Illustration by Brian Stuparyk
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The world’s runnin’ out of oil.
While such a problem can seem too big and tangled to deal with on a local scale, Tim Hjersted, director of the Films for Action project, wants city leaders to take a serious look.
A 2005 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy estimates oil production will likely begin its gradual, terminal decline within 20 years. Meanwhile, by the year 2025, the report states, worldwide oil demand will rise by 50 percent.
What’s needed to prepare for the oil peak before it happens is at least a decade of intense effort on a “crash course” level, the report says, before oil shortages occur and prices skyrocket. “The world has never confronted a problem like this, and the failure to act on a timely basis could have debilitating impacts on the world economy,” the report says.
Hjersted has been lobbying the city for a year to create a 12-person task force to study the local implications of the possible crisis and come up with specific local solutions. “Its importance isn’t quite understood by a lot of people,” he says.
He says the city could model its peak oil task force on one commissioned by Portland, Ore. Portland last year adopted the suggestions outlined in the task force’s 83-page report.
With the average American dinner traveling 1,500 miles to your plate by some estimates, and the abundance of oil in everyday products, the Portland report predicts that peak oil will force a major reimagining of the American way of life.
Of three scenarios the task force considered, the most dire paints this picture: “Unemployment, hunger, crime and violence are rampant, with socially catastrophic competition for scarce resources, including food, shelter and energy.”
Hirsch Report
The Hirsch report, a study on peak oil commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy and published in February 2005, made the following observations and conclusions in its 91-page summary:
1 When world oil peaking will occur is not known with certainty. A fundamental problem in predicting oil peaking is the poor quality of and possible political biases in world oil reserves data. Some experts believe peaking may occur soon. This study indicates that “soon” is within 20 years.
2 The problems associated with world oil production peaking will not be temporary, and past “energy crisis” experience will provide relatively little guidance. The challenge of oil peaking deserves immediate, serious attention, if risks are to be fully understood and mitigation begun on a timely basis.
3 Oil peaking will create a severe liquid fuels problem for the transportation sector, not an “energy crisis” in the usual sense that term has been used.
4 Peaking will result in dramatically higher oil prices, which will cause protracted economic hardship in the United States and the world. However, the problems are not insoluble. Timely, aggressive mitigation initiatives addressing both the supply and the demand sides of the issue will be required.
5 In the developed nations, the problems will be especially serious. In the developing nations peaking problems have the potential to be much worse.
6 Mitigation will require a minimum of a decade of intense, expensive effort, because the scale of liquid fuels mitigation is inherently extremely large.
7 While greater end-use efficiency is essential, increased efficiency alone will be neither sufficient nor timely enough to solve the problem. Production of large amounts of substitute liquid fuels will be required. A number of commercial or near-commercial substitute fuel production technologies are currently available for deployment, so the production of vast amounts of substitute liquid fuels is feasible with existing technology.
8 Intervention by governments will be required, because the economic and social implications of oil peaking would otherwise be chaotic. The experiences of the 1970s and 1980s offer important guides as to government actions that are desirable and those that are undesirable, but the process will not be easy.
This “Mad Max” scenario—the vision of peak oil often conjured up and dismissed as crazy talk akin to UFO sightings—is just one of many.
What’s not as disputed are the facts that, with no perfect replacement for oil in sight, ethanol and other biofuels included—“While biofuels hold some promise, they are unlikely to replace more than a small share of the petroleum-based liquid fuels currently used,” the Portland report states—people will be driving and flying less, meaning businesses, residential areas, the products we buy and the food we eat will all have to be grouped closer together.
While individuals are constantly being urged to lessen dependence on oil and also help the environment by driving less, buying compact fluorescent lights and things like that, Hjersted says the city needs to consider its role as well in planning a more walkable city and saving prime farmland in and around city limits.
“It is a grassroots effort that starts with the community, and we do hope to get the city on board because there are certain things that businesses and private citizens can’t do, which is approve what gets developed where and how things get developed,” he says.
Last month, Hjersted and others met with the Sustainability Advisory Board, which advises the City Commission on environmental issues. The board is recommending that the commission convene a study session to discuss the issue and decide whether to create a peak oil task force.
Mayor Mike Dever says he’s supportive of the idea, although he’d like to hold off on starting a task force until the recently created Mayor’s Task Force on Climate Protection completes its study on some overlapping issues. “It’s a true issue that we need to worry about now,” he says.
But Dever says that there’s only so much the city can do to control new development, and that in many ways it’s up to private citizens to rethink how the city grows. “I think that’s a laudable goal,” he says. “I think, in America, we have people who own private land and they have the right to do pretty much what they want, as long as it conforms with the rules.”
Daniel Poull, chairman of the Sustainability Advisory Board, says local government has plenty of leverage at its disposal, if it really decides to get serious.
“The city can say, ‘Hey, that’s fine, you develop your piece of property. It’s your property. We don’t have any say over it. But we are not beholden to run miles of storm sewer mains and water out to your property either,’” he says. “That’s the way that that gets handled. So you can’t just say, ‘Well, private property, the owners can do whatever they want.’ Yeah, they do whatever they want, but they also want city services.”
Film: "Crude Impact"
- When: Monday, April 21, 2008, 7 p.m.
- Where: Liberty Hall, 644 Mass., Lawrence
- Cost: $3
- Age limit: All ages
Convincing people of the need to rethink city planning and grow food locally because of something as hazy and unpredictable as an impending peak oil crisis could be difficult, Dever says, but it’s an important issue to look at.
“Tim’s idea makes sense if people can get past the concept that we’ll have to grow in a non-uniform fashion physically,” he says. “It won’t be a perfect growth pattern of stretching from A to B to C. We might have to skip B and go to C because B is where the prime farmland is.
“I like the idea. I think one of the benefits of living where we live is we could grow a lot of our own foods ourselves. We’re not so reliant on truck transport. If you want to pay extra, you can go to The Merc or the farmers’ market most times of the year and get most of what you need. That’s fantastic, and I would like to leverage that for the people who live here.”
Ad Astra Per Aspera / Fourth of July / Boo and Boo Too / Coat Party :: This show is in conjunction with the Red Balloon To-Do art extravaganza and will be Ad Astra's record release show for the vinyl version of "Catapult Calypso" that Second Nature Recordings is releasing on white speckled vinyl. ... More info
Comments
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Posted by renison (anonymous) on April 12, 2008 at 5:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
yes, period.
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Posted by renison (anonymous) on April 12, 2008 at 5:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Oh yeah, and more so.
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Posted by Dominic_Sova (anonymous) on April 12, 2008 at 10:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I have an entire tab dedicated to global warming and the environment on my startpage at http://www.netvibes.com/dominicsova
lots of different articles and opinions to be found there for the interested reader
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by measles (anonymous) on April 12, 2008 at 4:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It's great to see young energetic minds putting their talent to work. We are the generation of the future, and you, Tim, are an inspiration to all of us!
1 of 1 people found this comment useful.
Posted by mtoplikar (anonymous) on April 14, 2008 at 10:59 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Great story. I wish more publications would cover this. In many ways this issue is like the mortgage crisis, where if people are better informed sooner, we have a better chance at taking this problem on seriously and with much greater ease.
With all due respect to Mike Dever, he seems to be saying contradicting things. On one hand he says "It's a true issue that we need to worry about now." but on the other he doesn't seem to be willing to take the necessary first steps to solve the problem.
If we're hesitant to even start studying how Lawrence can prepare itself, how are we ever going to be able to take some of the bigger steps needed when the main source of energy that drives our society becomes much too expensive to be useful.
0 of 0 people found this comment useful.
Posted by smerdyakov (anonymous) on May 14, 2008 at 3:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Nice try l.com, but BORING
This chica's got her finger on the pulse, with STYLE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAPf9V3_l...
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