PEAKOIL is not just any Y2K style problem for humanity. It is a THERMODYNAMIC manifold subtraction/augmentation(AS) problem. These problems exist throughout the Universe on 3surface-manifolds with an entropy-differential-metric and negative-curvature RICCI flow dynamics.

Like the formation of Atlantic basin hurricanes, the mathematical solutions to the evening out of entropy after 'AS' operations culminates in a time series of catastrophic events(eg a hurricane season) along vectors of strong entropy gradient.

Further, using a fairly simple TEPA (Thermodynamic-Endpoint-Analysis) technique the initial and final points of these catastrophic events on the manifold can be reasonably well predicted.

I can't go into detail here but suffice to say Australia's coal/gas/Uranium reserves (40% world reserve) represent massive thermodynamic Endpoints that will attract PEAKOIL hurricanes.

Now PEAKOIL hurricanes will be homologous to real hurricanes. Only it won't be sea spray and tides that are tossed around and battered, it will be 9billion(2025) humans battered around by guns and hammers. A global Rwanda. Its endpoint will be about 2billion population. When per-capita-energy consumption will match Earths surface capacity.

Claims that climate change is a worse threat?

One, Oil will peak within 2 decades and claim 7 billion lives.And unless you have lived through a cat5-hurricane or stellar-supernova you just will not understand the suddeness or intensity of such a thermodynamic event.

Two, climate change will take place over 100 years and maybe a few million people would be killed.

Three, after the 2025PEAKOIL dust and body parts settle, there will be no climate change threat because 70% of the world's polluters (bothe greenhouse gas and wastewater emisions) will be dead.

The net upshot is that Australia must PBR-value-add and export its Uranium as BMP (Best-Management-Practice) to forestall TEPA gradients not only directed against this country but ultimately those directed at others as well.
This solution will work well for a few decades. Sufficient time to perfect GEOTHERMAL laser-drilling technologies that will completely replace fossil fuels with essentially inground nuclear power.

My advice?

Don't wait for that knock on the door. Push hard for Australia wide Total-Nuclear-Industries now!

And remember, if its not PBR(Nuclear condom), its NOT ON!

...and the winner is "Efficient"! In many ways.

KAEP,

Your millenarian certainty that "peak oil will kill 7 billion people" would be touching (almost Marxist), if your holocaust scenario weren't so obscene and so misguided.

While people require energy to live comfortably, it's a non-sequiteur to claim that massacres are the inevitable response to a shortage (and that the shortage will only be solved by killing off the people).

Peak oil certainly poses a problem: a shortage of the liquid fuels that are readily usable in the present-day stock of internal-combustion engines.

Nuclear fission and the Earth's interior heat can't solve that problem. You can't turn them into liquid hydrocarbons.

Solutions to the liquid fuel shortage require eliminating wastage (cheap and simple: we just drive cars less, and use more efficient vehicles), adapting our transportation to use other energy carriers like electricity or (maybe) hydrogen, and substituting other feedstocks for mineral oil. The technical transitions are already in train; perhaps not fast enough to solve the problem altogether (vegetable-oil-based biodiesel is not the miracle cure some have hoped for; there are better ways), but the potential definitely exists.

We may suffer one decade of rationed petrol and grounded flights, but not two. The technological solutions are too cheap and too easy for that to be necessary.

We aren't about to start murdering people for "demand destruction", in 2025 or at any time. Deaths already occur where crops and incomes fail, even in Australia, but mostly for the world's poorest agricultural workers (and this equity problem is associated with high oil prices -- we're burning "their" oil, as Lardelli wrote). But this isn't news, its the same non-news that we've grown numb to since 1945 as populations have soared. Peak oil might change the quantity, but cannot affect the quality, of abject impoverishment.

The mass death scenario is not racial violence and limited mobility fuel, but failing agriculture and mass starvation, to which climate change will probably contribute more than peak oil, starting *now*, not 2100. "Total nuclear industries" wastes money and energy, where the real soultions are efficiency and equity.

Charger and xoddam

Thanks for the replies.

Charger - Oil (and LPG) powered TRANSPORT will continue to be the most technically efficient way to extract and move alternate energy sources (eg. uranium and coal) that are for NON-TRANSPORT uses. But its also the case that a great deal of oil is needed to make and transport wind power setups and solar cells. Given this I don't understand why uranium should be singled out and immediately dismissed as a long term energy source.

My main concern is that peak oil is so serious that political parties (like Labor) should not rule out alternative energy sources for purist reasons. Purity may win elections but compromises after elections are what governing is all about.

Pete

Pete,

A proper reply to your post is always much longer than yours. At least KAEP hits the word limit!

A summary of the 500-word screed I attempted to post is:

* There is no shortage of energy overall, just the liquid hydrocarbons that are ideal for transportation.

* The shortage can be addressed. There are other sources for hydrocarbons besides fossil fuels.

* Petroleum will never run out altogether; demand must fall to match supply, through sound management and/or high prices.

* Substituting electricity (and, maybe, hydrogen) for liquid fuels is a major part of the solution. These can come from any energy source -- nuclear, coal and renewable energy must be compared on their individual merits.

* Mining actually prefers electricity to internal combustion engines for safety reasons. In remote locations (such as uranium mines), this is presently provided by trucked-in diesel, but renewables could cut costs substantially at today's diesel prices.

* It is easy and cheap to substitute electricity for diesel in heavy rail haulage in all but the most remote locations.

* Nuclear fission cannot play any role in addressing the liquid-fuel shortage that can't be filled as well or better by other stationary energy sources.

* In the case of hydrogen, it's much cheaper to make it chemically from a combustible feedstock (like gas, biomass or coal) than by high-temperature electrolysis which is how it would be made using nuclear or solar energy.

* And a repetition: stationary energy sources must be compared on their own merits, which have little or nothing to do with Peak Oil. Those have been discussed at great length elsewhere.

* Nuclear fission deserves consideration. It will compete with coal on the merits of its lack of greenhouse pollution and with renewable energy on the strength of its reliability.

* In the long run, a diverse supply of renewable energy will prove far cheaper and more reliable than nuclear power.

* It is my opinion that pursuing nuclear fission technology is a waste of money and leaves a toxic legacy.

xoddam,

I agree with most of your points however... oil is not just transport, its our way of life. The problem is we aren't going to have the time to put alternatives in place. A sudden shortage of oil will damage the economy which will then reduce our ability to make electric cars (or trains), mine uranium or build wind turbines. The money to re engineer the transport system (which our economy depends on) may not be there if we go into a recession brought on by an oil crisis.

The point of the article has highlighted the major parties lack of interest or awareness in what is a serious problem (I did a search on the Australian Democrats site too, at least they gave a speech on Peak Oil) -- there is no political will to do anything. Everyone seems to assume it will be business as normal.

Its not going to be.

xoddam and Charger

To be succinct ;) I agree with (or see the validity of) most of what you guys are saying.

Like Charger I'm pessimistic. The two major parties are not doing anything about the increasing oil use or dependence although such parties are only capable of gradual solutions to gradual problems for electoral reasons and because of their incremental mindsets.

- those apparitions the urban 4WDs have been allowed to appear with their 4 litre turbos without any energy overuse and abuse studies.

- the Government has actually subsidised excessive oil use by subsidising the 6 cylinder car industry. The three "Australian" car manufacturers have continued to rely on their 6 cylinder products with low prices routinely subsidized by billion dollar annual bailouts from the Government. Without this 6 cylinder subsidisation oil saving foreign sourced 4 cylinder compacts would be even more popular (and rightly so).

We can expect a Labor Government to be even more determined to subsidise the (industrial heartland - marginal seat) car industry of 4 litre Fords and Holdens and strangely upsized 3.8 litre Mitsubishi guzzlers (the smaller Lancer is also oddly uneconomical as well).

I've downsized from a 3.5 to (an inexpensive) 1.8 myself to be onside with the angels :)

Pete