Every
generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our
lives have been built is running out. We don’t talk about it because we cannot
imagine it. This is a civilization in denial.1
|
|
|
The
available stocks of oil to be discovered and used are fast running out
|
The
effects of this will be two-fold. The first is that production levels themselves
will peak, making the extraction of remaining oil supplies far more difficult
and expensive. The second is that, even if we find ways to wring every available
drop of oil from the earth, the resource itself will actually run out.
Like
a tragedy, the crisis we face is set to inexorably unfold. It is a denouement
that is likely to herald the end of modern industrial civilization as we know
it, which is perhaps why, as environmentalist George Monbiot says, we
collectively choose to deny that it is taking place.
Disaster
Just Around the Corner
The
depth of the crisis is revealed most clearly in the statistics. Despite closely
guarded company secrets about potential new supplies, most experts agree that
total world oil reserves originally amounted to about two trillion barrels. We
have already consumed 900 billion barrels, leaving around 1.1 trillion barrels
left2. With just over half the world’s oil supply
still available for exploitation, doomsday scenarios may seem unjustified. But
in reality, disaster is just around the corner.
The
first problem is that newly discovered oil reserves are far easier and cheaper
to exploit than diminishing reserves because the flow rate falls as soon as
production starts. Extraction companies can use techniques such as applying
water pressure to maintain flow, but these are only temporary solutions. This
means that production peaks when approximately half the supplies have been
consumed: exactly the position we appear to be in today. Thereafter, the
extraction of oil becomes far more difficult and costly. As a result, supply
becomes more erratic and oil prices go through the roof – with inevitable
competition and conflict as nations and interest groups fight over those
dwindling resources that remain.
The
USA – and other Great Powers – seem set to pursue explicit ‘oil
wars’ in their attempts to secure available supplies through armed
intervention if necessary.
|
|
The
second problem is, however, even worse. In our highly industrialized – and
industrializing – world, the demand for oil is increasing not declining. We
currently consume around 80 million barrels of oil a day, but this is set to
rise to around 112 million barrels a day as the appetite of the world’s
population for oil, particularly in fast-developing China, continues to grow.3
This means that, even if extracting the remaining oil were simple and cheap,
there is only enough oil left to satisfy current levels of demand for another 40
years. Again, at first glance, this may appear a comfortable cushion, but in
reality the problem is imminent. It means that anyone under the age of 40 will
see the availability of oil dwindle and fall within their lifetimes. By the time
the babies being born today reach middle age, their world will be one in which
oil will be extremely scarce.
Or
Already Here?
While
debate continues to rage about exactly when the world’s production of oil will
actually peak, it is possible that, quietly and with little fanfare, the actual
event has already occurred. Richard Hardman, trustee of the London-based Oil
Depletion Analysis Centre and a former president of the UK Geological Society,
says, “there is a growing consensus that we are heading for an imminent peak
[in oil production], if not already past it”.4
Kenneth
Deffeyes, a geophysicist at Princeton University, agrees. “I am 99 percent
confident that 2004 will be the top of the mathematically smoothed curve of oil
production,” says Deffeyes. Indeed, he believes the highest single year may
already have passed. “2000 may stand as a blip above the curve and be in the
Guinness Book of World Records.”5
Such
figures are inevitably disputed. The US Department of Energy calculates that oil
production won’t peak until 2037. Later dates for the oil peak are also
favored by companies such as Exxon and Shell.6 But
many experts question these figures since they rely on a range of untested
variables, including the exploitation of ‘dirtier’ sources of oil with as
yet unused technology, or because they are based on projected demand rather than
projected supply calculations. But even if the optimists are correct, the
problem will only be delayed for another 20 or 30 years. The fact remains that
our demand for oil can no longer be met by supply. In such circumstances, the
only question left to ask is: what are we going to do to adapt?
Miscalculations
|
|
|
The
motor car has had a bigger impact on our living and working patterns than
anything else
|
We
consume energy for four major purposes: to generate electricity, for heating,
for agricultural and industrial production and for transport. While alternative
sources of energy are available for the generation of electricity and heating,
the agricultural, industrial and transport infrastructure is completely
dependent on oil, and no alternatives appear to be on hand to take its place.
The effects of a lack of oil on these aspects of our way of life will therefore
be dramatic.
As
one example, let us take the relationships between transport, housing and work.
The motor car, arguably, has had a bigger impact on our living and working
patterns than anything else. In the USA, entire cities are designed around the
car; in much of the rest of the world, the situation is little different, as
living in modern suburbs is simply impossible without regular access to a car:
to get to work, to go food shopping, to get the children to and from school.
Indeed, in the USA, the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’ is unthinkable
without such transport.
Oil
prices now seem set on an inexorable rise, leading to ever more explicit
competition for its use.
|
|
When,
in the early twentieth century car manufacturer Henry Ford declared that
“history is bunk”, he was staking his vision of the future on an endless
supply of cheap crude. Without it, our modernist consumerist aspirations are
impossible to realize. If people cannot get to work, the heart of the modern
economy will collapse. The same is true for our dependency on industrialized
agriculture and the cheap transport of food, and for our ever-increasing
addiction to cheap flights. Without the capacity to access such goods and
services, the modern ‘globalized’ economy simply cannot operate.
As
many commentators have pointed out, Western governments appear to be able to get
away with doing almost anything, as long as they can guarantee the prosperity of
their populations.7 Without a sustainable transport
infrastructure, such prosperity will no longer be guaranteed. The result could
be the return of ‘history’ with a vengeance as the Western working classes
once again struggle to make ends meet. Similar scenarios are likely across the
world, as aspirant workers everywhere suffer acute withdrawal symptoms from
their oil ‘fix’.
Adaptation
a Must
In
fact, as environmentalists have long been arguing, what is needed is a drastic
adaptation by the workers of the world if we are to survive the disappearance of
oil. Working, living and production patterns will have to draw on a range of
non-oil based energy supplies, and become far more localized than they are at
present. Such adaptations are, as environmentalists also point out, necessary if
we are to combat global warming. As the stark truths about the availability of
oil hit home, such lifestyle changes will become inevitable. But at the moment,
there is very little sign that anybody – beyond a few eco-hippies – are
either willing or able to make such adjustments, for either themselves, their
descendents, or for the planet itself.8
As
a result, we are likely to witness not planned moves to increasingly sustainable
ways of living, but destabilization and chaos as we struggle to adjust, both to
the reality of diminishing oil availability, and with our refusal to acknowledge
and deal with it.
Oil
prices now seem set on an inexorable rise, leading to ever more explicit
competition for its use.9 The USA – and other
Great Powers – seem set to pursue more or less explicit ‘oil wars’, such
as the invasion of Iraq, in their attempts to secure available supplies through
armed intervention if necessary. The ‘American Dream’, however, continues to
remain the aspiration of choice for most across the world, lured by the
seemingly endless temptations of consumerism and ‘freedom’, with the
inevitable knock-on effects for those excluded from the global economy. At the
same time, our relentless consumption of those supplies of oil that do remain
will continue to have a major impact on global warming, with all the disastrous,
documented effects climate change is likely to cause.
Our
modern ways of being and doing appear to be on the verge of extinction. Whether
the end of the oil extravaganza becomes the wake up call for the development of
more sustainable ways of living, or the trigger for descent into barbarism and
chaos, however, remains to be seen.
*
Kate
Prendergast is a British freelance researcher and journalist with a
particular interest in African politics and development. Your emails will be
forwarded to her by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
1-
George Monbiot, The Bottom of the Barrel,
the Guardian, December 2 2003
2-
Bob
Holmes and Nicola Jones. Brace yourself for the end of cheap
oil. New Scientist,
vol 179, issue 2406, 2nd August 2003
3-
Ibid
4-
Ibid
5-
Ibid
6-
Ibid
7-
Neal Horsley, George W. Bush Is Not
Stupid, Christian Gallery News Service, July
5, 2004
8-
George Monbiot, Living With The Age of
Entropy, the Guardian, 23 August 2004
9-
See Counter Currents, Peak
Oil
