In relation to Rogers scenario or "peak oil" arriving in 2020, a few points need to be considered.
People are beginning to wake up to the prospect that the end of cheap oil will mean a massive shift in the way we live and do business. From my experience, most believe that "peak oil" as it's more commonly known, will arrive sometime around 2035. That notion is probably due to the propaganda put out by the oil industry itself, yet many of the people I speak with seem to brush off even that outside date as being of little importance. They say things such as....."That's years away." "We don't have to worry because by then, "they" will have introduced different technology." Nobody seems quite sure just who "they" are, but I'm assuming "they" are world leading scientists who can twist and bend to laws of physics to suit themselves, not to mention the ever greedier consumers.
But, how far away is 2020?
Now, lets look at the date 2020. What's so special about 2020? One very simple issue that people don't seem to be aware of is the fact that 2020 is just 12 years and 5 months away from this time of writing. The other factor concerning 2020 is that it's a date arrived at by Roger Bezdek himself by his own reckoning and whilst I don't doubt Roger's expertise in the area of peak oil, predicting the exact date of peak oil is practically impossible. For all we know, it may well be with us right now and I believe we're already seeing the first birth pangs of this new era.
... or 2035?
As to the general consensus of the date 2035. That's a bit further away, approximately 27 years and 5 months. Considering that any new technology requires a lead-in time of around 20 years to become established, what and where is this "new technology?" We need it today if it's going to be throughly implemented by 2035, but it's simply not on the horizon and for very good reasons. It all comes back to the laws of thermodynamics, physics and a constant supply of natural resources and currently, there's nothing that can match the energy derived from once abundant cheap oil. It's doubtful there ever will be. People talk about the ever elusive Electric Vehicle, but nobody realises the sheer magnitude of swapping the entire motor vehicle fleet over to electric. It's simply not possible! Batteries are the problem. There's simply not enough lead in the entire world to make the billions of batteries required. Even if there was, it would take more fossil fuel to make them than would be saved by going EV. Same with Lithium. Great for mobile phones, but it doesn't exist in sufficient mineable quantities to build all those billions of batteries.
Governments must act now to make the necessary changes
What we do require, is a Government willing to recognise the looming crisis and shift from rampant capitalism to organised power-down. Will it happen? I must say, as an Australian citizen, I remain very pessimistic on that front. The Australian Federal Government is firmly bound to International market forces and is in reality only a puppet of the huge American conglomerates and corporations. Eventually they will have to make hard choices, but by then it will be too late.
The time to act is now, if indeed it's not too late already. Some, who celebrated as they watched 1999 slide gracefully into the year 2000, are now wondering just where the last seven and a half years went. With so many cheap "toys" made from once abundant cheap oil and lives filled with distractions, time does not stand still and indeed seems to fly by faster every year. It won't seem like any time at all until 2020 and even 2035 arrives on our calenders. Will life then be a lot different to how we experience it today? The answer is yes! My only hope is that for most of us, it won't be unbearable.
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