Why life after oil will be better

icWales

By Molly Watson

Experts are predicting that in as little as 12 months' time our global supplies of oil will start to diminish. Demand will exceed supply, prices will rise, and suddenly all of the things we take for granted like commuting from Swansea to Cardiff, buying roses in February and holidaying abroad will be out of the question.

Having achieved a global economy which is dependent on mass production and the mobility of its work force, the change could render us back to a relative dark age where people live and work in small, self-sufficient communities.

A doomsday scenario? Not according to Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, which opened its annual conference in Cardiff yesterday.

The organisation is best known for its promotion and certification of organic food.

Pick up a bag of organic carrots or a tub of Green & Black's ice cream and you're likely to see the Soil Association stamp, guaranteeing your food has been produced in accordance with strict animal welfare and environmental standards.

But the message behind this conference is about more than just food.

The conference, titled One Planet Agriculture: Preparing for a post-peak oil food and farming future, aims to kick-start the discussion on what practical measures farmers, consumers and local communities can take to become less energy reliant.

The notion of One Planet Agriculture derives from a comment made by David Miliband at the 2006 Royal of England Show in which he laid down a challenge to farmers reflecting on the World Wide Fund for Nature's calculation that "we are living as if we had three planet's worth of resources to live with, rather than just one", and it's a challenge the Soil Association has embraced.

Mr Holden, who lives in Ceredigion, believes that while agriculture in the 20th century was about government-led, centralised systems of farming and food distribution, in the 21st century it will be defined by localism.

He says that, in hindsight, the fossil fuel era will be described as "a sort of extravaganza where we lived beyond our means, treating capital as income and squandered all this energy," but that things are now changing, and this year's conference is hoping to address that shift.

The academic term for all of this is peak oil, which refers to the point when the maximum amount of oil that can be extracted is reached, and production starts to tail off because reserves become more difficult, and consequently more expensive, to reach.

Experts can't say exactly when this will happen, but predict it will be sometime before 2010. While the world won't suddenly be without oil, environmentalists say rising prices will dramatically change the dynamics of cost effectiveness in transport, food production, housing and alternative energy sources. By 2021 it's estimated we will have just 50% of our current supply of oil, meaning we'll have been forced to change the way we live.

Practically that means introducing a localised food culture, with locally grown food, urban market gardens and producing food without chemical-heavy fertilisers.

But there's also a cultural knock-on effect as well. If people aren't able to commute, they'll have to work close to home which means a return to the days of close-knit communities.

The concept sounds backward but the fact that this is the Soil Association's most over subscribed conference yet (organisers say they could have filled it twice over) and has attracted a host of high profile speakers (including editor of The Ecologist Zac Goldsmith, chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, presenter Jonathan Dimbleby and Welsh Assembly Government's Minister for Environment, Carwyn Jones), demonstrates how topics such as these are increasingly striking a chord with consumers and producers alike.

Instead of being a step backwards, Mr Holden insists it's a step in the right direction.

"It's not about looking backward but forward," he said. "It's not that we have to give up driving our cars tomorrow or totally transform our lifestyles but we have to bear in mind the more we can do in advance the better prepared we'll be for it," he said. "We have to start imagining a life post fossil fuel. It will happen before the end of the 21st century and it will start to affect us much earlier than that.

"It will take 10 years to begin to prepare the infrastructure so we need to start preparing now.

"I'm not preaching doom and despair, this isn't Big Bang. At the moment we are a world driven by oil which takes economic prosperity and mobility for granted but if the changes we make end up improving the quality of our lives that will be more than adequate compensation for what we lose out of in terms of GDP and mobility.

"This is something which is going to come to dominate our lives over the coming decade."

You could argue that with climate change dominating the headlines, warnings about peak oil are unlikely to get much of a positive response. But Mr Holden argues peak oil is a crisis which empowers consumers because solutions can be sought at a local level.

He said, "Climate change is making headline news and I think many of us feel strongly disenfranchised by the enormity of the challenge. If we are really committed we can do things like reduce the amount of times we fly by easyJet or make sure we turn off our TVs but we feel it's a problem that only the Government can really solve. The truth is our conscience doesn't provoke us into taking action on climate change. But peak oil is already in the pipeline. It's the train coming towards us on the other line and it's going to affect us whether we like it or not. It's going to really hurt.

"After the peak oil year, every year each of us is going to have to manage on 3% less fossil fuel than we did the year before. By 2030 that's nearly half of what we are using now.

"We all know that we have to do something about climate change and peak oil is the sister of that. It's going to affect our lifestyles, our businesses, our food supply.

"You can see how telling people about it could make them even more depressed, another disaster on its way but, strangely, I find it's quite inspirational, that people can take action against it.

"It makes business and planetary sense to try to reduce your carbon footprint especially when it can mean an improved quality of life."

Understandably, the idea of such a transition isn't likely to be popular with everyone. But Wales' Environment Minister Carwyn Jones is enthusiastic about the idea. Having championed sustainable food production in Wales he believes buying not just organic food but locally grown organic food is the key to the future and with developments in new technology, he says a move towards a more local life wouldn't be detrimental to Wales' economy.

He said, "Now that more and more people are online, it's possible for people to work from home. The translators at the Assembly are based all around Wales, some even in Patagonia. You don't have to be in Cardiff to do that work.

"And because of that it means people don't have to move out of rural communities in the way that they used to."

The idea of peak oil is proving popular with a new breed of green celebrities - this week's conference started off with an organic fashion show compered by Zac Goldsmith, and starring celebrity models.

But the nature of this challenge is decidedly local. Which means whether it succeeds or fails rests solely on those on the ground.

The key, according to Rob Hopkins, is that we see peak oil as giving us the chance to make a positive change, not a negative one. Mr Hopkins, who is also speaking at the conference, has pioneered a concept of Transition Towns - towns which have agreed to prepare for a peak oil future by creating locally based, self-reliant communities.

Having experimented with the idea in Kinsale, Ireland, where he drew up an action plan for timetabling how the town could reduce its energy consumption, Mr Hopkins has gone onto pioneer the idea in a number of towns across the UK.

Next on the list could be Lampeter, where environmentalists have arranged a public meeting in April to discuss the possibility of adopting a similar action plan.

The guiding principle behind these towns is that a future without oil and gas could, if sufficient imaginative preparation is put in place, be a better place than the present, with a higher quality of life.

Mr Hopkins said, "I think when you put peak oil and climate change together, it's going to provoke the most immense change and shift in how we do everything. You can't engage people if you see it as a hardship.

"We have been trying to say, this is the great adventure of our time, if we can get it right it will be a historic transition.

"I think people are becoming very aware of climate change and peak oil.

"It's something that is very easy to feel despondent about but the only way we will solve any of these things is through creativity and engaging in this as an exciting transition."

Peak Oil Passnotes: Oil at $35? It's Being Said

Resource Investor

By Edward Tapamor

The oil market has been shaken recently. The break down to $49.90 intraday two weeks ago was a new step after eighteen months of a $55 floor price. And on the way, what has become of the notion of ‘peak oil’? One guy I know who has been relatively at ease with the idea, who supports the idea, found himself questioning it recently. It was a surprise.

The general perception was that we would get oil prices inching ever upwards, an erroneous perception of course. But people really bought in to that idea. Predictions were made that $50 oil or $60 oil would make markets collapse. And not just by odd men on the internet with a healthy imagination. Even here on Resource Investor this columnist thought $80 crude was a shoe-in in 2006. Sure, we got to $78.40, but still.

But there are too many technical sides to markets, in the simplest sense, long and shorts. They prohibit the straight lines on the graphs. When something goes long, eventually enough people have a vested interest in shorting it. We have things like software driven spikes or dips, and year-ends. As in 2005 and 2006 the price has been artificially distorted by the year-end, too low in 2005, too high in 2006.

What we do seem to be seeing clear signs of is more worrying. Inflation has started to get above even political targets in the European and U.S. economies. It is not out of control but it’s not under control either. The wage settlements in Europe are also moving higher, they have to be for ordinary people to be able to afford lives, let alone housing.

Demand for energy is somewhere around flat, the U.S. and China are inching up but nothing the world cannot handle. We are now seeing the effects of the first wave of crude oil price inflation. When it broke out of the $22-$28 OPEC comfort zone for good in 2003 and 2004.

New production will come on stream this year from a great many sources. There has never been a better time to find oil, not at $40 let alone $78. So companies have been on an exploration and production bonanza that has seen many of them, even mid-caps such as Premier Oil [LSE:PMO], Cairn Energy [LSE:CNE], Soco International [LSE:SIA] and others really benefit.

But there it appears things have topped out. Share valuations are well down for many companies in the last twelve months, apart from good old ExxonMobil [NYSE:XOM]. We are seeing lots of new capacity in production and refining coming onstream just when there are gaps appearing economically.

So one analyst this week, who shall remain unnamed here, was talking about $35 crude on technical grounds. Well, that may turn out just to be the other side of the peak oil coin, expecting the price to keep falling.

But of course a drop in price to $49.90 or even $35 really does not signify anything as regards ‘peak oil’. Unhappily for those who thought peak oil would bring about overnight collapse of the U.S. and world economy, whenever peak oil arrives - tomorrow or in a hundred years - it will be a far slower and more drawn out process.

One of the central planks of some ‘peak oilers’ intent on collapse Armageddon-style, was the idea that an oil-induced recession would be coupled with ever rising oil prices. We are not yet at that state. Even major ‘peak oil’ proponents like Chris Skrebowski in London, the editor of Petroleum Review, think that any peak will be delayed by some kind of combination of recession and over capacity.

What the downturn in oil really seems to be signal, is not some kind of magic new world where resources are easy to extract and all the crude reserves in the world magically float to the surface. Instead what the downturn portends, is a period of time ending in recession, eighteen months or two years ahead.

Durango scientist to debunk �myths� - Says predictions about peak oil, global warming overblown

Durango Herald Online

By Dale Rodebaugh

Climate change is real, although the consequences aren't as dire as predicted. And the fear of oil production peaking and then plummeting is a figment of the imagination, according to a retired scientist.
Cohen’s schedule

Roger Cohen, who spent more than 25 years with ExxonMobil Corp. in various capacities, will speak about global warming tonight at Fort Lewis College and about the world's use of energy Sunday at the DoubleTree Hotel.

"There used to be just global-warming advocates and skeptics, but now there are advocates, skeptics and militants, who are taking to the streets to try to turn the world's economy upside down," Cohen said Monday in an interview at his Trappers Crossing home. "The alarmists are distracting us from rational solutions. This is a problem for humanity to manage, not a catastrophe to frighten us into actions we will later regret."

All the information he will present in his "Modern Myths" talks is available to the public, Cohen said.

Global-warming data often is distorted by experts, and the most ominous predictions are accepted by the media as gospel, Cohen said. For example, some media outlets reported on Dec. 15 that the Earth's warming trend continued in 2006.

"In effect, last year was preliminarily the coolest in the past five years," Cohen said. "Statistically, global temperatures have remained static from 1998 on."

Cohen cited other distortions or fudging of facts about global warming:

• Former Vice President Al Gore frightened people with visions of 20-foot sea-level rises.

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which had predicted that melt ing glaciers and icecaps would raise ocean levels 4 to 37 inches in the next 100 years, has revised its estimates to 6 to 17 inches, while most independent researchers foresee a 12- to 14-inch rise in ocean levels - not much more than in the 20th century.

"It's a serious issue," Cohen said. "But 100 years allows time to adapt."

• The glacier on Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro has been receding for 200 years, but what is not said is that the rate has slowed in the last 50 years and the area around the mountain peak has not warmed.

"There are many effects, both natural and human-induced, that change climate, but there is no way to isolate them experimentally to weigh their impacts," Cohen said.

"Therefore, scientists must rely on climate computer models.

"But there are problems with computer models," Cohen said. "Findings don't jibe with observations and the range of predictions is so large - to the year 2100, for example - that people tend to say either 'Ho, hum' or 'Oh, my god.' Such models aren't useful. Also, many scientists believe that the models are fundamentally unreliable and give projections that are too high."

As for a peak and then abrupt decline in world oil production, Cohen called such predictions "an incoherent set of anecdotes." The peak theory is based on a model developed in 1956 by Marion King Hubbert, a Shell Oil Co. geophysicist who predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970.

U.S. oil production today is twice what Hubbert's model predicted, and the nation already has produced more than the model predicted ever would be produced, Cohen said. Petroleum reserves aren't limitless, but about 3.7 trillion barrels remain to be extracted. Only 1 trillion barrels have been produced since the industry began.

"Hubbert's theory fails because it neglects the impact of new technology to find and produce new oil and gas," Cohen said. "It also fails because it's not what is underground that counts but what is above ground - the capital to develop reserves and geopolitical conditions such as the stability of governments."

Peak-oilers are focusing on the wrong things, but the peak-oil theory certainly is popular, resulting in books, blogs and films, Cohen said.

"The theory may not be a cult, but it is certainly an industry," Cohen said.

"If I'm right, CO 2 emissions will peak by midcentury, and by the year 2100, the world will have a nearly emission-less energy system. But the market, not governments, will determine what powers the system, whether it be hydrocarbons (coal with the burial of CO 2 underground), wind, solar, hydrogen, nuclear or a number of other options.

"By then we could be as nostalgic about hydrocarbons as we are about our coal-powered train in Durango now," Cohen said.