Michael T. Klare: Beyond the Age of Petroleum

[robertpaulsen]

Beyond the Age of Petroleum

by MICHAEL T. KLARE



This past May, in an unheralded and almost unnoticed move, the Energy Department signaled a fundamental, near epochal shift in US and indeed world history: we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age and have entered the Age of Insufficiency. The department stopped talking about "oil" in its projections of future petroleum availability and began speaking of "liquids." The global output of "liquids," the department indicated, would rise from 84 million barrels of oil equivalent (mboe) per day in 2005 to a projected 117.7 mboe in 2030--barely enough to satisfy anticipated world demand of 117.6 mboe. Aside from suggesting the degree to which oil companies have ceased being mere suppliers of petroleum and are now purveyors of a wide variety of liquid products--including synthetic fuels derived from natural gas, corn, coal and other substances--this change hints at something more fundamental: we have entered a new era of intensified energy competition and growing reliance on the use of force to protect overseas sources of petroleum.

To appreciate the nature of the change, it is useful to probe a bit deeper into the Energy Department's curious terminology. "Liquids," the department explains in its International Energy Outlook for 2007, encompasses "conventional" petroleum as well as "unconventional" liquids--notably tar sands (bitumen), oil shale, biofuels, coal-to-liquids and gas-to-liquids. Once a relatively insignificant component of the energy business, these fuels have come to assume much greater importance as the output of conventional petroleum has faltered. Indeed, the Energy Department projects that unconventional liquids production will jump from a mere 2.4 mboe per day in 2005 to 10.5 in 2030, a fourfold increase. But the real story is not the impressive growth in unconventional fuels but the stagnation in conventional oil output. Looked at from this perspective, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the switch from "oil" to "liquids" in the department's terminology is a not so subtle attempt to disguise the fact that worldwide oil production is at or near its peak capacity and that we can soon expect a downturn in the global availability of conventional petroleum.

Petroleum is, of course, a finite substance, and geologists have long warned of its ultimate disappearance. The extraction of oil, like that of other nonrenewable resources, will follow a parabolic curve over time. Production rises quickly at first and then gradually slows until approximately half the original supply has been exhausted; at that point, a peak in sustainable output is attained and production begins an irreversible decline until it becomes too expensive to lift what little remains. Most oil geologists believe we have already reached the midway point in the depletion of the world's original petroleum inheritance and so are nearing a peak in global output; the only real debate is over how close we have come to that point, with some experts claiming we are at the peak now and others saying it is still a few years or maybe a decade away.

Until very recently, Energy Department analysts were firmly in the camp of those wild-eyed optimists who claimed that peak oil was so far in the future that we didn't really need to give it much thought. Putting aside the science of the matter, the promulgation of such a rose-colored view obviated any need to advocate improvements in automobile fuel efficiency or to accelerate progress on the development of alternative fuels. Given White House priorities, it is hardly surprising that this view prevailed in Washington.

more...

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20071112&s=klare

[Mr Rabble]

1. Klare is a sane voice, warning us all about our future.

Of course this thread will sink like a rock, because it is just too important to discuss.

This is the guy who wrote "Resource Wars" and should be listened to very closely.

[robertpaulsen]

2. It is because he is such a careful & precise writer that this is so scary.

He's no gloom and doom freak. If he believes the peak is here, I'm inclined to agree with him.

[Mr Rabble]

5. It is indeed Robert.

And as I mentioned, this thread has sunk right down the memory hole.

It is almost tragic that this most important of issues goes virtually unnoticed and is unmentionable in polite conversation. And yet it may be the most important issue that we as a society and a species face.

[tom_paine]

4. This is an excellent article. K & R

[AdHocSolver]

3. They are ignoring pollution, climate change, and higher prices for food, clothing, and plastics.

World War II was fought, in part, over oil. Japan attacked the United States because the U.S. navy was interfering with the shipment of oil from Indonesia to Japan. Germany sent troops to North Africa to take over the oil fields there, such as in Libya. Germany was converting coal to oil to power its military equipment, However, it wasn't enough to complete its plans of conquest (fortunately).

The gist of this report accounts only for the economic well-being of the oil industry. There is no serious consideration of conservation. The concern is with developing "oil equivalent liquids" to replace petroleum in an expanding energy market and shrinking oil reserves.

The oil companies are looking to getting oil from tar sands in Canada. The only problem there is that such activity would release three times the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere compared to current oil recovery techniques, dump enormous amounts of toxic waste into the water supply, and leave a desolate moonscape in its wake. Canadian opposition to the potential environmental damage is growing.

There is considerable oil tied up in shale rock in western United States. The processes for obtaining that oil require strip mining vast areas, leaving a desolate moonscape and tons of toxic waste as an aftermath. Needless to say, the oil companies are avidly pursuing these techniques by setting up pilot plants.

In a planet that, from the evidence, is undergoing massive unknown climate change due to large upswings in atmospheric greenhouse gases, that is undergoing a growing global water shortage with lakes and rivers shrinking to dangerously low levels, and that is seeing the cost of basic necessities such as food, rise dramatically, the goal of the oil companies to produce more "oil equivalent liquids" is INSANE.

The only sane solution is to reduce the demand for oil. This means mandating much greater vehicle fuel efficiency (not waiting for the "market" to make corrections), investing in mass transit, speeding development and implementation of wind and solar power, and rewarding conservation.

Such action will reduce pollution, save finite resources, and stabilize or reduce costs.

[BridgeTheGap]

6. But Klare also doubted the the extent of the influence of PNAC & the neocons

in the decision to invade Iraq.

[robertpaulsen]

8. Really?

I have not read anything specifically on the PNAC that he has written about. Do you have a link on those doubts?

[BridgeTheGap]

10. I emailed him in 2004 after reading an article he had written

and asked him if felt that PNAC & neocons were the driving force behined the Iraq policy. He said no, even though he said they "informed" the policy. He felt that this was giving them too much "credit" and that other forces, particularly the oil industry, had far more influence.

[robertpaulsen]

11. I'm not sure why he split hairs with you on that.

Neo-cons? Oil industry? Can you say Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force?

Not sure why that slipped Klare's mind. Our government is an OILigarchy, Klare should know that.

[Recursion]

7. Hyperbolic, not parabolic

Not to be pedantic or anything

[bhikkhu]

9. "Wild-eyed optimists" - how the tables have turned! n/t

[groovedaddy]

12. This points to one of the major pitfalls of capitalism/monopolism

Every industry wants us to use more and more of their product/service. With oil, a finite resource, the sane course for humanity to follow (and not just because of global warming, but that too) would be to use less and less of it (very high cafe standards, alternative sources for making plastic (i.e. hemp). But the oil industry, wielding the control over our political system that it has, fights higher cafe standards and any restrictions on the way it does business.
The oil embargo of the 70's was the message burried by the oil industry but that many of us still recognized: as long as we are hooked on it, we are vulnerable in a number of ways. The oil industry, with some recognition of this scenario, responds as any good capitalist would: hide the facts, squeeze the marketplace for all the profit you can before the inevitable collapse.