Peak postponed to 2015 or 2020?

I get frustrated when I try having a conversation with someone about peak oil and they just flat out deny that oil production will reach a peak. What's frustrating is that I know that these people haven't really done their homework. If they don't even know what ERoEI and URR stand for then there's not much point in arguing with them since they don't really understand the issue.

The other day I came upon this interesting website maintained by Canadian analyst Freddy Hutter. With predictions and data about production, discoveries and reserves from Colin Campbell and others concerned with peak oil, Hutter reasonably suggests that the peak may not happen for another ten years or so. I like this website because you can tell that Hutter has done his homework. He's not just another voice on the web who plays the alternative fuel card or gets nit-picky about Hubbert's failure to include Alaskan production in his 1956 prediction (in Hubbert's Peak, Ken Deffeyes actually shows a Gaussian curve that fits domestic production including Alaskan and offshore fields). Hutter's analysis is backed up with data and graphs that give him much more credibility.

So maybe Deffeyes, Campbell, Simmons and crew will be proved wrong; maybe peak won't happen before the end of this decade. If peak doesn't happen until 2020 what kind of difference does that make? Would that give us enough time to prepare for a world of permanently declining liquid hydrocarbon production? Or would we still maintain the status quo as we are now?

Check out the website (http://trendlines.ca/energy.htm) and see what you think. And comments are always welcome.

The End of Suburbia

I finally watched The End of Suburbia, and for an hour-long documentary I thought it did a pretty good job of covering the essentials as the public should understand them.

If you want to watch The End of Suburbia online, you can check it out here on YouTube.

Oil QUIETLY closed at a record high today

The last time oil was anywhere near this price was last August when many were justifiably concerned that Israel had lit the fuse on what could explode into World War 3 in the middle east. And now with very little attention from the media, oil has quietly surpassed this former high. I looked for a mention of this on the major news web sites just now and found hardly anything. This just stuns me when I think about the vital importance of oil to life as we know it.

Why is the media whispering about something so important? Could it have anything to do with their dependence on advertisers who would like their customers to believe everything is just fine? Any thoughts?

Davis County "Energy Recovery Facility"

Whenever I see the sign on Highway 89 for the garbage burn plant by HAFB, I always have to chuckle.

ENERGY RECOVERY FACILITY - EXIT 404

They call it an energy recovery facility because the methane recovered from burning Davis County's garbage is used by HAFB for generating electricity. To be clear, I think it's good that Davis County's trash is burned instead of just thrown in a conventional landfill.

But calling it an energy recovery facility is, IMHO, almost Orwellian.

Just think about it; how much fuel does it take for all of those trucks to slowly go through neighborhoods picking up trash and then drive it up to HAFB? Even though I've never crunched the numbers, I would be willing to bet that the operation is a net energy loser when everything is taken into consideration.

In a post peak world, how will we get rid of our garbage? Or maybe the question should be, how much less garbage will we be producing once there's less stuff for us to consume? Will we use stoves to burn our cardboard boxes and used tissues? Or will it be better to bury anything organic in the backyard?

Abiotic oil? So what?

If you read some of the online forums about energy issues you'll see people claiming that oil isn't a fossil fuel after all. Instead they claim that petroleum was formed by other mechanistic geologic processes within the earth. We won't get into a debate here about which theory of petroleum formation is correct, but if you want to read the arguments you can check out the Wikipedia article on the subject.

So what if petroleum is abiogenic? Oil fields and entire nations still reach a peak in production and then enter a terminal decline. And even though some [crackpots] claim that enough oil is formed continually to replentish what we extract, we've still been discovering less and less oil worldwide since 1964.

Some supporters of the abiotic theory claim that more oil lies deeper than the reserves that we've been discovering and producing. If that's the case, is it even feasible for us to extract it? Even with all of our technological advances in the past few decades, it's still virtually impossible to drill a well deeper than 10 km.

So if you're trying to persuade me that peak oil is a sham, you're going to have to try something better.

Stucco, stucco everywhere...

I just returned from a short visit to Washington County. Unfortunately I had to drive because St. George isn't on a passenger rail line.

Washington County is beautiful and nauseating at the same time.

I love the red rock mesas and plateaus that form the area's backdrop, but I could never live in St. George or any of the surrounding municipalities. If you think that the Wasatch Front is bad when it comes to car-dependency, Washington County is even worse.

The tragic thing about St. George is that it could have turned out much better had people done some careful planning as little as 25 years ago. Instead of the sprawling monstrosity that it just recently became, St. George could have been developed in a more sustainable, tight-knit fashion with a focus on pedestrian-friendly development and mass transit.

While I was there it was a relief to go through the old town section of the city (which is laid out on a nice, orderly grid system) and to see the temple and other handsome historic buildings. It's ironic that a beautiful landscape was created when the people had very little, whereas millions and millions of dollars have now been used to create an unsustainable crapscape.

The seemingly endless cookie cutter subdivisions, strip malls, restaurant pads and big boxes really get to me after a couple of days. Why do people choose to live there again? Are golf courses, snow-free weather, endless shopping opportunities and outdoor recreation really worth the absence of community and any sort of sustainable lifestyle?

It will be interesting (or maybe I should say frightening) to see what happens to Washington County as peak oil realities set in. What happens when the trucks stop coming? How the hell could the area grow enough food to support its current population? How can you get out of St. George if you can't drive out? Remember, there's no rail through St. George. How enraged will the people become when they recognize that their real estate investments aren't worth very much in an energy-scarce world?

Of course the problems that face Washington County aren't unique to that area, but I think they'll be worse there than in most other places in the state.

Asphalt

In a world of diminishing oil and natural gas production, it's safe to assume that we will need all of the land we have to produce food using non-industrialized farming methods. It might sound ridiculous now, but we'll probably need to rip out parking lots to do this (it's not like we'll be able to drive our cars on them anyway).

But here's what I'm wondering: what the heck are we going to do with all of that asphalt? And will we have enough machine power to remove it?

It's something to think about.