Yesterday I had some spare time so I trawled through the Peak Oil forum "Stories Archive".
Unlike the forum posts which can be a flurry of random opinions, the Stories Archive are mainly news reports, press releases etc.
In my opinion, this archive is a treasure trove of data from "respected" & "reliable" sources.
The archives start in 2004 and run up to the present.
If you trawl through the items, starting in 2004, cherry picking say one in five to read, you can start to build up an "overview" of the situation & trends.
Sure, you are buffetted by contrary opinions and contradictory "news" .... BUT ... after a few hours of this you can get a "smoothed" or "averaged" overview .... together with eye strain & a headache!
The "randomess" gets smoothed out and you start to see "the big picture".
So what have I "learnt" from spending a day plodding through the archives? Well ...
1. Peak Oil is probably here ... BUT ... currently bumping along a plateau which already has lasted a year or more
2. The current political / oil supply / oil demand / economic situation is in a metastable region. There has been a HUGE amount of volatility of prices / opinions / fear over the last few years ... and in my opinion this can can only proceed in one of two ways: either back to a period of "calm" - or into a period of "disturbance". From the general tone of the news items I suspect that the "disturbance" route is the most likely ...
3. I can easily imagine that the current metastable (but volatile) situation will continue for 2 or 3 more years ... unless Iran is attacked or Saudi announces it is in decline. However the volatility is so evident that I cannot imagine the current situation lasting more than say 3 more years.
4. It is clear from the news items that Saudi Arabia (and OPEC) and experts at "public relations" .... I suddenly realised that they might be playing some sort of subtle long term game. Suppose they DO have more reserves than thought, but don't want to release them too quickly - what would they do? The Matt Simmons book would help them in this case .... in fact, I came away feeling that the whole Saudi situation seems most odd. (Example: they claim that in 2030 they will be delivering 18 mbpd. Either they are deluded and/or mega liars .. or we have missed something important. I can't decide)
5. The China - Russia relationship is probably more important than most people think.
6. There has been so much discussion of Peak Oil over the last years that governments MUST know about the prospects - and so must have been making plans for some time. The new draconian "anti-terrorism" laws in the UK & the US might be part of this. The governments clearly think that they have 5 or 10 years to run ... but perhaps the rapid decline of gas & oil in some fields is catching them out?
7. During this current metastable period the public are being blasted by misinformation and/or disinformation which is muffling the Peak Oil story. I'm not sure if this is simply wishful thinking by the media, or if we are being deliberately deceived.
8. I sense that the nuclear power option is being regarded as important ... BUT not as any sort of "saviour".
9. It is clear that we should expect conflicts in the world over energy sources ... and even remote conflicts could trip our current metastable state.
10. It is clear that poor people and poor countries are going to get hit badly by energy shortages and/or price increases. Longer term the middle classes in the West may drift towards being "poor".
11. The future role of coal is still not clear to me ... either we will dig out every scrap over the next decades ... or we simply don't have the required reserves to do this in any meangful way. Or perhaps deep down we know that exploiting our coal reserves will GUARANTEE our doom through global warming? I clearly need to research this more.
12. The future role of natural gas is also rather unclear to me: the huge Russian Arctic gas field has yet to be exploited, and almost everyone seems to be relying on LNG shipments from Qatar & Algeria. I'm not convinced that this will work out well ... but again I need to do more research.
13. The "elephants in the room" .... global warming & eco disaster are lurking behind many of the energy discussions.
So, what have I came away with after this trawl of the archives?
Well, it is clear that Peak Oil (call it "energy shortage" if you want) is going to start hurting relatively soon. Maybe not in the next 12 months - but certainly within 2 or 3 years.
I also feel that whatever happens next will happen rather quickly - the current metastable state has existed since 2004, and at some point will "trip" ... possibly due to the influence of an external event such as war, terrorism etc.
I don't think that we have enough time to bring on nuclear, LNG, coal, wind, tidal, solar or whatever to prevent at least a period of 3 - 5 years of major energy shortages & associated economic disturbances.
If we can survive the next 5 -10 years without "breaking" the system, then perhaps further downstream we WILL see new sources of energy .... but I can't imagine what the world will look look politically or economically that far in the future.
I trust that the Powers That Be are better informed than me, and that they have a Master Plan in their back pocket.
Meanwhile, I think that I had better get my family prepared at the very least for an economic downturn.
Why not scan through the archives yourself and see what conclusions YOU come to?
Don't we live in interesting times?
