Peak Oil... Demand for it, that is
1 Apr, 2009 02:15 pm
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Reduce text sizeIt is demand for oil that may peak as governments adapt to the problems of global warming, security of supply and an amplitude of market volatility that could bring economic ruin to nations and then the world. Oil-demand may be reduced preemptively to the production peak (peak oil) through more efficient vehicle technologies and finding alternative energy sources. Ultimately electricity is seen as the best "supply vector" for delivering energy to users. Probably it is a game of "tag" between reducing demand and falling supply; whichever comes first will win-out.
Peak Oil is the global term used to describe an eventuality when world oil production reaches a maximum, and then relentlessly falls. Such "peak" models are based on an inexorable rise in demand for oil, against an infrastructural lack by which to meet that demand (i.e. you can't pump out more). Supply-demand gaps are to be expected en route but once the peak is reached, the shortfall in supply is catastrophic. As a rider to this, it should be noted that there is no such thing really as "global peak oil" since different fields, under the control of various regimes will peak at different times, thus shifting the emphasis of economic and political control across the globe. Those without oil will become weak and those with plenty of it will become strong - or targets for other nations who want to grab their oil.
Now, the assumption of relentless demand has been called into question in a new report entitled "The Beginning and End of Oil" by Peter Hughes, who is a director of Arthur D. Little's global energy and utilities practice. The main issues surrounding oil, climate change, security of supply, and an amplitude of market volatility that could bring economic ruin to nations and then the world, are lucidly clear. Rather than simply waiting in a spirit of foregone conclusion for these calamities to unfold, it is likely that governments will be forced to act preemptively to anticipate and provide alternatives, which will curb demand for oil.
It is a global energy-mix that is to be contrived, rather than a single solution, which there is not. The recent hike to $150 and then a crash to $30 for a barrel of oil hand in hand with the credit crunch, makes it clear to most governments that deliberately reducing our demand on oil is a policy imperative. Of all the energy-resources, oil is especially vulnerable since more than half of the world's 30 billion barrel annual count goes to fuel transportation. The absence of alternatives to oil-based fuels has cemented the outstanding stature of oil as literally empowering the engines of progress.
However, a chain of policy initiatives spanning the globe is encouraging more energy-efficient technologies throughout the transportation sector - whether on the road or in the air. High efficiency diesel engines and hybrid and regenerative breaking systems can extract more than twice the tank to wheels miles that conventional spark-ignition/petrol engines can. Meanwhile there are aircraft fuselage designs that promise savings of 30% on fuel costs, and high-temperature aircraft engines that recover energy more efficiently from fuel, so long as sufficient quantities of metals such as hafnium can be recovered to bring them to a proficient reality.
Peter Hughes, a director of Arthur D. Little's global energy and utilities practice, said:
"As the number of new policy measures implemented to reduce reliance on hydrocarbons for transportation reaches critical mass over the next 10 years, the world could see downward pressure on demand for oil and oil-products materialize much sooner than the [oil] industry would currently concede. Depending upon how quickly the transportation sector begins its migration away from oil, we could find ourselves at a tipping point in which demand for oil peaks much earlier than the industry currently anticipates, before going into long-term decline."
In the wavering scales of the energy-balance, (the report says that) oil and gas companies should reconsider the sustainability of their business models and accelerate their moves to spread into other sectors of the "energy value chain" (not a phrase I would use but is "management speak"). A greatly increased contribution from coal, natural gas, nuclear power and "other alternatives to hydrocarbons" (whatever they may prove to be) is to be expected.
The report concludes that electricity is likely to be the main supply vector for delivering energy to customers which will "create demand for multiple sources of clean power as well as the infrastructure to deliver it."
All in all, it is better to close the stable door before the horse bolts, rather than after. We will need to make the kind of changes outlined eventually, so let's begin making them now, while we still have enough conventional energy in hand to establish new paths. Probably we are involved in a game of "tag" between reducing demand and falling supply. Whichever comes first will win-out.
Related Reading.
http://www.epmag.com/WebOnly2009/item33676.php
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On November 9, the Uppsala University in Sweden published a report titled "The Peak of the Oil Age - The Uppsala World Energy Outlook". The report performs an analysis of the oil production forecast done by the International Energy Agency in 2008. One day before the release of the IEA 2009 edition of its World Energy Outlook report, the team of researchers notably pointed to a world oil supply in 2030 some 26 Mb/d lower than the IEA's predictions. Dr Michael Lardelli, one of the co-authors of the study, answers Scitizen's questions.
An article in the Washington Post this weekend, together with a must-read interview in The Independent, a paper I used to read regularly when I lived in London, reminded me of an observation I made several years ago concerning the similarities between Peak Oil and Y2K. Having spent a fair amount of time in my former corporate role planning for the serious outcomes the latter might have produced, I don't intend this as a slam on the former. Without rehashing the technical arguments behind either phenomenon, it's worth spending a few minutes thinking about the consequences of a growing belief that we might be only a few years away from the end of oil, as we know it. Whatever one's take on the validity of the Peak Oil argument, it has already evoked noteworthy consequences, both positive and negative.
Laurel Graefe, a senior economic researcher working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has written an excellent overview of peak oil, ?The Peak Oil Debate?. I consider this a must-read piece, as much for armchair oil experts as beginners, and as much for who published this as what it contains. This should be very high on your list of ?brother-in-law? documents, the ones you can safely recommend to co-workers, neighbors, or, well, your brother in law.
Leading UK companies have launched a report, The Oil Crunch: Securing the UK?s Energy Future, warning that cheap, easily available oil is likely to end by 2013, posing a grave risk to the UK and world economy.
This is a short article on community transformation in a time of preparation for a post cheap oil future. On the face of it, post-peak oil and climate change don't share many common threads, beyond being derided as hysterical prognostications by some of their non-believers. However, climate change is finally starting to be taken seriously by some of its former nay-sayers. We shall have to wait and see whether post-peak oil will continue to be dismissed as a crackpot conspiracy theory.
The Energy Watch Group released a report last week, stating that peak oil was reached in 2006. Scitizen sought the professional view of Dr Peter Jackson, Director of the CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates), whose position is that peak oil has not been reached. As well, we speak to Mr Jorg Schindler, the main author and Managing Director of Ludwig-B?lkow-Systemtechnik GmbH, about the report.
The Energy Watch Group released a report last week, stating that peak oil was reached in 2006. Scitizen speaks to Mr Jorg Schindler, the main author and Managing Director of Ludwig-B?lkow-Systemtechnik GmbH, about the report. As well, we sought the professional view of Dr Peter Jackson, Director of the CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates), whose position is that peak oil has not been reached.
The price of oil has risen to almost $100 a barrel - a figure unthinkable from almost one fifth of that five years ago. Whatever economic reasons may be postulated for this, the underpinning cause is the fact of a decline in the resource of cheap oil. Oil is not running out, per se, but we can expect the price of oil to increase inexorably, and hence the cost of everything, since literally everything, not only fuel depends on cheap oil, including food. M.King Hubbert made a prediction of this for US oil in 1956, and his "Hubbert Peak Theory" in which oil production follows a logistic function, maximising at the point when half the original resource has been used-up (beyond which it declines relentlessly), which proved correct for the production of oil in the US in 1970, appears to apply also the world reserve of oil, which has in all probability, now peaked. A civilization (global village) that has been built on cheap oil must inevitably change, since there are no alternative technologies, including hydrogen, that can be imported to rescue it in time to replace oil. In all likelihood, it will transform into a system of small communities.
| [1] | Comment by Clifford J. Wirth, Ph.D.
- 1 Apr, 2009 04:07 pm Global oil production peaked in 2008. With increasing global population and continued economic growth in the less economically developed countries, high demand will prevail. Thus demand will always be higher than supply and oil depletion will continue at the same rate. There are no alternatives to liquid fuels that power agriculture, industry and transportation. When transportation collapses, the power grid will fail as it depends on highways for maintenance. Without electric power, virtually nothing modern functions. We face catastrophe. Documented here: http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/ http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html |
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| [2] | Comment by Ron Patterson - 1 Apr, 2009 04:08 pm "As a rider to this, it should be noted that there is no such thing really as "global peak oil" since different fields, under the control of various regimes will peak at different times, thus shifting the emphasis of economic and political control across the globe." That sentence about no such thing really as "global peak oil" caught my attention. The ignorance about peak oil in the scientific and political world is alarming. The US peaked in 1970 even though Prudhoe Bay had not even come on line then. Global peak oil will be, or was, the point when global production peaked and began to decline. It simply does not matter when individual nations peak. |
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| [3] | Comment by Chris Rhodes - 1 Apr, 2009 04:27 pm Of course it matters that not all oil-nations around the globe are going to peak at the same time. e.g. Britain's oil and many others will be in very short supply within 10 years, leaving the Middle east and Russia in very powerful positions. Peak demand will simply give some more time re. the inevitable supply demand shortfall. |
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| [4] | Comment by Ron Patterson - 1 Apr, 2009 04:49 pm It does not matter as far as global peak is concerned. Of course after global peak, nations that still have a lot of oil will be in a powerful position, but that will not change the fact that global oil production will have peaked. Global peak oil will be when world oil production peaks or peaked, probably in 2008. The fact that some nations will have not reached their peak then will not change the fact that global oil production will have peaked. |
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| [5] | Comment by Chris Rhodes - 2 Apr, 2009 09:52 am Fair enough Ron - I have described the Hubbert scenario on here in a previous article. My point is that the peak is not a single geopolitical event (but a summation taken over the production of different oil fields and nations)... and that has consequences in terms of world power, as I allude. I note that fuel prices are set to rise now, which is potentially disastrous amid and reinforcing a weak economy. I agree (as usual) with Clifford that there are no alternatives to liquid fuels, certainly not on the shorter timescale, and that as we run out of them, we will be in an inexorably weaker position to shore-up our collective energy system. It is a delusion that we can carry on living at the energy-budget we do now by some other miracle technology to replace oil. In summary, we probably need to look to low-energy, localised agriculture to keep all of us fed. Transportation will be the first casualty and that impacts on everything in industrialised societies. |
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| [6] | Comment by Stu - 3 Apr, 2009 12:53 am It isn't going to work until people realise and accept that they are not going to be able to live and use energy as they have been. No more 24/7 Tv, no more stupid labor saving devices that use electricity so save some lazy good for nothing a bit of muslce power, eg, remote controls, standby devices, electric can openers, electric knives, electric windows, electric roller doors, electric shavers, toothbrushes, the list is endless. Ban all cars for private use that are over 4 cylinder 1.6 litre engines........limit fuel purchases to 20 litres per week per car, forcing people to give up recreational driving and move closer to work or get public transport. Eliminate all costs associated with motor scooter and small motor bike ownership........free insurance, no rego fees.......and double those things on cars. Limit the kw of electricity supplied to homes........you get a certain amount per person that lives there per day.......thats it........use it and the meter shuts down........noj way of getting more accept by installing solar panels or wind generators etc. Make a law that wind turbines and solar arrays can be installed by home owners.......anywhere.......and nobody.........nobody........not council......not anybody......can complain about the ugliness......the noise........or anything......nobody can interfer with anybodies measures to generate clean energy. Shut down street lighting in side streets at 10pm. Make it a criminal offence for businesses to leave lights and electrical equipement running after hours. Shut down all tv transmission at 10pm..........limit channels to 4 or five per country. Before anybody says that these things are draccnian..........get it through your thick heads..........your energy wasting life is not sustainable.........regardless of technological breakthoughs etc..........it just can not continue........everytime someone wastes some fuel........power.........on a stupid recreational thing.......it means someone in the future will not have even a light in the future. Wake up selfish morons........cut right down to the bone now.......or have nothing at all in the future |
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| [7] | Comment by Chris Rhodes - 3 Apr, 2009 09:40 am Yes, rationing energy will almost certainly be necessary and the simple escalating price of fuel will be the initial driver to oil-abstinence. It will tend to haul-down the economy, however, and the spectra of "stagflation" rears its head. However, once the consequences of the oil "peak" unfold, mere matters of economics look trivial. I recall that Kurt Cobb (who writes on here) wrote an article about "Oil Triage" which makes a lot of sense - it is as though we are on the brink of a conflict... against our oil-abundant status quo. Let's try and minimise the casualties in the first place though! |
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| [8] | Comment by Mallory Ignition Conversion Kit
- 11 Dec, 2009 09:19 am The innovation on gas-usage to non-gas fueled transportation engines,(the most obvious are that of land transportation sector), has been overwhelmingly supported by car makers, distributors and even by the consumers. This shows that their efforts of decreasing the use of oil and therefore, lessening the prevalence of global warming is being widely supported by consumers. To date, it's becoming more and more probable that soon, engine ignition can be initiated without the aid of fuel or gas. |
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