There Will Be Fuel? An Open Letter to the New York Times
November 21, 2010
The below is an open Letter to the Editor to the New York Times.
Rarely is the public treated to such inaccurate, misleading and unhelpful “journalism” as in “There will be fuel” by New York Times correspondent, Clifford Krauss (New York Times, November 17, 2010) , even in this era of political spin and smoke and mirrors surrounding energy.
Let’s begin with the article’s concluding comment:
“When you add it up,” Mr. Morse noted, “you get something that very closely approximates energy independence.”
The facts of the matter are that no nation on earth is more dependent on imported oil than the U.S. Although consumption has declined somewhat, due to the Great Recession, imports accounted for more than 61 percent of U.S. oil consumption in 2009. Net 2009 U.S. imports of 11.5 million barrels per day exceeded China’s TOTAL OIL CONSUMPTION of 8.6 million barrels per day by 33 percent….
…In summary, oil and gas are finite resources that are being consumed at unprecedented and growing rates. Despite what your article says, the U.S. is the worst offender and is highly vulnerable to future energy price and supply shocks. The growth trajectory of the already high consumption levels in the industrialized world and the rapid growth in consumption in the developing world is patently unsustainable. Articles such as this falsely promote complacency and thus are an extreme disservice to understanding the energy sustainability dilemma facing the World. The premise of this article that the U.S. is approaching “energy independence” could not be further from the truth.
J. David Hughes
David Hughes is a geoscientist who has studied the energy resources of Canada for nearly four decades, including 32 years with the Geological Survey of Canada as a scientist and research manager. He developed the National Coal Inventory to determine the availability and environmental constraints associated with Canada’s coal resources. As Team Leader for Unconventional Gas on the Canadian Gas Potential Committee, he coordinated the recent publication of a comprehensive assessment of Canada’s unconventional natural gas potential. Over the past decade, he has researched, published and lectured widely on global energy and sustainability issues in North America and internationally. He is a board member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas – Canada and is a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute.
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-11-21/there-will-be-fuel-open-letter-new-york-times
Interview with Bob Hirsch on his team’s new book—“The Impending World Energy Mess”
September 13, 2010
“Andrews: How will some of those changing societal priorities role down to impact individuals?
Hirsch: Every one of us will be impacted by the decline of world oil production. Liquid fuel costs are going to escalate dramatically-that’s what happened in 1973 and 1979, and it will happen again. There will be shortages, which will cause all kinds of problems. There will be rising unemployment and dramatic declines in stock markets. And there will be inflation. It happened before, and it is logical that it will happen again, except this time the pain will last a lot longer.”
Planet Earth Can’t Import Oil
September 3, 2010
…As EROEI decreases from 10:1 toward 1:1, the oil industry comes to resemble an obese but famished wet-nurse ravenously sucking her own breast at the crib of a starving infant….
The Oil Crunch: The world will experience peak oil at 91-92 million barrels per day “by end 2010/early 2011. Global capacity will then remain in the 91-92Mb/d range until 2015 from which time depletion will more than offset capacity growth. . .”
The Joint Operating Environment: “By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.”
Sustainable Energy Security: “A supply crunch appears likely around 2013…given recent price experience, a spike in excess of $200 per barrel is not infeasible.”
Taken together, then, these reports suggest the world will be entering into a period of turmoil due to oil supply issues as early as the beginning of 2011 or as late as 2013. This will be marked by a time of rising oil prices, simply due to demand. By 2015 oil output will be in decline and the world will collectively have to make structural changes, or else face outright economic decline, because less oil will be coming to the market at any price.
when truth is unbelievable
August 6, 2010
But seven years after I began a crusade to educate and mobilize my fellow citizens, I find the environmental movement seems largely ineffective, the culture more distracted and people more ambivalent than ever. Climate change is seen as a hoax perpetuated by grant-greedy scientists, peak oil remains the territory of kooks and pessimists and the next iPad version is more important to the public and media than the next version of Earth we are creating by radically altering the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere.
Convince us
August 1, 2010
There is no more compelling testimony that peak oil is a critical issue than the time and treasure one is willing to put into preparing oneself for a post-peak oil world.
The Doomer’s Curse by Mickey Foley
June 25, 2010
…The Doomer wants this world to end, because in this world he is a failure. He has failed to achieve his goals personally and/or professionally, but he lacks the maturity to take responsibility for his failure. He blames the rules of this world for his defeat, to the point of judging this world irredeemably corrupt. This belief makes a virtue of his failure, for only the corrupt could succeed in such a world. His moral integrity precludes his success in this den of iniquity. With a better perspective, he could see that it’s not the world’s corruption that condemns him to failure, but rather his failure that leads him to condemn the world. Therefore, instead of taking steps to improve his chances of success, he throws up his hands, picks up the remote (or the mouse) and eagerly awaits the end of the world that (he believes) is dead set against him.
…As I mentioned before, the Doomer I refer to is not a personality type. He is an aspect of my personality and, it seems, the personalities of many people. (How else do you explain the enduring popularity of apocalyptic cults, auto racing or Goth music?) I’m attempting self-analysis in the hope that it will resonate with others. Therefore, when I call the Doomer a loser willing to blame anyone but himself, I’m talking about myself. All the characteristics I enumerated are ones that I’ve personified many times in the five years since I learned about Peak Oil and even before then. My hope is that being honest about my Doomerism will help me overcome these tendencies and help others recognize the same tendencies in themselves….
Heavy stuff.
…Therefore, to replace our offshore oil with wind, you’d need 195 Californias, or 74 Texases of wind, and probably 20 years to build it….
…A Junkie’s Reality
Those who would shut down offshore oil drilling might want to consider this: Over the next 20 years, the only real alternatives to offshore drilling are to become even more dependent on oil imports at the worst possible time, or trade it for the environmental horror of tar sands and coal-to-liquids production.
I don’t want to be cavalier about the environmental damage of the oil spill. The Deepwater Horizon spill is a disaster in the same way that liver failure is a disaster for a junkie. And that is our reality: scrounging around back alleys and taking unsavory risks to get our daily fix….
Mis-education unleashed
May 18, 2010
Obama just said, “Never mind the naysayers, the fact is our economy is growing again, we gained 290,000 jobs….”
You don’t want to grow the economy, guy.
We have one sphere to work with, Earth, and it is finite, like all other spheres. Fuck it up with more growth fueled by fossil energy, and we all have dead oceans of toxin, magnitudes more smog-caused death and disease, and less species to sustain life.
More growth is an awful idea, President Obama. Truly awful. Unless you mean growth of ecosystems, resilience, and cooperation. 290,000 more ecologists and land stewards would be a good start. Not a third of a million more tools of Wal-Mort.
Confessions of a Doomer
May 9, 2010
by Mickey Foley
…But I’m not ashamed to be a “Doomer” (one who believes society will be forced to radically re-simplify through a painful process of collapse). When I first learned about Peak Oil 5 years ago, it was very difficult being a Doomer. I was petrified by the potential for social breakdown and extremely reluctant to share my concerns with people outside my circle of friends. Of course, at that point I was convinced we were headed for a Mad Max-style future, and my discussion was framed in terms of absolute certainty, the sign of an insecure cultist. Now I talk about it in terms of probability, allowing for the possibility of a safe future, even though my worries remain. That’s a result of my emotional stabilization and has nothing to do with the feasibility of the Peak Oil theory. If anything, my belief in the theory has been strengthened by the events of the last 5 years.
I’ll concede that my personal struggles predisposed me to Doomerism. If I were a rich, happily-married screenwriter living in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills, I probably wouldn’t care a tinker’s cuss for Peak Oil. But I’m a 32-year-old temp living with my parents, so I’m far more receptive to apocalyptic theories. At the same time, I don’t think my beliefs are any less valid than those of my successful, parallel-universe doppelganger. Just because I’m more likely to look on the dark side doesn’t mean I’m more likely to be wrong. It just depends what era you’re living in. Here in the U.S. of A. we’ve had Happy Days for almost 65 years in a row. Sure, there have been some bumps in the road, but overall our material comforts have been good and getting better (nearly) all the time. Therefore, people who look on the bright side have generally been right for the last 65 years. Now I think we’ve entered an epoch when the Doomers will be right most of the time….
I’m right there with you on this one, Mickey.
Full article here
