assume that future generations exist, and they have as much right to the planet as we do.
He suggests a low, positive discount rate (to reflect the chance that the world might not exist).
The other thing Smith raises is the old Bjorn Lomberg Canard about how we could fix the other problems of the world with much less money. But:
- we aren't prepared to do so. There is no way the rich countries of the world are going to commit 1% of GDP to foreign aid (nor, necessarily, would it be well spent).
- If the planet itself is significantly less habitable (the precautionary principle) then you can spend all of 1, and still have a massive environmental crisis.
In the end the thing breaks down to this disagreement:- those of us who think we are running an uncontrolled climate modification experiment on the planet (remember Michael Crichton testifying to the US Congress criticising the absense of 'double blind tests'? And being told that since we had one Earth, this was difficult?) and that there is an increasing body of evidence that this is unsustainable, and that the consequences will be sooner, rather than later
- those who think it's too much money and too difficult to worry about it now*
(I discount the sceptics of the idea of man made global warming in this-- I really can't find any reasonable scientific doubt that we are changing the climate of this planet via CO2 emissions).* to be fair, there is an argument that since the bulk of the solution will be about new technology, we ought to wait for that technology to emerge before doing anything precipitate.
However we aren't doing a lot to speed the progress of new energy technology. One of the strengths of the Stern Report is a thoroughgoing review of energy R&D (less than half the level of the 1970s, across government and industry) and the slow speed at which new energy technology is taken up (50-100 year life cycles of major technologies and capital assets like powerplants).