8 responses

1. 

   Antti

   August 4, 2005

   Many countries have oil-interests. Chinese in Sudan for example. And it isn’t always pretty. Perhaps for a change NYT could highlight some of these other cases.

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2. 

   Alex

   August 4, 2005

   I’m especially concerned he seems to think France “decided” to take part in WWI. Errr….the Germans made up their mind for them by, ah, invading. It’s not at all a new insight that oil interests had a bearing on the Anglo/German relationship (Siegfried Sassoon was told so in 1916, as he wrote in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer), but it’s certainly news that Arabian oil “hadn’t been discovered yet” – the Berlin-Baghdad railway went to, ah, Baghdad via Mosul. Clue’s in the name.
   And you cannot seriously attempt to explain the first world war without reference to the German perception of a deteriorating strategic balance after Russian strategic railway completion in 1915, nor the spread of proto-fascist ideas about “nationalising the masses” through war, nor the Austro-Hungarian elite’s ideas about revitalising the empire through Balkan expansion as a counterweight to the Austrian/Hungarian duality, nor even any mention of the military realities of the Schlieffen plan, the perception of military advantage in a first strike, or the tradition of German romantic-nationalist fantasies about colonising the near East going back to Friedrich List, nor even the balance of power that meant Austria needed German support to keep the Russians from intervening in the Balkans..
   Add to that, that the Germans got all their oil from Romania, not the Caspian, and that the Royal Navy’s supplies came from Abadan in Iran (not America), and you have – well, a clusterfuck of bad history.

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3. 

   Chris harper

   August 4, 2005

   I have to say, from Tims build up I went to the article with a reply already building up in my mind, which was completely demolished as soon as I started to read it.
   The third and fourth paragraphs (and the first sentence of the fifth one) are absolutely spot on. I couldn’t have expressed it better myself. There is a lot of value in the rest of the fifth paragraph as well.
   From there he seems to go off into lala land.
   Although he gives a nod towards the industrial conversion from coal to oil, he still makes the mistake so many people do, their politics being irrelevant, of regarding oil as being of value in itself. Hell, in London I even knew specialist energy market analysts who thought this.
   It is not. It has value only because it is a carrier of energy (ignoring the minor issue of the non energy petrochemicals industry, that is an exogenous pricing factor in this discussion). And the most common resource in the universe is energy.
   On the basis of information available there is a valid argument that oil discovery has reached its peak (please may I be forgiven for not sticking in ten paragraphs of caveats here? Please?) and BP and Shell know this. So does the US government, controlled, as we all know, by Halliburton and all other forms of Big Oil (precisely those people MOST aware of the situation).
   Vast amounts of money (compared to my bank account) are being spent on finding and developing new energy generators and carriers, as one T. Worstall may be able to testify. Well before oil production hits a peak we will already have the production and delivery systems for new energy carriers in place.
   How are we doing this? Easy peasy. It is called the market.
   This is just another falacious “Limits to Growth Article”.

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4. 

   angry economist

   August 4, 2005

   Interesting the the journo’s surname “Kunstler” means “Artist” in German.
   Anyone know the German for “piss?”
   This type of diatribe would be acceptable in an undergraduate politics essay, but not in a broadsheet newspaper. Its crap of the first order. Its why I am reading around other papers at the moment. The Guardian is getting right on my tits.
   I just cannot take articles like James Howard Kunstler’s seriously. It does not even merit any energy to justify my verdict that its a loada crap.

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5. 

   Remittance Man

   August 4, 2005

   I must admit that my previous comments to this site have been somewhat frivolous, if not downright daft. However on the subject of resource depletion I think I can add something of value to the debate (I work as a strategic resource planner for a large mining company).
   Mr Kunstler is the latest in a string of so called experts bleating about the imminent demise of western society due to oil reserves running out. The first notable example was from the clowns at the Club of Rome in 1970 (maybe the first major example of junk science in the then fledgling enviro-industry). Unfortunately he and his predecessors have no clue how the figures for oil reserves are generated or what they mean.
   It may sound pedantic, but it hinges on the major difference between the words “reserve” and “resource”. To people in the minerals and petroleum industry they have specific and distinct meanings. A resource is what exploration geologists have discovered and quantified is in the ground. A reserve is that part of the resource identified by engineers as being possible to extract. Whether it can be extracted depends on a whole host of things including price, cost of extraction, technology, social and political factors.
   Because reserves are assets that can be turned into cash, reserve figures are the ones published by mining and oil companies. They feature in every annual report and are collated by a host of government and industry bodies. These are the numbers used by Mr Kunstler and his ilk.
   Unfortunately he and his friends do not understand (or don’t want the general public to understand) what the reserve figures actually represent. Since finding resources and proving them up into reserves is both time consuming and expensive mineral companies only do the bare minimum necessary to ensure their continued survival and maintain investor confidence. (If you don’t believe me, go to any mining company head office at budget time and watch the geologists trying to get more money for exploration drilling).
   Mining and petroleum companies are also very risk averse and the exploration they do carry out is typically conducted in a few specific areas of the world where returns are more likely (Middle East, parts of the US, North Sea etc). There are huge areas of the globe where oil drilling has yet to be undertaken on anything like a proper basis because the risks are to high or the costs prohibitive.
   In other words yes, the reserves identified by Kunstler will run out, probably in around twenty years, this being the standard lead time in the oil industry. However there is a very good chance that more reserves will be proved near the existing fields. If that doesn’t happen, companies will move to other areas (Siberia has barely been touched as far as exploration goes; neither has the Amazon basin, the North Atlantic nor large parts of Africa). Simultaneously money will be spent on technology that will allow better extraction of currently unavailable resources, thus turning them into reserves.
   I happily predict that in twenty years time Mr Kunstler or someone very much like him will be writing the same article based on the same (wilful?) misunderstanding of numbers he’s seen.
   Finally as Chris Harper has pointed out oil is only a source of energy, when it becomes too rare (and expensive) other sources will be found. Humans are good at that sort of thing. Here in South Africa we already try and run as much of our kit as possible on electricity as kW for kW it’s five times cheaper than diesel. We even 200 ton haul trucks powered by overhead electric supply.
   Tim adds: Well, as I work in the metals/mining industry as well, I agree with everything you say. Perhaps even more so with both you and Chris, as the specific metal I spend much of my time on (scandium) looks like it will be a vital part of the hydrogen economy. Add in my interest in economics and I think you can see why I deride Kunstler as a loon.

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6. 

   Chris harper

   August 4, 2005

   Actually, my opinion is that oil production will hit a peak and then decline not because we will start to run out of the stuff, but because other energy sources will be cheaper than the most expensive oil. And those sources will just keep getting cheaper. Within my (hypothetical only) childrens life time only the MidEast fields will be in production because they will be the only ones capable of operating at a cost which will let them make a profit.
   Added benefit of this, is that the mideast countries will be producing all sort of value added products in order to get us to buy their oil.
   Something similar happened in Victoria, the state got out of buying milk and controlling production and setting quotas. The farmers suddenly had the stuff coming out of their ears, could hardly give it away, there was so much, and whinged and bitched and moaned, and then got on with it. Now, the Victorians cow cockies are into cheese and yoghurt and dried milk and the absolutely disgusting sweet sort of yuk that kids love, flogging long lived milk derived products all over Australia and SE Asia and the Pacific, and are, if you will forgive me, creaming it. So are the factories and the transport wallahs and the food scientists and EVERYONE. The dairy farmers in Queensland are now moaning and asking for extra support to protect them from those dreadful rapacious Victorians.
   The day oil demand drops to the point the stuff is $5 a barrel is the day the mideast really really does start to get rich. Because, via valueadd, everyone will share in it then, not just the honchos.

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7. 

   Remittance Man

   August 5, 2005

   Tim,
   On a slightly different note, how does your scandium/hydrogen fuel technology work/conflict with fuel cell technology?
   Why do I ask?
   My employers produce platinum, used as catalysts in fuel cells.
   Just an idle question.
   RM
   Tim adds: There are a number of different possible fuel cell technologies. Youse guys are interested in PEM, the sort of thing that Ballard makes and for use in cars and buses etc.
   Distributed power generation and combined heat and power systems can be done using PEM but solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are better. PEM is better at variable power outputs, SOFC at invariable. The electrolyte for SOFCs is made of doped stabilised zirconia and Sc2O3 is the most efficient of those dopants. (Others mooted or in use include Ce2O3 and Y2O3.)
   So while they are competetive in a sense, both being alternatives to fossil fuel combustion, they are, at least at present and likely so for the next few decades, aimed at different end uses.

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8. 

   Remittance Man

   August 5, 2005

   That explains it.
   Thanks
   RM

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