I am on some military strategy lists. On one of them I’ve gotten into a bit of a peeing match. I’m still hot enough I am going to need to vent in my own space. shrug.
We are at peak oil, like it or not. World production has been remarkably stable at just over 85 million barrels per day (mbpd) since the middle of 2004, DESPITE various nations (especially the Saudis) saying they’d increase, and DESPITE increases across the globe in demand. (More cars on the road – China – means more demand for gasoline. That’s a simple measure but demonstrates the increase.)
Oil production will not cut off as though a switch has been thrown. But it will decrease, and that decline will begin somewhere between one and four years from now. (The sources I trust figure it more tightly at 2010, but ymmv.)
Probably various fields about to come online will slow the decline, or possibly even extend the plateau. Not increase production, sorry – their output will ramp up as other places ramp down.
The bottom line is that there will be more competition for an ever-scarcer “critical” material. And that will result in increased costs, increased friction, and a pursuit of alternatives.
The US is behind the curve on this. Looking at it SOLELY from a nationalistic view, we’ve got a short and painful list of options.
a) We can try and seize/secure oilfields in other places. The secondary weakness of this is that we’ll have to expend a LOT of money and effort to keep others from taking it from us – directly, through theft, or merely sabotage (if they can’t have it, nobody gets it). The PRIMARY weakness of this is, well, it’s like fighting to be the man atop the mast on a sinking ship. Being last in the water doesn’t help unless there’s help on the way. It postpones the problems.
b) We can try to reduce our oil use by changing our habits to use less oil. I need to digress and point out that in the United States, the single greatest use of oil – as in about 70% – is transportation. A bit over 60% of that is PERSONAL transportation. Yep, about 42% of the oil we use – imports and home production both – is used by commuters and vacationers. It becomes obvious that mass transit, to name one example, IF USED becomes a viable method of reduction. As a strategic aside, making this happen is possible, but it’ll be nasty. First, make sure laws pass that encourage mass transit use over personal vehicle use. Second, fund mass transit while penalizing individual transit. Yes, I mean such things as BOOST federal taxes on gas, use that money both to subsidize construction and initial use, and further ‘tempt’ by offering tax credits for expenses when using mass transit. (Bus/rail receipts reduce my taxes? ok).
The advantage of this strategy is it significantly reduces our need to get involved in other production sites. Involvement is optional. And without OUR nose in the middle of various messes, it’s someone ELSE’s nose that gets bloodied. It also extends how long we can operate before we are gasping at the shortage.
The largest disadvantage is that even though we’ve made staying on top of the mast easy, the mast is still sinking. And a secondary is that whether we want to or not, we’re still going to be drawn into some of the squabbles – either due to alliances or due to other issues. As an example, if some nation decides to nuke another, we’re going to be a wee bit upset and become involved. Oh, I almost forgot the other secondary disadvantage. Ten to twenty years to pull off all the way. Five to get tolerable if we make it a national emergency priority. Finally, a tertiary (to us) disadvantage — everyone else is still fighting over the scraps and contributing to both shortages and climatological problems.
c) The other option – the HARD one – is to reduce EVERYONE’s dependence on oil. big sigh. What do we need? We need a fuel source that is mobile and will be a REASONABLE compromise in comparison to gasoline. It’s really that simple, and that hard. Now it might be fuel cells, or it might be improved batteries. Barring miracles in the bioengineering area, it won’t be biofuels. (Set aside the EROI, just figure the fuel needed, then the raw material needed to create that fuel for the world, then compare to arable land available. Even if we sacrifice 100% of our food production capacity, it ain’t happening.)
Biggest advantage? Removes the demand for a scarce resource. Actually it doesn’t, but it drastically reduces it.
Disadvantage? Add “eventually” to that sentence above. there are some promising technologies, but nothing is yet viable for replacing gasoline as a fuel. So we’re talking serious R&D, followed by ramp up of production followed by distribution – first locally /nationally, then globally.
So, what does this all mean?
If I were advising the next president on strategies, I’d tell him to go nuts on option three, and while the R&D is ongoing to push option two. For a decade, maybe two we’d have to act as though we’re a lot smaller than we are – very, very little force projection, save as absolutely required to keep from being destroyed or denied our other two options.
At least, that’s what I’d like to advise. And would. But the reality of politicians who want re-elected is that unless the tragedy is staring them in the face, people won’t sacrifice. So in reality, I’d advise as follows:
Lay the groundwork for options two and three. But for the next eight years, build a force structure and diplomatic corps that ensures when the shortfalls happen we get ours – and when the war breaks out we are ABLE to follow options two and three.
Yeah, war. Military conflict over who gets the output. Incidentally destroying a large proportion of that capacity for at least the short term. I figure that’s about a decade out – when everyone KNOWS the oil is going away. It could be sooner, but if so that victory condition will be obscured by something else. (In other words, if Iran/US kicked off, it wouldn’t ostensibly be about the oil. But the oil is the reason other nations would get involved – on BOTH sides.)
Mental Meanderings 
Before I left working at Alcoa to move west, we had a representative from Alcoa marketing in Asia come and talk to my group about the market potential for automotive castings in China. I liked him.
One of his slides started to talk about growth in China – building infrastructure, the changing economy and more people buying cars. He made a comment on one of his graphs, about projected vehicle ownership, and which car companies were successful in China – I mean, we were trying to decide who to make suspension castings for… would it be Toyota, GM, Chery? WHo?
Anyhow, as he shows us this growth slide for how many vehicles are going to be produced in China, he says, slight of hand, that – yeah, that’s nice, but there isn’t enough oil to actually support this growth. My boss dismissed it, I knew he was on to something and I knew he was RIGHT.
Yeah, more war is coming. PH has talked about this – the resource wars. Fighting over what is left. When we are done fighting over oil, we’ll fight over coal. We’ll fight over lumber. We’ll fight over agricultural products. It’s going to get a lot uglier, and unlike Dorothy’s Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my, I am not sure it’s going to get light again. This may be a long dark road we are on for a long long while. And everyone is going to be fighting to be King of the Forest.
BTW – we are either going to have to voluntarily reduce our oil consumption – or it will be forced on us. I’d rather start making choices for myself, as we have been trying to do. All those truckers in New Jersey and England and Spain – blocking up freeways in protest… their protests are useless. We will do it on our own, or it will be forced upon us. There is no choice here. Peak Oil. You and I get it, I’m surprised at how many other people don’t, or don’t want to!
Actually, no I’m not in agreement – not completely. Here’s the walk in simplistic terms:
When everyone realizes we’re running low there’s a lot of dancing. At some point the dancing goes too far, and we have war.
The war will, almost inevitably, cause destruction of some of the production capability, but not the raw resource. It will also cause some deaths, but probably “not enough”.
In that much, we’re in agreement. The divergence happens there. We take one of two forks, and neither leads to war for coal and war for lumber. (War over water is possible, still. Separate issue.)
The thing is, oil gives us gasoline. Well, other things as well, but the Big Deal is gasoline. Coal can be treated to produce a diesel substitute, but it means either massively increasing current rates of production OR stopping most of what it’s used for today. damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Once oil’s locked up, our mobility stops unless we develop a viable alternative. That takes us to our fork:
a) we develop the viable alternative. It has problems, guaranteed, but we won’t see them or worry aobut them for at least a century.
b) we do not develop the viable alternative. And we suffer significant die-off, to the point where the oil produced is ‘more than enough’.
Now, PH is betting on B, and I’m betting on A. We walk a common road for a while – the problem is there, we need to make a massive change to avoid it but the nature of people is that we won’t do it til forced to do so, and therefore we’re going to have a period of squabbling over limited resources. Then… we fork.
I don’t know what we are going to fight about, aside from oil, which is obvious, and the water fights are already happening out here in Colorado. AND most Michiganders don’t realize that other states are illegally siphoning off the Great Lakes, so water fighting, yeah, gonna happen.
Coal, lumber, farmable land? Possibly. People stealing chickens from my own backyard? PH thinks so.
What I think – life is getting hard. And it’s going to get harder for people who are NOT prepared for it. And people aren’t even thinking they have to prepare for it. I see things being bleak and hard for a while.
I hope we do come up with an alternative, but what do you think it is? I’m not sure there IS an alternative. I think we can transfer a LOT of energy to wind and solar. But what is going to get Americans out of their precious cars? What is going to replace the ICEs in those precious cars?
Besides, I think we needed to develop the alternative at least 25 years ago to get people to transfer to it, without the heartache we will see coming up.
but then again, I am in an emotional state, and I am very tuned in to the wave of unemployment, lack of health care, high gas and food prices the some people are finally starting to feel the hurt from. I’m not basing any of my discussion on research, I don’t even read the Oil Drum. I do know one thing though – oil WILL run out. Some people just don’t get that. And I somehow doubt we come up with a solution before it’s gone – a solution that can be globally accepted and implemented in time.
When I let my paranoia run free, I see the Oil War starting with a US/Iran engagement under Bush. We end up with China on the other side. At my most paranoid, Russia and most of Europe joins them. Somewhat simultaneously, Mexico shatters.
Mexico’s biggest oilfield is declining, and predicted to be essentially nothing in about six more years. That’s producing a major hit on the nation’s income. At the same time, a major drug/crime organization that split into two about five years ago has essentially taken over some provinces. There are indicators that all three are getting ready to grab for the whole pie, kicked off by everyone’s unhappiness due to that oil situation. The effect on us is refugees and agents provacateur – trying to get us involved some way down there to assist one side.
Us, and maybe (maybe) Canada as a neutral, against most of the industrialized nations of the world and a hostile southern border. That’s my worst fear.
On saner but still depressed days, I still see Mexico getting ugly. I still see us kicking off OW with war against Iran. China still moves to support them. The rest of the world, however, moves differently. A lot of neutrals (for a while, hoping to pick up the pieces). A couple still join China/Iran, a couple join us, and it just gets ugly from there.
If Bush doesn’t kick off Iran, I think we’ve got at least four years before we see OW, and possibly as many as 20. Probably in about a decade. Mexico happens in the three to six year window. Ironically, Mexico going septic keeps us out of the OW for a while – full plates and all of that.
Welcome to the loony bin.
Your tin foil hat is in the mail.
You want some depressing numbers? Google on “Jeffery Brown” and “Export Land Model”
Cantrell (mexico) is ‘declining’ at 14% a year. That is a crash. Gotta love 3rd generation recovery technology…. makes the downslope all the steeper.
Here is to hoping AVA solar and SPS save us from our own stupidity.
As far as I can tell…. every war is a resource war. At least… the ones that you remember. I mean, Grenada may have been over something else…. but really…. no one cares except the Grenadians.