Peak Oil 3: National and Global Production Peaks of Oil and Other Resources

"We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil." — Mike Bowlin, Chair, ARCO

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel." — attributed to Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai

We are not good at recognizing distant threats even if their probability is 100%. Society ignoring [peak oil] is like the people of Pompeii ignoring the rumblings below Vesuvius." — James Schlesinger, former US Energy Secretary

Geologists have been predicting since the 1950s that oil production would begin to decrease in a matter of decades. When Geophysicist M. King Hubbard predicted in 1956 that oil production in the U.S. would peak in the early 1970s, both the scientific community and the public made him a pariah. However, when production peaked in 1970 as he predicted (Figure 1), many scientists accepted him as a prophet (most of the public remained unaware of his predictions). Many people forget that until the early 1970s the U.S. was, like Saudi Arabia of the 1980s and 1990s, the largest oil producer in the world. However, since the early 1970s the U.S. has become increasingly dependent on foreign countries like Saudi Arabia to feed its voracious appetite for oil. We now rely on unstable third world countries to fuel our cars, and we finance despots and wars to maintain our precious oil supply. Even George W. Bush acknowledged in 2008 that the U.S. is addicted to oil. The effects on foreign countries of the U.S. addiction to oil are very similar to the effects of the U.S. addiction to illegal drugs: the flow of money from the wealthy U.S. leads to corruption, crime, and political instability in third world countries. Our addiction has caused scores of countries and millions of people to suffer. Moreover, our dependence on foreign countries for oil has obviously decreased our national security.

Figure 1. U.S. oil production over time. Equation for Gaussian fit: y = 10955*exp(-0.5*((x-1972.8)/36.21)^2). Data from BP Statistical Review (2010).

Now that the U.S. depends on foreign countries for 2/3 of its oil, we must be concerned not only about the reliability of our existing suppliers but also the natural limits to global oil production. In the year 2008 the world experienced for the first time a spike in oil and gas prices resulting from demand, as opposed to previous price spikes in 1973, 1980, and 1990 caused by global conflicts. Increases in oil prices result in increases in the costs of farming and food. The spike in 2008 occurred because countries didn't allow the market to correct itself; instead, for decades they subsidized energy and food, keeping prices artificially low ((Friedman 2008), p. 41).

To understand better why we can expect to have future shortages of non-renewable resources such as oil, we refer to (Figure 2), which plots hypothetical production rates of renewable and nonrenewable resources as a function of time. As discussed previously, because there is a finite amount of every nonrenewable resource such as oil, production and consumption inevitably lead to resource depletion. The total amount of a resource that is available (the ultimate cumulative production) is equal to the area under the curve. Resources that are not abundant and that we use rapidly run out quickly so that their resource production curves are very narrow. Resources that we use slowly or that are abundant last much longer, so their curves are wide and do not peak until well into the future.

Figure 2. Hypothetical production rates as a function of time. After Hubbert (1987).

It is the timing of the peak that is of most interest, because any time after the peak the resource will be scarce and therefore be expensive. In (Figure 2) the “unlimited exponential growth” curve can represent human population, while “renewable resource” can represent water production/consumption. As stated by Hubbert, “In their initial phases, the curves for each of these types of growth are indistinguishable from one another, but as industrial growth approaches maturity, the separate curves begin to diverge from one another. In its present state the world industrial system has already entered the divergence phase of these curves but is still somewhat short of the culmination of the curve for nonrenewable resources (1987).”

Note that on the rising limb of Hubbert's Peak demand drives supply: "the more oil the world economy needed, the more the oil industry could produce… Once we pass the peak, supply begins to dictate demand, meaning that prices start to rise suddenly and steeply, and the people with control of the remaining oil really get to start calling the shots (Hopkins 2008)."

We can apply Hubbert’s approach of constructing resource availability curves to any non-renewable resource on either a local or a global basis. Many countries are already post-peak for production of oil (including the U.S.) and other resources. For example, the U.S. imports 100% of the following resources that it uses: Arsenic trioxide, asbestos, bauxite and alumina, columbium (niobium), fluorspar, graphite, manganese, mica, quartz crystal, strontium, thallium, thorium, and yttrium (Keller 2011). Because we have global trade, local scarcity has not resulted in a crisis. Countries that have a surplus of a resource export it, and countries erase their deficits by importing. The problem occurs when global annual production rate of a nonrenewable resource peaks and then begins to decline. During the decline, resource production cannot keep pace with demand, and resource prices rise. Peak oil may cause shortages of many other resources because oil provides the energy to transport those resources. If the U.S. doesn’t have oil to transport all of the resources that we import, we will have more than just an energy problem.

What nonrenewable resources may become scarce in the 21^st century? Hubbert predicted that copper, tin, lead, and zinc would reach peak production within decades (Hubbert 1987). At the current rate of consumption, these metals will be available for 60, 40, 40, and 45 years respectively, and Indium, which is used in LCDs and solar cells, may run out in only 15 years (Ragnarsdottir 2008). Phosphate, which is an essential component of fertilizers, may disappear within the next 60-70 years (Oelkers and Valsami-Jones 2008), which could greatly decrease agricultural productivity and cause widespread food shortages.

It’s not just non-renewable resources that we have to worry about. Certain types of renewable resources have production curves similar to those of non-renewable resources because their renewal rate is less than the harvesting rate. For example, deep (fossil) groundwaters have been in the ground for hundreds or thousands of years, which means it would take hundreds or thousands of years to replace them at natural recharge rates. In many areas of the world, the groundwater extraction rate is much greater than the recharge rate, so the groundwater reserve is shrinking, as made visible by falling water tables in unconfined aquifers. When we use groundwater and other resources faster than they can be replaced, we are effectively mining them, and we can expect the production rate to peak and then decline, as occurred in Saudi Arabia (Figure 3). Consequently, hydrologist Luna Leopold advocated the treatment of groundwater as a nonrenewable resource that we should use only during droughts. The sustainable approach to resource use is not to use renewable resources faster than nature can renew them.

Figure 3. Saudi Arabia Water Supply 1980-2000 in Million cubic meters/year. Data from Abderrahman (2001).

Another renewable resource whose production has peaked is the global wild fish catch, which peaked in the 1980’s due to overfishing (Fig. 1.10). Fortunately the use of aquaculture as a substitute is expanding, which has softened the blow. As human population and resource demand continue to increase, we can expect to see the production of more resources peak and then begin to decline. The important question is, will we always find adequate substitutes as we did for marine fish?

Oil production is now declining in 60 of the 98 oil-producing countries. Most of these countries had a peak in oil discovery 30-40 years before they reached peak production. Similarly, we can expect world oil production to peak 30-40 years after world discovery rates peaked in 1965. World oil consumption has outpaced the discovery of new oil reserves for almost three decades: we now consume four barrels for every one we discover.

Discoveries of oil total about two trillion barrels worldwide, and we already used ~one trillion barrels. That puts us at the center of the production curve where the peak is (often called “Hubbert’s Peak”), so that when we start consuming the second half, production rates will decrease and prices will rise (the curve is symmetrical, so the peak is in the center and the area under the curve to the left of the peak is the same as to the right of the peak, corresponding to one trillion barrels). Furthermore, the first trillion barrels was the oil that was easy to get out of the ground; the second trillion barrels will become increasingly more difficult to mine. The EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Investment) will steadily decrease, and the amount of environmental damage associated with oil recovery will greatly increase.

Andrew Nikiforuk gives good evidence that the world is nearing peak oil in his book “Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent” (Nikiforuk 2008). He notes that the biggest supplier of oil to the U.S. is no longer Saudi Arabia, but our next-door neighbor Canada. U.S. citizens are happy because there is less risk that money we spend on oil will end up in the hands of terrorists who target us. However, Canadian oil primarily comes from the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, and mining of this “dirty” oil creates huge environmental problems, including much higher CO₂ emissions per unit energy because large amounts of natural gas are used to refine this dirty oil. Production of tar sand oil emits roughly 100 to 650 pounds of CO₂ per barrel, compared with North Sea oil that emits only ~20 pounds per barrel. Nikiforuk (Nikiforuk 2008) calls this “a switch from bloody light oil to dirty heavy oil,” and concludes that it is not in the best interests of the U.S. or Canada.

Several other observations support the idea that global peak oil is near. First, of the 98 oil-producing nations, 60 have already passed their peak (Hopkins 2008), including the U.S., U.K., Norway, Venezuela, and Russia; countries near their peak include Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and China; and countries where production is increasing include Canada (tar sands), Kazakhstan, and seven others. Second, although prices have been very high, giving an incentive to increase production, the production rate has remained steady at 84-87 million barrels per day for the last six years (Figure 4). The evidence is that geology rather than economics or politics dictates production rates. Third, oil companies are drilling in more difficult environments because they have already tapped out the easy targets. For example, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in May 2010 resulted from the extreme pressures below one mile of ocean and four miles of rock where they were drilling. Another supporting observation is that oil companies have not greatly expanded their oil exploration activities even though the price of oil has skyrocketed. Oil companies are now using their vast amounts of money to diversify or buy back their own stocks rather than spending more money on R&D and exploration. This is clear evidence of falling return on investment in exploration, and shows that oil companies are planning for reduced oil production.

Figure 4. World oil production in thousands of barrels daily. Gaussian fit predicts peak production in the year 2026 (y = 85079*exp(-0.5((x-2026)/51.94)^2). Data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy Data 2010.

So when will global oil production peak and then begin a steady decline leading to increasing cost? Oil companies and national governments want investors to be optimistic about the future, so they try to discredit peak oil claims. To get the true story we need experts who are independent of corporate or government interests, who have no personal stake so their opinions are objective, and who base their opinions on facts. Kenneth Deffeyes (2001) argued that the peak would be somewhere close to the year 2005. Using data from British Petroleum’s annual Statistical Review of World Energy 2010, I plotted world oil production through 2009 (Figure 4). The data show that oil production plateaued starting in 2005. The increasing gap between constant supply and increasing demand fueled by countries like China and India caused oil prices to increase dramatically by 2007 before falling in response to the global recession. A Gaussian fit to the production data peaks at 2026[i] (Figure 4). Most other studies that tried to fit the production data and extrapolate it into the future suggested that oil production would peak near 2008-2010 (Figure 5, from www.theoildrum.com). Considering that oil production has not increased significantly since 2005, and actually dropped 2.6% from 2008-2009 (BP 2010), these predictions seem accurate. However, as Hopkins (2008) points out, the exact date of the peak doesn't matter; what matters is that it is near, and we haven't begun to prepare for it.

Figure 5. World oil production (EIA Monthly) for crude oil + NGL. The median forecast is calculated from 15 models that are predicting a peak before 2020 (Bakhtiari, Smith, Staniford, Loglets, Shock model, GBM, ASPO-[70,58,45], Robelius Low/High, HSM,Duncan&Youngquist). 95% of the predictions sees a production peak between 2008 and 2010 at 77.5 - 85.0 mbpd (The 95% forecast variability area in yellow is computed using a bootstrap technique). The magenta area is the 95% confidence interval for the population-based model.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “The world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary” (Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management, February 2005, Page 64). What is crazy and wasteful is that the U.S. and other countries are still building car assembly plants, roads, highways, parking lots, suburban housing developments, and airplanes as though cheap oil will last forever (Brown 2009). We continue to make investments in an infrastructure that will be superfluous shortly after we build it. This is an example of a market that is failing because it does not anticipate even short-term changes.

Many will dispute the assertion that world oil production has nearly peaked. It is possible that the current peak apparent in (Figure 4) is a local maximum rather than a global maximum. Examples of local maximums include the 1973 and 1980 peaks in world oil production followed shortly after by price increases. Both of these local maxima resulted from political events, the OPEC embargo in 1973 and the Iraq-Iran war in 1980. So while resource availability is the primary control, anything that disrupts production and transportation of oil (wars, natural disasters, and politics) can cause short-term fluctuations in production rates and therefore price. However, the current oil production peak is not caused by political events, but by the inability of producers to increase supply.

Others argue that oil production, or at least combined conventional and unconventional oil and gas, will not rapidly decline but will plateau or slowly decline (Cheney and Hawkes 2007). Production of conventional oil and gas may decline steeply. However, substitution with unconventional oil such as tar sands combined with improvements in extraction technologies will slow the rate of production decline for combined conventional and unconventional oil and gas, consistent with the nearly constant production rate of the last six years. Even in this best-case scenario where world oil production plateaus rather than peaks, oil prices will still climb considerably because demand will continue to increase exponentially as the economies of China and India expand at an exponential rate. As noted by Lester Brown, in this era of globalization “where oil production is no longer expanding, one country can get more oil only if another gets less (Brown 2009)”. The U.S. will be competing with China, India, and every other country in the world for oil, which will drive up oil prices.

Some think that increasing domestic production will solve any oil shortage problems for the U.S., but in reality, oil companies will sell any domestically-produced oil on the global market. Despite political claims to the contrary, if the U.S. opened the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling today, when it reached maximum production in roughly 2030 it would supply no more than 1.2% of the total world oil consumption[ii], and therefore would have a negligible impact on oil prices. Furthermore, oil production could not begin until roughly ten years after opening ANWR (yes, it takes that long to build the pipeline, drilling facilities, etc.), and would peak around 2030 before starting to decline, so it won’t help the U.S. for at least ten years. So no, opening ANWR will not solve our oil problem.

The most important question about oil is not how much remains in the ground, but how much can we mine and still maintain economic and energy profits (Hall and Day (2009)). We get an energy profit when we get more energy from the oil we produce than the amount of energy required to produce it. The Energy Return On Energy Investment EROEI of U.S. petroleum declined from roughly 100:1 in 1930, to 40:1 in 1970, to about 14:1 in 2000 (Hall and Day (2009)). For the tar sands that produce a major amount of oil consumed in the U.S. the ratio is much less than 10:1, perhaps even close to 1:1 (Figure 6). As EROEI decreases, the cost per unit energy increases.

Figure 6. From Hall and Day (2009)

Increases in EROEI, supply-demand gap, and price of petroleum will also cause increases for gasoline, because gasoline is produced by distilling oil in a refinery. Gasoline is an amazing substance that we take for granted. Each gallon of gasoline contains 37 kWh of energy, which is equivalent to 500 hours of human work[iii] (http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Research.html). In other words, you could hire 500 people to push your car for one hour and it would get you roughly as far as one gallon of gasoline. Currently that gallon of gasoline costs about $2.50, but to hire 500 people to push your car for one hour at a typical wage of $10/hour would cost you $5000. People say gas is too expensive? It’s the bargain of the millennium, which is why people are burning through it so quickly.

Some argued that gas prices were high in 2008 because the U.S. didn’t have enough refineries, and that the problem of high gas prices would just go away if we build more refineries. If that were true, then the price of gas should be cheaper in most other countries, which are unlikely to all have made the same dumb mistake. Here is a global comparison of gas prices:

Table 5.2: Gasoline Prices for Selected Countries, February/March, 2009

From <http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/facts/2009_fotw569.html>.

Country	Pump Prices	Country	Pump Prices	Country	Pump Prices
Netherlands	$6.25	India (Delhi)	$3.75	China	$1.93
United Kingdom	$5.94	Australia	$3.32	Nigeria	$1.85
Germany	$5.87	South Africa	$3.24	Indonesia	$1.67
Italy	$5.72	Russia	$2.38	Iran	$0.33
France	$5.56	Mexico	$2.36	Venezuela	$0.12
South Korea	$5.38	United States	$2.23

In most countries gasoline is more expensive than in the U.S.. Iran and Venezuela have anomalously low prices because they are petroleum-producing countries with government-controlled pricing. European countries have much higher prices due to heavy government taxation. Thus, high gas prices are a global problem caused by oil scarcity, and are not caused by a U.S. infrastructure deficiency. We conclude that oil is becoming scarce, that exploration and enhanced recovery are unlikely to relieve that scarcity, and that oil prices will continue to rise as demand increases.

References

BP (2010). Statistical Review of World Energy 2010, British Petroleum. http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622.

Brown, L. (2009). Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. New York, NY, W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Cheney, E. S. and M. W. Hawkes (2007). "The Future of Hydrocarbons: Hubbert's Peak or a Plateau?" GSA Today 17(6): 69-70.

Deffeyes, K. S. (2001). Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.

Friedman, T. (2008). Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux.

Hall, C. S. A. and J. W. J. Day (2009). "Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil." American Scientist 97: 230-237.

Hopkins, R. (2008). The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience, Chelsea Green Publishing.

Hubbert, M. K. (1987). Exponential Growth as a Transient Phenomenon in Human History. Societal Issues, Scientific Viewpoints. M. A. Strom. New York, NY, American Institute of Physics: 75-84.

Keller, E. A. (2011). Environmental Geology, Pearson Prentice Hall.

Nikiforuk, A. (2008). Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. Vancouver, BC, Canada, Greystone Books. file:///C:\Users\ayersj\Documents\My%20Classes\Sustainability\Papers\TarSandsBook.pdf.

Oelkers, E. H. and E. Valsami-Jones (2008). "Phosphate Mineral Reactivity and Global Sustainability." Elements 4(2): 83-87.

Ragnarsdottir, K. V. (2008). "Rare metals getting rarer." Nature Geoscience 1(11): 720-721. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/pdf/ngeo302.pdf.

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[i] According to Deffeyes (2001), production values for nonrenewable resources such as oil are best fit using the Gaussian or normal distribution y=a*exp(-.5*((x-x₀)/b)²). This equation has three adjustable parameters: the year of peak production (x₀), the amount of oil produced daily during that peak year in millions of barrels (a), and the number of years between the half-maximum points (b). I used the Solver add-in in Microsoft Excel 2010 to minimize the sum of the squares of the residuals (= predicted – measured), known as the chi-squared statistic, by automatically adjusting the values of the three parameters until I obtained the best fit values for global production of a = 85.0, b = 51.9, and x₀ = 2026, with r² = 0.87. I obtained the same results using nonlinear regression in Sigmaplot 11. The calculated peak production of 85 million barrels per day is roughly equal to the production rate from 2007-2010.

[ii] Fear of oil shortages has led to the spread of misinformation, particularly for political gain. Recently a friend said he had heard from several sources that ANWR can supply about 60 years of oil for the U.S.. I told him that I had heard that, given our current oil consumption rate, it was more like a two -year supply (if it were our only source of oil), and that to last 60 years ANWR would have to contain more oil than Saudi Arabia ever had. That night I looked up the statistics. According to the USGS (2001) ANWR holds roughly 10.4 billion barrels. In 2007, the United States consumed 7.54 billion barrels of oil. Thus, it would take only 10.4 bbl/7.54 bbl/year = 1.38 years for Americans to consume all of the oil. For the maximum estimate of 16 billion barrels of oil in ANWR it would take 16/7.54 = 2.1 years. Considering our rate of consumption of oil is continuously increasing, an estimate of two years supply is a reasonable upper limit.

[iii] Actually, if as stated previously "One kilowatt-hour per day is roughly the power you could get from one human servant”, then I calculate that it is 888 h as follows: if E = P*t, then t = E/P = 37 kWh/(1 kWh/d) = 37 d * 24 h/d = 888 h

Peak Oil 2: Oil Formation, Exploration, and Recovery

To understand why the amount of oil stored in the ground is finite, and the amount that we can retrieve is even smaller, we need to review how oil forms and how we recover it from the ground. The oil stored within the earth initially formed hundreds of millions of years ago when plants used photosynthesis to store the sun’s energy, died, were rapidly buried, and transformed under heat and pressure into oil. The energy stored in oil molecules is therefore ancient trapped sunlight. Oil can form from buried plants only under special conditions in the oil window at approximately 3-6 km depth, and only when oxygen is not present to react with the carbon to form carbon dioxide (respiration). Oil is usually found only in sedimentary rocks that are less than 500 million years old, because land plants did not exist before that time. Because oil takes millions of years to form, it is considered a non-renewable resource.

Oil source rocks are the fine-grained organic-rich sedimentary rocks, usually shales, where oil forms over millions of years. Because it is a low density fluid, oil does not usually remain in the source rocks but tends to migrate upwards through permeable rocks. A reservoir rock such as a sandstone or coral reef has sufficient permeability to let the oil flow into it and porosity (empty space) to store the oil. An impermeable cap rock, often salt beds, can trap the oil beneath the surface. Petroleum geologists look for oil in places where cap rock (salt) lies above potential reservoir rock (sandstone), which in turn lies above potential source rock (shale).

Because oil is “liquid gold,” oil companies have spent billions of dollars perfecting techniques for oil exploration and recovery. Over time, exploration shifted from the surface to the subsurface. Each drilled well provided information about the subsurface. From drill chips, geologists could identify rock types and microfossils and assess their potential as source, cap, or reservoir rock. After drilling a series of wells, a geologist could interpolate the subsurface structures (sedimentary layers, faults, etc.) between wells so they could estimate the depth of reservoir rocks in undrilled locations, and therefore how deep they would have to drill a potential well.

To improve their oil-finding capabilities further, oil companies developed methods for wire line logging, gravity surveys, and subsurface seismic profiling that greatly increased the success rate of expensive drilling and allowed exploration geologists to find small patches of oil at great depth. These techniques greatly lowered the costs of exploration; they also greatly increased the amount of oil delivered to the market. Both factors helped to keep the price of oil low. These techniques were so effective that oil discoveries skyrocketed until 1965 (Figure 1) but have fallen ever since, suggesting that most or all of the abundant oil supplies have been found.

Figure 1. Crude oil price per barrel (2009 U.S. $) over time. Data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy (2010).

Experts debate how much oil remains, and how much we can recover. In his book “Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage” Princeton geologist Kenneth Deffeyes (Deffeyes 2001) claimed that the total recoverable amount of oil was 2.1 trillion barrels in 2001, and that we had used roughly half of that, so that roughly 1000 billion barrels remained. In 2006 we consumed oil at a rate of 31 billion barrels per year. If that rate remained constant, it would take 1000/31 or ~32 years from the time of Deffeyes’ estimate to consume all of the remaining oil, i.e., we would deplete oil reserves by the year 2033. However, the oil consumption rate is increasing exponentially because population is increasing at an exponential rate. Furthermore, it is not the timing of ultimate exhaustion of the resource that concerns us, but the timing of peak oil production. After oil production peaks, a gap will develop between continuously increasing demand and decreasing supply, and the price of oil will skyrocket (Figure 2). This will occur well before ultimate depletion occurs.

Figure 2. Peak oil and the supply-demand gap. After Keller (2010).

The prospects for finding large new oil deposits to erase the supply-demand gap are not good. Theoretically we can recover large amounts of oil from smaller oil fields, but it is not economically feasible; oil companies make most of their money from giant oil fields. Today ~85% of total production comes from less than 5% of production fields (Deffeyes 2001). Oil companies made all but two of the major oil discoveries before 1940, so the rate of discovery of large oil deposits (spikes in (Figure 3)) has greatly decreased.

Figure 3.

Enhanced oil recovery is also unlikely to significantly increase supply. Primary recovery, which uses natural reservoir pressure, extracts no more than 25% of the petroleum in the field. Enhanced recovery, which requires manipulating the reservoir pressure by injecting gases and liquids, extracts up to 50–60% of the petroleum. Despite more than 50 years of research on how to improve recovery rates, we still leave more than 40% of the oil underground. This is unfortunate, because worldwide we are now abandoning more wells than we are drilling.

References

Deffeyes, K. S. (2001). Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.

Peak Oil: Background

Climate says we should change, but peak oil says we will be forced to change (Hopkins 2008).

Oil is an amazing liquid, and an ephemeral, invaluable gift[i]. It has been the world's most important source of energy since the mid-1950s. But evidence suggests that demand for oil will soon outstrip supply, and in the face of shortages of energy, especially for transportation, we will be forced to change our lifestyles.

Oil is effectively a non-renewable resource because it forms much more slowly than we consume it. Thus, by definition our dependence on oil is unsustainable. Oil will become a “scarce,” expensive resource when the world production rate reaches a maximum, an event called peak oil. After that peak, oil production will decline and oil prices and the cost of living will begin a long-term increase.

Currently we have no adequate substitutes for oil. It is the only high energy density liquid that can fuel our current forms of transportation. Coal is used to produce electricity, natural gas for power and heating, but there is no substitute for oil for transportation. The only other liquid fuels that could potentially substitute for oil are hydrogen and biofuels, and both have significant drawbacks. Hydrogen is not a source of energy but a carrier of energy. Hydrogen production requires other forms of energy, usually fossil fuels, and hydrogen vehicles are not energy efficient (MacKay 2009). Biofuel production requires large amounts of land because the efficiency of photosynthesis is low. In most countries biofuel can only be produced by converting land for food to land for fuel, but even if we converted all agricultural land to biofuel production it still could not meet our transportation fuel needs. For example, if Britain converted all of its agricultural land to biofuel production, it still would not supply enough energy (36 kWh/d per person) to meet demand from cars (40 kWh/d per person - see (MacKay 2009) pp. 43-4). After peak oil, we will think twice before hopping in the car for joyrides or frivolous errands; those activities will be too expensive to continue.

Besides its importance for transportation, oil a critically important part of our industrial agriculture system, and is the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, and plastics; the 16% not used for energy production is converted into these other materials. Peak oil advocates such as Deffeyes argue that we should save our remaining oil for more valuable applications than burning it up in our cars. For example, we can’t make most plastics without oil. An oil shortage could cause shortages in all these materials:

Table 4.1: Things we may have to do without* after Peak Oil

* or fall back on less adequate or more expensive substitutes

• Most forms of plastic including PVC and polycarbonates
• Wax
• Asphalt used to make roads
• Tar
• Many lubricants
• Many solvents
• Many detergents
• Many adhesives
• Resins and epoxies
• Fibers (polyester, acrylics, nylon, etc.)
• Synthetic rubber
• Agrochemicals: Fertilizers, Pesticides, Herbicides
• engine coolant and aircraft deicer fluid (propylene glycol)
• Styrofoam
• Many personal care products including perfumes, cosmetics,
• Oil-based paints including polyurethanes
• Materials for electronics (electrical insulation, capacitors, transformers)
• Many inks and dyes
• Many food additives including flavorings, colorings, and fragrances
• Many pharmaceuticals

Thus, an oil shortage could have a major impact on the way we live. In the next post we will explore the evidence for peak oil.

References

Hopkins, R. (2008). The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience, Chelsea Green Publishing.

MacKay, D. J. C. (2009). Sustainable Energy - without the hot air. Cambridge, England, UIT Cambridge Ltd. www.withouthotair.com.

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[i] Note that we use the term “oil” synonymously with petroleum

Change Your Transportation

Transportation has a huge environmental impact, so society must focus on reducing that impact. Consider the environmental impact of a single automobile that travels an average of 100,000 miles in its lifetime. There is the damage that results from the manufacturing of the car and the mining and processing of the raw materials; from the drilling, transporting, and refining of the oil and gas that it uses; and from the emission of green house gases, NOx that contributes to acid rain, and ozone that causes photochemical smog. There are many other problems associated with automobiles. Driving a car is one of the riskiest activities we engage in, and cars make walking and bicycling much more dangerous on shared roads. Much of our country has been paved over by roads and parking lots, which has increased flooding risks but also uglified our landscape (I love Joni Mitchell’s song “They Paved Paradise and Put up a Parking Lot”). Driving in heavy traffic is very stressful, often leading to episodes of “road rage”. Yes, driving in the countryside without other cars can be very relaxing and enjoyable, but how often does that happen today, and is it worth all of the problems it creates? My prediction is that the most significant lifestyle change in the U.S. in the next two decades will be the abandoning of the car culture. That lifestyle won’t disappear completely, but it will become less prevalent as the price of fuel dramatically increases (due to peak oil and carbon taxes). The change may be traumatic, as 88% of workers in the U.S. travel to work by car, making the U.S. particularly vulnerable to peak oil [1]. People will choose smaller cars, cars that do not run on fossil fuels, or other modes of transportation including moped, bicycle, and mass transit. They will move closer to their jobs to decrease their transportation costs (I hope to buy a home within walking distance of my work before peak oil makes the cost unaffordable). They will take fewer long trips, and they will go to school closer to home. They will travel less for work, as companies try to cut costs. Telecommuting will become even more widespread, and in many cases, videoconferencing will make travel to meetings unnecessary. All of these changes will reduce traffic congestion and pollution, increase our national security by decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, reduce CO₂ emissions contributing to global warming, and I would argue, increase our health (more walking) and quality of life (less time wasted in traffic, better scenery).

Change What You Drive

The technology of automobiles hasn’t changed dramatically over the last 100 years. Most still use a standard internal engine fueled by gasoline. Throughout my life, U.S. auto manufacturers have presented prototypes of cars that were supposed to change the way we drive, but none of them ever came to fruition. Production and leasing of the EV-1 in the 1990’s signaled a potential shift to electric cars, but GM aborted that foray into new technology by confiscating all of the cars and destroying them, as documented in the film “Who Killed the Electric Car?”. However, contrary to general wisdom and the claims of some environmentalists, electric cars currently are not better for the environment. That is because the electricity used to power them comes primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal. Also, they are inherently less efficient, because any time you convert energy from one form to another you lose some energy. Converting fossil fuels into electricity to fuel automobiles is much less efficient than using them to fuel the car with an internal combustion engine directly. The same argument holds true for the now heralded hydrogen cars, which use electricity to produce hydrogen gas H₂, which in a fuel cell in the car reacts with oxygen gas O₂ to produce H₂O, releasing energy in the process. Although the hydrogen-fueled car emits only water, the process of producing the hydrogen requires lots of energy that usually comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which emits large amounts of CO₂ and other pollutants. So how can we make cars less harmful to the environment? First we must convert our primary source of energy from fossil fuels to renewable forms like wind and solar. Then we should use the electricity that is produced to fuel plug-in gas-electric hybrid cars, or eventually to produce H₂ gas for hydrogen-fueled cars.

Hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius have already raised the bar for energy efficiency. Hybrids have both a gasoline engine and electric motor. They produce electricity through regenerative braking, and automatically shut off the engine when idling. Another promising development is cars that run on biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Flex cars can use ethanol or gasoline, but this is not a new technology, as it dates back to the original flex-fuel vehicle, the Model T, built in the 1910s. Many have concluded that production of ethanol from corn is not energy efficient, with some estimates showing that it requires more fossil fuel energy to produce the ethanol than is obtained from burning it. In addition, use of corn for ethanol production has increased the price of corn worldwide, which is a serious problem for the poor who depend on it for food. An increase in the price of corn causes increases in the price of all products for which corn is used as a feedstock. This problem of using food for fuel can be avoided by producing ethanol using switchgrass and wheat straw, which are also more energy efficient than corn.

So what can you do now? First, make every effort to decrease the number of miles you travel. Combine your errands. Never idle you car. Make sure your car is in tune and properly inflate the tires to maximize gas mileage. Carpool whenever possible. Make purchases online rather than driving to the store. Accelerate and decelerate slowly, and try to maintain a constant top speed. Ask your boss if you can telecommute one day per week. Vacation locally, or consider purchasing carbon offsets for the miles that you travel for vacation [2].

When the time comes to change your ride, buy a fuel-efficient hybrid as soon as you can, or even better, switch to mass transit. Encourage your employer to pay for your mass transit costs (like my employer, Vanderbilt University, they may be willing to do so because it means they will save money by building fewer parking garages). Imagine how much money you would save if you didn’t have monthly car and car insurance payments.

In the future, I envision a decentralized system of energy production for fuel-efficient homes and cars. Picture a windmill in your yard, and solar panels on your roof. The wind and the sun that power these energy sources are free and limitless. The electricity that they produce could be used to power your home and your plug-in electric car, or to produce hydrogen for the fuel cell in your car, all with zero CO₂ emissions or pollution.

1. Brown, L., Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. 2008, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

2. Jeffery, Y., L. Barclay, and M. Grosvenor, Green Living for Dummies. 2008: For Dummies.

Book Abstract

The environmental impacts of increasing human population, consumption, and technology are now widely recognized and global in scale. Humanity is now bumping up against the limits defined by earth’s carrying capacity. Rising costs of many natural resources reflect the combined effects of shrinking supplies and increasing demand. Global production of oil has peaked and is now declining, portending long-term cost increases for fuel and food. Global production of other resources such as marine fish are also declining. Global warming threatens supplies of food and water and may make many locations uninhabitable. Overconsumption and pollution have led to water shortages in many countries. The global reserve of grain has shrank for the last eight years, and during that time the price of grains has increased 2-4x (*check). The global ecological footprint is now 1.3 Earths, meaning that the growing human population and economy have overshot the capacity of earth to regenerate resources and absorb waste by 25%. Humanity was last sustainable in the 1980's, and most global human welfare indicators have declined since the 1980's. The only solution to these multiple threats is for humanity to adopt sustainable living practices that help to preserve People, Prosperity, and the Planet and guarantee that future generations can live as well as we do today. First, we must switch energy production from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. This soft approach of decentralized use of renewable resources that do not emit CO₂ is preferred over the hard approach of centralized energy production using non-renewable resources because it is sustainable and increases our energy security, and it would make the use of electric and hydrogen-fueled cars truly CO₂-free. A drastic reduction in the number of coal-fired power plants can reduce the problems of CO₂ emissions, acid rain, and unsafe fly ash and coal slurry ponds. Power plants that continue to burn fossil fuels could capture and sequester CO₂ in the ground. Water conservation and decentralized purification or privitization can help ensure adequate, safe drinking water supplies.

In the last 100 years, cheap oil has fueled rapid global and particularly U.S. economic growth and helped us to produce the food needed by an exploding human population. As oil production drops, oil prices will rise, and so will the cost of food and nearly every product on the market. Of greatest concern is the potential increasing cost and scarcity of food. Current agricultural practice requires 10 calories of oil energy for production of one calorie of food energy. Global warming, decreasing biodiversity, and water scarcity will compound the problems of energy and food shortages. In this declining world, people will need to adapt to living with fewer resources and less wealth.

The changes that are required to make our society sustainable may be too great to achieve through action of a centralized government, particularly because the U.S. government relies on continuous economic growth and is beholden to corporate interests. On the other hand, decisions made collectively by individuals can greatly reduce the ecological footprint of societies. High prices will force people to make sustainable lifestyle choices, including purchasing fuel-efficient vehicles and decreasing miles traveled by moving to high-density housing close to the workplace. This will lead to a reversal of the decades-long migration from cities to the suburbs, eventually resulting in the rebirth of cities and decay of the suburbs. Anticipating these changes can help individuals make smart investment decisions.

The goal of this book is to convince you that change is coming. You can try to ignore or deny change, but you will be better off if you anticipate change and adapt to it. Because the change will involve resource shortages, you can best adapt by limiting your resource use. Stop living large! Reduce your consumption, and reuse and recycle everything. By reducing your ecological footprint and living sustainably, you can be happy while living on less, and because you will incur less damage on your environment, it will be able to provide you with more. On the other hand, if you continue to take more from the environment, it will have less to give you in the future. You can be happier if you simplify your life and live sustainably. Once you have reformed your own lifestyle, you can help to reduce the ecological footprint of others. Protest the opening of any new coal-fired power plants. Convince your community to switch to compact fluorescent lights or even ban incandescent lights. Try to move your workplace toward sustainability by starting recycling programs and discouraging the use or sale of disposable products such as bottled water. The more positive changes you make, the better chance our society has for survival, and the better life will be for us and our children.

How Much Oil in Alaska?

*Note: my spring semester is over, so I will be publishing at a much greater frequency.

My goal is to dispel the falsehoods spread by talk show hosts and politicians. Last night an acquaintance said he had heard from several sources that there is about 60 years of oil for the U.S. in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge ANWR. I told him that what I had heard was that, given our current oil consumption rate, it was more like a two year supply (if it was our only source of oil).  To last 60 years the ANWR would have to contain more oil than Saudi Arabia ever had, and that gave him pause.

The problem is that people listen to talk-show hosts and believe everything they say. The talk-show host is not an expert on the subject, and what he says may be totally unreasonable, but many people accept his statements uncritically, and don't make an effort to find out for themselves.

When I got home that night, I looked up the statistics. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy) "the total production from ANWR would be between 0.4 and 1.2 percent of total world oil consumption in 2030. Consequently, ANWR oil production is not projected to have a large impact on world oil prices..[24] … In 1998, the USGS estimated that between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels (2.54×109 m3) of technically recoverable crude oil and natural gas liquids are in the coastal plain area of ANWR, with a mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels (1.65×109 m3), of which 7.7 billion barrels (1.22×109 m3) lie within the Federal portion of the ANWR 1002 Area.[17] … In 2007, the United States consumed 20.68 m bbls of petroleum products per day."

Using the mean estimate of 10.4 billion barrels, and an annual consumption rate of 20.68E6*365=7.54E9 barrels per year, it would take only 10.4E9/7.54E9=1.38 years to consume all of the oil. For the upper limit of 16 billion barrels we would have 16E9/7.54E9=2.1 years. Considering our rate of consumption of oil is continuously increasing, an estimate of two years supply is a reasonable upper limit.  So regardless of what Sarah Palin says, no, we don't have enough oil in Alaska to solve our energy problem.  In addition, if we do open the ANWR up to drilling, it would not contribute significantly to domestic crude oil production until 2018 (Wikipedia).

Peak Oil

The public hates negativity and pessimism. When Geophysicist M. King Hubbard predicted in 1956 that oil production in the U.S. would peak in the early 1970’s, both the scientific community and the public made him a pariah. However, when production peaked in 1970 as he predicted, many scientists accepted him as a prophet (most of the public remained unaware of his predictions). Many people don’t remember that up until the early 1970’s the U.S. was the Saudi Arabia of the world. However, since the early 1970’s the U.S. has increasingly depended on foreign countries like Saudi Arabia to feed its voracious appetite for oil. We now rely on unstable third world countries to fuel our cars, and we finance despots and wars to maintain our precious oil supply. Even George W. Bush acknowledged in 2008 that the U.S. is addicted to oil. The effects on foreign countries of the U.S. addiction to oil are very similar to the effects of the U.S. addiction to illegal drugs: the flow of money from the wealthy U.S. leads to corruption, crime, and political instability in third world countries. Our addiction has caused scores of countries and millions of people to suffer. Moreover, our dependence on foreign countries for oil has obviously decreased our national security.

Now that the U.S. depends on foreign countries for 2/3 of its oil, we must be concerned not only about the reliability of our existing suppliers but also the natural limits to oil production. When will global oil production peak and then begin a steady decline of decreasing supply and increasing demand and cost? In his book “Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage”, a Geologist from Yale University named Kenneth Deffeyes [1] argued that the peak would be somewhere close to the year 2005. I used data made available by BP Oil on their website to plot world oil production through 2007:

 

The data indicate that oil production peaked in 2006 (we will need to collect data for a few more years to confirm this). The increase in gasoline prices and the gas shortages of 2008 certainly made U.S. citizens acutely aware of their addiction to  gasoline:

Good evidence that the peak has already arrived is given by Andrew Nikiforuk in his book “Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent”[2]. He notes that the biggest supplier of oil to the U.S. is no longer Saudi Arabia, but our next-door neighbor Canada. U.S. citizens are happy because there is less of a risk that money we spend on oil will end up in the hands of terrorists who target us. However, Canadian oil primarily comes from the Athabasca tar sands in Alberta, and mining of this “dirty” oil creates huge environmental problems, including much higher CO2 emissions per unit energy because large amounts of natural gas are used to refine this dirty oil. Production of tar sand oil emits roughly 100 to 650 pounds of CO2 per barrel, compared with North Sea oil that emits only ~20 pounds per barrel. Nikiforuk calls this “a switch from bloody light oil to dirty heavy oil”, and concludes that it is not in the best interests of the U.S. or Canada.

Of course, the concept of peak oil is neo-Malthusian. There is a finite supply of oil in the ground, so it cannot last indefinitely. I don’t think that Cornucopianists dispute this; rather, they believe that through our ingenuity we will find other sources of energy. However, it bears reminding that any non-renewable resource can ultimately become depleted, so taking the long-term view, it makes sense to increase our reliance on renewable sources of energy. Non-renewable resources are finite and subject to Malthusian limits. Renewable resources are unlimited.

Let me give an example of how knowledge can give you an economic advantage. I have always favored small cars, initially because they produce less pollution, but later because I knew the price of gas would increase due to Malthusian limits. Having small, fuel-efficient cars gave me some decided advantages. For example, in the wake of hurricane Rita in 2008 there were gas shortages in several major cities, including my home in Nashville. My family’s fuel-efficient cars were able to get us through the weeklong shortage without a refill. Also in 2008, the price of gas increased to $4 per gallon. Suddenly everyone wanted to trade in his or her large SUV’s for smaller, more economical cars. The value of large vehicles plummeted, and it became so bad that car dealers stopped buying large used SUV’s, and wouldn’t even take them for trade-ins because they were piling up in the dealer’s lots. Domestic auto manufacturers, who had promoted large vehicles for years, were caught off-guard. The market had changed suddenly, and most of the vehicle models they offered were no longer in demand. Sales and profits plummeted, and the auto manufacturers started hemorrhaging money. In this case, the market punished both individuals and large corporations for their short-sightedness. Individuals not only were stuck filling up their gas-guzzling trucks and SUV’s with $4 per gallon gas, but the value of their vehicles plummeted and they had great difficulty selling them. Although the price of gas dropped precipitously in late 2008 due to the economic recession, I can state with confidence that it will soon go back up to $4 per gallon and higher. Take my word for it: don’t buy a large vehicle. It is a bad investment. Purchase a small, economical car, preferably a hybrid car, because it will not only be a better investment, but will also be better for the environment.

1. Deffeyes, K.S., Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage. 2001, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 208.

2. Nikiforuk, A., Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent. 2008, Vancouver, BC, Canada: Greystone Books.

Book Outline

Introduction

What is sustainability?

Why should I try to live sustainably?

Unsustainable Societies

The Collapse of Ancient Civilizations

Ghost Towns

What is the Evidence that our Current Lifestyle is Unsustainable?

How Should I Start Living Sustainably?·

What are the near-term challenges to sustainability?

Population Growth

Globalization

Energy

Energy Resources: Introduction

Energy Supply and Demand

Sustainable Energy Policy

Peak Oil

Global Warming

The Evils of Coal

Water

Food

Air

What are the Solutions?

Stabilize Population (brief)

Switch to Renewable Energy

Wind

Solar

Biofuels

Why Not Nuclear?

Change the energy infrastructure

Hydrogen for energy transportation

Change the Economics

Economics and Capitalism

Personal Financial Considerations

The Role of Corporations

Change the Way You Live: Living for the Future

Reduce Your Consumption

Reduce Your Waste

Change Your Home

Move to High-Density Housing Close to Your Workplace

Design Your Home Wisely

Sustainable Architecture

Make your home efficient

Energy Conservation

Water Conservation

Change Your Transportation

Change What You Drive

Change How You Drive

Use Mass Transit

Change What You Eat and Drink

Change How You Use Your Land

Sustainable Landscaping

Organic Gardening

Be Good to the Environment

Steps I have taken to reduce my impact on the environment

The Role of Education

Where is the U.S. Headed?

What if the Worst Happens?

Survivalism

What is Most Likely to Happen
References

First Sustainability Book Blog

I just started writing a book on Sustainability, and decided a good way to get feedback from people as I write is to periodically post snippets to a blog.  If successful, this would be my first published book, although I have published many articles in the scientific literature. What I will post to the blog will be my first drafts of sections.  I have been working on the book for roughly ten days, and my time is limited because I have a very hectic schedule this semester, so the going may be slow over the next couple of months. However, I've completed most of the Introduction, which I will post here as my first entry. Comments and suggestions are welcome. I'm particularly interested in hearing whether people think they would find this book interesting and worth reading. Thanks for your input! - John

Introduction

Our society faces some major challenges in the next few decades. Scientists are concerned about the availability of energy, water, and food needed for a growing population. Most of our energy comes from sources such as oil, coal, and natural gas that are non-renewable. Furthermore, use of those energy sources releases the greenhouse gas CO2 into the atmosphere. In the United States, our high quality of life derives from abundant, cheap fossil fuels. However, many scientists believe that global oil production recently peaked, and therefore oil will become less abundant and more expensive with time. This will cause a large increase in the cost of living because most of the goods we use and food we eat were produced and transported using fossil fuels. In the Age of Oil it was easy to get rich, but after the peak in oil production it will be hard to stay rich. This book has two target audiences: those who feel a moral obligation to help preserve a high quality of life for our offspring and future generations by living sustainably, and those who simply want to find ways to maintain their current high standard of living. The first group has likely already been convinced that our current lifestyle is not sustainable. The second group either doesn’t know or doesn’t care, but recognizes that they can profit if they acquire the knowledge needed to anticipate future economic trends shaped by availability of resources. As a result, I wrote the first few chapters of this book to convince those in the second group that our current lifestyle in the U.S. is unsustainable, and that we can expect shortages in energy, water, and food in the coming decades. These shortages will cause economic recessions and possibly depressions, and likely will lead to multiple wars (as wars are generally fought over resources). The following chapters are aimed at those in the first group who are willing to make small sacrifices in their personal lifestyles for the greater good. By reducing their consumption they can help society delay future shortages; on the plus side, they will be better prepared when the shortages come. The final chapters give some advice on how people in both groups can anticipate the global economic changes looming in the near future and best position themselves to adapt to those changes. We can’t completely avoid the coming shortages and the economic consequences, but we can lessen the fall; we can reduce the impact on individuals and on society as a whole, and (for those in group one like myself) improve the quality of life of future generations.

Why did I write this book, and what qualifies me to write it? I am a Professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department at Vanderbilt University, specializing in Geochemistry. My work has focused on aspects of the environment and resource availability and quality (primarily water but also ore deposits and fossil fuels). After teaching about these topics for over twenty years, I realized that due to the exponential growth of human population and consumption rates we were likely to deplete some critical natural resources in the near future, and that could have very large economic and societal consequences. It now seems likely that oil will soon be in short supply, and oil shortages will limit the economic growth that has sustained the global economy for decades. The U.S. is the most powerful county in the world because in the 20^th century it had abundant oil to jump-start its economic growth; we now use our power to maintain the flow of oil from other countries. Without oil, our economy and our power would whither. I have two children, and I began thinking about how all of this would affect their lives. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound good for them. I believe that the world economy has peaked and will soon start a steady decline caused by oil shortages. Furthermore, the U.S. is particularly vulnerable because we currently consume roughly 25% of the oil produced even though we make up only 4% of the global population. I also recently became convinced that our use of oil and other fossil fuels is causing global warming, and it scares me that we are changing the earth on a global scale and we don’t really know how it will affect us. So our reliance on oil is doubly evil, as it makes us reliant on unstable foreign countries for supply and vulnerable to shortages, but it also makes changes on a global scale to a delicately balanced system that we don’t fully understand. Thus, it seems critically important to me that, first and foremost, we reduce our use of oil (we must also reduce coal use for other reasons outlined in chapter ?). This can be accomplished through conservation measures taken by individuals and communities, but on a the larger societal scale it requires policy makers to promote a switch to renewable energy sources (wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal, and hydroelectric) that don’t release CO2 to the atmosphere. This book aims to give citizens the tools they need to reduce their ecological footprint and achieve sustainability, and in the process save money and maintain a high quality of life. It will also educate citizens so that they can elect political candidates who acknowledge these problems and advocate workable solutions to them rather than ignoring them. The problem is that politicians are focused on the short-term, but we need to elect politicians who have the strength and foresight to improve the future and not just the present. As a patriot, I want to convince our government officials that to keep America strong in the future our country must greatly reduce the use of oil. This is a point that we all can agree on, liberals and conservatives alike.

In writing this book, I’m aware that some will view me as just another “Chicken Little”. It’s true that some environmentalists have been claiming for decades that “the sky is falling”, and much of the public (perhaps rightly so) treats this group like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. But remember that boy, and Chicken Little if I recall correctly, turned out to be right. And while scientists in the past have not been able to successfully predict the exact timing of resource shortages (e.g., neo-Malthusian scientist Paul Ehrlich lost to Cornucopianist economist Julian Simon when he bet that metals prices would skyrocket in the 1980’s (?) due to shortages), I believe their warnings about the future had merit. For example, everyone agrees that oil will become scarce in the future, but there is little agreement on when. To me it is important that people know that oil will become increasingly unaffordable during their lifetimes, so that they can prepare for these near-future shortages and not get caught off-guard. I should also point out that I am an optimist, not a pessimist. I believe it is in our power to solve the problems I discuss in this book. First, however, we must acknowledge that we have a problem, and then discuss possible solutions to the problem. The primary problem we will discuss in this book is our addiction to oil, or more generally fossil fuels. Like any addiction, the addiction to oil is unhealthy. It hurts us as individuals, and it hurts our country. It is like a disease, and because it such a dangerous disease, it must be countered with many different medicines, and almost certainly a change in lifestyle.

I also think it is important for people to understand the important role that science plays in our society, and that we can use the information provided by science to our benefit. Although topics like global warming can be complex, I’m convinced that everyone is capable of understanding the essentials. Knowledge helps turn citizens into wise voters who are well-equipped to make the right choices for themselves and their country. In this book, I use a minimum of jargon in order to make this important information accessible to all. Moreover, I think the reader will find that topics like global warming are fascinating, and the rapid growth of our knowledge in this area is truly exciting.

This topic is particularly timely because there is a fundamental shift in the approach the U.S. government is taking. Contrast the inertia of the Bush administration (reluctance to change from fossil-fuel economy) to what is occurring now: “It now appears,” Schneider writes, “that Obama plans to launch his presidency with a daring idea: To anchor the American economy with energy sources not derived from fossil fuels.” As Schneider notes, Obama is trying to establish a new paradigm: Instead of marginalizing environmental concerns, Obama wants the solutions to environmental problems to help drive economic growth. Read Schneider’s article here.

I’m also trying to bridge the gap between scientists and laypersons. I believe I’m well-qualified for this task because I am a geoscientist, but I am not an expert on the specific topics that comprise this book. That makes it easier for me to explain the science to my readers, because I am really explaining it to myself using the printed word. My goal is to draw on the most up to date and high quality papers from scientific journals to inform the reader. I will also try to show the connections between seemingly disparate developments in Environmental Science. This is a time of rapid advances in our understanding of the relationship between humans and the environment, and the public usually only catches glimpses of these exciting developments. I will try to approach these issues holistically, pointing out, but not dwelling upon, the problems, and focusing on the possible solutions.

This book is focused on the U.S., the most powerful country in the world and the greatest contributor to environmental destruction. My aim is the convince U.S. citizens that we must turn the boat around 180 degrees and use our strength to show the rest of the world the path to the future - we need to reassume the mantle of leadership.

*Introduce chapters

In the end, I think that our society will only take serious action on these environmental issues when they reach the crisis stage. So why read this book and try to anticipate the crises if we can’t contribute to their solution? The answer is simply that you will be better-prepared for these future crises, which will give you great economic advantages over the short-sighted. However, if in spite of my cynical predictions humanity summons the courage to make difficult choices, and the strength to alter the course, then I hope this book will have contributed to that transformation.

This book was conceived in spring of 2009 when I taught a new course called “Sustainability: An Environmental Science Perspective”. For the first term paper, I created an outline for a book titled “Future Trends: How to Live Sustainably” and asked each of the 16 students to choose a topic for their paper. Each of the student’s papers became a chapter in a book that we published online at http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/page/h5dg6A. I realized that there were no comparable titles in print, and recognized that our society had an unfilled need for information on this topic. The notion of writing this book was particularly appealing to me because I’ve always wanted to “make a difference”, and it gave me an opportunity to use some of my knowledge to help others. I dedicate this book to my wife Mary who has made my life worth living, and to my children Alicia and Austin, who gave me the inspiration to think and write about our shared future. I hope this book helps make their world a better place.