Another cult movie (forgive me):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asE3Qusc6qQ

I was hoping to receive the Palme D'Or, but Marlene says I'll be lucky to get the Dunny Door.

A very good article, though the second chart is misleading - it shows future projections in the same way as it shows historical data, with peak oil hitting around 2011. Of course, we don't know when peak oil will hit - it could be later than that, or we could have passed peak already in 2006. Peak exports are more likely to make our problems occur sooner rather than later.

The article was about Brisbane's motorway projects, but I feel much more concerned by the massive amounts of money pledged by both major parties for road works at a federal level. We're talking billions of taxpayer dollars, that could and should be going into converting cars to an alternate fuel and substantially upgrading our public transport network in anticipation of peak oil. Its myopic recklessness on an enormous scale, which really makes me wonder if this country's going to do anything at all to prepare.

There's a cliff coming, but we're all heading full speed ahead for the edge like a pack of blind lemmings.

The problems of modern society – it’s not just the urge to indulge in the freedom associated with personal transport as delivered by car: it is even more to do with multiplication of that problem by society’s ever-increasing size. It is an increase fostered, insisted upon, by Governments leaned upon by business groups.

Increasing size delivers traffic congestion, degradation of water supplies and landscapes, diminishment of social environments and cohesion. But we can’t do without it we are told by the Federal Treasurer and others, including the Business Council of Australia, the Housing Industry Association, and such like. With a natural birth rate plus a net migrant intake of about 160,000 per year, we increase our population at about 1.3% per year. That would double our population by about 2050 – but it is not fast enough according to the grow-until-you-bust brigade. 1.3% is the rate which keeps the third world poor.

Peak oil will undoubtedly bring on angst for society, for which there is certainty that a soft landing will be difficult. But peak oil itself is largely a manifestation of society multiplying its consumption needs/desires by increasing numbers. There is, has been, desperate need for action - to address the latter every bit as much as to address the former.

Stuart mentions there was a senate enquiry into Peak Oil. You
can find it here:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/rrat_ctte/oil_supply/report/report.pdf

The primary arguments are "when will oil peak" and "what happens when it does". You won't find the answers to these questions in the report as there are too many experts with opposing views. What you will find is the best coverage I have seen of those views and what underlies them. Recommended reading if you are interested in Peak Oil.

The answers to the "when" seem to range from about 2010 to 2040. The 2040 answer comes from the impressively named "International Energy Agency" which based its data on the "US Geological survey's World Petroleum Assessment". That survey is a US government commissioned report from presumably the US's most respected geologists.

The Peak Oil enthusiasts have a range of reasons as to why the US's most respected geologists have got it wrong. Given what they are up against, I was tempted to dismiss the Peak Oil group as a mob of crackpots. That is, until I came up to this prediction from the "International Energy Agency" based on what the survey says:

"The IEA now expects that the price of crude oil will ease to about
US$47 per barrel by 2012, then increase to US$55 by 2030
(2005 dollars)."

Oops.

rstuart, most of the links to the reports cited in my piece didn't appear but the editors are working to include them shortly.

You hit the nail on the head with the IEA forecast and the USGS reserve estimate. The IEA is seriously revising its forecasts and reviewing its reliance on discredited USGS reserve estimates - http://www.energybulletin.net/36518.html.

The OECD has also commissioned ASPO-International president Kjell Aleklett to produce a report on peak oil, due for release next week, which also confirms the imminence of peak oil. The peak is not decades away; it is in the 'here and now' timeframe.

Probably the best example of the folly of relying on discredited IEA oil price forecasts is Brisbane Airport's New Parallel Runway project. Basically this is a $1 billion gamble on $55 oil in 2030 when oil is already trading at $95 today. You can read my submission here - http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/References/ASPO-Qld/McCarthy-Brisbane-Airport.doc

Commuter writes;

“There's a cliff coming, but we're all heading full speed ahead for the edge like a pack of blind lemmings.”

Yep. Put in simple terms, this is absolutely right.

Peak oil is simply our most urgent issue…..by far.

Sustainability is of slightly less urgency and climate change less again, although there is a great deal of overlap in how these massive problems should be addressed.

Great article Stuart.

“The construction of these motorways at the dawn of the peak oil era represents a tragic failure of governance and probity unprecedented in Queensland’s history.”

Absolutely right…..unprecedented in its lunacy, except for the tragic facilitation of rapid unending population growth and overall continuous human expansionism.

The same can be said about our federal government.