Kevin Potvin, who publishes a give away eight page newspaper in Vancouver called The Republic of East Vancouver did an article titled 'Peak Oil Already Arrived in 2006. The article will not be available electronically for a couple of weeks. It is drawn from the study done by Energy Watch Group of Germany.
Kevin's politics are fairly obvious but he has done us a service by attempting to appreciate the impact of the anticipated decline in oil production.
The report essentially says that we are now facing an unrelenting 2% annual decline in oil production. This means that todays 83 million barrels per day will fall to 58 million barrels per day in 2020 and 39 million barrels per day in 2030. The truth is that everyone in the oil industry knows this and are positioning themselves accordingly. In the meantime everyone else is whistling in the dark and the political leadership is paralyzed by the glare of the freight train. I am sure George Bush is fervently hoping that this chicken does not come home to roost in the waning months of his mandate.
This is, of course, no more than what I have been saying in my posts. Energy Watch has fleshed in the details. This report can be downloaded from the referenced link.
It gives me no pleasure to play Cassandra at the Oil party. We can all see that no one really wants to believe that this is happening. The rest of the media has not even started to realize how big this story actually is. So long as the pain is fairly minor it is easy to pretend that tomorrow will never come. I expect that the US will release part of its its strategic reserves as a move to hold down domestic prices when the push comes, but this will be only a band aid.
We are facing a twenty year scramble to replace transportation fuel. During that twenty year span, the automobile as we know it will be driven from the road. It is the one single source of non essential oil consumption that we can displace to make up the shortfall. We are all going to have our garages storing hanger queens. Recall that China has built out its share of the modern world with really very limited use of the automobile. We can retreat back to similar levels of usage.
This story is the single biggest news story of this new century and its solution(s) the biggest shift in technology innovation ever imagined. In a single generation we will and must convert over to a purely sustainable energy tool kit.
Those who have read all my various posts know that the necessary solutions are either in hand or are at least identified. The use of algae agriculture is the main event, regardless of the nonsense spouted by champions of various other far more limiting methods. Algae needs a sunny desert, a recyclable water supply and a supply of nitrogen to produce all the fuel we will ever need. We just have not developed the art of it yet, but that is what we are really good at.
Even better, the only byproduct is proven to be excellent cattle feed.
However, let us get all this into perspective. It is ugly.
We consume 83,000,000 barrels of oil per day. Each barrel is about 160 liters of oil. That works out to about 6,000,000,000,000 liters of oil per year. And this has to now also be spread out to each individual of earth to be ultimately fair. What it really means is that each individual needs to produce a thousand liters of oil per year. Yet Oil seeds are hard put to produce 1000 liters per hectare. Algae can theoretically reach production levels of 10,000 liters per acre. This all means that algae oil production using desert lands is our only credible option, with a little help from our many friends in the alternate fuel game.
To replace all that oil, every farm must fit algae culture into their production cycle world wide. And substantial blocks of desert must be put to work. This is all possible, but we now must move quickly. That is the real problem. Glacial action is not a choice anymore. Welcome to the $300 gas tank that I have been promising.
All my suggestions for terra forming the Earth put forth in my posts are now starting to look conservative and will turn out to be almost tentative. The alternative is economic genocide for the globe, and believe me population reduction is not an option.
Kevin's politics are fairly obvious but he has done us a service by attempting to appreciate the impact of the anticipated decline in oil production.
The report essentially says that we are now facing an unrelenting 2% annual decline in oil production. This means that todays 83 million barrels per day will fall to 58 million barrels per day in 2020 and 39 million barrels per day in 2030. The truth is that everyone in the oil industry knows this and are positioning themselves accordingly. In the meantime everyone else is whistling in the dark and the political leadership is paralyzed by the glare of the freight train. I am sure George Bush is fervently hoping that this chicken does not come home to roost in the waning months of his mandate.
This is, of course, no more than what I have been saying in my posts. Energy Watch has fleshed in the details. This report can be downloaded from the referenced link.
It gives me no pleasure to play Cassandra at the Oil party. We can all see that no one really wants to believe that this is happening. The rest of the media has not even started to realize how big this story actually is. So long as the pain is fairly minor it is easy to pretend that tomorrow will never come. I expect that the US will release part of its its strategic reserves as a move to hold down domestic prices when the push comes, but this will be only a band aid.
We are facing a twenty year scramble to replace transportation fuel. During that twenty year span, the automobile as we know it will be driven from the road. It is the one single source of non essential oil consumption that we can displace to make up the shortfall. We are all going to have our garages storing hanger queens. Recall that China has built out its share of the modern world with really very limited use of the automobile. We can retreat back to similar levels of usage.
This story is the single biggest news story of this new century and its solution(s) the biggest shift in technology innovation ever imagined. In a single generation we will and must convert over to a purely sustainable energy tool kit.
Those who have read all my various posts know that the necessary solutions are either in hand or are at least identified. The use of algae agriculture is the main event, regardless of the nonsense spouted by champions of various other far more limiting methods. Algae needs a sunny desert, a recyclable water supply and a supply of nitrogen to produce all the fuel we will ever need. We just have not developed the art of it yet, but that is what we are really good at.
Even better, the only byproduct is proven to be excellent cattle feed.
However, let us get all this into perspective. It is ugly.
We consume 83,000,000 barrels of oil per day. Each barrel is about 160 liters of oil. That works out to about 6,000,000,000,000 liters of oil per year. And this has to now also be spread out to each individual of earth to be ultimately fair. What it really means is that each individual needs to produce a thousand liters of oil per year. Yet Oil seeds are hard put to produce 1000 liters per hectare. Algae can theoretically reach production levels of 10,000 liters per acre. This all means that algae oil production using desert lands is our only credible option, with a little help from our many friends in the alternate fuel game.
To replace all that oil, every farm must fit algae culture into their production cycle world wide. And substantial blocks of desert must be put to work. This is all possible, but we now must move quickly. That is the real problem. Glacial action is not a choice anymore. Welcome to the $300 gas tank that I have been promising.
All my suggestions for terra forming the Earth put forth in my posts are now starting to look conservative and will turn out to be almost tentative. The alternative is economic genocide for the globe, and believe me population reduction is not an option.
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