Speaking explicitly about Peak Oil would anger the Americans. As we have heard from the IEA whistleblowers. The Brits are nice puppies. ;)

Act now: Well, its TOO LATE now.

One comment on style over substance. Nothing says 'give me a migraine' like 44 pages of double column sans-serif type.

Firstly the UK Government has never had a 'coherent' energy policy, as it cannot offend the coal miners (Drax Power station emits 22million tons of CO2 per annum all Coal with No sign of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) that we see on the continent; This is only ~22% energy efficient and all those mining community votes to keep the MP's in expense fiddles), the gas lobby (remember that British Gas was only privatized in 1986 but has partially retained the mind-set of a nationalized industry; so the "rush to Gas" we saw in the 1990's has resulted in a future dependence on Gazprom!), North Sea Oil (just another tax collection exercise without any real thoughts of the future) or the nuclear lobby (what can anyone say about Windscale or now renamed Sellafield), I remember the message of the 1960's of free power for all.

It has also squandered all North Sea oil revenues on vote chasing. As we have "had it so easy" over the last 50 years UK never "needed" an energy policy - just bumbling along in the dark.

Whilst there are lots of alternative energy proponents in the UK, talk a great 'Carbon Talk', and plenty of energy efficiency experts, the conventional wisdom is predominantly still that of oil, coal and gas fired power stations without CHP. Now there are some exceptions but they are not Government led. And with respect to Oil and Petrol for transport, there is certainly no coherent transport policy in the UK either. Just tax revenues; thats all Government of any colour seem interested in.

So forget Peak Oil the UK it's heading for ruin on the civil service pension scheme future liabilities alone.

All this in a nation with some of the world's most beneficial wave and wind power resources. That's why I am devoting my time to the emerging nations in Africa. They can learn from the mistakes of the West, are rich in resources and are (often) willing to listen to alternative and integrated policies. So I will be leaving shortly!

Yikes, this group is about ten years late:

The Taskforce states the impact of Peak Oil will include sharp increases in the cost of travel, food, heating and retail goods. It finds that the transport sector will be particularly hard hit, with more vulnerable members of society the first to feel the impact.

The question I have is what happened between 1999 and 2008? Answer is that oil prices increased from $12 a barrel (with some grades priced lower) to an annual average of $99 a barrel nine years later.

Peak oil is constantly being equated with increased prices, yet when sharp increases take place over a period of years, the cause is always suggested to be ... something else???

The transport sector has already been hard hit, with GM and Chrysler bankrupt, airlines on life support or out of business (Japan Air Lines) and the vulnerable members of society in most countries enduring unemployment that shows no sign of ending. Hello! In the down- to- Earth, real world of dollars, cents and pounds sterling and other currencies which is how the bulk of the world measures the goods it uses Peak Oil took place - peak CHEAP oil that is - in 1998.

The cheap stuff is what the real world we've gotten used to living in was built upon. It's gone. Gone, Baby gone!

The suggestions are silly; biofuels and 'green transport' initiatives. Ronald Reagan- style energy conservation dies hard. I don't know why they don't suggest inflating another property bubble; the perfect supply side 'solution'.

The first thing all of these groups have to acknowledge is the time to leisurely amble toward non- solutions is past. The second thing is a kind of ruthless honesty about our aggregated consumption. The third thing is to craft a conservation plan that works.

Any report, like this one, that does not feature these elements - particularly conservation - isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Here is the visual review of the situation from the Energy Export Databrowser:

(Note: Vertical scales differ.)

Let's state the facts that are immediately obvious from these graphs:

1. Britain's indigenous production of energy from all sources has declined by 40% in the last decade.
2. Britain's total energy consumption has remained relatively steady over the last 40 years.
3. The production trend since 2000 is down for each of the five main energy sources.
4. Britain has switched from net energy exporter in 2000 to net energy importer today.

Not visible in the graphs but obvious to anyone who pays bills is:

• The price of energy has increased since 2000.

Really, what more does one need to know? How much more obvious do things need to be?

The seemingly obvious conclusion from these simple facts taken together:

• The UK is buggerred unless they radically alter how the obtain and use energy.

Anyone who actually looks at the data doesn't need a fancy report to determine that energy supply and use is the UK's #1 issue for the next 10 years. (And for probably a lot longer.)

For policy makers I have what seems like obvious advice:

• The nation must immediately embark on a massive energy conservation campaign.

Just stating the obvious.

-- Jon

Erica wrote:

Despite the somewhat simplistic modelling, there is a useful point here which is often unremarked; that the UK's declining North Sea production threatens the balance of payments quite drastically in the next decade or so unless domestic energy demand can be reduced or, equivalently, domestic energy production increased.

Oh look, UK trade deficit widens in December:

The UK's goods trade deficit widened by more than expected in December, reaching an 11-month high of £7.3bn, up from £6.8bn in November.

Imports from outside the EU rose by 7.6%, with oil and aircraft a big factor, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Charts from 25th June 2008:

Click all charts to enlarge, without call out.

Mervyn King, Governor of the "independent" Bank of England;-)

Gordon Brown, the most confused man in the world? On his way to Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil to combat global warming whilst promising a green energy revolution at home founded on nuclear power.
Population data from The United Nations.

And yet, like the credit crunch they will say "no one saw it coming".

A State of Emergency

Renewables are too puny to help in the next decade.
Take a page from Brazil.
UK should put their money into developing the Falkland Islands offshore oil and gas--60 GB boe OOIP. If they don't do it the Argies will.

The purpose of fossil fuels is to buy time for adoption of renewables.

Some 96% of our energy consumption is coal, oil, gas and nuclear. All in steep decline. The average annual decline rate of our indigenous production of these four from 2000 to 2008 was 6.1%. 2005 was the crossover from major energy exporter to major importer.

There is no possibility for the oil and gas situation to change, some potential to improve coal (at the expense of climate) however as we are currently 71% reliant on coal imports that's not going to change significantly. It might be possible to bring new nuclear power on-line in the post 2020 time frame, but that is unlikely to do much more than offset the existing nuclear decline. Renewables? The target is 15% by 2020. A seven-fold increase and a bigger ask than any other country in Europe. Even if we make it, it doesn't change the game significantly.

Our foreseeable future is one of major energy imports, that much is clear. That bounces this problem into one of economics and geopolitics. How sustainable is such a trade deficit? Do we forego other imports in exchange for increased energy? How secure our this imports?

My first post on TOD, four years ago next month was on exactly this issue: UK Energy Gap

The risk exists that the energy collapse, on top of our existing trade deficit and large debts incurred over the last two years tip the economic system over the edge. What's sterling got going for it?

I find it sad to see how the clearly identified trends back then have continued exactly as expected, driving today's challenge. Yet where is the response? Our government are a large part of the problem. In comparison to other countries in Europe we languish at the bottom of the renewable energy league table yet at the top when it comes to potential resource. It's just sad.

In closing, here is this morning's speech from Chris Barton, Head, International Energy Security in the Department of Energy and Climate Change. This man has some responsibly for this mess, together with the Director, Director General and Permanent Secretary above him. In my opinion, they aren't doing their jobs.

Everyone seems to be missing the significant point of this report. It's not so much the context that's important, as it's all been said before. It's who's saying it that's important.
The business leaders who initiated this report did not do it to persuade governments to act. They did it for their own information, and to persuade their peers in the business world to act.
Organizations such as Virgin are 100% reliant on cheap fossil fuel energy. It is in their interests to be prepared for it. It could be argued that they have the most to lose.
Crucially, I think that big businesses, particularly if banded together, are far better placed than governments to make the transition to a low carbon society more comfortable, and even prosperous. Compared to governments, their hierarchy means major decisions are easier to implement, and their funds are easier to mobilize.
If Richard Branson were to decide to make all Virgin industries un-reliant on oil, he will struggle yes (an understatement I know!), but he'll do a far better job than if Brown were to decide to make the UK an oil-free country.
If 'the world as we know it' is to be 'saved', it won't be by the governments, it'll be by the people who have the real power.

Who has "real power" in the UK, I wonder? It's somewhat of an over-simplification, but, here goes. The UK for decades has had a policy of sacrificing the interests of the country as a whole, for the benefit of the financial sector which has grown out of all proportion, why? Because the financial sector has power, far more than it should have. So the priorities of the financial sector came to dominate society at the expense of everyone else.

Successive governments bowed down to the financial sector and allowed manufacturing to wither away. For a long time the fact that the UK was underming its longterm chances of prosperity was hidden from view due to the collosal revenues from the windfall coming from North Sea oil and gas. Alas that is all over.

Instead of using the revenues from the North Sea sensibly, it was wasted on a very long party, designed to confuse and disguise reality, now the party is over and the bill for it, increasingly financed by excesseive borrowing, has to be paid.