In order to even begin to slightly diminish the severe consequences of Peak oil, our capitalist economy must change, ultimately. First, Peak oil is a term used to describe “the point in time when the global production of oil will reach its maximum rate, after which production will gradually decline.”
Hubbert’s peak theory said that the United States would peak in terms of oil production from 1965-70. His theory proved to be both precise and accurate in the end. The United States, today, remains the unparalleled consumer of oil within the world despite the fact that the highest growth in demand is seen from developing countries. The increase in demand for oil can be largely attributed to the demand for energy. Growth in industries within the world and growth within developing countries in general result in an incline of energy use. Things like transportation, specifically vehicles substantially raise the consumption rate of oil. And lastly, the growth in the world’s population collaborated with other factors to help cause the significant rise in the demand for oil. This poses a threat to agriculture as modern techniques incorporate the use of both gas and oil. A decline in the amount of oil readily available to the world can ultimately result in an incline in food prices and even famine. These are the severe consequences of Peak oil, which we can reverse, in the end, by changing our capitalist economy.
Capitalism revolves around constant growth. We are told that we have to consistently and constantly consume resources in order for GDP levels to increase to facilitate our capitalist economy. Oil is inextricably linked to our everyday lives, so if oil begins to decline due to Peak oil, it is impossible for GDP to grow. Conclusively, putting a stop to our capitalistic ways would be a better method to go about dealing with Peak oil and its consequences.
I hope these blog entries have informed the reader not only of the dangers of peak oil but also the changes necessary in our economy and way of living to continue a prosperous society.
References:
Deffeyes K S
(2005) Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak, Hill and Wang,
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Fanchi, John R. Energy in the
21st Century. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific, 2011. Print.
Hale, David, and Lyric H. Hale. What's
Next? : Unconventional Wisdom on the Future of the World Economy. New
Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 2011. Print.
Hemmingsen, Emma. "At the Base of Hubbert’s Peak: Grounding
the Debate on Petroleum Scarcity." Geofourm 41.4 (2010):
531-40. ScienceDirect. Elsevier, 3 Mar. 2010. Web. 4 May 2012.
Hirsch, Robert L. "Peaking Of World Oil
Production." Atlantic Council Workshop on Transatlantic Energy Issues.
Web. 1 May 2012.
Horton, Sarah. "The 1973 Oil
Crisis." Envirothonpa. Web. 1 May 2012.
How Cuba survived Peak Oil. Fatih Morgan,
Eugene 'Pat' Murphy, Megan Quinn. Faith Morgan. (DVD) Yellow Springs, Ohio :
Community Service, Inc., (2006)
Labban, Mazen. "Oil in Parallax: Scarcity, Markets, and the
financialization of Accumulation." Geofourm 41.4 (2010):
541-52. ScienceDirect. Elsevier, 3 July 2010. Web. 4 May 2012.
Lynch, Michael. "‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of
Energy." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2009.
Web. 01 May 2012.
Naghavi, Alireza. "The Political Economy Of Oil
Depletion." Peak Oil. ASPO International, 17 Apr. 2008. Web. 3
May 2012.
Newman, Peter, Timothy Beatley,
and Heather Boyer. Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate
Change. Washington, DC: Island, 2008. Print.
Pesaran, Hashem, and Hossein Samiei. "Forecasting Ultimate
Resource Recovery."International Journal of Forecasting 11.4
(1995): 543-55. ScienceDirect. International Monetary Fund, 16 Nov.
1999. Web. 4 May 2012.
Ralston, Jonah J. "Peak Oil: The Eventual End of the Oil
Age." ASPO. Washington University in St. Louis, 31 July 2008.
Web. 4 May 2012.
Reed, Amanda. "Seven Rules for Sustainable
Communities: Design Strategies for the Post-Carbon World." Worldchanging.
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Simmons,
Robert .Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil
Shock and the World Economy,Wiley, New Jersey.
Smil, Vaclav. Energy Myths
and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate. Washington,
D.C.: AEI, 2010. Print.
Now that you've read the potential doomsday scenarios you might be alarmed and asking if theres any possible way to avoid these ramifications. The pathway to making sure the effects of peak oil are not as severe as previously mentioned is pretty simple. It requires the unwavering dedication of many collective groups, especially that of cities and town more than the government itself. Government are notorious for having slow reaction times in response to pressing issues that need immediate and undivided attention. This is one of those issues.
We have the additional problem of having the majority of the worlds emerging populations live in not only in some of the worlds most polluted cities but also some of the poorest in the world. Figure 6 shows population density and as you can tell China and India are going to play major roles in the future of sustainable development (Newman, pg. 23). Developing countries are going to have to play the biggest roles in leading the way to a sustainable future. Considering the fact that green technology is also usually the most expensive, the world's poor are either going to have to make some great sacrifices or deal with the consequences.
The way to avoiding the repercussions of oil scarcity is theoretically simple, it only requires one thing: preparation. But most people in positions of power or in circumstances to make preparations, as outlined by Rob Hopkins in his TED talk titled Transition To a World Without Oil, are in either one of four mental states:
Business As Usual: the idea that the future will be just as the present. Many people in this state of mind convince themselves that there is no problem at all. By far the most dangerous mentality for anyone to have and even more dangerous for us as a society to have.
Hitting The Wall: the idea that everything is so fragile and interconnected that once one thing goes wrong and oil as an energy source is swept out from under our feet everything will begin to unravel and collapse. This is a very popular theory popularized by alarmist to dramatize their end of the world scenarios.
The Impossible Dream: The idea that we can invent our way out of a profound economic and energy crisis. That technology can solve everything and get us through this completely. That technology can push us past geological and environmental constraints but technology cant create more farmable land create resources at the click of a mouse. We can be astonishingly creative and inventive but we also live in a world with very real constraints.
Resistance: the acceptance of the idea that the future world that we are going to live in is not going to be one of cheap and easily available energy. Instead of concentrating on sustainability which revolves around continual production and recycling of products. Resistance asks questions like, what circumstances lead us to be so vulnerable and reliant on one resource and how can we change that addiction and dependancy.
The only mentality we can have moving forward as a society and expect any possible solutions to be made is the last one. Breaking our addiction to oil is going to be a multifaceted war with battles taking place on cultural, economic, social and political levels. The only thing more difficult than dealing with a world where oil supplies are only declining is preparing the world for that future. That preparation is going to have to include the development of renewable forms of energy. An all of the above approach is appropriate. The power grid of the future is going to include power from solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, and nuclear. These solutions although have to be implemented and developed before we hit the peak because Im sure it is a lot harder to construct new power plants and grids without oil.
The future of the peak oil world has to include major urban re-planning. It must involve looking at how we can live with nature rather than fighting it. Some of the principles are:
Waste products are not thrown away but reused
Buildings are designed as being part of the environment, taking into account sunshine, wind, heat, distance to travel, etc
Wilderness not looked upon as 'wasted' land but an essential part of the environment
An aim to get the maximum yield from the land without employing agrichemicals
Building a sense of community
Transport
One of the most important requirements for a sustainable society is the reduction in transportation, for things as well as human beings. Since most transportation is achieved by fossil fuels and we will not have the spare electrical capacity to produce hydrogen, it is clear that unnecessary movement must be avoided. It is likely that we will return to a biological (walking, cycling, rowing or animals) or wind (sailing ships) basis for most transport which will limit the distance we can sensibly travel. Even if enough oil and electricity were available to run some vehicles such as lorries or trains, we have to remember the cost in time, energy and money to keep the roads and rails in good condition, and the energy and skills needed to maintain such complicated machinery. A cart is far easier to build and repair, and a horse can cope with far rougher terrain than the best of four-by-fours. If we can keep our telephone or radio services going, most people will not need to travel far in the sustainable future.
Urban Planning
Two effects that are likely to come with the depletion of oil and gas are the collapse of the economy and a decline in food production. The first will bring large rises in unemployment and these two problems can be tackled with the same answer: urban farms. If urban farming doesnt become an urban staple, there is probably going to be a mass migration out of the cities and towards the country side.
"Eighty percent of American and Canadians live in metropolitan areas, and these place produce an equal amount of the continent's greenhouse gases. Current decentralized, auto-mobile-based patterns of development helped make North Americans the biggest generators of greenhouse gases in the world per capita. For this reason, transitioning to less land and energy-consuming patterns of development will be cruicial to reducing overall carbon production. Cities and regions, not national governments, will play the leading role in achieving these goals. This book shows how changes in the design of our cities and metropolitan areas can achieve dramatic reductions in carbon emissions while improving livability and competitiveness and at the same time reducing the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure systems."
Figure 4 gives a good overview of not only the history of oil production but also where it is heading in the future, well into 2050. It also provides a good breakdown of where world reserves lie, biggest oil producers and consumers, and the growing gap between oil discovery and production.
After the initial shock of permanent oil scarcity and increased commodity prices people will begin to grow accustomed to life without cheap oil. The first and most noticeable change will come from the government. The historically high gas prices caused by peak oil will lead the government to have more and more trouble subsidizing the oil and gas sectors. Subsidies to fossil fuels currently total 72 billion dollars over a seven year period, averaging out to about 10 billion per year (Environmental Law Institute). As the price of oil only increases and increases after peak oil tax payers will begin to refuse to continue subsidizing the oil sector, regardless, the government wont be able to afford to do so without increasing taxes dramatically and with the economic difficulties we are already facing I dont see that even being an option when things only begin to get worse.
As shown in Figure 5, the 70.2 billion dollars used to subsidize fossil fuels are for the most part damaging to the environment but in a future where it is no longer fiscally sound to subsidize oil, subsidies will begin to shift to renewable energy sources. I think this process will be considerably short, contrary to the long legislative process democracies are known for currently.
At first the world richest and most industrialized countries will continue paying the prices necessary in order to continue importing the oil essential to running their economies, but slowly, as tax payer money becomes increasingly dedicated to subsidizing and purchasing imported oil instead of meeting the basic needs of the people, the international trade is going to slowly diminish before it stops altogether. The countries who's revenue comes primarily petroleum exports are going to be hit the hardest by the effects of peak oil and thus will take the longest to recover. Unless actions are taken before oil peaks to diversify their economies, they are in for the equivalent of economic apocalypse. As the oil begins to run out, countries like the US who represents one of the biggest importers of oil will begin to import less and less oil as it becomes more expensive to transport that oil transnationally than what it would actually sell for. Governments everywhere will begin to lose revenue gained from fuel taxes and those who rely on fuel taxes and revenue from oil exports will be hit twice as hard. In the US although, where the cost of oil imports is 396.8 billion, the lowering in import amounts will lead to the reduction in the deficit of about 700 to 400 billion dollars (Almeida, pg. 1053). I believe that unless any alternative fuel source is found quickly, peak oil will represent the end of international trade and the beginning of an isolationist period where countries concentrate in protecting their economies and providing the basic necessities to their own populations as food and water become more scarce, not only because of fossil fuel depletion but also because of increasing population. Some suggest that peak oil and as a result "peak everything" will cause a spike in resource wars and border conflicts as possibly hundreds of thousands try to migrate to countries where peak oil has not effected the economy as badly (Labban, pg 541). Although I would agree about the migration and huge exodus from some parts of the world, after a couple first conflicts in order to secure the last oil fields, I think governments will be to economically unstable to even think of conducting full fledged "resource wars".
Assuming that no new fuel sources are found, governments and farmers will start having to make the difficult decisions of whether to plant for the production of ethanol or biofuels (the only other developed forms of fuel) or for human consumption.
This is the point where the peak oil theory many times diverges into something entirely different and if one is not careful can come off as a conspiracy theorist. I will try to tread carefully while still providing all the facts possible. A lot of the predictions of what will happen after peak oil peaks are entirely speculative so readers are advised to take or leave as much as they want. But many of the predictions are based off of current crude oil usages and what will happen if that crude oil is no longer there. Oil is in practically every aspect of our lives so if population and consumption continues like it has than we are in store for a very turbulent future. The following video by National Geographic provides a telescope into a possible future without oil.
Worst Case Scenario:
Although this video is obviously a dramatization, it brings up very probable realities. Oil, after all is the entire foundation for our economy and society as we know it. Although I am sure in the resilience of the human species and do not argue that the end of oil equates to the end of human beings, it will mean the end of life as we know it. To understand why, lets shrink the scale the peak oil theory; if a country is faced with declining supplies, it was two short term choices, either import oil from another country or face economic collapse. Since planet earth obviously can not import oil from another planet once global production begins to decline, we have no other option but to face something similar to societal apocalypse, if no preparation is taken beforehand.
It turns out that in an industrialized economy like our own, a drop in oil supply levels precipitates a proportional drop in overall economic output. Oil is the liquid foundation our capitalist society runs on. It is the feedstock used to make the vast majority of transportation fuels, which are used to move products and deliver services throughout the economy. In the US in particular, there is a very strong correlation between GDP and motor vehicle miles traveled (Orlov). Thus, the US economy can be said to run on oil, in a rather direct and immediate way: less oil implies a smaller economy. Also, in order for our economy to continue running there has to be a constant replacing of numerous goods. In the manufacturing sector there are all sorts of infrastructure, plant and equipment must be maintained and replaced in a timely manner, or it stops functioning. Once that point is reached, economic activity becomes constrained not just by the availability of transportation fuels, but also by the availability of serviceable equipment. At some point the economy shrinks so much that the financial assumptions on which it is based are rejected, making it impossible to continue importing oil on credit (Phillips, pgs. 179-183).
The following chain of events, once it starts will be practically impossible to stop and the initial shortage of transportation fuels although small will set in motion a number of economically destructive feedback loops. Outlined by Dimitry Orlov in his article Peak Oil is History, the following socioeconomic consequences will only further the crisis.
First: Optimistic peak oil global production predictions are based on reserve amounts that have been greatly exaggerated, many of which were released during OPEC's 1980 "quota wars".
Second: Export Land Effect: when the production amounts of oil exporting countries begins to decline they will only further begin to decrease their oil exports, preferring to cut exports instead cutting into their reserve amounts thats supposed to be for domestic use.
Third: Although oil production is said to have peaked in 2005 solely because of the fact that production levels were increasing until then, they really peaked earlier, in terms of usable energy derived. "Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) went from 100:1 at the dawn of the oil age, when some strong-backed lads could dig you an oil well using picks and shovels, to an average of 10:1, now that oil production requires deepwater platforms (that sometimes blow up and poison entire ecosystems), horizontal drilling and fracturing technology, secondary and tertiary recovery using water and nitrogen injection, oil/water separation plants, and all sorts of other technical complexities which consume more and more of the energy they produce" (Orlov). As EROEI continues its trend toward 1:1 oil will no longer continue to be produced as it will become more expensive to transport it and refine it than any possible profits can pay for.
Fourth: We must take into consideration that globalization has made our world increasingly integrated where parts for any one machinery, clothing article, food, or basically any finished product comes from many different parts of the world.
When these four factors are taken into consideration it is difficult to imagine how the global economy can possibly continue functioning as it does now. If you think I've painted a bleak picture so far, I haven't even began to outline the socioeconomic effects of peak oil. Interrelated with the economic effects is the fact that increasing scarcity of oil will lead to "peak everything", a situation where the end of cheap oil and increasing population will lead to food, clothing and the shortage of other goods. Our entire food production relies on petroleum derived products. Everything from the pesticides, fertilizer and transportation of food relies on the existence of cheap oil. Scarcity of food will lead to famines, rampant food riots and looting. The era of driving cars anywhere and anytime we wanted would be far from over. Electricity shortages will be common, not because it plays a significant role in electricity production but because, coal which does play a major role in electricity production, is transported by gasoline powered vehicles. Frankly, anything transported by train, tankers, airplane, or truck will be in short supply.
Reduced mobility for most people and merchandises, will directly damage the activities and industries more dependent on fuel prices. These include agriculture, fisheries, activities related to tourism or traveling, the auto industry, road transpiration, etc. This will lead to the highest unemployment levels in recent times.
Although many of these predictions are based on circumstance, history, particularly the oil crisis of the 1970s, shows us how society would react to huge increases in oil prices. If governments learned anything from history and have been preparing for the day oil runs out than the worst case scenario will never become reality, but for some reason I highly doubt that. Matthew Simmons, a commitee member who served on Vice President Richard Cheney's top-priority energy task force in 2001 had this to say about the US government's energy plan,
"As far as I know, there is not a single contingency plan in place or currently being written by any of the think tanks of the world that sets out a model illustrating how the world can continue to function smoothly once it is clear that Saudi Arabian oil has peaked. In a nutshell, it is this total lack of any 'alternative scenario thinking' that makes this unavoidable event so alarming"
- Kevin Phillips, Bad Money
Best Case Scenario:
The best case scenario is more of a long-term effect of peak oil but nonetheless it is a possible outcome with the right preparation. That preparation although has to mostly come from the government. Considering the fact that the government, to date, has yet to make any significant strides in diminishing the impact of peak oil or reliance on crude oil, this outcome with ever passing day becomes less and less probable.
Many peak oil alarmist forget the fact that the rate of crude oil production is going to decrease gradually and prices are also going to increase at a gradual rate. Oil wells don't go from producing oil one day to being dry the next. This time frame can last anywhere from months to years and gives us enough time to come up with the necessary innovations to remove ourselves from a petroleum based economy. There's something about us humans that makes it hard for most of us to respond to implicit cost or far distant consequences to today's actions. So maybe after oil's prices have reached a level unaffordable to most people, innovations to distance us from our oil dependence will be made and greener, more efficient energy source will be found. Whether it be solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, nuclear, or an all of the above approach. Peak oil will have the unintended consequence of curbing our addiction to oil and quite possibly even solving climate change. Considering that the majority of our greenhouse gas emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity production and secondly for transportation. 2,258.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide were released in 2010 from the transportation sector alone (EPA). Now that that gasoline will no longer be readily available after peak oil, that much carbon dioxide and many other greenhouse gases will no longer pollute the air.
As there are those who agree with the peak oil theory, there are those who very much disagree. Most of the despondents of peak oil are economist and even some energy associations like USGS and the DOE who state that the worry about peak oil is exaggerated to say the least and that there will be a big abundance of oil in the world (Cinti, pg. 15). One of the greatest critics of peak oil is Michael Lynch. He argues that Hubbert and others like him are wrong in their assumption in the fixity of recoverable oil reserves and that they underestimate the power of new technology and price volatility. "Instead he considers central in the possibility of recoverable resources the presence of dynamic variables as
infrastructure, technology, and price, and not only the fixed geological factor of the quantity of oil" (Cinti, pg. 16). The following is an excerpt from his op-ed piece in The New York Times.
"A careful examination of the facts shows that most arguments about peak oil are based on anecdotal information, vague references and ignorance of how the oil industry goes about finding fields and extracting petroleum. And this has been demonstrated over and over again: the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil first claimed in 1989 that the peak had already been reached, and Mr. Schlesinger argued a decade earlier that production was unlikely to ever go much higher... Another critic, a prominent consultant and investor named Matthew Simmons, has raised concerns over oil engineers using “fuzzy logic” to estimate reservoir holdings... A related argument — that the “easy oil” is gone and that extraction can only become more difficult and cost-ineffective — should be recognized as vague and irrelevant. Hundreds of fields that produce “easy oil” today were once thought technologically unreachable... In the end, perhaps the most misleading claim of the peak-oil advocates is that the earth was endowed with only 2 trillion barrels of “recoverable” oil. Actually, the consensus among geologists is that there are some 10 trillion barrels out there. A century ago, only 10 percent of it was considered recoverable, but improvements in technology should allow us to recover some 35 percent — another 2.5 trillion barrels — in an economically viable way. And this doesn’t even include such potential sources as tar sands, which in time we may be able to efficiently tap. Oil remains abundant, and the price will likely come down closer to the historical level of $30 a barrel as new supplies come forward in the deep waters off West Africa and Latin America, in East Africa, and perhaps in the Bakken oil shale fields of Montana and North Dakota. But that may not keep the Chicken Littles from convincing policymakers in Washington and elsewhere that oil, being finite, must increase in price."
-Michael Lynch, August 24, 2009
Figure 2
Source: theoildrum.com
Figure 3
Source: theoildrum.com
Michael Lynch makes many valid points that should not be quickly dismissed as cynical optimism. The first point he makes is that the peak oil theory is based off of many speculative and "distant future" facts and projections. It is difficult to produce empirical data for future reserves, supply, and consumption. Even more difficult to predict is any future developments in oil extracting technology that might make oil reserves that are unreachable or economically inviable to produce, actual possibilities in the future. As shown in figures two and three there is great variations in the prediction of future production possibilities. But even the median prediction (Figure 2) shows a overall downward trend. That brings me to the next point and quite possibly the soundest counter argument against peak oil, the fact that current crude oil production possibilities does not take into account future innovations.
The more research I do on peak oil and possible solutions the government might be preparing for, the more disillusioned I get. The United States government has been made aware of the peak oil theory but so far its reaction has been delayed if not non-existent. Its energy plan for the future is basically to wait for the great minds of America to find innovations in new crude oil extraction methods.
"Another bright spot for production comes from our neighbors to the North. Many oil resource tabulations exclude 'unconventional' resources or sources of oil other than conventional crude. The Canadian tar sands are considered an 'unconventional' resource. Yet there is nothing wrong with oil being recovered unconventionally, and because of research and investment into this 'unconventional' resource, a once 1.3 million barrels per day area is projected to become a 5 million barrel per day by 2030. Thats a record I am very proud of..."
- Hon. Joe Barton, Chairman, Committee On Energy and Commerce.
Many peak oil arguments are based off of reserve amounts and recoverable amounts of crude oil but what many people do not realize is that, firstly, national reserve amounts many times are national secrets. Also, the term recoverable amounts of crude oil has changed over the years. When oil was first discovered, recoverable oil was only that which you could drill into the ground and extract but today we can extract oil through fracking, tar sands, gas-to-oil, etc. With future innovations comes more recoverable amounts of oil. These new methods of oil extraction, although are some of the most polluting are energy intensive processes ever. Recoverable amounts are also based on the price of oil, the higher the price the more potential profits oil companies can hope to seek from that production method. Oil companies will only continue to extract oil as long as it is profitable, as soon it becomes more costly to extract a barrel of oil than it sells for, that form of oil will not be considered a resource. If it takes more energy to extract a certain amount of crude oil than that particular amount of oil produces than oil can no longer be considered a practical form of energy and can no longer be considered a resource.
Unfortunately, if that is the plan that is going to be put into action, it will not be enough to prevent not only the economic equivalent of Armageddon but also the gradual decline in any type environmental justice. These impacts although, I will further outline in my next blog entry.
I want to take a moment to introduce this blog. This blog is going to consist of a comprehensive overview of the peak oil theory and all the social, economic, and environmental implications it will have on the future of a petro world economy. For those of you reading this who do not know what peak oil is, that is ok, by the time you are done reading my series of blog entries you should be confident in knowing what it is.
Introduction
Peak oil is a theory that states that after a certain amount of time and at a certain rate of consumption, the world's fossil fuel supplies will eventually reach the highest point of production naturally possible and then will only begin to decrease after that. Peak oil is used to describe the global maximum in conventional crude oil production and is scheduled to happen in the very near future if it hasn't already. Peak oil is one of the most highly debated and
deliberated issues in academic circles but outside of colleges and universities
it is not mentioned nearly as much as it should be. Capitalist society and our suburban sprawled out
landscapes of unnecessarily wasteful lifestyles will be a thing of the past.
With increasing population and decreasing resources we are in store for a
turbulent future.
...Wait Im already sounding like one of those peak oil alarmist that come off more ridiculous than convincing and even less educated so instead Im going to present two videos that I think are good at giving a quick visual introduction to peak oil. The second one even represents some history of oil production which I will also get into in this blog entry.
Source: Scott McLean
Youtube
Source: Username; Oilyboyd
Youtube
Scholars who write or speak about peak oil generally take their arguments in one of two routes, either environmental impacts or economic impacts. What is important to realize is that the environmental actually represents what is causing peak oil and the economy is what is primarily going to be effected initially. Before the peak production was controlled by people, we supplied was much or as little as we wanted. After the peak geological forces out of our control are going to supply us as much oil as the earth can give and inevitably production will decline, just when the world is demanding more and more of it. In economics this is called a shortage and leads to the increase in price. Similar to what happened in 1973, which was of course an artificial or man-made shortage but definitely gave us a preview of what is to come when oil really runs out.
History of Peak Oil
The basis of the peak oil argument originates from Thomas Malthus in his 1798 publication where he
outlines the fact that human beings will forever continue to reproduce and
consume food regardless of environmental factors, and that causes there to be a conflict between how much the earth can physically produce and sustain and how much we as humans need to survive (Deffeyes, pg. 46). The peak oil argument is essentially a Malthusian one. Now that oil production is so inextricably linked to every aspect of our lives, including food production and distribution, when it runs out, it is going to be that much more difficult to provide food to the seven billion people on this planet. It is remarkable to think how ahead of his time
Malthus was and if he thought he was having problems with population surges and
food shortages, it would be interesting to see what he thinks about our world
today now that population is about seven times higher than it was in the 1800s (Thompson, pg. 355).
The next person to run with the scarcity issue you could say, actually invented the peak oil theory. Marion King Hubbert developed a theory that US oil production would peak in 1970 and later, that the world's oil supplies will also peak (Naghavi, pg. 6). Hubbert and his research team developed a model, later named after him that was essentially a bell curve representing the supply of oil production.
His predictions with time, as seen below, have proven true. US oil supply did peak in 1970 and has only decreased since then.
The reason it is so important that everyone be aware of peak oil and its potential consequences is because, as shown in Video 1, oil is such a fundamental part of our lives. But people only seem to care for the peak oil argument when the oil prices are high. In fact, people's concern about oil supply and production levels only seems to be positively correlated to oil price, as one goes up so does the other. "The more awareness of the problem has probably been reached at the beginning of 2008, when the price of oil has reached, and then passed the value of $100" (Naghavi, pg. 2). This correlation has never been more apparent than in the 1973 oil embargo when OPEC stopped consulting with foreign oil companies and decided to raise oil prices primarily by restricting supply. Their decision to restrict oil supplies to the West began with many developed countries like the United States supporting Israel during the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 (Horton, pg. 1).
