While Australia now imports most of its oil which must increase in price we seem to think that coal and gas exports will pay for it. However domestic gas is likely to be used both a liquid fuel replacement and to generate more electricity on top of existing coal generation. Overseas demand will steadily increase local prices for coal and gas with the lowest cost deposits becoming depleted decades from now. Optimists insist we have centuries of both fuels but I think much of it will prove to be unavailable. I doubt there will be any serious immediate dollar costs to the associated CO2 emissions since politicians have shown themselves incapable of doing anything.

Therefore Australia will continue to do more than its fair share in increasing global CO2 levels. With poetic justice that will rebound on us with major water supply and agriculture problems. There doesn't seem to be enough political will to follow a different path.

Hi Kjell,

nice to read from you even here in Australia.

Thanks for making clear the fact that we basically are eating oil, which many people are not aware of.

I have been working for many years as a translator for energy related texts, maybe even translated some of your articles.

And if I sum up all the different input over the years, I cannot help but thinking climate problems might in reality not be about climate but about energy supply.

Both have the same goal: Using less energy.

I have spoken to several people who indicated that serious warnings about serious energy problems in the next few years might cause panic or economic disturbances that would make the problem even worse.

And it might be much easier to guide, or in the end, force the public to cut back on energy use under the make-believe reason of climate change.

The outcome will be the same, however, a climate change in 50 years is nothing that would cause immediate panic, and keep the people reasonably calm.

At the bottom of the webpage I see a link to another of your articles:
Severe climate change unlikely before we run out of fossil fuel

I am adding my signature from another forum ;-)

Don't worry about getting hot from global warming. You will get hot from cycling before.

Cheers, Günter, Renysol - Renewable Energy Solutions

What about the the enormous oil discoveries recently announced by both Shell and the Brazilian government - decades after all the major fields were supposed to be found? Both fields are very deep and so may be difficult to exploit but the announcements should have made the author at least add in a paragraph or so on them, otherwise the article can be dismissed as yet more peak oil agitprop.
One point of many I found to disagree with in this article is this.
"If we study the world’s coal reserves we find that 80 per cent exists in only six nations; the USA, Russia, China, India, Australia and South Africa. The greatest proportion of the coal that is consumed globally is in these six nations."
Note the use of the word "proportion". Australia and, I imagine, South Africa, export far more coal than they consume locally, although Australia remains a high per capita user. India and China, however, are not high per capital emitters but high total emitters. Not sure where Russia fits but in any case, you still have the problem of large quantities of gas and oil which Russia does export. Rethink on that point please.

Taswegian,

I can't help but think you are being a little negative. Frankly, I am surprised we are doing anything about climate change at all. The real impacts are literally decades out, well beyond the any time horizon the pollies care about. They would prefer to do nothing, yet obviously are doing something. It may be as little as possible, and they may doing their level best to reduce any short term impacts so their electoral chances in 12 months, but still they do it. The only reason they do it is because the drought has scared the citizens of Australia badly, and we are putting huge pressure on them.

You say we have done stuff all on the peak hydrocarbon front, but I don't think the citizens of Australia are scared about it yet. I agree that is a little odd, given the recent price spikes, but it is only a matter of time before we get hit with price spikes that really hurt. Somewhere in 2010..2012, I'd guess. At that point, not only will the citizens be scared, the pollies will see electoral outcomes being effected. I recon the resulting burst of activity will be nothing short of spectacular.

Sadly, I say there is a 50-50 chance the initial reaction will be to build coal to diesel conversion plants. But perhaps that doesn't matter because the first step is acknowledging and accepting there is a problem. Once you have taken that first step, attitudes, effort, investment - everything, changes.

Curmudgeon, see between your lines below:

"What about the the enormous oil discoveries recently announced by both Shell and the Brazilian government - decades after all the major fields were supposed to be found?"

The Shell discover amounts to about 6 weeks of world oil consumption. The Brazilian discovery is less than 4 months of oil. Both are insignificant in terms of the date of peak (which has already passed). Both are incredibly difficult to mine which just shows you the lengths we must go to to access oil nowadays. It many be ten years or more before we see production (if any) from these fields.

"Both fields are very deep and so may be difficult to exploit but the announcements should have made the author at least add in a paragraph or so on them, otherwise the article can be dismissed as yet more peak oil agitprop."

As you can see, the fields are, in the greater scheme of things, insignificant. Your comment can be seen as anti-peak oil bluster.

"The greatest proportion of the coal that is consumed globally is in these six nations."

The meaning of "proportion" is clear. He is talking about consumption in these six nations as a whole. You seem to want to find confusion or error where there is none.

"No single issue is as fundamental to our future as energy”.

An even more fundamental problem is the continual increase in the world's population. Without that happening, the search for new energy sources would not be so urgent. Unless we can do something about that we might as well forget about other problems.

David

michael_in_adelaide - no, in fact, the fields are very significant. What is going on? Fields of that size have not been discovered for decades. Those fields are also far deeper than current theory says they should be.. The whole oil industry is being turned upside down and the author is burbling about peak oil. In any case there is still the Canadian oil sands breakthroughs and other discoveries in the middle east - and still the problem that no-one really bothers to define reserves out beyond 40 years or so. And the bit about coal still doesn't make sense. If he's talking about consumption then the list is wrong. Australia is the largest coal exporter - most of it going to Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea. He talks of it being a national problem. It simply isn't.

Kjell tells it as it is, with one exception - that being “No single issue is as fundamental to our future as energy” (quoting President Obama).

There are numerous fundamental issues and none of them can be treated like silos, insulated from the others. Our problem is the integral of all of them – resulting in an inability to live compatibly with this planet.

We are indeed currently in crisis, one of just such incompatibility. It has been brought on, over the past two centuries, by growth.

Growth, at an exponential rate enabled by ready access to energy. Hydrocarbons have provided virtually all of this, but crisis would arise regardless of the energy source.

If there is no change in the currently dominant mindset of encouraging growth, we will exit our species’ term on this planet much quicker than would otherwise be the case.

If Investor Growth concentrates its wisdom on growth in quantity rather than that of quality, as the present economic paradigm does, it will be doing no more than fostering faster degradation of society. The luminaries holding the whip-hand on society during the lead-up to current state of affairs stated their preference for an exponential growth of the economy at a rate of 4 per cent (an accrued doubling time less than that of a human generation).

Such growth incorporates both individual needs and numbers. Already in crisis, especially in the less developed parts, the world as a whole continues to increase its numbers by about 1.2 per cent per year. Australia, in crisis regarding water and facing deteriorating social problems, actively encourages population increase at roughly 1.9 per cent – what mortal fools we Aussies be!

Pertinent to “No single issue” is the question – is Investor Growth fostering cancerous growth

Don't worry Curmudgeon - I wont bother you again.

michael_in_adelaide: "The Shell discover amounts to about 6 weeks of world oil consumption. The Brazilian discovery is less than 4 months of oil."

curmudgeonathome, in reply: "no, in fact, the fields are very significant."

Even by your usual high standards curmudgeon, that must set some new record in denial.

curmudgeonathome: "Fields of that size have not been discovered for decades."

Amazing. You then go on to ram home michael_in_adelaide's point, just in case there was any doubt left.

Well Curmudgeon is not on his own.
Notice how as soon as a large field is found the press tv etc
jump on it as our salvation.
The sad part is all they will do in another 10 years is slow the
depletion rate by a percent or two at the very best.
By that time the depletion rate will be around 6 to 9 percent. (IEA)
As they say , it is not the size of the tank but the size of the tap !

Taswegian is spot on, the pollies are in denial, and I know this
having spoken to one or two. They should be planning for it.
However they are all hopeless and we should start doing our own
planning and ignore them.

I hate to mention conspiracy theories but gee, its hard to find
any other explanation for the total international silence on the matter.
Note, they never deny peak oil, they just change the subject by
sliding away onto global warming & fossil fuel usage and when really
pressed will use the term energy security.

Now the interesting thing is this term has become an international
pollie term. They all use the same phraseology.
It can mean anything such as political or military threats to supply.
They certainly don't mean a peak in supply of oil and then depletion.