Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Did anyone catch the Catalyst episode on Peak Oil ?

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3201781.htm
Quite an interesting show

I thought this was one of the scariest bits...



And this is a guy who is:



Not just someone with a political agenda.

Bring it on, I reckon. Slow the bloody world down to a livable pace

When listening to peak oil dramatics, keep one thing in mind:
All doom sayers have one thing in common - they've all been wrong.

you won't turn up to the petrol station one day to find you can't buy fuel anymore. the price will simply increase ahead of inflation and taxes (most of the price at the pump is TAX), to the point alternatives become competitive.
what the green left need to realize is oil is needed to develop those alternative fuels, and you won't develop those alternatives by taxing the arse out of companys most likely to do the developing.

If you'd even read the information provided Timmy, it has nothing to do with peak oil dramatists, doom sayers or the green left.

Just statistics and facts from basically the worlds leading expert, not opinions or points of view.

Funny you know, I find denialists far more dramatic than than people who comprehend such issues, or as you prefer to put it "dramatists, doom sayers or the green left".

I mean come on, who ever said anything about turning up to the petrol station to find you can't buy fuel?

The main problem is that our food supply has developed to use large quantities of petrochemicals, both as fuel and fertilizer. Increasing oil prices above inflation will result in food costing more. Growing your own food will start to look like a smart choice (although in a way, it's the "old" way of doing things).

It is a smart choice already.......what it all comes down to is time and convenience,most people would rather run to the shop and buy what they want..

..I'd rather have time to myself planting veggies and reaping the benefits

Bythebrook you have it absolutely correct! It is not just in food though - most products have an extremely high carbon footprint. So, while I am not in the least bit scared of not having gas at the pump (aside from when a natural disaster happens like Hurricane Ike - when the Houston pumps were dry ), I am worried about how the increase in oil price affects not just food, but other staples like clothing and housing. Inflation dis-proportionally affects the poor which is just sad.

That said, I'd like to share a tidbit with you. In my former life, I used to be a Petroleum Engineer in S. Texas. I ran several oil and gas fields down there. Every few years or so my boss used to ask me to write up a production plan detailing how my wells were doing, how the wells will decline, what we will do once it declines past a certain point, what we will do after that, etc. etc. This way, the company could value the field in case they want to sell it to a company that had lower operating costs (my company was one of the largest and paid well so its costs were high). It was very detailed and took forever (ok, it just felt like that). Anyway, this field was very old. It was discovered in the 1920s or 30's (memory fails me). I'd go through the well files and see some hand written report where some engineer had done this back then. The report would say "10 more years left" essentially. I'd see that same report written in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and the 80's - they just got prettier and had maybe more information in them, but they said the same thing - 10 years left. I wrote that same damn note in the 90s and I would be willing to bet you that that field is still running with a new note written saying that it has 10 years left. Technology changes, costs change, the selling price changes, discoveries are made, disasters happen, wars start, etc.

Anyway, I don't think the 'crisis' will happen because of the oil that is currently in the ground. Crisis will happen because of politics - sure - likely actually. But crisis will not happen from what is in the ground. What is in the ground comes out at a relatively steady but regularly reducing rate. Relatively steady but regularly reducing rates don't cause a crisis - they allow you to be prepared for an alternative. Countries going to war rather than invest in alternatives cause crisis (oh, I should mention here that I am an American ).

Constantly rising demand, constantly declining resource = same as frog in a pot on a fire.

It's never going to be a sudden calamity, but it can be a slow decline unless we have the forethought to act now in finding alternative fuels and methods of living, rather than wait.. It's just going to get harder and harder to find alternatives as oil becomes more and more precious.

Now while we still have a fairly bountiful resource of oil there, we should be pulling out all stops in planning for the future.

Just my two cents worth… what do the greenies want?

I have a number of relatives involved in the offshore oil and gas industry here in WA, they keep telling me that the companies are constantly revising upwards the life of current fields… and they are constantly finding new fields. One recently told me that they believe we have at least 80 years worth off the NW… not including a couple of recent substantial discoveries.

Right on Sydney’s doorstep there is an offshore oil & gas field that it’s estimated could hold 15 or 16 trillion cubic feet of gas (PEP11… Google it). The exploration project by MEC Resources and Advent Energy has been condemned by green groups and local residents, but if successful it’s estimated it could close down 8 or 9 coal fired power stations in NSW alone… while still earning some export dollars for the country/state.

The project is causing such controversy, that when they drilled the first well, which had to be done before the end of December to satisfy lease conditions, they had to drill it in a far from desirable, out of the way part of the lease so that the drill rig wasn’t visible from the coast. The next lot of drilling, in the more prospective part of the lease, will be later this year and the drill rig may be visible on the horizon… the greenies will be having a hissy fit then!

What do the greenies want?... until advances in technology provide a better solution, isn’t taking 8 or 9 coal fired power stations off-line a move in the right direction? I’ve been told by a relative in the industry, that if the project goes into production, it can be done with no permanent rigs, in fact they don’t even need well heads sticking out of the water, new technology allows the well heads to be located on the sea floor, and because it’s so close to the coast, the gas will be piped to the coast in sub-sea pipelines… people won’t even know there is an oil and gas project offshore.

Mr Damage.

Yes, yes, there's just plenty left to last us for centuries, what's the problem.....?

Personally I think I'd rather listen to someone who is qualified, who's job it is to analyse the data and advise corporations and governments, someone who has all the relevant information, and doesn't have vested interests.

I didn’t say there wasn’t, or isn’t going to be a problem!

The relative I referred to in the last paragraph of my above post... has no “vested” interest in the situation off the NSW coast (he works for an entirely different company off the NW coast of WA). I merely described the situation to him after reading about the controversy surrounding the exploration project, he then offered up the info about how the well heads could be located on the sea floor etc. I was simply using the NSW example to highlight the hypocrisy of a good portion of the green movement.

Plus, he’s in management and has been in the industry and with the company for over 20 years, so I would suggest he has a better idea than most as to what resources the company (and nearby companies) has in the ground.

But again I ask… What do the greenies want?... they want to close down coal fired powered stations, but don’t approve of exploring for gas that could close down those same coal fired stations. They just protest for the sake of protesting!... they offer no constructive or realistic alternatives.

This topic was about the Catalyst program, it had nothing to do with greenies... But then I guess that perhaps you didn't watch it.

Funny isn't it that a discussion on any level about peak oil, or alternative energy, always seems to turn into a greeny bashing discussion.



Garbage.. Deal in facts, not generalizations.. There are many different alternatives for power production, why do we have to be stuck on coal or oil/gas as being the only two options?

I did say "realistic" alternatives... we're already paying through our noses for our power!...

and you still haven't answered the question:

We are not paying through our noses...

We've been riding on the back of incredibly cheap finite energy sources for the past 100 odd years and guess what, it's not sustainable. We can deal with the fact now that energy has been under priced for all these years and work on finding alternatives, or we can try to find another stop gap like gas that will keep us going for a little while longer. But it's still a finite resource and we are still using it up at an ever increasing rate, and we aren't dealing with the main problem of our incredibly inefficient lifestyles, industry and agriculture methods.

So I guess my answer would actually be no..

Technologies are basically there, some of them may need a little help to get over the mark and into commercialization, but they are there.. Better to spend time and resources on those rather than just another "stop gap" finite resource..