The Nation — In January, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Pete Seeger
was the oldest person to perform as part of Barack Obama’s
inauguration festivities. 

Singing the “greatest song about America ever written” (Bruce
Springsteen’s words) before 500,000 people live and tens of millions
more on television, the then-89-year old legend crooned two little-known
verses of his friend Woody Guthrie’s 1940 patriotic standard, “This Land is
Your Land” — both about Depression-era poverty — restoring the
song to its former glory over the sanitized version that ruled for too
many years.

Over the course of a remarkable lifetime, Seeger has been an ambassador for peace, social justice and
the best kind of
patriotism.
A uniquely American mix of blueblood and bluegrass — a product of
Harvard University and the son of a violinist mother and musicologist
father — Seeger has lived the story of the American left in the 20th
century. The celebrations of his 90th birthday on Sunday offer a good
opportunity to showcase and celebrate the causes to which he’s devoted
his great life.

Defiantly leftist, pacifist–and for a decade or so,
Communist–Seeger
has embraced and supported virtually every major progressive advance of
the 20th century. He’s sung and spoken out for organized labor, against
McCarthyism, in support of racial justice, on behalf of nuclear
abolition and against the Vietnam War; his voice put early wind into
the sails of the environmental movement.

The right to dissent in a democracy has been a cornerstone of Seeger’s
activism. In the fourth episode of the video series
This Brave Nation
Seeger talked
about the infamous 1949 riot in Peekskill, NY, and the impact it made
on his political development and commitment to free speech.

Seeger’s songs have engaged people, particularly the youth, to
question the value of war, to ban nuclear weapons, to work for
international solidarity and against racism wherever it is practiced,
and to assume ecological responsibility.

A particular hero to the civil rights movement on whose behalf he’s
worked so tirelessly, Seeger
made his first trip south at the invitation of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. in 1956, and returned in ‘65, again at King’s personal invitation,
to join the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Amid the tension
and heat, Seeger went from campfire to campfire when the marchers
stopped for the night, raising morale with rollicking sing-alongs of new
freedom songs. (05/03/09)
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The Oil Drum — The most important task of the entity charged with coordinating and
executing any mass communication strategy will be to boil down the peak
oil message into a few slogans and visual illustrations. That won’t be
easy. And, once that’s done, having the discipline to repeat those
slogans and spread those illustrations often and everywhere will be
even harder. But with what’s at stake, the peak oil movement must find
that discipline or continue to limp along on the edges of the
mainstream media and public consciousness.

1. It’s not the size of the tank which matters, but the size of the tap.

Peak oil is not about “running out of oil,” it’s about the peak rate of oil production. It’s not the size of the tank which matters, but the size of the tap.

When the production rate of oil reaches its
geological limit and begins to decline, the world’s economies will be
forced to live within a shrinking, not expanding, energy budget. The
economic impact of peaking oil production is what concerns us, not the
amount of oil yet to produce, because all economies depend on
continuous growth. We won’t “run out of oil” for another 100 years or
more, but it will be produced at ever-declining rates.

This is an essential concept. Talking only about the
number of barrels of oil that might exist somewhere, without also
talking about the rate at which that oil can be produced, and when,
entirely misses the target.

Oil production rates generally follow an irregular
bell-curve shape. It is simply the nature of petroleum extraction that
it gradually ramps up, reaches a peak or short plateau (sometimes with
a secondary peak) when roughly half of the recoverable oil has been
produced, and then declines.. This observation has been made in
thousands of oil fields (and oil producing nations) worldwide, and is
named “Hubbert’s Peak” in honor of the geologist who first described
it, Dr. M. King Hubbert.

For the world, ASPO-Ireland’s working model of past and future oil production looks like this:

Figure 1 ASPO-Ireland World Oil Production Model

Source: Colin Campbell, ASPO-Ireland Newsletter No. 90 – June 2008

This model is based upon a detailed study of all the world’s major oil fields, with all forms of petroleum taken into account.

According to the June 2008 revision of this model,
the peak of all petroleum liquids—including heavy oil from Venezuela,
deepwater oil from the Gulf of Mexico, oil from the Arctic and Alaska,
and natural gas liquids—is this year, 2008. But the exact date of the peak is almost irrelevant when considering the implications of peak oil.

2. We are now at, or “close enough” to the peak.

Right now, the world is producing between 86 and 87
million barrels per day (mbpd) of “all liquids,” and that rate has
changed little since 2005. Crude oil production has been stalled at
roughly 74 mbpd. The rest of the “oil” counted in the “all liquids”
numbers includes natural gas liquids, tar sand production, biofuels,
and refining gains, and it is these alternative liquids that have been
responsible for nearly all of the growth in world oil production for
the last several years.

The world has reached a bumpy production plateau, as shown in the following chart.

Figure 2 World Liquids Fuel Production January 2002 - May 2008

Source: Oilwatch Monthly, June 2008.

After a serious review of the flow rates of the
world’s oil producers, we conclude that world production is unlikely to
ever exceed 90 mbpd, and in fact, might not increase more than 1 or 2
million barrels above where it now stands. It appears we are now on the
peak oil plateau, or close enough to it that the date of the technical,
absolute peak doesn’t matter.

As ASPO founder Colin Campbell has said, “Arguing
endlessly over the precise date of the peak also rather misses the
point, when what matters is the vision of the long slope that comes
into sight on the other side of it.”

Within the next three to six years, the world will
likely reach the end of the peak oil plateau and go into terminal oil
production decline.

At that point a growing world population will be
forced to live with an ever-decreasing supply of oil. Many of the
adaptation strategies we are counting on, like increasing the share of
renewable energy and replacing the vehicle fleet with more efficient
vehicles, will require decades and enormous investment to make much
difference.

Unfortunately the world no longer has decades to make
the necessary changes. Not only are we “close enough” to the peak,
we’re far too close to it.

3. Oil production in the U.S. is well past its peak and is in long-term decline

The U.S. uses about 20 mbpd of petroleum and other
liquid fuels, and produces about 7 of that (only 5 of which is actual
crude oil). The other two-thirds is imported. There is no possible way
that we could produce another 13 million barrels per day domestically,
no matter where or how quickly we drilled.

The potential flow rates of the remaining U.S.
deposits are formally unknown (we’ll get to that in a moment), but
their contribution cannot fundamentally change the basic trend line of
our petroleum production. Here is a chart of historical U.S. oil
production:

Figure 3 - US Oil Production 1900-2005

Source: Jean Laherr‘re 

The 38-year decline in U.S. oil production was not the result of politics. It is simply the nature of petroleum extraction.

In spite of major technological advances since the
U.S. peaked in 1970 (3-D seismic, horizontal drilling, CO2 flooding,
computer processing power, etc), our oil production is still declining.
Indeed, despite the discovery of the largest oil field ever found in
the U.S. (Prudhoe Bay), we were unable to get back to the production
level at the peak in 1970.

4. Oil shale: the fuel of the futureÖand it always will be.

After four decades of fully authorized, commercial, even subsidized attempts
to develop oil shale into a usable liquid fuel, no one has ever been
able to make it economically feasible. Part of the reason for that is
that it’s not even really oil—it’s kerogen, an immature precursor to
oil. Kerogen is a solid, like a low-grade, high-ash coal.

The most ambitious oil shale project in the country
is a pilot project in northwest Colorado operated by Shell. Their plan
is to drill several hundred holes into a football-sized plot of land,
into which heating elements are inserted. They will heat up the “pay
zone” of hydrocarbons, which is often buried 2000-4000 feet deep, to
temperatures up to 700 degrees F, and keep it there for three to four
years in order to cook the kerogen into a liquid.. That takes a great
deal of energy input.

In order to keep the heated zone from leaking oil
into the surrounding water table, a “freeze wall” is built around it,
which will use even more energy to freeze the ground with giant
chillers.

The net energy of this process isn’t yet known, but
it’s so energy-intensive that we’re willing to bet this technology is
unlikely to ever produce more than a modest flow (though perhaps a very
long-lived one) of extremely expensive synthetic oil.

ASPO’s Randy Udall puts it this way: “Suppose you
owned $100 million dollars, but the bank would only allow you to
withdraw $100,000/year. You would be richÖsort of.”

5. ANWR and the continental shelf are no panacea.

The potential flow rates of the conventional sources
of hydrocarbons locked up in ANWR and the continental shelf cannot be
known until they are produced. But we can make ballpark estimates.

All of these areas have been well explored, and we
have an idea of what they might produce: a slight bump in the bell
curve of U.S. oil production, like this:

Figure 4 –US Oil Production 1860-2100

Historical data (1860-2006, red symbols) and model predictions for
US oil production rates in billion barrels per year. - Dashed line:
Base case with 231 billion barrels ultimate cumulative US oil
production. - Solid line: Production curve with 42 billion barrels of
new oil resources (273 billion barrels of ultimate cumulative
production).
Source: Dr. Kyriacos Zygourakis, Rice University, “Commentary: On Quenching Our “Big Thirst” for Oil,” Peak Oil Review, May 5, 2008.

That model is a best-case scenario of US oil production if all off-limits federal lands were opened to drilling.

There are limits on all of the remaining U.S. oil
reserves, for numerous technical reasons that would be beyond the scope
of this summary. To cite just one example, let’s look at the capacity
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

There is only one pipeline that could transport oil
from ANWR: the 800-mile Trans Alaskan Pipeline System (TAPS), which
serves the Prudhoe Bay field. No other oil pipeline from Alaska’s north
slope would ever be built, due to the cost and logistical issues. TAPS
can transport a little over 2 mbpd, and carried about 740,000 bpd last
year. Therefore, if we brought ANWR online today, it could at maximum
deliver about 1.25 mbpd. But in reality, it would take 8-10 years after
approval to begin producing the first of that oil. Furthermore,
preliminary estimates by the USGS indicated that ANWR would likely only
produce around 750,000 barrels per day at peak.

If we are currently on the peak/plateau of global oil
production, and production starts to fall within the next five years,
then 10 years from now, at a reasonable average 2.0% rate of net
depletion, world oil production will be down 11 mbpd—about 12%—from
where it stands today.

In total, we believe that if all limits on domestic
drilling were removed, it could only increase US oil production by a
maximum of 2-3 mbpd. Once it came online bit by bit, given the loss in
global oil production by that time, the additional oil from ANWR and
all other undeveloped federal lands will be underwhelming..

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that drilling
in ANWR would only reduce the price of gasoline by less than four
pennies per gallon—20 years from now!

Although every barrel we can produce domestically
will be welcome and would slightly reduce our dependency on imports,
the idea that we can somehow drill our way to independence from
imported oil is misleading in the extreme. At the rate that the U.S.
currently uses oil, the chance of producing all of our own needs
domestically is zero. The only way we can truly become energy
independent is by severely curtailing our oil demand, and switching
loads over to renewables.  

Indeed, we should
recognize, as the Saudis have, that the oil that remains will only
become more valuable as time goes on, and it makes sense to save some
for future generations. Burning every last bit of it as quickly as we
can makes no sense at all.

6. Oil prices aren’t all about us.

It’s an all-too-common belief that if only we had
authorized more domestic development of oil, our gasoline prices would
be lower.

Even though we are the proverbial 8,000 pound
gorilla, consuming about one-quarter of the world’s energy, oil prices
are not all about us. The increasing consumption of countries in Asia,
South America, Russia, and the Middle East have more than made up for
the slight declines in petroleum consumption we have experienced this
year. Global consumption is expected to increase another 1 mbpd this
year, even as consumption declines in the U.S.

The fact is that oil is a globally traded commodity.
Since the U.S. imports two-thirds of the oil it consumes, the price of
domestic oil will always maintain parity with global prices. Therefore,
no matter how much we drill up the remaining resources, it will not
significantly change the price of fuel.

With the global supply and demand balance as tight as
it is for oil, natural gas, and coal, it is highly unlikely that a
slight increase in U.S. production could make any noticeable difference
in our gasoline prices.

Once we take into account the decades it will take to
bring new domestic resources online, any additional production we can
manage will only slightly nudge the decline curve in global oil
production, and only slightly depress domestic prices for gasoline, for
a short while.

Congress can do little to change that.

7. Depletion is relentless.

Depletion is another frequently misunderstood issue.

As discussed above, all oil fields peak and go into
decline. The depletion rates after the peak can vary widely, from about
2% per year for a well-managed onshore field, to 20% or more per year
for deepwater fields like Mexico’s Cantarell field, and other deepwater
fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the top 21 oil producers in the world,
11 are past their peaks. For a summary table of the world’s top oil
producers and their depletion rates, see “Commentary – The Oil Production Story: Pre- and Post-Peak Nations,” Peak Oil Review, June 16, 2008..

The concept is simple: Oil production first must make
up for the depletion of mature fields before any net additional oil can
be counted. It’s like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

Anyone familiar with a balance sheet should
understand this concept, but many observers routinely miss it. World
oil production must first struggle against a background decline rate of
about 4.5% from mature fields before it can manage any increases.
Currently, the net increase in global oil production is about 1% per year.

8. Expectations for the future are shrinking.

Peak oil deniers often like to point to the
International Energy Agency’s estimate of last year, which projected
that world oil production will rise from 85 mbpd today to 110 mbpd by
2015, and to 116 mpbd by 2030. Others still quote the IEA’s previous
estimate, that world oil production would eventually rise to 130 mbpd.

What they don’t realize is that the IEA’s estimates,
along with those of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and
other analysts, have been continually shrinking for the last several
years. After a long history of predicting that oil supply would meet
whatever the demand was projected to be, the IEA started to reduce
their targets about two years ago, when it became clear that net oil
production had stopped growing.

Reality is setting in.

In May 2008, the Wall Street Journal previewed
the IEA’s upcoming report on the world’s top 400 oil fields, including
for the first time a detailed study of their individual depletion
rates. The IEA concluded that the depletion of aging oil wells,
combined with the dampening effect of skyrocketing costs on new field
development, means that the world will have a hard time reaching 100
mbpd within the next two decades. Their projected supply curves are now
sharply reduced, while their global demand projections continue to show
about a 1.5% annual rate of growth.

Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, said: “One of
our findings will be that the oil investments required may be much,
much higher than what people assume. This is a dangerous situation.”

9. Improved technology cannot move the peak.

The potential of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques is well known, after over four decades of experience in the field.

What that experience has shown is that (with a few minor exceptions) improved technology cannot move the peak. What it does is increase, over time, the overall amount of oil that can be produced. On the bell curve, it thickens and lengthens the tail. But it does not change the time at which production peaked.

Deepwater drilling, another relatively new oil field
technology, has been similarly oversold. What we have found is that
deepwater fields tend to “crash” at up to 20% rates of depletion once
they pass the peak.

Some oil analysts, such as Peter Jackson and Daniel
Yergin of CERA, have routinely overstated the potential of improved
technology as a way of denying the reality of peak oil. ASPO-USA’s direct challenge to their estimates remains unanswered. (05/03/09)

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