Mervyn Peak Oil

[bcholmes]

Wow. Want a really depressing documentary? Try The End of Suburbia. It's about the problem of peak oil and its tie to the North American way of life. Key ideas:

1. Economic growth is dependent on increased consumption of electricity.
2. We may already have passed peak oil production. If not, the most optimistic outlook is that we'll hit peak oil by 2010.
3. Every calorie of food we produce requires 10 calories of energy from hydrocarbons, often in the form of pesticides and fertilizers.
4. Because transportation has been cheap for the last 60 years, we need to re-learn how to have local food growth and local economies
5. The struggle to control the last of the world's oil will constitute a war that will never end in our lifetimes
6. Once people begin to understand the peak oil problem, they will demand our governments to make extremely bad decisions to protect their complacency

Here's an interesting quotation from David Suzuki (who isn't in the DVD):

To me, a hope is that we are going to hit peak oil [when oil resources begin to decline] -- and some geologists say we already hit it last year. The business community is now starting to take this very seriously.

The first thing to happen would be the big-box stores, like Home Depot and Walmart, collapsing because they are dependent on cheap oil to ship cheap goods. Also, in the suburbs of Canada we have these gigantic homes with two or three people in them, and the heating and cooling bills are enormous, and they depend on cars.

But the big thing is food. In Canada, food travels an average of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) from where it's grown to where it's eaten. This can't go on.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

One of the benefits of using coal as feed stock for liquid fuels is the ability to sort out the really nasty crap at the plant, sending it for safe storage in whatever ridings voted against the current government.

I missed the Great Smog but I got to live through the Not Great But Still a Worthy Topic of Water Cooler Conversation Smog, which was created in much the same way about the same time of year as the Great Smog, the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact, you can still see the effects on my lung X-Rays. Some people take photos, I keep scars.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

From Wikipedia:

One issue that has yet to be addressed in the emerging discussion about large-scale development of synthetic fuels is the enormous increase in primary energy use and carbon emissions inherent in conversion of gaseous and solid carbon sources to a usable liquid form. Recent work by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions for coal-based synfuels are nearly twice as high as their petroleum-based equivalent.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It is possible to sequester carbon, although nobody now bothers to.

The alternative to developing resources like coal or nuclear (which I notice DS is also down on, what a surprise) is to condemn most humans to miserable and poor lives. In fact, Suzuki acknowledges this somewhat at several points in his interview:

"DS: But as long as we in America and Canada refuse to do anything about our own hyperconsumption, why should they be expected to want any less?

In 1976, I first visited China and at that time it had 30 times Canada's population and used exactly the same amount of oil and gas as Canada; I wrote an article then saying that if every Chinese wants a motorbike, we're toast. Now they don't want a motorbike, they want cars.

As long as we in the industrialized world refuse to do anything about the Kyoto Protocol -- and Kyoto is a tiny, tiny target -- why the hell should the Chinese? And where China and India go, the planet is going to go."

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

It is possible to sequester carbon, although nobody now bothers to.

We don't bother to make cars fuel efficient, either. Not because we can't. Because we can't be bothered. Do you think that kind of trend is magically going to change because we're suddenly turning to coal?

The alternative to developing resources like coal or nuclear (which I notice DS is also down on, what a surprise) is to condemn most humans to miserable and poor lives.

Um. That's some binary thinking, there.

Are you really defending hyperconsumption?