Peak Oil

Transition Towns were conceived in response to the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change. Whilst most people have heard a lot about climate change (and you can read more here), the concept of peak oil is less commonly known. Maybe this is because of its name - the term "oil" does not tend to invoke immediate interest from a lot of the classic "environmentalists" - and economists are less inclined to talk about limits - so who really cares??

We all should - because oil has become the lifeblood of the world and without it - or even with a little bit less of it - all our lives will change dramatically.

Virtually everything in our world today is made from oil. While petrol comes to most minds immediately, oil is also used in most or all plastics, rubber, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fibers, pharmaceuticals, skin care - almost anything you can think of. Most food we eat has been produced using tremendous amounts of oil - in land machinery, fertilizers, sprays, processing and distribution. Nothing runs without the energy the oil provides.

So what is peak oil??

It's reasonably simple: This oil we use is being pumped from reservoirs under the earth. These reservoirs occur all over the world - in some places more than others (and there is a lot to be said about the politics of this). These reservoirs vary in accessibility - some are deeper in the ground than others, some are buried in sand - others in rock, ice or thousands of metres of water. While the oil companies are continuously looking and searching for more of these reservoirs - and while the means of drilling for the oil are getting more and more sophisticated - it is still an obvious fact that the supply of reservoirs (and oil) is going to limited on this finite planet. It becomes even more limited if you take into consideration a concept called EROEI (=Energy returned on energy invested). This term again refers to a simple logical concept: Drilling and pumping oil takes energy. If the oil is in a hard-to-get-to place, it takes even more energy. And if it takes 1 barrel of oil (=energy) to produce 1 barrel of oil, this exercise becomes pointless. In fact, the exercise becomes pointless (=uneconomic) long before this.

So accessible reservoirs of oil are limited. In fact, the discovery of reservoirs peaked back in 1965 and the future looks relatively dim. What about the fields we already know about? - According to many scientists, there is still plenty of oil in the ground.

This is where "peak oil" comes in. The peak theory was first proposed in 1956 by geophysicist Marion King Hubbert. Hubbert discovered that oil production in any oil field does not behave like a petrol tank in a car (which keeps going until the last drop is consumed and then stops), but actually forms a bell curve - it ramps up to a maximum (after about half the oil in the reservoir is consumed) and then enters its rapid, steady and irreversible decline. While there is still half the oil in the ground, it becomes harder and harder (and more and more expensive) to extract and thus again - pointless. As production declines, the price of oil increases more and more - or (on a global scale) becomes more and more volatile.

So each reservoir will have it's own peak - and many of the reservoirs (or fields) we know of have already passed it. "Peak oil" on a global scale will occur when production from all fields has reached it's maximum.

The remarkable thing about this "peak" is that we will only in retrospect know when it occurred. Naturally, at the moment of peak, the oil fields will be at full production - the supply of oil will be plentiful. Everything will seem fine... However, once the global peak is reached (and passed), we will inevitably and rather quickly be faced with rapidly rising oil prices, supply disruptions and - likely - conflict over who should get the oil that is produced. This is further complicated by the rapidly rising demand for oil as more nations on the planet "develop" into lifestyles of high oil consumption and will join the scramble for the remaining supply.

There is plentyful evidence that global oil production is nearing - or has already passed - it's peak. In fact, the oil price spike in 2008, which triggered the current financial crisis - may have been the first evidence of this.

For our communities this means, the era of cheap, abundant energy is rapidly nearing it's end - and with it the era of cheap individual motor transport, cheap food, cheap water - and cheap everything.

To learn more, please visit the following websites:  

www.theoildrum.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

www.peakoil.net

www.hubbertpeak.com

www.richardheinberg.com