I suggest that climate change policy should basically be a spinoff of policies directed in a couple of other all-important areas. It shouldn’t be something that is policified as a primary objective.

We desperately need to concentrate on adjusting to a scenario where the price oil is considerably higher than at present, which is something that could happen very quickly. This could devastate our economy, on all levels from personal to big business and government and could trigger massive unemployment and social unrest.

It is extraordinarily important that we quickly gear our society towards a regime of vastly less oil dependency. If we did this, we’d be reducing greenhouse gas emissions enormously more so than if we tried to address climate change in isolation.

The other all-important policy area is the development of a sustainable society, which necessitates a move right away from the continuous growth paradigm. This is intimately related to and overlapping with the move away from oil.

Again, if this was the primary focus, gains in terms of climate change would be much more effective than if we addressed climate change as a primary objective.

Your thoughts?

Ludwig has lifted the veil on the fraud. AGW may, or may not, be occurring, but the world sure as hell seems to be running out of recoverable crude oil! There seems to be a great gulf as to comprehension as to what this may mean, one starting to become clear in the Gulf of Mexico, however.



Australian liquid fuel supply security!



Priority one! This election strikes me as being very reminiscent of that period in history, late 1939-early 1940, known as the Phoney War. 'Gap Oil' is coming and I don't see any Churchill in the offing amongst the present offering (except maybe a certain 20-year-old just starting out on the public stage in Queensland) nor much will to fight! Can I say it again for those who haven't got it yet? National public policy Priority One needs to be:



AUSTRALIAN LIQUID FUEL SUPPLY SECURITY!



Ludwig rightly foreshadows that Australia, the very fabric of its society, will shortly be looking down the barrel, a barrel that doesn't have much oil in it but a bloody big bullet just waiting to cook off. Do we wait for 'Big Oil' to solve this problem for us? Do that and they'll send us all insolvent! Yet that is what it seems, nationally, we are doing.

Australia, in possession of world-class coal resources, under-employed human resources and talent, and a presently stable society, is confronted with the opportunity of supplying CTL products to a world facing a gap in liquid fuel supply adequacy, and what is being done about it? Australia should own this huge opportunity lock, stock, and barrel!

Isn't it interesting, though, how apparent problems often contain within their own description the seeds of their own solution. The problem recently presented by the revealing of a defective alteration to the Constitution contains within that defect itself the words:

".. civil conscription".

Time to reset the electoral clock and conscript some candidates that might offer the people a greater choice as to representatives capable of addressing this national problem/opportunity, perhaps, Your Exellency?

Forrest

We << …will shortly be looking down the barrel, a barrel that doesn't have much oil in it but a bloody big bullet just waiting to cook off. >>

A horrible scenario beautifully expressed.

Brought a sting to my eyes.

Ludwig,

IMO your post offers wise words. At last a discussion that isn't predicated on ego and blatant self interest.

I have always said, that there are many ways of 'skinning the cat' and that the diametrically opposed combative approach is worse than pointless. I have never believed in a case of a wall switch (one day carbon is free the next day it is oppressively expensive) strategy for anything complex. Simply put there are no magic bullets.

It is like a population policy, it was never going to work by futile issues like stopping illegal boat people(sic) stopping Asian migration etc. while ignoring the greater sources of immigration and that we are connected to the world.

Both issues require a more integrated policy suite. Much of this will be through indirect actions.

Of course some businesses are going to lose with a change of methodology/technology that is the risk of business(buggy whips and wig powder are two examples).

The utterly absurd notion that this change in the way we live will (unequivocally)destroy our economy is simply rooted in self interest and terminal myopic thinking.

Clearly there are a multitude of options, with sensible thinking the transition would be relatively seamless.i.e.there will be jobs, business opportunities as yet unknown.

One needs to consider the 'spinning Jenny', computers, internet all of which 'were going to cause collapse'...they didn't and frankly neither will CO2, fossil fuel, pollution reduction. One could even go so far to suggest that if handled intelligently we as a species might even be better off.

Even if Gillard said ANYTHING about securing Australia's liquid fuel supply I'd be less anxious, but neither she nor that other bloke seems to want to go there. Too alarmist, too this, too that.

What the hell are they waiting for? Diesel at $3.50/litre and rising? Or get right behind our promising methods of generating liquid fuels? We have just about the perfect country to make BIO-diesel from a range of sources, none of which are proved up to large pilot scale yet. The block is investment. AKA the the government.

We do actually need our agriculture to survive or don't they know that?

A problem has been identified (carbon dioxide emissions) and there are several ways of trying to deal with it. Unfortunately, people prefer to segment things to suit an agenda. Clearly, such an issue involves politics and economics as well as representing public sentiment of the times.
People get very polarised in their opinions about these big ticket issues, and often their technical knowledge is based upon a few episodes of Catalyst or similar.
Saying no new coal fired power stations will be built and stuff, (probably because they are already built anyway) is absolutely nothing versus shutting down the extremely pollutive Latrobe Valley brown coal operations. Look at the chemistry of burning brown coal, particularly how all that water is converted into carbon dioxide, and tell me building no new coal fired power stations (which werent going to be built anyway) but keeping Latrobe going is going to make one iota of difference.

Put simply, it isnt.

We have a pilot production plant sitting, in mothballs, [or perhaps rusting away], on the Rundel shale oil deposit.

It went into production, then we were told that the oil companies would not buy the oil it produced, profitably at A$50 a barrel. The owners did not make enough noise at that time, to be a company being ripped off by big oil. A simple restriction on import licences for off shore oil would have had that oil flowing into our tanks.

At the time, I wondered if they had been bought off, to preserve that oil. There is heaps more shale oil to be had in Oz, & coal to oil conversion is viable at present oil prices, so I don't think we will run out of oil any time soon.

There's heaps under the reef too. You only have to look at the way greenies went to hide, about new dams, when our/their water was threatened, to know they would not resist any exploitation when their life styles were threatened to know all of this is available, when really needed.

It may cost a bit more, with a miners tax, but it is available.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10744

I long for $5 a litre petrol.
I am sure that we will cope. Australians have always been at our best in a crisis. These days we are becoming fat, bloated and spoilt with a commensurate tendency to be violent, negative and self destructive.

A bit of hardship and turmoil will do us all a lot of good. A chance to pull together and rearrange society to better suit the needs of the post industrial, post capitalist world and end the exploitation, subjugation and destruction that has led us to this sorry situation.

It is not a matter of IF it will happen. The oil will run out. We must accept that there is nothing we can do and move on as we have so often in the past.

Unfortunately, shale oil and tar sands are even more pollutive than dirty old brown coal. Canada has great tar sand reserves, producing oil for about $30 per barrel. The rule of thumb, is that you burn a barrel of oil in the process of creating one. Coal to oil, not exactly new as they did this during the second world war, and is also a very pollutive process. When it can be demonstrated that the alternative makes an even bigger mess, it is easy to see why this option is not considered realistic.

Petrol will become $5 per litre, about the same time the average wage is about $5000 per week. Look back in history and you will see the same pattern. In the mid seventies petrol was about 17c per litre, and the average wage was about $50 per week.

A legislative approach is needed, because taxing is just taxing... nothing to do with the identified issue beyond its name. The idea that its all about to go pear-shaped is simply a distraction from other serious environmental issues.

Ah this is the glass half full or half empty scenario

Many years ago world oil supplies were confined to shallow land based deposits and shortages loomed

Then deep drilling was developed

After a while those deposits started to grew scarce

And coast drilling was developed, like UK’s North Sea Oil, and pressures eased

Now ocean drilling sustains us.

Mankind is an innovator

Doubtless when the demand price increases sufficiently to support innovative development,

Someone will think of something else....

And the henny-pennys will all breath a sigh of relief, the sky having not fallen in again

The influence of “market forces” are not perfect,

just better than anything else.

Ludwig:- You are spot on.
I think we should for a political party called "The Tell it Like it Is !" party.
Worldwide politicians do not want to face the problem.
They, when pressed, waffle about energy security and spin the discussion onto global warming.

This morning I heard a director of the Major Finance company in Australia telling us how there is good promise of growth.
I find it hard to believe they are not aware but like the pollies they are waiting for something to turn up.
The financial world is in la la land.

Forest:- Yes, When I pushed ny financial advisor son on the problem, his answer was
"What do we do ? Shut the business down and go fishing ?"
I agree with you we should nationalise all foreign owned interests in coal, oil and gas.
Linc Energy has a pilot plant producing diesel from underground coal burning and they are now
experimenting with feeding a fuel cell to produce electricity.

However all this work is 20 years too late.

Examiner:- The transition will not be seamless.
The Hirsch report warned that with a 20 year start it might be seamless, and with a 10 year start it would be a big financial and social crash.
However with a zero year start it will be cataclysmic.

Renew:- It is the scale of the problem that boggles their collective minds.
It is just not possible to crank up biofuels to the size of production needed.
One quote I saw, algae ponds the size of Ireland would be needed to supply Europe !

Pat:- The problem has nothing to do with carbon.
Energy is the problem, CO2 is just what they are arguing about.
Also they need more than US$50, more like US$70 I think for oil sands.
There is a problem with the amount of gas & water they use to heat the sand
to be continued

Continued:

Hasbeen:- Shale oil has a problem as it is not oil but a step before oil is produced in the geology.
The Energy required to turn it into oil is more than what it is worth unless you are in a war.

Stern:- Well you are an optimist. Even if they do find such supplies they will be too late now anyway.
They need a new Saudi Arabia every two years.

Very interesting from everyone. It is encouraging to see that I am not alone.
The problem is that by the time the politicians face it, it will be far too late to do other than introduce rationing.

My recommendation, buy a few pairs of good walking boots.

If you want some info about the Canadian tar sands industry in Alberta - just google it. George Monbiot wrote a few critical articles before Copenhagen - sounds a very dirty energy absorbing industry

Just posting some links...it seems that Canada has gone right off the environmental rails...

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?263149

http://peopleandplanet.org/tarsands/localimpacts

In my earlier post I talked of agriculture. That's the KEY issue. Never mind about the suburbs. That can get fixed eventually when the price rises high enough to force the issue.

Agriculture absolutely depends on a supply of diesel. Without it we do not grow food. How important is that? And think further, even if we succeed in generating a "bio"diesel from say algae ( brine ponds or bioreactors - both underway) we still require supplies of fertilisers and all the chemicals that go into producing crops.

And if you thought that was not enough of challenge for Gillard/Abbott then think on. If we had our heads screwed back on, this country could be THE leader in innovation here. Its about resilience more than survival. We have a reputation in dry land farming, we teach others how to do it. Think wider, go wider.

I agree with Renew, agriculture is the big problem with oil depletion.
It can be temporally fixed with rationing.
It reminds me of an article I read.
A farmer with a tractor and a multifurrow disc plough might plough 300 acres in a day.
A farmer with a draft horse and single furrow plough might plough 2 acres in a day,
remember he has to rest the horse frequently.
That ratio gives you the idea that we might need 150 times the number of farmers we have now.

So either starve when unemployed or be a farm labourer.
Some suggest that this will bring back serfdom.
Large landholders will have tennant farmers on their divided up land
and the tennants will hire day labour.

Oh well, I guess we will all be a lot fitter.