Peak Oil

[Trembling Hand]

In Australia petrol is still one of the cheapest things you can but per liter. Milk costs like $2.50 and fresh juice costs $5/L.

Its not the unit price that matters but the unit price AND how many units are needed. Most only need 1 or 2 litres of milk and OJ per week but 20 liters of petrol or more. Milk vs Petrol doesn't seem much of a comparison.

 

[greenaus]

limiting myself to having a 5 min drive each day to the station

The service station I fill up at is only five minutes away, too, but I don't go there every day.

 

[Tysonboss1]

What fascinates me is how America and Australia are hardcore crybabies when it comes to energy prices going up.

In Australia petrol is still one of the cheapest things you can but per liter. Milk costs like $2.50 and fresh juice costs $5/L.

I'm amazed to see that when I was in Europe, fuel is like $4-$13 depending in which country you go to (UK/Switzerland/Norway/Amsterdam/Spain) etc but they're used to it.

Over here we are just a bunch of oil addicts and would rather complain about petrol prices going up because its easier than having a European attitude where they realise that "oil is limited, we all need to share it so use it in moderation".

Many Euros happily get on their bike or skate to work and back each morning if they live within sustainable distances, but if they don't, they are smart enough to use more care pooling/hydro buses and trams!

The fact is petrol is in Australia/US hurting people who generally chose to live beyond their means, as unfair as that sounds if they are good people (but loaded with debt, mortgages, loans, buy this, buy that).

The fact is we could have had substantially less fuel usage if the US and Australia weren't purposely "built on wheels" and people who could have used public transport or had a healthy walk to work chose to instead be lazy and drive.

I've made my cuts by only limiting myself to having a 5 min drive each day to the station and a 15 min drive to a nearby suburb on the weekends, my energy use is only 1 - 25 liter tank a month.

I don't drive to the city ever anymore and I don't drive to the beach either, I use public transport and/or the ferry or go on a holiday if I really need a getaway.

I agree with alot of your points, how ever remember beening such a sparse country our reliance on transport fuel hits u in every thing we do.

and yes petrol is cheaper / litre than alot of other liquids however we use i more ofit per week than any other liquid (except water). and the price of energy will no doubt increase the cost of all the other liquids you mentioned in time, even water.

 

[xyzedarteerf]

We have all heard the doom and gloom of the peak oil reports, or have we?

I'm quite interested in the whole idea, not only because its relevant now, but the alarms about it signalled 2-4-6 years ago by many experts is now coming to light in very real terms. If you have filled up your car recently you will know what i mean.

Crude Impact is a good flim on the subject most of it is on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqdw7yhEpIk

for those interested in this subject smurf had some great comments in
this thread i started last year about another oil movie called Crude Awakening.

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9011

 

[2020hindsight]

Re: Peak Oil.

Brilliant article imo -
Brendan Nelson (and any short-sighted politician that follows him) is completely missing the point.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/28/2257626.htm

Waking from the dream
By Brendan Gleeson
Posted Wed May 28, 2008 8:21am AEST

Australians are in two minds today.

Many of us celebrate the economic boom that has generated new levels of prosperity, ... And yet growing numbers of Australians are increasingly disturbed by two comets that seem to be streaking across and spoiling the bright skies of prosperity - climate change and oil scarcity.

One fiery trail reports a climate cooked and despoiled by human greed. The other marks the disappearing trail of a vital resource, the energy that propelled us to greatness, and yet ultimately became our downfall. Both entwine menacingly above us: one glowering with rising strength, the other fading and failing away.

The heavens aroused and inflamed are an awful force.
....
Terra Australis is becoming Terror Australis, a blast furnace of drought, heat and capricious tempests.

The nation is gripped by concern about scarcity. ..water, the fundamental means of existence, that we are running out of.

In April 2007, then prime minister John Howard intoned gravely that the nation's food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin, might soon fail. There was talk of the need to import food. Even in cities, traditionally immune to drought, years of prolonged water shortage showed in the greying, lifeless gardens of suburbia, where there lurked a quiet, deepening gloom about the deaths of things once cherished and nurtured.

Pain at the pump
Meanwhile oil, the lifeblood of our economy and everyday lives, seems to be slipping away.

It's harder, more expensive, to keep a grip on lifestyles based on cheap petrol and unrestrained mobility. 'Pain at the pump' is another little unfolding agony in everyday life.

Daily we hear more about 'peak oil': a looming moment when the world's oil reserves will start to decline. The idea has been about for a while, but has been dismissed by governments and industry as the baseless rantings of survivalists, doomsayers and eccentric dons. Not so anymore.

Both the Australian Senate and the United States auditor-general have recently warned that the peak is real and imminent. No matter when it occurs, explosive global demand and geopolitical instability mean that the golden age of oil abundance is behind us.

.....
Aspiration is turning to desperation. In early 2007, a survey of more than five thousand Australian families identified rising petrol prices as the main source of financial concern.


Global 'filthy man'

Sometimes passing through and surviving one (modest) crisis engenders not a sharpened wariness but its opposite, a heightened sense of invulnerability. So it seems with the 1970s oil shocks, which by the 1990s had passed comfortably into memories, adding evidence to the theory that market societies were indeed the 'end of history', our highest and most invulnerable social form.

This explains why the unexpected return of oil scarcity seems so deeply unsettling, cracking open a cemented faith in our invincibility. All the more unnerving is the mounting evidence that coal, our other great - if these days unseen - energy source, is fuelling climate change.

Most of us are guiltily aware that Australia is a global 'filthy man', stoking the global carbon economy with cheap, dirty coal. Dashed inconvenient that exporting it doesn't distance us from the problem, or ultimately from blame.

....

The consequences of the environmental and resource crises are manifesting in our daily lives: rocketing petrol bills, dead lawns, tedious water restrictions, and heat - damned unseasonable, wearing heat.

But the same sense of autonomy and power that many of us feel at work isn't available in these increasingly pressing circumstances. The feeling of frustrated disconnection, of impotency in the face of threat, seems to well and grow.

Brendan Gleeson is a professor at Griffith University and is currently director of the urban research program at the University's School for Environmental Planning. He is on the board of Queensland's Urban Land Development Authority. This is an edited extract from Griffith REVIEW 20: Cities on the Edge (ABC Books).

 

[watchingall]

Re: Peak Oil.

Here is an interesting editorial from Matt Simmons on the topic.

http://www.worldenergysource.com/articles/pdf/simmons_we_v10n2.pdf

And another as it relates to US energy policy
http://www.worldenergysource.com/articles/text/simmons_WE_v8n4.cfm

 

[jonojpsg]

Re: Peak Oil.

The consequences of the environmental and resource crises are manifesting in our daily lives: rocketing petrol bills, dead lawns, tedious water restrictions, and heat - damned unseasonable, wearing heat.

Hate to gloat and seem uncaring or irresponsible, but down here in beautiful little Hobart we have pretty much unlimited water supply, not far to drive/ride to work, lush green lawns and gorgeous mild weather

If you can relocate anywhere, make Hobart top of the list - you won't regret it.

 

[2020hindsight]

Re: Peak Oil.

The consequences of the environmental and resource crises are manifesting in our daily lives: rocketing petrol bills, dead lawns, tedious water restrictions, and heat - damned unseasonable, wearing heat.

Hate to gloat and seem uncaring or irresponsible, but down here in beautiful little Hobart we have pretty much unlimited water supply, not far to drive/ride to work, lush green lawns and gorgeous mild weather

If you can relocate anywhere, make Hobart top of the list - you won't regret it.

careful jono - things ain't all peaches and apples in paradise

this photo of Lake Gordon posted by Smurf early April (14% full I believe) : 2twocents

Full is 40m above that. ! (according to smurf - mind you that's equivalent to a 13 storey building - mmm must be close to those green trees there )

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=281842

 

[nioka]

Re: Peak Oil.

The consequences of the environmental and resource crises are manifesting in our daily lives: rocketing petrol bills, dead lawns, tedious water restrictions, and heat - damned unseasonable, wearing heat.

Hate to gloat and seem uncaring or irresponsible, but down here in beautiful little Hobart we have pretty much unlimited water supply, not far to drive/ride to work, lush green lawns and gorgeous mild weather

If you can relocate anywhere, make Hobart top of the list - you won't regret it.

What is mild weather to a Taswedgian is sort of cold for someone from this "gods only country" where we can claim all you have and then some.

 

[Smurf1976]

Re: Peak Oil.

careful jono - things ain't all peaches and apples in paradise

this photo of Lake Gordon posted by Smurf early April (14% full I believe) : 2twocents

Full is 40m above that. ! (according to smurf - mind you that's equivalent to a 13 storey building - mmm must be close to those green trees there )

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=281842

Water in Tas is primarily a question of energy. That is, apart from the Hydro, about 98% of the state's fresh water isn't used for anything at all. So plenty of water, but that's close to sea level after the Hydro has finished with it. The Hydro itself hasn't been in a 100% full situation at any time since the 1970's and total storage is presently 17.9% and falling, a consequence of the reality that for the past decade there has either been system overload or drought at any given time - that's guaranteed to deplete the storages eventually.

Lake Gordon is indeed 40m below full in that photo. Yes, it is a 40m drop drom the trees to the water level. Lake Gordon is Australia's largest freshwater storage whilst Gordon Dam (140m high) also happens to be the world's highest commercial abseil.

As for Hobart, yep there's plenty of water. Whilst the Derwent headwater storages are only at 21%, it's a reality that even at the present rate of discharge (which is only 40% of average) we're letting out more than the combined consumption of Sydney and Melbourne, virtually all of which flows straight past the intake for Hobart and thus into the sea. That rate of water release is, of course, driven by the need to keep the turbines spinning - drinking the stuff or watering the lawn is simply a by-product.

The attached photo is of Lake Echo. The level now is within 2cm of when that photo was taken (27 April 2008) since outflow and inflow are both about zero. I don't think it requires any further explanation other than to say that the intake tower does go down quite some way - it's still possible to draw water from the lake.

 

[2020hindsight]

Re: Peak Oil.

smurf fair enough
thanks for the corrections
and jono is correct then as well.

Must admit the main colour I recall from my trips to Tas is green - being held up behind tractors mowing the 3 foot high verges of the road - and meanwhile listening to the news about the current drought Tas was experiencing

- Maybe it gets a bit browner up on the (NW and central) plateau (?).

But roses in Glenorchy are the size of flaming pancakes - you're right. Plenty of water at sea level as you say.

but ( as you infer) Not that any of that excess water (once it's down at sea level) is gonna help the oil crisis .

 

[Smurf1976]

If you want to understand the importance of energy then look no further than WA.

An explosion has cut domestic gas supplies by 30%. And so now we've got brick works closed, hotels about to almost completely shut down (virtually ALL major hotels in Perth!) because they can't get linen washed, the building industry set to run out of materials and even some talk of the lights going out.

EVERYTHING depends on energy. Turn off the gas in WA, drain the lakes in Tas or shut the brown coal mines in Vic and life as we know it comes to a shattering end.

And all that with only a 30% cut, partially offset by diesel and coal. Just imagine if we'd been stupid enough to rely as heavily on gas as many say Australia ought to...

As it stands today, Qld and NT are the only parts of the country that haven't had a gas crisis in the past decade (Tas didn't but that's because it didn't use gas in the first place when the upstream crisis occurred).

I've got nothing against the gas industry, but the fundamental nature of the stuff precludes reliability ever reaching that of coal, oil, nuclear or large scale hydro. Take note.

Meanwhile, the WA situation is just a bit more diesel demand. Along with all those other places using diesel because it's the only thing they can get their hands on that works.

 

[gfresh]

Just imagine if we'd been stupid enough to rely as heavily on gas as many say Australia ought to...

I would have thought if Australia was more reliant on gas, we would have a lot more backup systems and supplies in place to ensure this wasn't so much of a problem. From what I can see, one operator (Apache) failed, and seeing they supply so much to industry that's the problem.. nothing to do with gas itself, but the over reliance on only one operator at the root of the supply chain

 

[Smurf1976]

I would have thought if Australia was more reliant on gas, we would have a lot more backup systems and supplies in place to ensure this wasn't so much of a problem. From what I can see, one operator (Apache) failed, and seeing they supply so much to industry that's the problem.. nothing to do with gas itself, but the over reliance on only one operator at the root of the supply chain

The inherent problem with gas is that it's hard to store and in most cases within Australia there's not much (if any) useful stored gas available when things go wrong.

Coal, oil and hydro can all be stored. You have a stockpile of coal, oil in a tank or water in a dam. And, here's the crucial bit, you normally see panic whenever those stockpiles get low. But with gas they're not only low, they're usually completely empty. It's a real hand to mouth operation therefore no buffer when something goes wrong.

It's like living with not a cent in the bank and no access to credit. Fine as long as you have no unexpected expenses and no drop in income. Then all of a sudden the car breaks down, the overtime is cancelled and you're in strife. That's the inherent risk of running on zero reserves and it's one that's difficult to overcome with gas.

Look what's happened with some of the recent gas disruptions. WA has one right now - they're relying on coal and diesel to help the situation. Not producing more of them as such, but simply drawing from inventory.

Tasmania has had modest disruptions to gas for power generation two years running. And in both cases the response is the same - crank up a few more hydro turbines and joe public doesn't need to know anything happened. The Hydro didn't make it rain more, they just took from storage.

And the Victorian disaster in 1998 was much the same. Ramp up coal and use all manner of petroleum products, largely taken from storage.

So to make gas more reliable in, say, WA what needs to happen is a major gas storage is built near perth. Building it 2000km or however far the NW shelf is from Perth doesn't help when the pipe goes down - and that's been a problem more times than even most in WA realise (they get around it by switching power generation to diesel and coal, possible because they can be stockpiled). You just can't guarantee that such a long pipe run won't be cut at some point.

Same in Tas. No guarantee the Vic - Tas pipeline won't suffer damage at some point. So any storage needs to be in Tas, not Vic, if it's to be useful. And it needs to last long enough to fix the pipe - potentially months in a worst case scenario.

Same basically everywhere unless you're relying on lots of small fields rather than a few big ones. But then relying on lots of small fields is the classic sign of resource depletion so it's not something we ought to be aiming for in itself.

As for how much energy matters, just look at what's happening in WA. A 30% cut to ONE fuel, itself largely offset by diesel and coal, and the result is anything but good economically. No power = stuff all left of the economy in 2008.

I'm not against using gas, it's a sensible fuel for a lot of applications. But I'm not keen on putting all our eggs in one rather volatile basket that holds very little. Brown coal has similar problems with lack of stored coal and over the years that too has had it's fair share of problems. They're usually bailed out by relying more on other fuels, including gas (and black coal and hydro). Diversity...

 

[Aussiejeff]

The inherent problem with gas is that it's hard to store and in most cases within Australia there's not much (if any) useful stored gas available when things go wrong....

I'm not against using gas, it's a sensible fuel for a lot of applications. But I'm not keen on putting all our eggs in one rather volatile basket that holds very little...

Agree totally with this view Smurf. I hope NSW doesn't go down the same route as WA and try to source most of its gas from SE QLD (as some pundits seem keen on pushing) via a single major pipe feed. Ergo the same problem could arise.


AJ

 

[Smurf1976]

WA would be in real strife right now without power from coal and oil...

 

[disarray]

good posts smurf. what do you think is the best way to secure basic electricity needs? obviously transport is whole other debate.

is it possible to export electricity overseas? i like the idea of a nuclear australia exporting energy.

 

[Aussiejeff]

LOL. Just have to laugh at GWB's latest panic reaction with oil - now he wants to overturn the covenants against oil drilling along the US coastline in the *hope* that they will strike big oil and meet the US's forecast addiction to the stuff....

There is an obvious "catch 22" to the argument that "the current price of oil now makes non-economically viable reserves a viable proposition". That is, IF $Billions of dollars are commited into drilling these reserves during a time of record prices, what happens if they DO discover a *big* reserve and the oil price plummets in response? Would that mean the ongoing viability of many drilling and delivery programs for such "marginal" reserves suddenly collapses and a lot of those marginal drilling companies find themselves suddenly deep in the red "holding the baby" as it were?

*sigh*

It is a bit sad to see how human-kind is reacting to this total addiction and the consequent behaviour to try and keep feeding it at all costs.....


AJ

 

[Aussiejeff]

The debate on whether the Guvment should cut the fuel excise for motorsist by 5c litre is being significantly paled by the current price of diesel (now hovering around AU$1.85 - 2.07 in rural Oz!)

We are currently in a ludicrous situation where supplies of diesel meant for Brisbane delivery yesterday have been diverted to the Kimberly area & Fremantle since they are running out of the stuff which is pushing the West's diesel prices through the roof. I would expect that QLD diesel prices will now jump in response.

Diesel in Oz last year was around AU$1.14 litre on average. This has GOT to hurt the inflationary outlook over the coming months.... I wonder how many heavy transport trucks in Oz run on gas or LPG?

PS: Just checked Fuelwatch WA for LPG price in Kimberley. Now 99c to $1.20!!!!! (66c in Perth)



AJ

 

[gfresh]

It is a bit sad to see how human-kind is reacting to this total addiction and the consequent behaviour to try and keep feeding it at all costs.....

Indeed, every time I hear the latest in this "crisis" I keep thinking there are alternatives, but none of our leaders are making any significant steps into making sure alternatives are found. If further supplies are found, it's only delaying the inevitable, as China and India demand more and more of the world's share.

If GWB had come out and said "this is the biggest problem facing our country, we are going to spend $xxx billion on alternative energy sources" (less than spent on the Iraq war), I would say within 5 years we could be nearly free of oil together. Throw enough billions, it's amazing what the power of human determination can achieve.

No chance in him ever doing this however. The Bush family, and most of the congress is in with the oil industry, and have massive investments in this area. The world's largest companies are the likes of Exxon, which run out of the United States, and could buy off whoever they liked. Government collects billions of dollars in excises, and other taxes. Where is the real incentive to the powers that be, to encourage real investment in alternatives? When they can get richer and richer, while the poor cats beneath them run themselves to the bone

Well LPG may be running at $1.08 in the Kimberley, but ULP is running at $1.85, so it's all relative. LPG is running at 71c here, while ULP is running at $1.58.. 44% of the cost!