It's strange how we engross ourselves with political trivia but huge issues like oil depletion are ignored. The de facto position on fossil fuels seems to be
1) coal and gas exports will pay for oil imports
2) gas can replace coal fired baseload and will balance wind and solar.
None of that helps global CO2 emissions. Governments seem inordinately proud of our fossil fuel export industries whereas you'd think they would be carbon taxed under a consistent policy.

A couple of major shifts in demand could derail the gas export push. One is the fact south eastern Australia (SA, Vic & Tas) may only have another decade of reliable local gas supplies. Long term their gas will have to come somewhere else, a problem foreseen by Rex Connor 40 years ago though Rex didn't know about fracking and coal seam gas. A second development could be a mass shift to CNG fuel in otherwise diesel powered trucks and buses, perhaps even farm machinery. A trigger for that could be high bowser prices for diesel and the removal of the fuel rebate.

I think the Federal government should prepare a report on Australia's long term gas needs. How much can we export, how much can we burn in power stations and how much could be used as a transport fuel? All of that is additional to gas for heat and chemical feedstock such as urea fertiliser.

Good article Mark and pertinent comments, Taswegian. Governments are occupied with 'urgent and not important issues' so the important ones like peak oil and gas fall off their radar. I'd like to suggest some more solutions:

Yes the Murdoch press,or more broadly a lack of effective press accountability leading to false propaganda propagated by multinational resource corporations is a big part of the problem. This has to be fixed through the political process; the apathy with regards this situation is coming to an end with the Murdoch press overstepping the mark too often and the tide is turning against them.

We need a 'limited ads' paper similar to the UK's 'Guardian' to highlight the real issues. This will have to come from grass roots sponsors and perhaps, like some of the news websites that have come on line, a rich benefactor.

I disagree that modern society can't continue without fossil fuels. If you read sites such as 'Climate Spectator' and 'Renew Economy' you will see what is not written in the corporate rags. Renewable energy is viable and in many markets is becoming cheaper and new gas or coal, because there is no fuel cost. It's also a lot more secure. Embodied energy payback time is less than 2 years - solar and wind power plants produce at least 20 times more energy than is used to make them.

Planes can run on LPG stored in carbon fibre tanks. Jet fuels can and are being made from biomass. My friend's plug in electric car has the acceleration of a V8 and range of 90 kms; energy cost is half that of petrol models . Metals, plastics and fertilizers can be produced using a small fraction of today's fossil fuel consumption. The future is here, we just have to believe it and embrace it. Modern society will have to change but it can still go on without fossil fuels. Provided we make the change in time to avoid climate catastrophe and complete depletion of the fossil fuels that are left.

< Yet once Peak Oil bites, energy-producing countries may hoard the increasingly precious stuff, like Russia did with its grain harvest recently, or sell it selectively to their friends. Or to those who bully them. >

Yes. Peak oil could hit little Australia very hard and very suddenly, if supplying countries decide they are going to hoard or be selective, or if the big US and Russia bully their suppliers to supply them and no one else. We could be looking at a very ugly new world more or less overnight.

<< And now even industry is getting worried, and claiming that our sell-off of gas may leave us short of energy as early as 2015 >>

This would appear to be the key in the current in-bed-with-business political climate to getting something done about changing the balance between selling off oil and gas and planning for an energy-secure future.

Appealing to government is useless. We need a few leaders of big businesses to realise the enormous threat to our society’s future and to their profit margin or very survival. If we can get a few of them on board, we might have a chance of actually steering our society away from the cliff and ever so slightly towards a sustainable future.

Great article Mark.

Oh well, it will just be back to Daisy the cow, some chooks and
fruit trees on 5 acres. Thats how they lived a hundred years ago.
I'll just have to charge the ipad from the rooftop solar cells :)

Thinking inside a very limited circle or locked and bolted box of ideas, limits the questions and, if the questions are limited, so also are the answers; and by implications the choices. Of course there are other options. We don't need to compress methane by 2500 PSI at massive energy inputs and or cost, simply to liquefy it, when a catalytic option beckons.
Passing methane, [lighter than air natural gas, biogas,] through a catalyst, knocks off a few hydrogen atoms, and converts it to heavier than air, liquid methanol. Most jet turbines can be adapted to use gas or a denser methanol diesel mix?
4.7% methanol added to standard petrol produces a lead free high octane option; given it has less carbon than petrol it is not quite as dense and occupies more space. Even so, we can expect to get similar range, by simply installing tanks 25% larger.
As long as we humans produce waste, we will be able to produce methane as biogas. Stored on site in a simple bladder, it can be fed into a ceramic fuel cell, to create on demand power, with the bonus of endlessly available free hot water. The addition of food scraps and wastage, creates a saleable surplus, or energy to recharge body corps/tenants' electric vehicles.
As for oil and gas, we have probable reserves to our immediate north, [a euphemism for the great barrier reef,] to rival the complete known reserves of the entire middle east.
However, we could chose to produce or farm very low water use endlessly available algae, some of which are up to 60% oil, meaning, a trillion tons of annually produced algae, could provide in excess of 500 million tons plus of bio-diesel.
At the height of the worse drought in living memory, the only thing we were successfully growing, in many parts of the Murray, was oil rich blue green algae. Rhrosty.

Good article Mark.

I thought that nutcase 'Cheryl' would have commented by now...