Nina Jankovic
Social Science
April 27, 2006
Basic Peak Oil Theory as Perceived from Heinbergs’ Power Down
Oil is not produced by humans or corporations. Oil is a finite natural resource, and Hydrocarbons include the major fossil fuels our society thrives on today such as petroleum (liquid form) and natural gas (gaseous form). Oil reserves exist all over the world in places like Venezuela, United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq etc. There are very educated estimations of the amount of oil each country has in reserve, and they are probably extremely close to the actual amount. When we talk about oil production it is the amount of barrels of oil extracted yearly. Each year oil companies manage to pump ever greater amounts of oil from these reserves, making production go up and profits reach levels they have never before. There of course is an optimum amount of oil that any corporation can extract, and when this point is reached each coming year production will be in decline. The prediction is that when this happens, peak extraction is reached, there will be about half of the oil left in the reserve from when production started. Each country has a different amount of petroleum in reserve and will reach its peak at different times; this is not as fatal to our existence as long as the countries with the greatest reserves haven’t peaked. However looking at graphs(which are similar to a bell curve) including all of the counties with significant oil production capacities, including those that have already peaked and the approximate dates that others will, when all are “combined” there is a calculation of when the World’s oil will peak. The prediction is with in the span of the next ten years, 2016 is the very latest. Oil is about to become less abundant not only because oil production will peak but also because reserve discoveries are coming to a complete end. “Global discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s. Since production must eventually mirror discovery global oil production will doubtlessly peak at some point in the foreseeable future.”(Heinberg) This prediction is based on what seems to be a pattern between the peak oil discovery and production, for the U.S. oil peaked about forty years after its discovery peaked.
This civilization will most likely collapse with the world peak of oil, since it is what the economy is based on. “Hydrocarbons are of prime economic importance because they encompass the constituents of the major fossil fuels (i.e. petroleum, coal, natural gas) and bio-fuels (i.e. plastic, paraffin…solvents)…” (Wikipedia article) The society’s economy is based on its natural resources (resources of the Earth) or the environment, and as many theoretical economists and philosophers have pointed out, most famously Marx, culture and the way in which the society is run is dependent on and determined by the economy. Relating back to the first collapse, when fossil fuels start to decline the economy will crash and our way of life (this civilization, cities, massive populations, and materialism) will disintegrate. The central question is will we be prepared for a collapse of the only way of life we have grown to know? Depending on our reaction to our environmental problems, how will the collapse happen? And in which ways will we be (directly and indirectly) affected?
Albeit the consumption of fossil fuels is a clear source of pollution that is contributing to global warming and other environmental problems, such as the release of toxic wastes in to the environment, this is what our civilization is based on. As Heinberg argues it is too late for us to manage to compensate, in the amount of time we have left, for all of the depleted energy; we physically can not built all of the infrastructure needed to support alternative energies and the worlds dominant politics are far from investing any money in this effort anyway. Therefore the best and most plausible method of survival, Heinberg proposes, is Power-Down. “The path of cooperation, conservation, and sharing” (Heinberg); this is the idea that we must reduce the per-capita resource usage (energy consumption etc.) in wealthy countries, we must change the way in which we live drastically. Secondly the world must develop alternative energy sources, distribute all resources more evenly and finally a system of population control must be implemented. All of the requirements of the Powerdown strategy require time and most importantly effort and cooperation of the entire world (all individuals and not only representatives), especially western countries.
Due to this dependence, if the world continues down this path (currently waiting for a magic elixir, when this fails -assuming it already hasn’t- we will see who the last one standing will be after building the lifeboats). Will the wealthy first world (those more dependent on fossil fuel energy) peoples suffer more than the lower class and “developing” countries?
Will the culture collapse? Or will the human species become extinct? How drastic will the collapse be?
Social Science
April 27, 2006
Basic Peak Oil Theory as Perceived from Heinbergs’ Power Down
Oil is not produced by humans or corporations. Oil is a finite natural resource, and Hydrocarbons include the major fossil fuels our society thrives on today such as petroleum (liquid form) and natural gas (gaseous form). Oil reserves exist all over the world in places like Venezuela, United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq etc. There are very educated estimations of the amount of oil each country has in reserve, and they are probably extremely close to the actual amount. When we talk about oil production it is the amount of barrels of oil extracted yearly. Each year oil companies manage to pump ever greater amounts of oil from these reserves, making production go up and profits reach levels they have never before. There of course is an optimum amount of oil that any corporation can extract, and when this point is reached each coming year production will be in decline. The prediction is that when this happens, peak extraction is reached, there will be about half of the oil left in the reserve from when production started. Each country has a different amount of petroleum in reserve and will reach its peak at different times; this is not as fatal to our existence as long as the countries with the greatest reserves haven’t peaked. However looking at graphs(which are similar to a bell curve) including all of the counties with significant oil production capacities, including those that have already peaked and the approximate dates that others will, when all are “combined” there is a calculation of when the World’s oil will peak. The prediction is with in the span of the next ten years, 2016 is the very latest. Oil is about to become less abundant not only because oil production will peak but also because reserve discoveries are coming to a complete end. “Global discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s. Since production must eventually mirror discovery global oil production will doubtlessly peak at some point in the foreseeable future.”(Heinberg) This prediction is based on what seems to be a pattern between the peak oil discovery and production, for the U.S. oil peaked about forty years after its discovery peaked.
This civilization will most likely collapse with the world peak of oil, since it is what the economy is based on. “Hydrocarbons are of prime economic importance because they encompass the constituents of the major fossil fuels (i.e. petroleum, coal, natural gas) and bio-fuels (i.e. plastic, paraffin…solvents)…” (Wikipedia article) The society’s economy is based on its natural resources (resources of the Earth) or the environment, and as many theoretical economists and philosophers have pointed out, most famously Marx, culture and the way in which the society is run is dependent on and determined by the economy. Relating back to the first collapse, when fossil fuels start to decline the economy will crash and our way of life (this civilization, cities, massive populations, and materialism) will disintegrate. The central question is will we be prepared for a collapse of the only way of life we have grown to know? Depending on our reaction to our environmental problems, how will the collapse happen? And in which ways will we be (directly and indirectly) affected?
Albeit the consumption of fossil fuels is a clear source of pollution that is contributing to global warming and other environmental problems, such as the release of toxic wastes in to the environment, this is what our civilization is based on. As Heinberg argues it is too late for us to manage to compensate, in the amount of time we have left, for all of the depleted energy; we physically can not built all of the infrastructure needed to support alternative energies and the worlds dominant politics are far from investing any money in this effort anyway. Therefore the best and most plausible method of survival, Heinberg proposes, is Power-Down. “The path of cooperation, conservation, and sharing” (Heinberg); this is the idea that we must reduce the per-capita resource usage (energy consumption etc.) in wealthy countries, we must change the way in which we live drastically. Secondly the world must develop alternative energy sources, distribute all resources more evenly and finally a system of population control must be implemented. All of the requirements of the Powerdown strategy require time and most importantly effort and cooperation of the entire world (all individuals and not only representatives), especially western countries.
Due to this dependence, if the world continues down this path (currently waiting for a magic elixir, when this fails -assuming it already hasn’t- we will see who the last one standing will be after building the lifeboats). Will the wealthy first world (those more dependent on fossil fuel energy) peoples suffer more than the lower class and “developing” countries?
Will the culture collapse? Or will the human species become extinct? How drastic will the collapse be?
posted by Nina Jankovic at 23:50
1 Comments:
Nina,
This was a nuanced and interesting analysis of peak oil. I enjoyed reading it.
Can you also write a SIMPLE one paragraph summary that a regular person on the street would understand? Tip - use short sentences with few commas.
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