The Peak Oil Peak - Intuitively Obvious

My early training in science was mostly intuitive, supplemented by whatever I could find in the Carnegie Public Library in the town near our farm in Oklahoma. I left the farm to get my degree in Engineering Physics, a Masters in Solid State Physics, and experience in the beginnings of computer science while working for Dr. Luis Alvarez in Berkeley. I picked up some pretty solid training in science along the way, but I still find that thinking and intuition are my greatest tools for understanding natural phenomena.

Take King Hubbert's Peak Oil Theory, for instance. He reduced to a mathematical construction what to me becomes intuitively obvious given certain assumptions and after thinking the problem through.

The supply of oil in a particular field is finite and fixed. When you have used all you have, it is gone. Provided demand exists to encourage extraction, the production from that field will rise somewhat exponentially as the field is developed, but will then start to level out because there are a decreasing number of opportunities to extract more from the field by drilling more wells or using more sophisticated secondary and tertiary recovery techniques. Then, as the oil reserves are used up, the production must naturally fall, going to zero when there is nothing more to pump.

To me, that scenario is totally obvious. For it not to happen in that sequence, either the demand must go away or there must be some force to regenerate the supply of oil in the field. I can see demand disappearing as a result of an apocalypse or excessive costs, but I have seen no good evidence of the second event.

Hubbert was more explicit. He said the bell-curve was symmetrical in total production and indicated it was at least approximated by a Gaussian function.

As I learned in my courses on statistics, the nice thing about a bell-curve (the Gaussian function) is that it is a well-behaved function with continuous derivatives. I also learned it is a good approximation to many physical phenomena seen in nature, such as flipping coins and measuring the length of a stick over and over -- but it is only in theory that the Gaussian is truly the function that nature is using to enact the phenomena. We humans just find it is a close enough approximation to reality to be a very useful tool and one we can work with.

The Gaussian function can be subjected mathematically to various analyzes and yield a number of agreeable conclusions. One of the conclusions is that the sum of many bell-curves is itself a bell-curve.

Hubbert used that conclusion when he applied his theory to all the known fields in the 48 contiguous states and made a prediction of that total production rate would reach a peak around 1974 and then start to decline. His prediction pretty closely followed the bell-curve, and continues to do so. To me that is a good indication that the bell-curve he chose is a sufficient approximation of what is happening in nature. It fits the data and matches my intuition.

Now, petroleum geologists are applying the concept to all the petroleum fields around the globe. Others are applying the concept to other material resources and beginning to worry about world-wide peaks in the production of oil, coal, natural gas, potable water, etc. However, some are saying there is nothing to worry about because either it will never happen, or something (pick your savior) will mitigate the problem before it becomes serious.

Worry? What's this worry thing? Is there a reason to worry? Again, I must rely on my intuition, and experience, to answer this question.

Look at the Peak Oil curve near its top and try to understand what will be going on as demand exceeds supply. The reason the curve continues to rise in the first half of its phase is that demand is continuing to rise. Plans are made to build more roads, stronger vehicles, and more houses. More babies are born and fewer elders are dying.  The demand has a momentum, and it continues to increase.

At some point the supply cannot keep up with the increasing demand. As the physical supply drops, the momentum of the demand forces fuel prices to rise, and market forces ration fuel to those who can pay for it. Demand destruction begins by forcing those who fail to compete to live without fuel.

Time passes, and increasing unfilled demand forces prices higher and higher, until the economic systems starts to crumble. Inflation grips the world economy, and supplies of all kinds of goods begin to fall Manufacturing plants close, and the medical infrastructure deteriorates. At some point there might not be enough fuel to harvest food for the masses, and people begin to starve, again the least competitive first. Conflicts over the remaining resources may become commonplace.

Finally, at some distant time, the production of fossil fuels returns to what it was before the industrial revolution, very close to zero. The earth keeps turning, but it will be a far different society that what it is today.

So what is there to do?

I have found that most periods in my 70 years of life have been typified by one or more constant trends: I remained in relatively good health; my job, status, and income improved steadily; the price of food and fuel inflated but at a slow rate; the population of the globe grew at a fairly constant rate. Occasionally, some kind of major disruption to one or more trends required an adjustment in my lifestyle: I had heart bypass surgery; I retired to live on a fixed income; the cost of diesel doubled within months; concerns about resource depletion and climate change suddenly became important.

I have found that if I can identify the risk of trends changing, I can prepare for the eventuality, and reduce the impact: I was quick to recognize the onset of another heart attack on my recent rafting trip and do something about it; I invested in energy stocks when I first heard of Peak Oil concerns; I rearranged my travel to limit my driving when the price of diesel climbed. That is called mitigation. I was not always right, but my planning has made a difference.

The reason you should worry about peak oil is that it will force changes in several major trends. These changes will affect you. What trend changes are the most dangerous?

The population of the earth remained fairly constant until the industrial age was ushered in with the growing use of coal and then petroleum to produce increasing amounts of energy. Over the past fifty years the correlation between increasing worldwide energy use and population growth has been near one. If the supply of energy drops precipitously, the earth's population may also drop precipitously.

Operation of the USA business machine is based almost entirely upon cheap transportation using vehicles running on liquid fuels. The distance between source and destination for goods is irrelevant to the cost of the goods. When fuel is too expense to use, the machine cannot operate.

The foundation of the USA economy and globalization is growth, and that growth depends upon increasing usage of energy. Without more and more energy, there is no more growth.

Our vaunted technology, especially electronics, pharmaceuticals, and the Internet, consume huge amounts of energy. Technology advances cease when energy disappears.

Leaders in the USA and the rest of the industrial world operate on the assumption that trends will not change, and they often refuse to discuss the possibility of it happening. As a result, the general public is either unaware there may be a problem, or assumes everything must be okay.

How will these trends change as the production of oil (and other resources) peak and then fall? How can you prepare?

Without as much energy, the population of the earth must drop. Some estimate it will drop from 7.5B about 2020 to as low as 1B by 2085. My studies indicate only efficiency, fusion, solar, wind, and wave have a chance of providing the amounts of energy we are using worldwide today. You, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren must learn how to live sustainably and use much less energy to have a chance to make it through the bottleneck.

The cost of transportation will skyrocket, and the supply of transport fuel will dry up. Learn to live and work close to home in a sustainable environment. The cost of food grown in Chile or the Far East or even Mexico will be more than you can afford. Grow you own.

Globalization will largely disappear. A new paradigm must be found for the USA and world economy that is not based upon constant growth. Think about it. What do you want it to be (just no growth)?

Many assume technology is our ticket out of this problem, but technology has not solved the problem yet. If we stifle that effort before we solve the problem, we are toast. Are our research priorities in the right place, or do we have to learn how to live without electronics, pharmaceuticals, and the Internet. Can you?

In time the leaders in the USA and the rest of the industrial will come to realize the world has  changed. They will probably be the last to admit they were wrong, and their suggestions for what to do may be superfluous. The public reaction to being mislead for so long may be one of violent backlash. As for yourself, learn to take care of yourself and do not plan on depending upon your government to take care of you.

To me, it is intuitively obvious that the members of our society are racing toward a cliff with our eyes closed tight, assuming that all is well. Anyone who says it will not happen must be living in a different world where science and rational thought do not exist, where what they wish to be true will be true. I wish them luck, for that is all that they will have.

As for me, I will keep learning how to live on less and tell folks around me of what I think is about to happen. To me the dangers of Peak Oil are intuitively obvious.

Sam
the Prudent RVer