The Oil Drum

The Oil Drum is a new blog devoted to discussion of the Hubbert's peak, the moment when oil production in a given finite area starts to decline, because the oil in the ground has simply been exhausted. M. King Hubbert predicted in 1949 that oil production in the lower 48 states would reach a peak in 1975 and decline thereafter. As the cliche goes, everyone laughed at the time. The actual peak of production was 1972.

The whole earth, like the lower 48 states, is a finite area. Estimates for the time world oil production peaks range from 5 years ago to ten years in the future. (The thing about peaks is that you don't know you've reached one until well afterwards.) Once you reach the far side of Hubbert's peak, production never increases again. As the belt tightens, you see more economic disruption, more wars. We don't have to exhaust all the oil on earth to crash the global economy. We might be doing it right now.

So far I've assigned two books on Hubbert's peak to my environmental classes. Ken Deffeyes' Hubbbert's Peak is a folksy volume written by an oil geologist who has done some of the actual calculations for the time of the global Hubbert's peak. It's ok, but spends too much time trying to be cute. David Goodstein Out of Gas strikes a more alarmist tone, perhaps too alarmist: when he gave a lecture over at Clarkson U, he predicted the end of human civilization. Both books spend too much time explaining general science principles (how oil is formed, how all engergy comes from the sun) that aren't relevant to the current situation. I'm still looking for a good book to assign on this topic.

In any case, I welcome the new blog.

Oh, and since I've been bitching about economists lately, I want to mention one of my least favorite a priori economic arguments: the one where all resources are unlimited. See, as a resource becomes scarser, the price of it goes up, which drives people to find new ways to dig up the resource, which makes the resource more plentiful again. The last time I read this one, I saw it from Wilfred Beckerman. I am not simplyfing the argument all that much. The more sophisticated versions simply describe a greater number of feedback mechanisms which restore plentitude once prices begin to go up.

As with other shitty economic arguments--like the one where significant race and gender bias in hiring could never exist or the one where all poluting industries should be moved to poor countries--this argument works by simply ignoring the real world in favor of the idealized representation of the real world. The real world counterparts to the feedback mechanisms described in the all-resources-are-unlimited argument correspond to very painful shifts in the way humans derive their living from the earth. There are two sorts of shifts that we can actually engage in once oil starts to decline. The first is the change to more exotic forms of oil--oil shale, heavy oil--that are too expensive to produce now, but won't be once gas is 5 dollars a gallon in the US. Lets also include increased reliance on natural gas and coal in this category, since it all boils down to "continuiung to use the fossils." The other option is a shift to renewables like wind and solar. (Interestingly, from the point of view of the all-resources-are-unlimted argument both of these shifts are lumped together, because "resource" is defined by what the entity does for the economy, not what it is made of. So while to you and me changing from oil to wind is a big shift, the economist is blind to it.)

The all-resources-are-unlimited argument would have you think that the government needs to take no action in response to Hubbert's peak, because the market will simply force us to find a better resource. This attitude looks completely assinine when faced with the actual options in front of us. Option one, the shift to heavy oil, oil shale, etc., is a dead end, because eventually you will simply run out of oil to squeeze out of the stones. Economic abstractions dead end in geology and physics. Natural gas, too, has a Hubbert's peak, and it is only a couple decades after the peak for oil. Coal does not have a near future Hubbert's peak, but it is not a good option for people who like living on a planet cooler than Venus. Option two, the switch to renewables, is exactly what we environmentalists have been arguing for. The problem is that this option will not be taken unless the world's governments act to take it. The all-resources-are-unlimited argument would have you believe that we will move to renewables when the market lets us know it is time (much the same way the cardinals will elect the new pope that God moves them to elect.) This is like sitting in a burning house and saying "When the flames are actually licking my ass, I will probably be motivated to move." True, you will move when the flames touch your skin, but wouldn't a sane person leave the house much sooner?

I say that when dealing with human society we should be careful empiricists. Economists may tell you that as oil becomes scarse, we will simply switch to a new resource, but all I've seen the market give us is war.