Anyone who thinks that supply is not a problem (or will not be in the near future) needs to watch the video presentation by retired physics professor Albert Bartlett (quoted in the subject line) on exponential growth and the affect it has on resource consumption. The world's economies have been built on the assumption that they could expand forever as they could always easily (and cheaply) just pump more and more oil as it was needed to provide the energy which enabled that growth. The problem of exponential growth is that even relatively small but constant rates of increase in consumption of oil (or any other item) leads to quite enormous quantities of oil being consumed in a much shorter period of time than most people would intuitively think likely or even possible.
The doubling time for consumption is calculated by dividing the growth rate into the number 70. If, for example, starting today Nov 23 2007 the world's oil consumption grows at a constant 3%, in 23.3333 years (70/3) oil consumption would have doubled and we would be consuming twice as much oil as we are today. The other implication of exponential growth is that in that single 23 year period between 2007 and 2030 more oil would be consumed than has been consumed in the 150 years or so between the start of the oil age (around 1860) to 2007. Likewise, if that 3% growth continued for another 23 years from 2030 to 2063, the amount of oil consumed between 2030 and 2063 would be greater than all the oil consumed in history between 1860 and 2030.
That sounds like an awful lot of oil we would need to find (or alternative fuels and energy sources we would need to develop) to keep the world's economic growth engines running as is. Since oil discovery peaked in the 1960's we have been burning about 3 to 4 times as much oil as we have been discovering, and even the relatively recent "big finds" announced in the media like the
Tupi field in the Atlantic off Brazil do not come close to matching in size the old supergiant stalwarts like
Gahwar which provided 50% of Saudi Arabia's oil and is now suspected by many to be entering decline.
A Real Player video of Professor Bartlett's talk on exponential growth is here:
http://globalpublicmedia.com/dr_albert_bartlett_arithmetic_population_and_energyAt the above link you can also get transcripts and a downloadable MP3 audio of the lecture if you don't like or don't use Real Player
Snip from the transcript where Professor Bartlett uses a chessboard to illustrate how exponential growth leads to enormous numbers much sooner than you might think:
You just take the number 70, divide it by the percent growth per unit time and that gives you the doubling time. So our example of 5% per year, you divide the 5 into 70, you find that growing quantity will double in size every 14 years.
Well, you might ask, where did the 70 come from? The answer is that it's approximately 100 multiplied by the natural logarithm of two. If you wanted the time to triple, you'd use the natural logarithm of three. So it's all very logical. But you don't have to remember where it came from, just remember 70.
I wish we could get every person to make this mental calculation every time we see a percent growth rate of anything in a news story. For example, if you saw a story that said things had been growing 7% per year for several recent years, you wouldn't bat an eyelash. But when you see a headline that says crime has doubled in a decade, you say “My heavens, what's happening?”
SNIP
Now let me give you an example to show the enormous numbers you can get with just a modest number of doublings.
Legend has it that the game of chess was invented by a mathematician who worked for a king. The king was very pleased. He said, “I want to reward you.” The mathematician said “My needs are modest. Please take my new chess board and on the first square, place one grain of wheat. On the next square, double the one to make two. On the next square, double the two to make four. Just keep doubling till you've doubled for every square, that will be an adequate payment.” We can guess the king thought, “This foolish man. I was ready to give him a real reward; all he asked for was just a few grains of wheat.”
But let's see what is involved in this. We know there are eight grains on the fourth square. I can get this number, eight, by multiplying three twos together. It's 2x2x2, it's one 2 less than the number of the square. Now that continues in each case. So on the last square, I’d find the number of grains by multiplying 63 twos together.
Now let’s look at the way the totals build up. When we add one grain on the first square, the total on the board is one. We add two grains, that makes a total of three. We put on four grains, now the total is seven. Seven is a grain less than eight, it's a grain less than three twos multiplied together. Fifteen is a grain less than four twos multiplied together. That continues in each case, so when we’re done, the total number of grains will be one grain less than the number I get multiplying 64 twos together. My question is, how much wheat is that?
You know, would that be a nice pile here in the room? Would it fill the building? Would it cover the county to a depth of two meters? How much wheat are we talking about?
The answer is, it's roughly 400 times the 1990 worldwide harvest of wheat. That could be more wheat than humans have harvested in the entire history of the earth. You say, “How did you get such a big number?” and the answer is, it was simple. We just started with one grain, but we let the number grow steadily till it had doubled a mere 63 times.
Now there's something else that’s very important: the growth in any doubling time is greater than the total of all the preceding growth. For example, when I put eight grains on the 4th square, the eight is larger than the total of seven that were already there. I put 32 grains on the 6th square. The 32 is larger than the total of 31 that were already there. Every time the growing quantity doubles, it takes more than all you’d used in all the proceeding growth.
http://globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/645
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