In Sum, PO in a Nutshell

If you didn't catch it, read my intro post below. There's also some links in there to primers, etc.

This post, however, will be an attempt to sum up a pretty complex topic.

Hubbert's Peak is reached when demand for oil exceeds production and supply.

Let's be clear, peak oil is not about running out of oil.  However, there is a finite amount of oil in the earth.  At some point, we will have taken half of it.  That is Hubbert's Peak.

So, peak oil is about the end of cheap oil.  Cheap oil has bred a lifestyle of convenience and excess, especially in America that is going to be difficult to maintain once the supply begins to shrink and will perhaps worsen the already growing class divide that exists in the United States. 

The less oil there is available, the more expensive and treasured it will be.  Competition, if not war, over resources is likely.

Combine this idea with increasing demand from modernizing countries like China and India, and you have the recipe for disaster. I am reminded of a quote:

"A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore; that has profound geopolitical implications."
--Anne Korin, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (May 1, 2005)

Every geologist, except those who subscribe to the abiotic oil premise (that the Earth generates oil as if it were blood), subscribes to the notion of peak oil.  The real question is just when peak oil will occur. 

Some believe that it may have already happened.  The problem is that there is no way to know for sure until well after the peak has happened. Why?  Because oil reserves are some of the best-kept secrets in the world.

Kenneth Deffeyes, author of Beyond Oil, as well as most of us over at The Oil Drum, believe the empirical evidence shows that the peak will occur sometime towards the end of this year. 

The "realists," including international energy financiers such as Matt Simmons believe that Peak Oil will occur in the next couple of years.

The unrealists, especially politicians and the USGS, talk about Peak Oil being 20 to 50 years away.

So to recap – peak oil is going to occur; that is agreed. When it will occur, can’t be proved until we are actually on the downhill slope of the peak.

What about all those alternative forms of energy?  Fuel cells?  Solar? Wind?  Corn gas?  Waste power?  I'll post on that later in the week, but those alternatives lack the scalability to make a huge dent in demand for energy.  Many of those technologies are also years away from implementation.

Also, the structure of government is such that they will not respond to peak oil until it is too late.  We need to invest in alternatives as soon as possible while we have the resources to do so.  Investment and cooperation after the peak, after realizing the problem, is too late to do anything about it. 

It is not rational for politicians to address problems until they are present.  Those who study politics will attest that politicians will wait to build the wolf trap until the wolf is at the door.

The problem is that the stuff to make the wolf trap is out in the workshed.

Next up, a post on consumption from my colleague Ianqui.