Australia cannot complain about the effects of high global CO2 unless we get our own house in order. The US may be feeling the same this week with Washington DC recording 40C for the first time. Actions by Australia and others may cause a bandwagon effect with a bloc of countries able to control world carbon flows. Let's give it a chance.

The oil production plateau has been extended by fracking, tar sands, the revival of Iraq and other factors and may last another 1-5 years. Then it's downhill all the way unless we can adapt. It is a mystery why the oil price is half that of 2008 when the fundamentals are the same or perhaps a bit worse. That alone supports a case for artificially increasing the price such as via carbon tax.

Good article Tom.

You wrote:

<< The concept of an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has two core aims: firstly, the reduction of carbon emissions with the intention of retarding global warming. and secondly, to shift our economy away from reliance on fossil fuels. This second aim, arguably far more compelling, has been neglected in the national discussion. >>

Yes, absolutely!

I’ve been saying this over and over on OLO for a long time now.

This second aim has indeed been badly neglected. I don’t understand why Gillard has basically avoided it. It is enormously important, much more so than climate change, given Australia’s tiny part in global emissions. Peak oil is of huge concern and is much more tangible to the ordinary person.

<< It is hard for politicians and the media to look beyond the Carbon Tax to the Emissions Trading Scheme that will replace it in a couple of years. It seems even harder to remember that its true focus is on an inevitable energy crisis still decades away, but that needs our attention now. >>

I don’t think we can assume that the energy crisis is decades away. It could be very close indeed. It won’t take actual shortages of supply to trigger it, it will be the rising price of oil that hits us first.

Important article thanks Tom though I agree with Taswegian and Ludwig that the crisis will likely hit much earlier than in a few decades. There are a lot of variables so it's hard to predict exactly when it will hit. These include: the EROEI (net energy) of producing unconventional oil; to what extent US shale oil and gas will extend the plateau; whether a high price will set off another GFC; whether a low price will stop production of declining wells in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere; whether an environmental disaster from unconventional wells will tighten up regulations so much as to make production unviable; etc etc.

Whatever, we do need to think as much about energy supply as we do about carbon pollution, and their interrelationship.

Excellent article - common sense and reality at last.

“The concept of an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has two core aims: firstly, the reduction of carbon emissions with the intention of retarding global warming. and secondly, to shift our economy away from reliance on fossil fuels. This second aim, arguably far more compelling, has been neglected in the national discussion.”

That statement is nonsense. Hyperbole. The ETS and ‘Carbon’ taxes have never been about peak oil. Saying that is trying to change the goal posts now that the world has gone cool on AGW being a catastrophic or dangerous threat.

In 1992 the Australian Government committed to the ‘Toronto Targets’. We committed to cut CO2 emissions to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005. Global warming, not peak oil, was the justification two decades ago. ABARE Research Report 93.5 “Tradeable Emissions Permit Scheme” was entirely about the threat of global warming as were the many studies and reports by the various government departments: Department of Primary Industries and Energy, Industry Commission, Energy Research and Development Corporation, etc. And it has been ever since including in the Howard Government decade, e.g. the Peter Shergold “Report of the Task Group on Emissions Trading” and the Ziggy Switkowski “Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Report”.

The cost-benefit analyses by Stern, Tol, Nordhaus and others are all about the costs and benefits of avoiding AGW. They are not about reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

If we want to deal with transition away from fossil fuels, we would not dream of using a GHG emissions trading scheme, let alone one where twenty two of the twenty four GHG emissions – the Kyoto gasses – do not come from fossil fuels. If we believed it was wise to have government intervention get us off fossil fuels, we’d tackle that directly, not by putting a price on twenty-four greenhouse gasses.

Trying to raise peak oil and energy security now seems like a desperate last ditch attempt to find a new justification for the CO2 tax.

Peter Lang
A somewhat confused post of yours, perhaps. The issue of taxing carbon as a means of dealing with future oil and other fossil fuel shortages has indeed been ignored by the Government. Taxing carbon is an incentive for people to switch to alternative energy and to make a change in behaviour, that is, make the transition to a new economy.

Good article Tom. Yes peak oil (and gas!) has always been the other big reason for my supporting a carbon consumption tax.

"At the heart of the ETS is the aim to pre-empt such a crisis by making carbon (and therefore, fossil fuel use) more expensive and therefore less desirable now, while there is still an energy surplus to buffer the effect; and it is designed to hurt". You put it in a nutshell.

Those nations who aren't well on the way to bringing in a renewable low carbon economy in an ordered way by about 10 years time will be hit suddenly and unprepared by a 'triple whammy' of crises:
1/ Climate disasters that will cost more than the cost of cleaning up their economies (we are already getting close to that with regular bush fires and floods and droughts in both hemispheres costing billions). Soon the world will be FORCED to act and it will be very hard for the laggards.
2/ Rising costs of oil and gas as they become harder to extract (the current CSG glut is temporary).
3/ Worsening pollution from fracking, deep oil well spills, tar sands and coal to liquids.

You can keep your head in the sand Peter Lang; maybe you and your ilk will be dead when the consequences hit but your grandchildren will suffer along with the rest.

Please tell me, if the objective of the carbon tax is to increase the cost of carbon fuels (and products) to discourage a carbon based living style and encourage alternate behavious, how come people are being compensated for the increases in the cost of living brought about by these actions? Does this not defeat the stated objective of the whole exercise?

Alfred
Good question but I believe the main rationale is to get the utilities to switch to cleaner fuels and/or production. But at grassroots level, some may choose to turn off the heaters, put on a jumper and pay for their children's violin lessons with the compensation cheque from the Government.

popnperish,

My apologies if I didn’t make my point clearly enough. The point I was making is that CO2 tax and ETS has never been justified on the basis of threats to energy security and running out of fossil fuels – e.g. ‘peak oil’ issue. It has always been about the threat of dangerous or catastrophic man made global warming.

However, the real costs and the lack of benefits are not being admitted by the government. “What the Carbon Tax and ETS will really cost” http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/ explains what the real costs to Australia will be from now to 2050. The costs amount to roughly $13,000 each for every man, woman and child, $26,000 for every working person. But it’s much worse than that if the modeller’s (unrealistic) assumptions are not realised. Some of these are:

• Negligible leakage (of emissions between countries)
• All emission sources are included (all countries and all emissions in each country)
• Negligible compliance cost
• Negligible fraud
• An optimal carbon price
• The whole world implements the optimal carbon price in unison
• The whole world acts in unison to increase the optimal carbon price periodically
• The whole world continues to maintain the carbon price at the optimal level for all of this century (and thereafter)

If these assumptions are not met, the benefits cannot be achieved.

The post linked above explains:
• the benefit (total to 2050)
• the cost (total to 2050)
• the benefit to cost ratio
• the cost per capita and per worker

Supply and demand set the price of most things, except maybe, energy and capital. We made an ultra-serious mistake, when we allowed private enterprise to get its grubby greedy hands on either?
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for private entrepreneurial enterprise. I just don't believe it should be allowed to interact with the very pillars that support every western style economy!
A very large part of the oil price is controlled by the spot market and international cartels, with budgets larger than many sovereign nations, speculating the price up to double or triple normal demand would decide?
Clearly cap and trade is being manipulated in a similar way. I mean, there is around 140 billions in brokerage fees beckoning, and if we continue down the cap and trade road, we could wind up with carbon becoming the most valuable tradeable commodity in the world?
Not because it's necessarily inherently valuable, but because twiddle dumb and twaddle dumber have made it so, with really dumb policy?
If we were genuinely concerned about carbon emission, we would deal the money making paper shuffling brokerage firms out of the equation; and simply put in place, a sliding downward cap, and only tax the carbon component above that cap, with an upward sliding scale tax!
This model would give energy suppliers far more powerful and extremely cogent reasons to reduce carbon outputs or offset it, with say, nearby carbon absorbing algae farming, which apart from absorbing carbon outputs, would provide additional revenue streams, from the virtual child's play extraction of the oil in algae as ready to use bio-diesel.
Some algae are up to 60% oil and absorb 2.5 times their own weight in Co2 emission; and, double that same bodyweight every 24 hours under optimised conditions.
The "market" created the Great Depression, the more recent GFC and a thoroughly corrupted ETS.
One of the things management teaches, is there is always a better way.
Sure, lets put a price on carbon, but let the rewards flow to those that actually reduce their emission; rather than, money for bugger all brokerage firms?
Rhrosty.

<< The ETS and ‘Carbon’ taxes have never been about peak oil.>>

I believe you are right, Peter Lang. It would seem that the carbon tax is entirely about climate change. That is; Gillard’s (Labor’s and the Greens’) motivation for introducing it.

Of course, the primary motivation should be peak oil, but this appears to be entirely inadvertent.

Could someone please explain why this is so.

It seems to me that the whole thing would have been very much more acceptable to the general populace and hence much more politically tenable if it was promoted on this basis of the looming threat of the peak oil energy crunch rather than climate change.

In fact, it would have been eminently sensible to have promoted it entirely on this basis, with climate being left virtually unmentioned!

Sorry Tom but I think you have mangled this quite badly. As Taswegian points out, the oil production issue has and is changing dramatically. Since the threat of Peak Oil has been one of the primary threats tabled in support of taking action urgently, this now has to be taken out of the equation until at least 2150, even on worst case scenarios.

Tom, most of the Peak “something’s” have been offered as rationale for taking all sorts of urgent action, peak population, peak food production, peak development etc are now seen for what they really are, pure Sustainable Development hype.

A tax on carbon dioxide is now opposed in Australia by 66% of the population. This is because the majority is no longer swallowing the BS. If a CO2 tax is the answer, what was the question?

Sadly when this question is asked of the warmertariat, none are able to give a satisfactory answer. Repeating the old mantras is just confirming that the warmers have nothing left. All we get is rising sea levels, drowning polar bears, severe weather, melting polar ice and more warming? All of which is Greenie rubbish according to Hansen and Lovelock.

So you need to get something new on the table, preferably some real data rather than more modeling. If the warmers don’t like it they can always take the matter up with Hanson and Lovelock

While Dr. Holland makes a good point about the potential effect of carbon pricing helping us from our dependence on hydrocarbon fuels, Peter Lang is quite correct in asserting that this was never a goal of the current carbon tax regime, and indeed that it is very poorly designed to achieve this.
Look at a couple of important specifics.
The carbon tax excludes petrol - my local service station has the same pump price today (Monday 02 July 2012, after the introduction of the carbon tax) as it had a week ago (before the carbon tax). The carbon tax will have no direct or indirect effect on our dependence on petrol for travel.
The carbon tax does not apply to hydrocarbon exports as such. Thus we have Minister Combet stating on Sunday while standing on a coal mine site that "the coal industry has a very bright future" with only a slight increase in production costs (mainly through use of electricity) to affect it. Thus our dependence on export income from hydrocarbons (both gas and coal) is likely to further increase rather than diminish, with negligible and basically incidental effect from the carbon tax. It is important to remember that we consume domestically only 33% of the hydrocarbon energy we produce - most is used to pay for flat-screen tvs and small cars. This is our main hydrocarbon energy dependence.
Certainly the carbon tax will dampen increases in domestic carbon emissions by general damping of industrial activity and increases in power costs, but its main effect as currently designed is substantial income redistribution via the compensation mechanisms to certain population and industrial groups. It will have a limited effect on the move away from dependence on hydrocarbon fuels, particularly petroleum - at least as currently designed.

FYI

(where Y= anyone who believes that a carbon tax will stimulate clean energy development)

<<Europe's emissions trading scheme has failed to create incentives for utilities to use cleaner energy fuels, meaning that governments will have to switch to simpler tools, such as subsidies and regulation, to enforce emissions reduction targets>>
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=analysis-co2-market-has-failed-to-p

Perhaps Tom has been too busy with emergency cases to keep up with the world of oil discovery. That does not give Ludwig & you others any excuse.

The US has found enough oil for over a hundred years at expected usage growth, & gas for twice as long. This does not include all the known reserves of oil that fool Obama is refusing to let them get at.

Argentina has now proven reserves adequate to supply most of the worlds requirements for a similar time. Add to that Russia & traditional suppliers, plus the snowballing gas supplies, & the world is flooded with Hydrocarbon fuels.

I am sure most of you actually know all this, but your ideology makes you not want to admit it. This is just lying, in another form to our dear Julia, but lying none the less.

As for global warming, there is nothing left of that fraud, even European countries have given up on it. All but those fools the poms are running away from their crazy subsidies of alternate generation, that an Olympic sprinter could never keep up with them.

Ocean acidification was another attempted con job, now failed. I await, with baited breath, to see what the shonks will try next.

Well having done my bit today to save the world from the AGW mob, I think it's time to save the trees, they are looking a bit lean & hungry. A 100Km or so up the mountain for a coffee & back, should give them a nice snack, don't you think.

spindoc

Normally I would be impressed by the figure of 66% opposing the carbon tax but in this case I believe it is a function of Gina Rinehart bringing the arch-charlatan Lord Monkton to Australia, Alan Jones' militant denialism (did Exxon-Mobil pay him?) and the same for Andrew Bolt. Add to that journalists thinking they needed to provide 50:50 balance when 97:3 ratio would have matched climate scientists' views or 99.9:0.1 for the literature. Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman once called for denialists to be charged with treason. In the case of Jones and Bolt, I couldn't agree more.

Peak oil and carbon! We can do something about both by exploiting our own hydrocarbon supplies? Which leave the ground as virtually ready to use diesel or gas. Because it requires no refining; produces four times less carbon than the extensively refined Middle East product!
There are compelling reasons to believe, we may have to our immediate north, hydrocarbon resources to rival or even eclipse the entire known oil and gas reserves of the Middle East.
The Greens endlessly lecture us lesser mere mortals, that we must reduce our carbon output, but act to prevent/block any attempt to explore then exploit our own energy resources, which would allow us to reduce our own transport based carbon output, [half of our current output,] by as much as 75%!
Does anyone actually believe the pragmatists in Labour ranks would have been sitting still while plans were hatched to lock up vast tracts of oil bearing sea bed, except that they need the greens to stay in power.
Fortunately, and I didn't ever believe I'd hear myself propose this! Most of the harm done to our economy can be reversed by a change of government and a much more pragmatic approach.
Perhaps Tony might resist some of the essential changes, but, the Nats could force the proposed changes; by tearing up the coalition agreement, particularly if that then gave them the balance of power in both houses.
This would mean, the bush could keep, and or, amplify those things labour gave to them.
The NBS, better health and education outcomes, roads and infrastructure!
[Much cheaper lower carbon transport/farm fuel! Rapid rail.]
And more of the money earned or created in the regions, staying and prospering the regions; and or, the Nats, [currently dying a death by a thousand cuts,] power base.
And wouldn't that make a very pleasant change from the seemingly usual tail between the legs roll over and beg for a tummy rub, that seems to be the standard modus operandi, of today's verbose or motor mouth; or sleep through sessions, Nats?
Rhrosty.

Good articile Tom.

I am a bit unsure of the figures I will use below but I think it is important for people to realise the following.

Australian crude oil production is approximately 450,000 barrels per day, currently declining at an annual rate of about 14-15%.

Crude oil consumption is currently at about 1M bpd, this is growing at around 5% per annum.

I do not know our exact costs vis oil imports, given the above, Australia's current/growing rate of oil consumption, falling production should be seen as a very important geopolitical weakness and a national security threat/issue.

Give China's and other emerging crude oil consumption markets, and their ability to pay what the market demands should be an alarm bell for our politicians, they need to wake up to the fact that we have a growing problem, particularly if the supply side of the equation becomes more problematic due to geopolitical issues.

My 2 cents worth.

Two basic points.

* It is now blindingly obvious to everyone but the most extreme activists that an effective, enforceable international agreement to limit emissions will not occur in the foreseeable future. Or was I missing something from the recent Rio conference? To have a carbon tax at a price far more than double the European ETS, or any other of the few jurisdictions that are trying or will try to limit emissions, without such an agreement is absurd.

* Holland's comments on peak oil show that he has managed to overlook vast amounts of evidence that unconventional plus deep oil production is ramping up, but demand is subdued thanks to the currency crisis. No end in fossil fuels is in sight. There is no real indication that the rate of growth in the fossil fuel market has been affected by renewables, let alone the total market being cut back. In any case, the alternative energy sector is simply not capable of delivering the amounts of energy required.

Tom, this is extreme activist stuff, if not delusional. It is almost entirely divorced from reality. Time to go back to Google..

What a schmozzle of an article.

There is no evidence that CO2 is contributing to climate change; there is no evidence that there is climate change occuring above and beyond natural variability; it is problematic that the increase in CO2 levels is caused by human emissions; the reliability of the ice core records has always carried with it considerable provisos:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/06/25/greenland.ice.may.exaggerate.magnitude.13000.year.old.deep.freeze

And see also the work of Professor Severinghaus, Dr. Huber, Professor Jaworowski and Ridley on the problems with extracting accurate information about the gas content of ice cores and then extrapolating to prevailing temperatures when the gas was trapped in the ice.

As a theory AGW stinks; it is a combination of ideology, ego and money.

The 'other' issue raised by this article is peak oil, an especially virulent form of the disease of "sustainability". It is a disease which features a preoccupation with exhaustion of resources, particularly the fossils. Like the rest of the AGW circus it is a bogey man tale.

Nobody, other than a barefaced liar could ever propose, or argue for a carbon tax, as something with an ecological advantage, unless they argued for a complete cessation of all coal exports from Australia.

That Julia & company do so, simply confirms that lying is their basic response to anything, at any time, if they think they can get away with it.

The connection between comments by Geoff and Hasbeen is that coal exports could be the defacto method of paying for oil imports. It does seem rather silly to have a domestic carbon tax to curtail emissions of 550 Mt when coal exports generate over 700 Mt of CO2.

Gas straddles both transport and power generation. We are exporting about 20 Mt of LNG but that is set to triple. I think if trucks, buses, tractors and maybe some cars (eg Honda Civic NGV) used gas fuel we could replace a lot of oil imports. That would cut into LNG exports and make the gas price too expensive for power stations, carbon tax or not. My suggestion is use nukes for baseload power and gas as a diesel substitute. I think this will become clearer in a year or two.

<< Nobody, other than a barefaced liar could ever propose, or argue for a carbon tax, as something with an ecological advantage, unless they argued for a complete cessation of all coal exports from Australia. >>

I wouldn’t quite call it bare-faced lying Hasbeen, but it does amount to incredible duplicity to be pumping out our coal at such an enormous and ever increasing rate.

Yes, we should be pulling back on coal exports.

And of course we should pulling right back on population growth as well.

The carbon tax and forthcoming ETS absolutely do NOT set within a holistic effort to deal with climate change or peak oil. Far from it!

However, they are still a whole lot better than doing nothing. Or they will be, if they are developed to a stage that really significantly gets us off of our utter addiction to oil.

Now, even if we can believe what you are saying about all these fandangled ‘proven’ new sources of oil and gas, what would be the price per barrel or whatever?

The stuff is getting progressively harder to access, and at a higher energy input and hence greater cost. And it will be this cost factor, not the shortage of supply, which will change our economics and our society.

This is the big concern with peak oil. Actual shortages of supply may never be a significant factor, because as the price rises, various other forms of energy generation will come on line, to the extent that by the time oil is in short supply, it will be so expensive as to be only minimally in use anyway.

Is Peak Oil a threat?

There are two camps about the peak of global oil production.
• Cornucopians, not only is the glass half-full, it is brimming over. There is no threat.
• Doomers, the glass is half-empty and we're draining it fast, industrial civilisation is going to collapse because there won't be enough oil to go around. A new Stone Age is right around the corner.

Both these "schools of thought" are wildly incorrect. It's not an accident that this kind of dichotomy exists. These are emotionally based positions which have little to do with Reality. Naturally there are many more Cornucopian’s than there are Doomers because mindless optimism is the default human position (mistake) in all matters, not just oil.

You can demolish both positions in two sentences.

Cornucopians do not know how to subtract.
Doomers do not know how to add.

Cornucopian’s can not acknowledge that oil fields peak and decline, and that global oil production might do the same. Doomers can not acknowledge that technology, exploration and wars in Iraq bring new resources on-stream. By and large, members of both groups know little about the global oil industry.

Without getting into the details, what can we conclude about peak oil going forward? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand:

1. Oil will never be cheap again. Even if demand falls off a cliff, producers require high prices to get new oil onstream to replace production declines. If demand is robust because the world economy is booming, as unlikely as that sounds right now, oil will get very expensive again in a hurry.

2. Industrial civilisation is not going to go out of business because oil is very expensive during the boom times and pricey (but not exorbitantly expensive) during the lulls. Peak oil acts more like a brake on global economic growth when times are good.

As usual, we'll know more in 10 years.

Certainly the longer term is fraught with difficulty if humans are depending on crude oil to fuel economic growth in the 21st century as it did in the 20th.

There is no peak oil crisis, nor is there any energy crisis nor was there ever one. There was never any water shortage as we found out after wasting billions on desal plants which now sit idle. There is infrastructure delay caused by pollies who chose to spend money on vote grabbers like the Sydney Olympics rather than much needed infrastructure upgrades.

There is no climate change, damaging sea level rises or increase in wild weather events.

There are excess amounts of food and room for plenty more people.

All these supposed impending catastrophes are simply a way of milking the public for more money by Govts and special interest groups who can control the media and therefore the population.

Or maybe you are a sucker, err believer.

BTW good post Hasbeen.

Right Geoff; and then there are the rational people who finish their drink and then pour another one.

Peak oil is a fabrication; the people advocating it can't envisage improvements in technology. Even the Saudis don't believe it:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/peak-oil-debate-is-over/story-e6frede3-1226354771053

Those improvements in technology not only apply to extraction and discovery but use as well. Efficiencies in use are inevitable as Ultra Supercritical coal technology shows.

I try not to comment on peak oil and AGW articles these days. There's not much new to say and the chance of changing anyone's view seems close to zero.

But good sense doesn't always win the day, so here goes. What if it is geologically impossible for the Earth to run out of oil? What if oil is not a fossil fuel but is actually abiotic, a product of the Earth's constantly evolutionary geology? There is a small but growing band of geologists who think this is the case.

Interesting eh?

Apart from a small number of posters, no one, including the pollies seems to get the fact that if you want to make people use/buy less of a particular commodity, in this case carbon, then you have to put the price up. You don't do this by compensating the buyers when the suppliers put the price up. Where is the incentive for the buyers, in this case the households of Australia, to cut back on their consumption of carbon. Surely blind Freddie can see that there will be no change to the energy consumption of 22 million of Australians in their houses and the electricity and gas companies will just keep putting their prices up to maintain their businesses as the government increases their taxes and churns the money back to the households.

Bloody clever not.

David

"as the government increases their taxes and churns the money back to the households."

The funds used by the government to compensate households for the impacts of this terrible tax, are in fact raised by the 'polluders' paying the tax. When the tax converts to a trading scheme where business can, instead of paying the tax, buy credits overseas, then there will be no more funds to compensate the punters.

Of course this government hopes to be reelected before that particular lump hits the fan.

Just a small point, but the power generators are not the real polluters. The real polluters are the consumers. If there were no consumers, there would be no need for power generators. The wrong people are being taxed.

David

There are no "carbon polluters" here. Supplying our all important greenery with an colorless, odorless, harmless plant food should be rewarded.

I agree with Peter Lang and Hasbeen.This is a beatup to justify a tax based on a lie.

Peak oil could also be a lie since they keep discovering new sources but not too much in a given period to force prices low.

In the 1960s we had 15 years of oil reserves left. Now we have 50 years left. Go figure!

The carbon tax has ALWAYS been about 'doing something' about 'global warming' or was it 'climate change' or was that 'weather malfunction'? Or is it now 'sustainability? The tax has NEVER been sold as a mechanism to address 'peak oil'. I read this article as an attempt by Tom to shift the goal post's again. The whole thing is a contemptible farce. I think I will go with Senior Victorian on this one.

Guys, I'm a bit confused; again I hear you say. Has Julia imposed the carbon emmisions tax because we are going to double our coal exports in the next 20 years or in spite of this? Iv'e got a terrible head cold at the moment but even so, I seem to have caught a wiff of hypocrisy in the air.
Den71

Hypocrisy?

You're not wrong, DEN71.

See my previous post.

Cheers.

Geoff, your ‘cornucopians’ and ‘doomers’ are not the only camps on the subject of peak oil. It’s not as polarised as that.

Indeed, the most sensible position (well of course it is, because the one I hold!) is the eotsocs camp.

That’s the camp for those who don’t know but can see a potentially ominous future if we just keep going merrily along in the same old way. They wish to err on the side of caution, be careful, pull back on rapid expansionism, and be as ready as we can to make changes to alternative energy sources when we need to, if not well before we actually need to.

Erring-on-the-side-of-caution-sceptics. Eotsocs!

Now, no one in the doomers camp can really know that we are heading towards doom and gloom. And no one in the corny’s camp can really know that we can continue on regardless of the ever-increasing demand for oil and the ever-more-difficult-and-expensive supply capability.

So that means that they should ALL be sceptics!! … and should all be supportive of the concept of erring on the side of caution… or just being plain cautious.

They should all be eotsocs!

The denialist or cornucopian position doesn’t make any sense when you really look at it! The doomers or worriers camp makes more sense. But the eotsocs camp really does win the day for logic and common sense!

Almost there. One more step - everyone has...

ODDSOCKS

Opportunists & Denialists & Doomers & Skeptics for a Cautionary Knowledge Stance.

I have never seen such a confused thread here on OLO previously !
The whole "Carbon Tax" government action has no relation to peak oil.
The proof of that is quite simple.
The government does not acknowledge peak oil exists.
Note I said acknowledge not deny.

The government even goes to the extent of suppressing its own reports
warning of oil supply problems. Unfortunately it escaped.
www.aspo-australia.org.au
Halfway down page Govt should release 2009 “Peak Oil” report .

Some here have fallen for the propaganda from a number of sources that
insist that we (US actually) have lots of oil in shale sources.
What they do not tell you is that those shale wells have very steep
depletion rates like 50% a year so that most of them last about two years.
The shale oil business in the US has become a Ponzi scheme requiring
continuous input of money. They have to keep drilling and this is
putting up the marginal cost of their product.
Anyone that believes in the plenty of oil should read some of reports
on the Oil Drum. I could go and find the links for you but why can't
you do your own searching ? It is plentiful enough.

The facts are clear, crude oil production has been on a plateau for
six years already. Other sources, such as tar sands, shale oil are
a small fraction of the total consumption.
Old cheap fields are depleting at about 4% to 6% a year.
Note, our depletion rate is 15% a year, not long to capping them.
New expensive fields are only just keeping up with demand.
How long can this go on ?
No one is certain, but expert estimates are one to five years.

As the cheap/expensive ratio changes will you be able to afford it ?

As others have said, the peak oil issue isn't about running out of oil and other hydrocarbons. It is about running out of cheap oil and cheap energy in general. This graph shows world crude oil prices since 1947 in 2010 dollars

http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif

If Bazz et al. are wrong about peak oil, then why has it become so expensive, especially if demand is subdued, as Curmudgeon says?

So far as AGW is concerned, the truth isn't decided by majority vote of the public. In this context, 'denialist' is a useful term. Sceptics demands more evidence, while denialists are impervious to evidence; they believe what they want to believe. No imaginable evidence would ever convince runner of evolution, even if he had a scientific education. Some aspects of the AGW case involve really basic science, such as the physics of how greenhouse gases work, well explained by our own Steven L. Meyer. If you dispute these, then you can fairly be called a denialist.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11244&page=0

Fred Singer, a well known sceptical scientist, has actually written an article accusing denialists of giving sceptics a bad name on this and other points.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3263

Where there is room for dispute and where there is the possibility of a significant threat is in the very complicated interactions of the positive and negative feedbacks that determine climate. My opinions on this are worth about as much as my opinions on the taxonomy of sunflowers or the history of the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, I do know something about how science works.

(cont'd)

(cont'd)

Scientists get kudos, grants, and promotion from coming up with interesting new findings and ideas, and from shooting down the ideas of other scientists. Anyone who follows the science news magazines or websites knows that scientists come up with startling findings and ideas all the time. Most of them are shot down quite quickly. If anyone came up with a really convincing argument against AGW, it would get published, if only to allow other scientists to shoot it down. If they couldn't, the author would almost certainly be on his/her way to a Nobel Prize and unlimited grant money. Science is self-correcting, as has been shown with continental drift and a host of other issues.

The idea that there is some sort of global conspiracy uniting all scientists around the world to prevent such publication is just daft. Nobody wants AGW to be true. We have God's own plenty of environmental problems without it. Climate scientists will be paying carbon taxes just like everyone else. If governments want to frighten people to get more power (and why would they all agree?), there are far less economically damaging ways to do it.

I'm with Ludwig. Err on the side of caution and listen to the overwhelming majority of experts, without believing that they are necessarily infallible.

This from Richard Heinberg “It’s strange that the failed forecasts of optimists get comparatively little public attention, given that they are numerous. The most relevant example, around 1998, when modern Peak Oil discussion was just hatching, the IEA, the US DoE, and USGS all issued forecasts that world oil production would grow to 120 million barrels per day by 2020, prices would remain at the level of $20 per barrel (in 1998 dollars) even beyond that date. In 2004, when it was already clear that those forecasts had no chance of being realised, Daniel Yergin declared that oil prices would stay at $40 per barrel for the next 15 years. THe IEA, DOE, USGS nor Daniel Yergin foresaw a situation in which crude oil production would flat-line for seven years beginning in 2005, or where prices would reach up to $147 a barrel as in 2008. It’s pretty obvious that the peakists had the more accurate and useful take on world petroleum prices and supply levels during the past decade.

So a spurt of new production from “tight” shale deposits now serves as a pretext to declare victory. The Peak Oil debate is not a sporting event. What matters is not who wins, but what reality awaits us. Will we see a continuing plateau in global crude oil production? How long will it last? How big a proportional contribution to total liquids production will we see from tar sands, shale, and other un-conventionals?

Still, there are a few observations that no serious energy analyst can dispute. Oil exploration and production costs are skyrocketing, super-giant oilfields still account for 60 percent of world crude production are aging, and so the more modest contribution of unconventionals, which are expected to be both expensive and slow to come on line, must push against a tide of depletion and decline. It’s only a question of when the overall global production decline begins, not if.

We will not substantially change our collective behaviour until crisis is upon us.

In short, things will go better for us if we resist denial rather than engaging in it."

Tom write

'Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have risen by 36% since 1750 with ice-core data indicating levels are higher now than in the last 800,000 years and geological evidence suggesting as long as 20 million years. This has been attributed to the burning of fossil fuels, which in the last few decades accounts for three-quarters of human emissions (most of the remainder from deforestation).'

Please Dr stick to medicine. The above quote demonstrates ignorance, blind faith and much of the reason why pseudo science has such a bad name. Surely you have not the faith to believe such nonsense.

Divergence;
My main problem with AGW is that it takes no accurate account of the
amount of fossil fuels available.
The IPCC puts three different levels of available fuels into its
computers and says, Thats it Boys, go to it !

Well unfortunately Prof Kjell Alkett and his group, Global Energy
Systems at Upsalla University comes up with a quite different figure
of the amount of fossil fuel availability.
Does that change the IPCCs projections ? The hell it does !
I suspect that they have too much invested in their previous position
to be able to admit they got it wrong.
Could this be the reason IPCC are claiming legal immunity from prosecution ?

Also I believe we are worrying about the wrong problem.

"...The above quote demonstrates ignorance and blind faith...."

On the contrary, runner, ignorance and blind faith are the particular specialties of your "pseudo" intellect.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-14/temperatures-may-rise-5-degresss-by-2070/3887672

Energy has always been the main driver of societies, but for the last 30 years we were unable to pay for the energy supply we wanted on a real time basis, so we issued more money-as-debt to pay for it.

Basically, we do not have enough cheap energy to continue a growth path, but we have a plenty of energy to have a meaningful, robust society at a lower level of output. Yes, we have an energy shortage, but it is not a true one. It is only one that does not allow us to continue global economic growth in the way that our politicians and institutions expect.

This is important because the majority of peak oil aware people think we should be devoting our resources towards energy alternatives. The reality is that our system is out of 'capital' (low cost liquid fuels and by proxy, available credit) and lots of other aspects of society that we take for granted need more urgent support. We are getting lulled into thinking that efficiency and renewables are the answer to what we face when the more pressing problem is our dependence on globalisation built on assumptions that are no longer valid

Poirot, a quote from the ABC hardly constitutes absolute proof of anything. The overly simplistic assumption that CO2 and temperature are causally related is discussed here.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/11/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature-history-a-look-at-multiple-timescales-in-the-context-of-the-shakun-et-al-paper/

The lack of accounting for other influences in temp changes is extraordinary in the AGW mode of thinking.

Its easy to avoid reading opposing views but if people did read more widely then they would see this issue is very far from being 'settled' even in scientific terms.

Poiret

'On the contrary, runner, ignorance and blind faith are the particular specialties of your "pseudo" intellect. '

Your gullilibility shows why you support a carbon tax. Next you will be saying its going to make a difference to our temperatures. THankfully the majority will show what they really think next election besides a few still fooled by pseudo science. If this is the best you can do I am more than happy to be considered as having a pseudo 'intellect' by the likes of yourself . I dare say you would of believed the 'scientist 'in the 70's when the planet was suppose to be heading for an ice age.

Atman,

A link fromm a "weather presenter's blog hardly constitutes anything....

Here's something more substantial for you - and I'm sure you'll be glad to digest an opposing view.
http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf

Great News everybody.

Peak Oil has been called off & I can assure you the future is assured.

America is pumping $billions of world resources (it has got from selling 15cent US dollars to unsuspecting idiot clients like Australia) and ziggatons of coal into making non net-energy producing oil wells productive. Thus making the US the second biggest OIL exporter to Saudi Arabia.

Such good news. We are all saved!

Wayne Swan
Treasurer of the Century,
Canberra
Australia.

The UK's North Sea oil production peaked in 1999. Last year it fell by 17%. It was 2909 1000 b/d in 2005, 1100 1000 b/d in 2011. It's the aggregate of the world's national peaks that builds the global peak, which BP and EIS show "alloils" production has "plateaued".

With crude oil, tarsands and natural gas liquids (NGLs includes butane, propane, &c sold separately), global production has stalled at 82 million b/d, while with just crude oil and lease condensate, EIS reckons it has "plateaued" at 73 to 74 million b/d. BP claims that Saudi Arabia's crude oil and NGL production was at a "record" in 2011, but it was virtually the same as in 2005, 11161 1000 b/d compared with 11114 1000 b/d in 2011. Barrels are a volumetric measurement and the corresponding weights in tonnes are 526.8 million tonnes in 2005, down to 525.8 million tonnes in 2011, a reduction of just 0.2%, not a record..
But when EIS's figures for crude oil and lease condensate are taken Saudi production in 2011 was 1% down on 2005, from 9550 thousand barrels a day down to 9456 thousand barrels a day. Saudi Arabia pumped as much as it could last year to take advantage of the high oil price and a lower rate in 2012 is to raise the price.
Crude oil plus lease condensate production in Saudi Arabia really did peak in 2005 and next year's figures will show this to be the case.

BP shows reserves at current production rates will last for 54 years, but BP's annual reports show that its own booked reserves at its current production rate will only last for 13 years. BP's oil production has fallen from 924 million barrels in 2004 down to 787 million barrels in 2011, a fall of 15% in 7 years. Its company production has certainly peaked.

Global "all-oils" production has "plateaued" and is on the cusp of its peak.

Julia Gillard is at present answering questions on a Herald Sun blog site.
Here is a question and her non answer;

13:51


[Comment From Rebecca Rebecca: ]
Prime Minister, I have been told that the carbon tax won't lower
global temperatures to any measurably significant amount. Can you
clarify for me how much it will lower temperatures?
Thursday July 5, 2012 13:51 Rebecca
13:51


Julia Gillard:
Rebecca by pricing carbon we will cut carbon pollution by at least
160 million tonnes in 2020 - that's the same as taking 45 million
cars off the road.

Hmmm sounds like question time.

More than anything else, the carbon tax shows a frightening lack of imagination.
The gov. could whack a 20 cent per litre levy on LPG and it would still be cheaper than unleaded.
They could legislate that all vehicles on Aussie roads be converted to gas by 2020, and all new vehicles after 2020 must be at least gas powered, or gas hybrid, or electric.
Gas powered Power stations could start being built today, stimulating the economy far more usefully than building McMansions.
We could be self-sufficient in natural gas and stop having prices dictated to us by 'Global forces'.
Using gas instead of petrol and diesel would not only be cheaper, but also far less polluting.
A major change in infrastructure such as this would be a genuine stimulation of the economy, rather than just a paper, bank traded one.

Unfortunately Grim, the government is flat out encouraging other
countries to burn our resources.

BTW, LPG comes from petroleum. Perhaps you meant Compressed Natural Gas
CNG which is quite a different matter.
It is not without its difficulties as I found out when I looked into it.
It is however quite a practical solution for us to use as a transition fuel.
In some countries you can buy compressors to use in your garage to
refill your cars tank from the domestic gas supply.
I believe the tank size/milage range is a problem.
There are quite a few NG power stations being built now to cope with
wind variation and the sun going down and clouds.

It was clear from Julia Gillards answers on that blog that she does
not understand the problems of having a 24/365 electricity supply.
On those grounds alone she has to be replaced ASAP.

Oh by the way, there has been a flood of articles quoting someone at
the Harvard Business School saying that the US will become as big an
oil exporter as Saudi Arabia.
WEll that has been thoroughly put down by a number of experts.
Here is just one that also comments on the Ponzi like scheme of shale
oil and gas.

http://tinyurl.com/7bzaygv

George Monbiot also got sucked in but was answered also on the Guardian
by Jeremy Leggart.

The peak oilers aren't glass half full people but glass full of sand; what pessimists. Here's the answer: oil from CO2; win win!

http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2011/UR_CONTENT_314387.html

Cohenite, that’d be absolutely wonderful if we could develop ‘renewable petroleum’ using bacteria and CO2.

But hey, this is just what the ‘peak oilers’ want – renewable energy, which can hopefully replace oil reasonably smoothly, without too much of a difference in price and hence without too much economic and social disturbance…. and which is CO2-neutral to boot!

Methinks your knocking of peak oilers is a tad misplaced!

Of course, we need to know what the true potential of bacterial fuels is before we can crow too much about it. But it does sound like something into which a whole lot of energy and funding should be going.

Ahhh yes Cohenite it might well be just what we need.
Many are also chasing the magic algae bullet.

However that is the proof that in fact the glass IS full of sand.
There is no doubt that the amount of oil we can burn is limited, not
because it will run out but because we will not be able to afford it.
Also it will soon require a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil !
We have come down from 100/1 for early wells down to 3/1 for oil shales.
Even before we reach that ultimate zero point we will be forced to
stop using it.

Another illustrious article Tom, I would wholeheartedly support any endeavours you may harbour to enter politics.
Your use of “lost message” in your title, rings true at deafening decibels. Julia Gillard stepped into a jail cell and slammed the door shut behind her, when she promised that a carbon tax was both unwarranted and unscheduled, during her current three year term. Behind bars and with one hand tied behind her back, she has failed to enlist the abundant enlightened support, of our competently credentialed scientific community. Preferring to shadow box Tony Abbott and his flat earth followers, like an old floundering punch drunk pug.

Julia Gillard has failed to sell the benefit of both the “sizzle" and the abundant life preserving nutrients of the “sausage”. Gillard undoubtedly our best parliamentary performer of the last decade, has not been able to relocate these talents, outside Canberra. Her story is weak, nobody is buying it, and she should not be trying to sell it.

It is now inevitable that she will soon be replaced by Kevin Rudd

DIVIDE & RULE

For those of you who might be interested in the interaction between
the economy and energy there is a group of videos at an energy forum
in Ireland.
The video by Reynolds is the economists view of what happened in
history with the British Empire and the fall of the communist system.
It continues into the present day.
The talk by Colin Campbell will give you a good insight.

http://www.localcampus.com/

I have not seen the other videos.