There it is in a nutshell - plain and simple.

I think the thing that staggers me most is the realisation that the "Captains of Industry" - the oh-so disdainful, overpaid, born to rule, universe ruling, entepreneurial, lap-top totin', long-lunched, limo-ridin', mansion building, polly-lobbying, power-grabbing, privatising, share market playing, media owning - DRONGOS -

- don't have a brain between them.

In their death throes, they will struggle to stay afloat on the flotsam of their beloved, but ultimately imaginary world. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few of these dinosaurs proposed nuclear power stations for Australia, as a way of prolonging their over-extended tenure.

For many years now I have been astonished about our series of federal treasurers’ focus on growth. There is always a limit to growth in anything. And yet, economic growth seemed in their eyes to be the exception.

Our economy is based on excessive consumption. The population has no idea how to live in an economy which was not so based. Talk of sustainable living is mostly fantasy as the concept is beyond the understanding of 99% of the population.

Decline is inevitable. When the peak oil position is passed we will have increasing unemployment - and 90% employment or above is the one thing keeping a society from becoming violent.

So - what is going to happen when we go into the inevitable decline? We will have social breakdown

I've followed the peak oil risk for a few years now. A couple of worthwhile books are The End of Oil and The Party's Over. Neither are barrow pushers.

I'm in two minds about the threats of PO. If there is a fast decay (due to over-estimates of reserves) then all bets are off: it's back to the 1800's very quickly. However if oil peaks then plateaus there will be a breather of a few years to allow adjustments and find substitutes although economic growth will fall to negative. Sure 4WDs will be taboo and we will learn the value of plastics (and fertilizers, herbicides etc) but we will adapt.

As an economist my concern is with inflation. PO will force energy prices up as markets chase a diminishing commodity. The flow-on will be more expensive fuel, manufactured goods and foods. Inflation will rise at a time of diminishing economic growth and pressure on jobs especially and initially in the luxury areas of consumption: entertainment, tourism, purchased services like private schooling, to reference just a few areas. Eventually all areas will be affected. Interest rates will rise as lenders demand a real return, so further pressure on households. So I think where we are most exposed to a PO crisis (or any other oil crisis like the market's reaction to an attack on Iran) is our level of household debt. We 'survived' the 70's shocks and high inflation/interest rates due to a much lower level of leverage. We don't have the luxury today.

By the way, for those who say the 'market will adjust', yes it will, with the effects described above. But the market can only adjust so far where a resource goes into decline. Oil ain't bananas: we wont be saved next season. Also, yes there are deep reserves but when the energy cost of recovering them is greater than their benefit they will be left in the ground awaiting some new discovery in technology.

The final unknown is when oil will peak. Maybe it was in 2005, maybe not till 2020ish. Interesting times ahead.

With respect to what Chris's comment, I disagree on two counts.

Firstly, there's quite a few "captains of industry" who realise what's going on and are trying to do something about the problem. However it's inherently difficult because of tremendous demand, and momentum, and apathy among a great number of consumers. Also, maximum energy acquisition seems to be very hardwired in all living beings. That's not the fault of any industrialist in particular.

Secondly, the rich always do well. They won't get wiped out. I think it's the poor who will get the rough end of the pineapple when the economy contracts. They always do. The rich are usually the ones who have the skills and the means to adapt best to change. Wealth works like that, and that's what's so galling for every consumer with a mortgage like me. There may be revolutions in certain places, but they will not be Marxist in nature. Do you really want one? Please don't wish that upon anyone. Read your history books and tell me honestly you would want this to happen...

If there is someone to blame, blame the consumer. That's all of us, buddy. And ultimately it's the consumers who will get wiped out, as there is less left to consume.

A lot of what happens in this world is "emergent". There is no-one in charge, and no-one to blame. When you realise that, it's quite liberating, and it might empower you to make a difference yourself.

If you're interested, also google the following terms:

"oil depletion protocol"
"dimitri orlov"
"james howard kunstler"

This sort of assumes that we sit back and do nothing, or can do nothing about our energy use and needs.

Energy would become more expensive and there may be an economic hit, a recession probably, but it won't be the end of the world. The are alternative fuels - solar, geo, wind, nuclear, coal etc. While these would cost more they would keep the wheels turning.

If we want to take some positive action we could progressively and incrementally tax oil more now so that other fuels would be increasingly competitive.

If we revert to the 1800s we would need more horses for more people, and the carbon emitted by so many horses rear ends would probably kill us all.

Onya Mike, keep saying it and folks will get it eventually (handy thing about a functional worldview, it proves itself).
Feedle dee, interesting comments, disagree with slating responsibility back home to 'consumers'. Obviously they fund the megadeath in Iraq, Nigeria, Columbia etc one way or another and ask no questions at the pump, but there are also real individuals 'making a difference' who have to bear a greater part of the responsibility. I'm thinking here of ExxonMobils past and present CEOs (aggressive oil depletion deniers) and Yergin & co at CERA, who deserve jail time for stock fraud if nothing else.

The comment that money supply in the last year has been 14%. The growth has been netween 12% and 15% for about ten years so is it any wonder that asset inflation is virtually out of control and young people are being priced out of the housing market. The Basle Agreement which seeks to regulate money supply by using capital adequacy ratios is a recipe for high bank charges. All excess profit over and above that necessary for a reasonable dividend flows directly to the capiatal base and results in the creation of money in inverse ratio to the capital adequacy ratio. At a 10% CAR for a billion dollars of excess profit $10billion of extra money is created.

Feedle dee, I admit I have been a consummate, if ignorant, overuser of energy.

However, I disagree with your idea that no one is in charge. Someone is trying very hard to take charge, and we will never be liberated until we rid ourselves of their influence.

The stealing of the 2000 US Presidential election, 9-11, and the plunder of Middle Eastern oil are three dots that don't need to be joined, because they already fit where they touch.

None of these things "emerged" by chance. They happened because of the logical onset of fossil energy depletion, and the goons who dreamed it up are not finished with us yet.

So before you get to feeling tooo liberated, hop in the 'wayback machine with me:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3837

Peter,

I am interested to hear your opinion as to whether a post Peak-Oil period would be Inflationary or Deflationary as there appears to be quite a bit of debate on the subject. There was a recent article on the Oil Drum that asked this question.

Intuitively you would think that it would be inflationary -higher oil=higher energy=higher just about everything.

On the other hand we would be faced with a global economy that was essentially shrinking. Also governements would probably want low interest rates to stimulate demand (as happened to Japan in the 90s and after 2001 in the US).

So which one is it?

(I am considering locking in my mortgage at 5.5% for 15 years because personally I think it will be inflationary but I would feel a fool if we get rates at 2% in 10 years...!)

Nick.

“For many years now I have been astonished about our series of federal treasurers’ focus on growth.”

Me too healthwatcher. Man, do I hate Costello, for his narrow-minded focus on this issue, when it is way past the time that someone in his position should be advocating an end to the expansion of our economic activity, and concentrating on the technological development and improved efficiency side of growth. He is as irresponsible as Keating was, or even moreso, as the urgency for stabilisation is that much greater than it was a decade or so ago.

The trouble is, we are not seeing any significant change in the Rudd camp.

“I'm in two minds about the threats of PO”

Yes PeterJH, I don’t think it is necessarily disastrous. If it comes on reasonably slowly in a series of price rises, that force us to adapt without causing social upheaval, then it could be just what we need to get the idea of sustainability into the headspace of the populace and dumb politicians.

“The final unknown is when oil will peak.”

I don’t think the actual peak matters at all. Price rises are what matters, and they can be triggered by all sorts of things, with the changing oil supply / demand ratio as a background factor. We’ve already seen a couple of significant prices hike events and then plateaus or partial reversals. The escalation of this pattern will be vastly more significant than the actual peak in supply or availability of oil.

“The flow-on will be more expensive fuel, manufactured goods and foods.”

Absolutely. As oil prices rise, our personal economics will radically change as just about everything else becomes more expensive and less readily available.

.
Climate change has become the number one environmental / future security issue in Australia. Well, that is most unfortunate. It is effectively acting as a distraction to what really matters – the short-term adaptation to a society with much more expensive oil and the imperative to quickly learn to live sustainably.

I just hope that our new-found widespread concern about climate change, including big business and the old stodge political growth brigade, will quickly evolve into the necessary concern about peak oil and genuine sustainability.

I sometimes envy you guys who can 'rassle with the tealeaves of interest rates. I confess that I struggle to cope with household economics. I never had to think much beyond the system that I was born into.

This system has provided me with such a feeling of stability and security, that I find it difficult to empathise with folks around the world who do not enjoy such feelings. Nevertheless, I must make the effort and question everything about my "normal" existence.

Question: Why is usury and interest such a necessary part of our economy? Surely taxes are the thing that provides the common-wealth for health services, police, education, the judiciary and the whole social construct.

Why do we take monetary interest so for granted? Isn't it the wellspring of all that is wrong? Why is it considered "natural", since nature and her immutable rules have no equivalent laws. Why is it so revolutionary to talk of a world without usury? Politicians just don't go there. Why? Would they be strung up?

If money is not a token for effort, then it is surely nothing but paper.

So we borrow from the pot of effort past and present, with a promise to repay with a greater effort in the future - exponential growth personified. And why do we gift such a mountain of effort to those who do nothing of a utilitarian nature to earn it? Why are they so very, very worshipful?

Does anyone here know any of these deities personally?

Human desire is exponential, but our everyday thought is linear. Maybe this is our downfall - our big blind spot. Maybe this is the thing we need to tackle if we are to behave more like a harmonious species and less like a cancer.

Before you accuse me of being Marxist - no, I never read any of his books. I am simply trying to logically understand what seems like a no-brainer to my bog-simple thought processes.

Please explain - anyone?

In relation to peak oil, the availability of oil is not going to drop off a cliff over night. I personally believe that we've already reached the peaking of World oil supplies and are at present travelling along a plateau whereby crude oil is barely keeping up with demand.
Such things as a slow down in China and to a lesser degree, India may serve to tip the balance back a couple of years to supply keeping ahead of demand, but only marginally. A further surge in demand may see prices rise to $100 a barrel as buyers grapple for deminishing supplies. It will probably be this way for some years to come, but eventually, we'll reach the cliff and in hindsight, we'll wonder why we didn't see it coming.
However, the plateau is so thin, it only takes a minor hiccup in the supply chain to cause major ecconomic hardships. These hiccups could include a raid to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions, a blockade of oil tankers to the West, or an unforeseen weather event. The price of oil will then skyrocket while the ecconomy of developed nations plummet. Oil demand will settle allowing prices to cool and it will all start again, but each time the swings to and fro will become greater and greater. It will be a wild ride before the general population wakes up to the facts of peak oil and when they do, it will be too late.
I predict the writing will appear on the wall in or around the year 2018. Lets see how close I get?
Wildcat 2007.

Ludwig & others have bagged the pollies.
I know that Costello has read at least some of the submissions to the
senate committee.
He made comments about future oil supply.

Imagine what would happen if at the next electtion campaign he said that
he was planning zero or negative growth and horrors he was involved in
planning petrol rationing !
Imagine he was planning for 10, 15, 20 percent unemployment !
If you have read the Hirsch report then that is what responsible
pollies should be doing.

He would be lambasted from here to breakfast time.
Sure he would get the votes from the like of us as few as we are but
what would the rest of the population do ?
More to the point what would the labour party do ?
Join him in agreeing that such a program should be planned for ?

Not bl*o*y likely !

So ultimately the problem is us voters.

I wonder if Big Oil has sponsored the Geneticist to bash the people with Carbon Footprint rationale, so that eugenecists can have a feild day?

There's a number of interesting videos on YouTube that explain the relationship between money/debt and the economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr7vG0pnZCc

-It seems that in our present system without ever increasing debt there is no economic growth.

My question would be as follows: When we 'cross the chasm' of believing in Peak Oil (as we appear to be doing with Global Warming), this may be such a shock to peoples confidence in the future that the whole basis of our current economy will be shaken to it's foundations.

If Economic growth is founded in ever increasing debt levels and debt is based on peoples belief that they will be more able to pay in future (they borrow from the future) and we take away their belief in a better future then I suspect the answer is an end to the economy as we know it...

Regards, Nick.

a remarkable thread- rational and appropriate discussion.

a factor which was not given much light is the political and social structure of the nation.. the science and materials are present for a rapid conversion to the low-energy society that seems to be coming upon us. but boards of directors tend to put profit ahead of public sacrifice, and are quickly replaced if they don't. politicians might like to lead the nation to a prosperous and sustainable future, but can't lead if not elected, and can't get elected if they tell coal and uranium mining companies they are obsolete. worst of all, the electorate has been raised to believe that the government is responsible for everything, since no power to direct society is in their own hands.

it may be that oz, and 'the west', are lumbered with a social structure which cannot respond effectively to the stresses of an overburdened (with people!) planet.

http://www.countercurrents.org/gl-patil220207.htm

Whither Globalisation?
By Bal Patil
22 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Abstract

The world today is embroiled in an economic turmoil caused by the globalisation process. It is a veritable confusion worse confounded by the North versus South polarities of trading policies, developmental disparities and stark reality of opulence contrasted with destitution. These are increasingly brought in close encounters of an unforeseen variety in an inter-connected global environment with unprecedented, unpredictable and unnatural fusion of economic systems mixed in a strange brew of socio-ethnic and cultural cross-currents buffetted hither and thither by perennial human greed. Nearly 2.2 billion people in more than 62 countries, one-third of the world's population, are starved for water. Global population has tripled in the past 70 years while water use has grown sixfold due to industrial development, widespread irrigation, and lack of conservation. It is feared scarcity of water may lead to third world war.1 To top it all there is a projected 3C jump in global temperature caused by global warming which in turn would include a loss of up to 400 million tonnes of cereal production and put between 1.2 billion and three billion people- half of the current world’s population- at risk of water shortage. It is a case of double jeopardy. This is a wake-up call for the developed industrial nations.
In “a terrible indictment of the world in 2007” the UN said 18,000 children die every day of hunger and malnutrition and 85 million go to bed every night with empty stomach, 100 mm. Indian kids are malnourished. The spectre of global warming is knocking at the door. With the US poised for a MAD nuclear adventure the mankind is in for a future shock as never before in human history. It is truly all this and hell too scenario.

________________________________________
Send this page to a friend
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/news.php
Bal Patil Asks, Whither Globalisation?
18,000 children die every day of hunger and malnutrition; 85 million go to bed hungry every night.
Date filed: 26-03-2007

There is more than ample energy coming from our Sun.Oil has just made us too lazy and we haven't put enough research into harvesting the energy from our biggest nuclear power plant called the Sun.

The doom and gloom merchants peddle their wares for short term gain,instead of looking at what can't be done,consider the possibilities of what can be done.

Enough rain falls on every house in Sydney to supply it's residents with nearly a years supply of water.Enough solar energy rains down in western NSW to support 2 billion people.What is our problem?

Our problem, Arjay, is that solar energy is dilute, and gathering enough of it and getting it to where we want to use it requires several decades worth of infrastructure spending we instead blew on F111s, freeways, and football stadiums. We *might* be able to catch enough water, if we use less, and IF we build the infrastructure, ie. get a tank for every roof. Instead of ubiquitous rainwater tanks and hundreds of solar thermal plants, we've got a few big dams and a few huge coal mines. Shame the damns are empty and coal mines are lethal, but hey its economically rational!

I'm glad you're excited about what we might be able to do one day, if we pull our finger out, i am too. Perhaps you could try explaining it to your hero in The Lodge? He's obviously pretty slow.

p.s. i'll let you go on the allegation that the author is motivated by short term gain, RightThinkers can't seem to help going some sort of smear.

That effectively sums up the situation but it doesn't necessarily mean we have to drop over the edge of a cliff. It just means that since we appear to be heading towards a situation where we let the market create the indicator (rather than governments taking massive preventative action that is hard to sell in a democracy anyway: case in point GW action) the trough of what is about to happen will be all the deeper. This will necessitate an even more desperate 'Manhattan scale' response from government but so be it.

Manhattan Scale projects are by definition less good at allocating increasingly scarce resources but IMO they will get the job done.

What 'Manhattan Scale'/renewable projects will emerge? Well, you can take your pick -probably all of them:

1. Massive role out of thin film solar (100s of TFS factories built ASAP worldwide) with 100% government grants. Installation could also be good for the economy at a time of inevitable mass employment like the Hoover dam project in the 30s.
2. Mega Desalination via OTEC + 'Free power' from the sea.
3. Growing Algea and other sea-sourced nutrients (the whole of the barrier reef is turned into one big farm...)
4. Extracting water from the air via condensation
5. Solar tower projects
6. Hybrid subsidies and tax abatements (look at what London is doing with the TPrius: saves you £2000+ per year)
7. Solar farms -vast tracts of dessert farmed for solar.
+loads more...

[The overall object will be to fill the growing 'triangular gap' between what can be produced by oil and what is required to maintain a functioning society.]

Basically, if I can think of this list and lay it down in 10minutes in a blog you can be damn sure the boffins, entreprenuers and the like are thinking ideas, business cases and real world solutions that will get us out of the mess but I am under no illusions, the longer we leave it and the closer we get to the cliff the more horrible it could get. Especially in countries that do not have the resources for Manhattan Projects which is why we will probably watch millions more Africans, Indians, you name it, die off on our HD <made in China> plasma before the rich world puts the resources in that the impending crisis deserves.

Oh, and your all going to be growing tomatoes on your patios ;o)

Nick

Hello Niko,
What is the TPrius ? What is that about ?

>6. Hybrid subsidies and tax abatements (look at what London is doing
>with the TPrius: saves you £2000+ per year)

Whenever the peak occurs, it should be treated as if it is tomorrow.
The costs will be less that way and at least the energy will be
available to develope the alternative systems.
However politicians would never get elected if they proposed such a process.

Bazz,

your right politicians wouldn't get elected if they proposed strict measures that affected todays finances adversely in response to some <perceived> future threat.

This is due to the wiring of the human brain and it's Hyperbolic Discount Function : http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Hyperbolic%20Discount%20Functions.html

Our best hope is to leverage some of the anxiety and fear that Global Warming is stirring up to prepare for energy deficiency in the coming decades. In fact I wouldn't be surprised in the least to discover that that is what some Governments have started doing in the last couple of years...

The TPrius is the Toyota Prius hybrid. TPrius drivers are exempt from the London Charging Zone payment -currently £8/day.

Manhattan Project after massive price spikes it will be -your monkey brain says so!

Nick.

Some 'fag packet' blogging calculations:

A 2% oil decline rate would be approx (85 x 2% =) 1.7 million bbl/day at first (but would reduce as the years went by)

A rough calculation shows that this quantity of oil is approx equal to 1500 GigaWatts of Energy lost/year [needs checking!]. Assuming world demand growth slows to a crawl after PO a chunk of this is likely to be rapid build out of coal and nuclear plants (at a rate of say 200 x 4GW/year = 800GW -sounds unlikely to me but 'needs must'!).

The remaining 700GW could be met by building 700 x 1000MW thin film PV plants PER YEAR globally.

We can scale the above numbers down if we add wind, OTEC, etc into the mix. The main issue of course is that the impending oil shortage is essentially a liquid transport fuel scarcity problem not just electricity. So the lights stay on but none of us can get to work!

Basically we are going to have massive demand destruction / conservation / efficiency drives and massively scale up production of 'other energy generating sources' during a period of accute economic hardship.

The US looks to be most badly hit the longer it delays but is also the country most capable of doing something about it...

______________________________
References:
Oil usage by country: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
International Energy Outlook 2006: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/highlights.html

Yes, Niko, as far as Australia is concerned it will be a liquid fuels
problem only. Electricity generation will not be greatly effected as
I would expect to government to give the coal miners a priority diesal
allocation also railways and local food transport. We have substantial
gas supply, but we should cease export of natural gas as we will need
it as a transition transport fuel.

I don't know but almost certainly most petrol consumption is private.
Therefore public transport will need significant expansion. As time
goes by the demand on public transport will get greater.

The NSW Government has not mothballed all those buses for fun.

The US uses a lot of gas and some oil for electricity generation so
the effect on them will be much greater as they are facing peak gas.

Our gas will give us extra time to change our whole energy system.
To me it seems inevitable that all energy will have to be electrical
as most of the so called alternatives such as ethanol are a dead end.
Geo and solar thermal electricty appear to be the only permanent
supply whether distributed generation or large Geo and Thermal solar.

Don't forget to watch the ABC science unit basically announcing the beginning of the end of the oil age. "Crude" screens 8:30 Thursday 24th May. Be there!

On another subject, what are the chances of us signing the "Oil Depletion Protocol"? It won't happen before the crisis hits — but just imagine a few years of pain... maybe we'll be ready by then?

As Jeremy Leggett says on page 228 of "Half Gone",

"The result would be impressive: modest prices that even poor countries could afford, minimal energy needs met, and profiteering avoided. Best of all, consumers everywhere could be educated and prepared to face the reality of a changing world."

Citizens and businesses are issued with an oil quota or allowance for the year — tracked through a card system at the point of purchase. You pay for the oil as normal, and every time you buy your oil as well as handing over your credit card you hand over your oil card. That day’s purchase is deducted from your oil quota. If you are frugal with your allowance, then you can sell your surplus oil quotas on a new oil trading market. If you can live locally on a bike, then you are laughing — and can sell your entire year's quota. If you need more oil than your quota, as well as buying your own oil you would then have to top up your oil quota. You'd buy someone else's right to extra oil, AND then have to also buy the oil itself.

It would be a fantastic way to spread the word — it's time to wean off the stuff. Then the next year everyone is issued with another year's allowance, slightly less than the first year (in line with the world depletion rate.)

Well Eclipse Now;
We already have a card in the planning.
It is called the Access card. You buy you petrol wave your access
card at the m/c and it deducts your ration. Then you can visit the
doctor and use it there. Go to Centrelink and do your business there.

I notice Iran has a petrol ration card you insert into the pump.
Probably be the best way otherwise people would fill up and then
have their card knocked back.

Iran sits on the 2nd largest reserves in the world and they have fuel rationing. Smacks of mismanagment to me. They have also implimented a crash gasoline-to-gas vehicle conversion program in order to reduce the threat from sanctions due to their nuclear shinanigans. If the UN wants to wrap them on the knuckles we are running out of time.

Regarding the ODP -it smacks to me of too liberal and difficult a market mechanism to ever be succesfully implimented. In addition taxation already provides a form of throttle mechanism likely to be superceeded by higher prices for the base product.

If we over produce on the electricity side we can use the surplus power to generate liquid products -ammonia might be a solution for jet fuel for example (hydrogen being too bulky). Cryo-planes based on hydrogen have already been proposed but an ammonia plane might also work. The ammonia would be 'cracked' b4 being used as fuel.

If we overproduced sea grown algea we could compress it and sink it to the bottom of the ocean effectively removing CO2 from the atmosphere. This is a mega-project for the next generation perhaps.

Regards, Nick.

Here’s a bit of blue sky prose for you:

“It was clear as early as the first decade of the 21st Century that humanity had a serious problem brewing, vast tracts of land where becoming uninhabitable, water and food shortages showing and worst of all the fuels that had enabled Earths steady state carrying capacity to be so greatly exceeded where showing signs of imminent peaking. The next two decades bought home the scale of the problem and at some points it looked touch and go whether we would make it. Almost half a Billion people died during the ‘Green Restructuring’ era…

Now, in 2050, thousands of floating city-sized structures, or Enerugi-Kujira, drift like giant grazing whale pods across the warm Oceans of the planet. Surrounding each are vast mats of bio-engineered algae stretching like the tentacles of some oversized Man O’War for hundreds of kilometres in every direction, visible from space the tropical Oceans are becoming a beautiful banded patch quilt of blue and green. The deep-seawater upwelling from the Gigawatt OTEC plants provide rich nutrients for the fish, lobster, clams and other high protein food produced in such quantities it’s hard to imagine we once struggled to feed our own numbers. From time to time transport barges pull alongside the lumbering giant, offloading the lithium, aluminium, gold and other metals extracted from the sea. It’s liquid tanks fill up with Ammonia, Ethanol and Hydrogen to feed the once more growing global economy. The whole 6 million ton super-structure has been mostly created from sea resources: magnesium skeleton with ground shell ‘sea-cement’.

It’s taken the best part of 40 years to get where we are, but now GEC, the Global Economic Council, have decided that –at the cost of many Trillions of ECUs- we will reduce planetary CO2 and start on sound ecological footing ‘The Great Expansion” to Worlds beyond our own…
“

-Enerugi-Kujira #3678, Diary date 2150.12.12 : Further reading: www.otecnews.org

Excellent set of comments and observations Michael. The key point is indeed (as others have already said) not when PO occurs as the fact that it will occur like a creeping paralysis (I work with disability) that will gradually draw a blanket of negative EROEI over all of our cherished presumptions pf prosperity and capacity for change. Arjay's statement about 'doom & gloom merchants', the prospects of solar energy and his question 'what is our problem?' appears typical of those who seem blind optimism as a virtue. As anyone can see, the problem is not that something could be done but in the doing! The scale of the task in keeping 'project civilization' alive and intact that is facing both current and future generations is almost unimaginable. Beyond 'how much oil do we have left', the key factors determining success in this project will gradually become 'sustainable population carrying capacity' and ability to share technology and wealth across cultural and economic divides. The great problem I see in statements like Arjays is that they betray no understanding at all that plentiful cheap oil in the West has been - in terms of both economic & energetic benefit - an almost entirely one way deal. The West has derived many times over compared to most 'source' nations. That should be obvious! Our assumed technological success and lifestyle in Australia is propped up by the sweat, blood and pauperism of millions elsewhere! Arjay needs to ask himself seriously if ideas like a 'solar economy' are really going to be achieved when our 'economic partners' in the oil-producing (often 3rd world) countries start to withdraw their cooperation on this deal (this is manifesting now as 'oil nationalism'). If he decides that it is achievable then fine - go for it. If not, please don't accuse others of peddling 'doom & gloom'. As Thomas Hardy said, 'if a way to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst'.

On 6th May, being interested in the reaction of our politicians to Peak Oil, I sent the following email - "PEAK OIL

Whatever one might want to believe "Peak Oil" is either here or will be within 20-25 years at the latest. The forecasts from various individuals, organisations and governments generally agree with the 0-25 year period.

With the approaching election. and bearing in mind the generally unfortunate predilection of most politicians to live in the short term, I like to believe that in the case of peak oil the future will be of concern. I will therefore appreciate receiving information on what you, and/or the party you respond to, plan to do to cope with the immense disruption caused by a decreasing oil supply.

There is no option but to have a plan (or no plan) to deal with less oil or face a disastrous situation affecting virtually everything we do. Bear in mind that alternatives could take decades to put in place.

Please note that you are not in my electorate but I do hope that this email will cause some thoughtfulness which I will appreciate receiving. I am certainly not the only individual in Australia that is interested in your plan (s).

This decline of oil should be an issue on which a vote may be cast for a certain policy because if you get it wrong all departments of government will be unable to function as normal."

Their interest was "overwhelming" - one reply only received and that in 20 minutes, from Senator Christine Milne. If you want Christine Milne's 36 page document which includes the oil problem please email me at arnold1@chariot.net.au

Arnold