In 2005 Robert L. Hirsch produced a report for an agency of the US govt on the risks associated with a peaking of the rate of total global oil production. The report (see attachment) was very sane readable and concluded that the peaking of supplies presented a major risk management issue for the US and that two decades of sustained high investment in alternative sources of liquid transport fuels would probably be required to achieve a seamless “bump-free” transition away from fossil fuel sourced in the traditional way. (We now know as well that the fuels required must not raise atmospheric CO2 levels.)
Of course this sustained high level of focused investment is not happening – in the US or here. I am pasting below some edited comments by Graeme Bell a member of the Port Macquarie NSW Climate Change Group (Rob Oakeshott electorate) whose mobile is 0418 218 774. Because the Chinese especially seem to understand these things it seems to me possible that Australia should be fostering joint research with the Chinese so as to develop alternative power sources for transport – ones which reduce CO2 levels and thus also reduce the current climate shift to colder winters hotter summers worse droughts and worse floods more damaging cyclones catastrophic coastal flooding etc.
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Planning for ‘Peak Oil’
“By not debating and acting on peak oil early enough we are increasing the degree of public surprise dislocation and economic “ambush” that will occur once the decline begins. (Availability will decline steadily and the cost will rise massively.) We will reach a point when there will be broad awareness and recognition of the problem in the general population followed shortly thereafter by a sort of rising panic denial disbelief at our own national stupidity and eventually I guess anger. Of course by then it will be literally a decade or two too late to do anything worthwhile about it to avoid the economic fallout associated with the transition.
“To me it feels like we have vandals at loose delaying our national energy security and greenhouse policies. And those charged with oversight of our economic health should be concerned too because decades of history have shown us that past economic expansion has only ever occurred with corresponding increased oil consumption. Peak Oil by definition means a future where the amount of conventional oil produced is decreasing each year. While-ever our global economy is so closely linked to oil consumption it is unlikely that this falling global oil production will allow other than a slowing global economy.
“If we should successfully manage the transition to a new economy not closely linked to oil it may be possible then to grow the economy while using less oil each year. But we can’t do that now and nor will we be likely to anytime in the next several decades according to Hirsch because the necessary investments to achieve that will take that long to happen.
“Our “leaders” who maintain this silence on the impending peaking of oil supplies may be making their term of office more comfortable in the short term and their press releases easier to write but they are certainly not showing any leadership on the issue nor doing us any favours in the long term.
“A recent interview with Hirsh on the issue shows that another 5 years of our available time to prepare for peak oil has been squandered.
See: http://www.countercurrents.org/auzanneau180910.htm
— Graeme Bell