Update on the Fossil Fuel Depletion Crisis. I found the following thread at the Independent Media Center. Some well written words with lots of great links. What is perhaps most compelling is that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is finally issuing papers acknowleging the problem.

Desperate individuals who depend on desperate systems will resort to desperate means to maintain their power. What centralizes and amplifies the human labor and consumption which the capitalist system depends on for it’s very existance? …  It’s the Fossil fuels.

The Coming Death Of Capitalism

Jesse posts

No, it isn’t coming from a socialist revolution. It’s coming from capitalism itself. And why should this be a surprise? After all, haven’t we been working from the understanding that capitalism does not work?

Thanks to the blind and unsustainable consumption of market economics, oil production is going to peak between 2005 and 2010.

It is an acknowleged fact that oil discovery already peaked in 1967 and has been declining ever since. We now use 4 barrels of oil for every one we discover. As our reserves dry up, there will be only a trickle of new oil to replace them.

North American natural gas will peak this winter or next winter. Natural gas will not be adequately replenished by overseas reserves because it would take years to build a fleet of tankers with special refrigeration and compression tanks necessary to transport it. Even then, the energy required to refrigerate and compress natural gas during transportation wastes the equivalent of up to 30% of it’s energy value. When natural gas and oil begin to decline, they will never rise again. The first public realization of that simple reality will bring the global capitalist system crashing down in chaotic death throws as it collectively accepts for the first time that it, like every unsustainable system, is mortal.

Now my question is. If you and your friends and family were the capitalists who depended on the system which fossil fuels maintain, what survival plan would you create to save yourselves before the “masses” awakened to this reality?

What do you think the real capitalists are planning?

Now, what are we going to do, toss this into the, “too intense for me to deal with”, bin of our minds? Will we wait until “the Nation” covers it, or until “every one else” finally decides it’s worth paying attention to when it’s already too late?

This issue has to be openly discussed and planned for by all NGOs and activist and/or revolutionary organizations, as it massively effects all of our goals and means, whether or not we pay attention to it.

Sweet dreams

A reader named Blitizen comments:

How bad is it really? Well the following things are undoubtedly true:

1. Existing crude estimates are probably inflated. OPEC reserve oil estimates were revised drastically upwards in the late 80s. In 1987 total proved crude oil reserves were at 699 Gbo (billion barrels of oil) – basically what they had been since 1975. In 1988, they jumped to 889 Gbo. In 1989 to 907 Gbo, and 1 trillion barrels in 1990. Some of this might be attributed to advances in technology, but oil reserve estimates are heavily politicized, and the reasons to inflate oil reserves are many.

2. Taking existing oil reserves as gospel, and assuming that consumption does not increase (both dubious assumptions, but we’ll give the benefit of the doubt), oil will last for 40 years.

3. Oil is not good to the last drop – that is, it becomes more expensive to extract with time. Furthermore, as the supply of oil dwindles below the aggregate world demand, the price of oil becomes unstable. Oil price dictates the performance of many economies, including that of the United States. The economic catastrophe triggered by the 1973 oil embargo should demonstrate this.

4. The U.S. is not decreasing dependence on oil, and doesn’t seem to have any plan to do so in the near future.

Taking all these things together, it’s not unrealistic to project a scenario in which oil prices climb due to short supply, wreaking economic havoc. End of civilization, maybe not, but still very significant.

Jesse responds: 

“1. Existing crude estimates are probably inflated.”

Yes, the reason being that OPEC nations divided up how much oil they are each allowed to produce by how much oil they have in reserve. Considering the money and politics involved, to say these estimates are “probably inflated” is an understatement.

“2. Taking existing oil reserves as gospel, and assuming that consumption does not increase (both dubious assumptions, but we’ll give the benefit of the doubt), oil will last for 40 years.”

More than dubious assumptions, they are so absurdly contrary to historical reality as to be totally misleading. There has never been a period in the entire history of the oil based energy economy where oil consumption has decreased due to anything other than economic recession and depression, or an oil embargo. And the assumption about oil reserves has been dealt with above. I’m sorry, but there is no reason to give these assumptions the benefit of anything. Least of all, the doubt.

“3. Oil is not good to the last drop – that is, it becomes more expensive to extract with time.”

Correct. That is something simple minded people don’t seem to understand. As you extract the oil, you release the geological pressure of the space the oil occupies (like letting water out of an upright balloon). Over time external pressure must be applied to continue the upward oil flow, and eventually more energy (in capitalist terms, money) must be spent than is provided by the oil itself. At this point the well becomes a worthless energy trap and shuts down. As it is, we can usually expect to extract no more than 35% of the oil in any given well.

“4. The U.S. is not decreasing dependence on oil, and doesn’t seem to have any plan to do so in the near future”

You’ve got that right!

I’m glad to see you’ve done some homework, but we still need much stronger responses. If you steep yourself in the information provided I’m sure you will become much more confident that fossil fuels will indeed peak by the end of this decade.

Hubbert the scientist that orginally predicted this years ago was a Shell geophysicist who devised the only demonstratably accurate formula for predicting peak oil.

In 1956 he estimated that US oil would peak in the early 70’s. He was labeled an alarmist by many, until 1970 when US oil did in fact peak, and has declined ever since. This formula is the basis for these global peak oil estimates. The latest to be validated is the 2000 peak production estimate for the massive north sea oil deposits, which is now down 6.6% and falling.

Tom comments in response to another reader’s question: “Don’t you think another energy source will be implemented by the time we run out of oil?”

I am sorry, but we can’t “manufacture” an energy source. The Laws of Thermodynamics guarantee that it takes more energy to create the energy source than you get from the energy source. That goes for hydrogen and any other star wars technology you can imagine might be dreamed up in the future.

What we’re left with after fossil fuels is the sun, wind, running water, biomass and some geothermal. In other words orders of magnitude less energy than we’re used to. Get used to it!

The financial implosion and squabbling over the remaining oil are already well under way.

Need more information? Check your library for “Hubbert’s Peak“.  Or go to the following links:

http://Solutions.synearth.net/?page_id=5