By Matthew Burrows
Georgia Straight 12/2/7/08
Original Article
VPO NOTE: VPO has been pushing for a peak oil task force for over a year, and now Councilor Andrea Reimer is answering the call. Time is short – please write in to city hall and voice support for this task force. Much of the work has already been done by the proposed members individually and is waiting to be taken off the shelf. We need to move into implementation immediately.
Mayor Gregor Robertson and Coun. Andrea Reimer are promising they will make Vancouver ready for peak oil.
“We have to address peak oil,” Robertson told the Georgia Straight at City Hall. “That’s a hard reality.…I think it could end up compounding the looming challenges we face with oil supply and an economy that’s totally dependent on cheap energy right now.”
Peak oil refers to the point at which the rate of global oil production maxes out, sending the supply of the resource into an inevitable decline.
In October, the U.K. Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security released a 43-page report entitled The Oil Crunch. The report anticipates peak-oil-related problems hitting the U.K. starting in 2011 and says the threat posed by peak oil is greater than that of terrorism.
Robertson and Reimer both say that lower oil prices don’t mean that action on peak oil should wait.
“Andrea Reimer is leading the charge on the ‘greenest city’ initiatives, and I will speak with her about how we integrate a peak-oil strategy,” Robertson said. “Certainly it needs to be factored in. I think we underestimate this at our peril right now, and it needs to be factored in with the decisions we are making this term for sure.”
Reimer said she would like to see a task force created to address the issue.
“The thrust of it would be, what is the impact on citizens living in Vancouver of the phenomenon of peak oil?” Reimer told the Straight in a separate interview at City Hall. “What’s it going to impact the most?”
Regarding task-force members, she named as possible candidates UBC professor Bill Rees, Vancouver Peak Oil Executive founder Richard Balfour, and FarmFolk/CityFolk cofounder Herb Barbolet.
In November, Rees, originator of the ecological-footprint concept, said that Robertson’s interest in peak oil was “encouraging”.
“It’s one thing to recognize a problem, but it’s quite another to create policies that will address it effectively,” Rees told the Straight.
“Now, if they act [Vision Vancouver acts] assuredly, consistent with their beliefs here, they’ll probably be thrown out in the next round, because they will upset so much of the public,” Rees said. “That is, unless they explain it adequately. What politicians fail to do is educate the public on why certain policy directives are necessary. They fail to put in place the accompanying policy directives that will ease the pain of transition.”
cjwirth
December 28, 2008 | 4:59 pm1
Mayor Robertson needs to focus on preparing for Peak Oil impacts, not conservation measures.
Independent studies conclude that Peak Oil production will occur (or has occurred) between 2005 to 2010 (projected year for peak in parentheses), as follows:
* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)
* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008)
* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst (2008)
* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)
* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)
* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)
* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell Geologist (2005)
* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)
* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)
* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)
* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)
Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
“By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Press_Oilreport_22-10-2007.pdf
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/