Re: OIL AGAIN!
Producing countries open up new fields while old fields deplete but this obviously can't continue eternally; feeding a global expansion to accommodate the human psyches desire for more. Hard to see what the powers are working toward in the longer term. Still a strong push toward greater fossil fuel consumption along with the reawakening of renewable energies. Certainly no hurry according to the powers that be.
With such vast supposed human intelligence, there is a distinct lack of forward thinking. The government says, "more bridges, more tunnels, more roads, more buildings, more dams, more electricity, more industry". You see, they are human beings just like you and I.
Let's look at a few fundamentals...
1. Assuming that you don't believe OPEC's "political" reserve figures that just happened to all double in the 1980's and have remained exactly constant ever since, oil discovery (globally) peaked in the 1960's and has been running below the rate of consumption for about the past 25 years.
2. Tar sands (Canada), natural bitumen (Venezuela), coal liquefaction (eg Linc Energy's proposed operations in Australia), ethanol, GTL (Gas To Liquids - totally different to LNG, GTL produces diesel, petrol etc), the various attempts at oil shale and so on all fundamentally have one thing in common - they are an attempt to effectively manufacture light sweet crude oil from some more abundant resource.
3. If there was plenty of oil available, anywhere, then nobody would bother with any of the things listed in point 2 above beyond perhaps proving technologies and patenting them for possible future use. You don't set up an ice making plant in Antarctica, you don't try and make sand in the desert and you don't spend $ billions on highly risky ventures to make oil if you have the alternative of simply drilling a hole and watching it come out of the ground.
4. As light sweet crude oil runs short, refineries have been forced to accept heavy, sour oil which is far more costly to process into products such as petrol (and which many refineries can't process at all).
5. Oil has priced itself out of virtually every discretionary market. At one point it was widely used for power generation, industrial boilers, space heating in houses etc but not anymore. As prices have risen, we've switched practically every possible use to something else (gas etc) - and once that was finished prices rose once more.
On the basis of the above and other anecdotal evidence I see all around, I conclude that oil is a
relatively scarce resource in relation to present and likely future consumption. Prices are sitting at around 4 times historic levels, production from conventional sources has declined and the growth in unconventional sources has been barely sufficient to maintain any growth at all in total production. That sounds awfully like we're somewhere in the ballpark of peak oil.
The fundamental problem however really comes down to the finanical system and its' requirement for constant growth regardless of the consequences.
I've made this point before but I still think it's a very valid one. We've already faced this constant growth dilemma in a few areas, most notable in the Australian context being energy production in Tasmania and water in the the Murray.
All those big resource use debates come down to one fundamental point - anyone, on either side, who has done the math realises that a point is reached, generally when about half the total resource has been developed, then a fundamental dilemma arises. Either we develop all that remains virtually overnight so as to prolong growth by another 10 years, at which point an abrupt end to growth must occur since no undeveloped resources remain, or we pull the plug on constant growth now and try to effect some sort of orderly transition.
That is what happened with the controversial woodchip industry. That is absolutely what the Franklin River debate was about. That is what's happened with water in the Murray. That is what is very fast approaching in many other areas.
The whole world is staring down the barrel of essentially the same dilemma, albeit involving a different resource. We've maxed out conventional crude oil, we've maxed out condensates, we've gone perhaps a bit too far offshore, we're turning human food into fuel for cars and now we've started messing about with all sorts of heavy hydrocarbons as well.
So either we really are going to drill Antarctica etc, or this is it, the game is essentially over. The turning point is basically now. Either we're going to trash everything that is left, in order to prolong the inevitable perhaps another decade, or we're going to end constant growth.