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Global oil economy drowning in irony |
Current rating: 0 |
by Joe Futrelle
Email: futrelle (nospam) shout.net (verified) |
30 Aug 2005
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Even if global warming isn't contributing to increased hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico, hurricane Katrina is causing many people in the U.S. to finally examine why fuel prices are so sensitive to disruptions in the supply chain. |
Scientists, displaying characteristic caution, say there's not enough data to link global warming to increased hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico. A number of plausible mechanisms have been proposed, such as higher surface water temperatures, but there just isn't enough data yet to prove or disprove a link.
If there is a link, the disruption of oil, gas, and fuel production capacity in the Gulf by hurricane Katrina this week is pushing irony-o-meters into the red and beyond, because it means that our voracious consumption of fossil fuels is literally laying waste to our ability to produce them.
Even if global warming isn't a contributing factor to this week's devestating hurricane, the unfolding tragedy is a reminder of how expensive hubris can be. Beyond the irrationality of building a city below sea level on a pile of silt at the end of a river delta, America has built its entire economy on the assumption that energy will remain inexpensive forever--an assumption that we have rarely examined.
Now that our fantasy of endless cheap energy is unravelling, we're beginning to understand our predicament--just in time to be too late to do anything significant about it.
Mainstream oil industry experts, the Bush administration, and far-left "peak oil" advocates are all reaching the same conclusion, which is that the gap between oil supply and demand has shrunk to basically nothing, and that producers, refiners, and consuming industries like airlines cannot absorb disruptions in the supply chain without dramatic price increases. Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated that this conclusion is not just a prediction of things to come--it's happening right now, this year, this month, this week, today.
The Bush administration has correctly pointed out that increased crude production alone cannot ease fuel price pressures, because the U.S. lacks the spare refining capacity to significantly increase production of petroleum products like gasoline and jet fuel, no matter how much oil is available to them. And "peak oil" theorists have correctly pointed out that global crude production cannot be increased because the one swing producer, Saudi Arabia, does not have enough spare capacity to replace the loss of production from oil fields in decline, and major new discoveries, which have slowed to nothing, will come too late (if at all) to replace decreasing production from existing fields.
This is a "perfect storm" for the global energy economy. It remains to be seen whether demand growth will finally slow in response to record oil prices, or if we will see more of this hyper-volatility before oil-consuming nations start the hard, long, expensive work of transitioning to renewable energy sources. Analysts agree that we are facing global recession, but few economists are willing to give up, as they eventually must, the idea that the global economy can grow indefinitely on a finite planet. |
This work is in the public domain |
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"Huge oil spill page 14 news" |
by Joe Futrelle
futrelle (nospam) shout.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
02 Sep 2005
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In another indication that we are living in strange times indeed, oil prices fell sharply today even as the AP is reporting that a 2 million barrel facility downstream of New Orleans is leaking in what is being called a "huge" oil spill.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Katrina-Oil-Spill-HK4.html
[edit]
The price drop was apparently in response to pledges of international oil aid. Still, the fact that a multi-million-barrel domestic oil spill is a minor story is reminiscent of The Onion's headline in their post-September-11 issue: "Massive Attack on Pentagon Page 14 News".
More on the foreign aid (with an eyebrow-raising chart of crude prices since 2002):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4207492.stm |
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Re: Global oil economy drowning in irony |
by uh-nawn
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
04 Sep 2005
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far-left "peak oil" advocates
This a bothersome turn of phrase. An understanding of the reality of peak-oil, is neither a concept someone advocates, nor politically left. Let alone "far left".
Facts are facts. The facts are documented in many places for anyone of any political slant to educate him/herself about.
Here's a start: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ |
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Re: Global oil economy drowning in irony |
by Joe Futrelle
futrelle (nospam) shout.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
05 Sep 2005
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> This a bothersome turn of phrase.
you are absolutely correct, sorry about that. I didn't mean to imply, as I strongly did, that all peak-oil advocates are leftists.
What I meant was that it is remarkable how much common ground there is between someone such as Richard Heinberg and someone like Dick Cheney on some of the fundamental issues--a circumstance that should help a reader realize, as you're pointing out, that the fundamental issues here transcend the usual political categories.
I do think that peak-oil writers and commentators are advocates in the current political climate. But that will change as the reality becomes impossible to ignore. |
