Peak Oil

My father has long been interested in the topic of peak oil and I have grown up in the knowledge that our modern society comes with certain conditions that will, ultimately, mark its demise. Put simply, the peak oil crisis relates to the amount of non-renewable carbon-based fuel that is still available on Earth for manipulation, and at what point that the energy required to extract these diminishing supplies of fuel will surpass the energy that you would gain from using them once collected. The USA reached it's peak way back in the 1970's, and is now largely dependent upon oil-rich (for now, anyway) locations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to feed its ever-growing addiction. Once the oil supplies across the whole world surpass their peak levels (which is estimated to be around, well...now) the oil markets will face a period of schizophrenic uncertainty and eventual collapse, and along with it many of the benefits that oil conferred upon our civilization - be it motor fuel, fertilizers for growing crops and sustaining our population, materials for a plethora of different products, and for many homes and industries, their electricity supplies. The implications of this issue are vast, potentially traumatic and not to be taken lightly.

Back in Stafford, my dad has his study. Dominating a whole 6 - foot long bookshelf lie an exhaustive selection of books about the looming peak oil crisis, environmental crises, as well as books outlining strategies to try and adapt our modern civilisation to a time when the availability of fossil fuels reaches an untenable degree. I've been dipping into these books for a few years now and I accept many of the core arguments laid down by peak oil analysts such as James Howard Kunstler. Understanding the increasingly negative effect that our modern society is having upon our chances of survival, I have always tried to stay away from learning to drive or consuming more energy than I really need at any given moment. Unfortunately, the demands of twentieth-century life mean that I have no choice really but to learn to drive in order to carve out any sort of desirable future, whatever that may mean in the present climate. I think this is what all of us feel when faced by dilemmas such as driving - we know that they present a problem in themselves, but out society is so closely structured around them that we meekly continue using the very things that we despise. 

Whatever the case, a society built upon fossil fuels has brought advantages to society vastly counter-balanced by staggering disadvantages, be it the destruction of natural habitats and the reduction of biodiversity, mass population and urban sprawl, the end of self-sustainable local communities, pollution and potential climate change and the development of weapons that could spell the end of life on Earth within a few hours if need be. We want all of the benefits, but it would be quite lovely if all of the drawbacks would go away, right? Well they won't.

What truly vexes me these days, however, is the total unwillingness of the mass media to create a dialogue of any sort about these issues. In fact, if it wasn't for my dad finding out about it and bringing it to my attention, I'd be blissfully ignorant of it today. I have been well aware of peak oil for about five years now and I have only ever seen the words 'peak oil' mentioned about three times in the British press - once in The Independent and a couple of cursory mentions in The Guardian. The subject, despite its legitimacy, commands no respect at all from many observers. Climate change always gets the media going more and gets a harder sell, despite the fact that once we've burned all of the viable fossil fuels available the issues of man-made greenhouse gases will be negligible. I think this stems from a malaise, an unwillingness by man to confront a subject with consequences too great to bear; or maybe even a total denial of the issue in the hope that it will disappear if given enough time. Some detractors have the gall to claim that countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia have unlimited amounts of oil and gas still to exploit, as though it were an infinitely recurring product that just gushes out of the ground for ever and ever - forgetting that it is in the interest of oil businesses to overstate their oil reserves in order to keep the markets stable in the face of diminishing stocks.

I remember a discussion with an old friend of mine about this issue many years ago. My friend is a politics graduate and has always claimed to be on the cutting edge of progressive issues. I assumed that he would be willing to hear of this issue and would present some interesting thoughts on the topic. When he heard my description of the peak oil crisis, he already had the answer that I had heard so many times before, "Oh, some scientist will figure it out!" Oh, well if it was that easy, why aren't we living solely on solar panels, wind turbines and hydrogen-fuelled cars already? This is the typical knee-jerk reaction when confronted with peak-oil. To think that scientists can even match the energy inherent within oil - the leftovers of photosynthesising flora from millions of years ago, transformed over time with sustained heat and pressure into an efficient fuel source 1000s of times more powerful than any other process that we can replicate (nuclear power excepting, and we all know how popular that is these days after Fukushima

All that I can recommend to anyone reading this entry is to have a dive into the subject yourself, give it some time to settle, and then make your decisions. It is quite a shocking subject to grapple with, but knowing is half the battle.