If any action shows how out of touch the Government is with the reality of peak oil, it is the decision to build a third runaway at Heathrow. This is despite the warning that we received in the summer of 2008 when oil temporarily rose and gave us a preview of what is to come. People cut back on flying as fuel prices rose and this is what will recur in a few years time.
Clearly this shows that the Government does not accept peak oil and belongs in the flat-earth group of economists. Despite the financial downturn, it clearly believes that, in a few years, things will carry on as before with ridiculous forecasts of growth in flights from 480,000 per year now to 720,000 by 2030. Actually this is not just ridiculous but impossible as John Busby has shown on his website: there is simply not enough oil in the world. That is on top of the fact that the runway will take at least ten years to build and probably a few more on top of that. By that time, oil production will undoubtedly be in decline and the soaring price will put paid to any chances of people flying more.
If this runway is ever built, (and it may be quietly put on hold in a few years as rising prices show the folly of the project), it will become another expensive white elephant like the infamous Millennium Dome. Still, it'll be somewhere to store all those unused airliners.
Monday, 12 January 2009
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Violently opposed...
Climate change and peak oil bear many similarities. Both began as minority ideas, passionately held by those who knew and believed, and little mentioned by the media (who usually classed both theory and supporters as batty, appealing to screwballs or conspiracy nuts).
Rather like oil discovery and production, the two theories have followed a similar path, separated by a number of years. Climate change began to be discussed on the media, first as an idea and then with more support until it was eventually became accepted by almost all scientists, politicians and the public. Peak oil is now at that stage where it is now being mentioned on the media, and scientists and politicians are beginning to discuss it. It has maybe five or ten years left before it reaches the stage that climate change is now at but that will depend on when the price of oil restarts its upward trend.
But one factor that is common to both theories is the 'denier'. (I know this term has negative associations but I shall use it for want of a better term.) I am not talking here about the scientist who studies the subject and comes up with well-supported arguments, nor those who agree with the theory but have doubts about the timescale. I am talking about the ill-informed layman who refuses point-blank to accept the idea.
While I consider myself to have a reasonable knowledge of peak oil, when it comes to climate change, I don't claim any expertise. I am not a climatologist or a geologist. My specialist knowledge ended with my geography 'O-Level'. So when most of the world's scientists say that the world is warming due to human activities, I am not in a position to gainsay them. If the debate was evenly split between scientists, it would be different, but when the Royal Society, World Meteorological Organisation, Federation of American Scientists, and so on (see Wikipedia) accept the premise, then it would be foolish of me with my single O Level to argue against them. Yet the number of (presumably) non-experts who write letters falling back on sunspots or even the fatuous "if you melt ice, it doesn't raise the water level" argument (with the assumption that climatologists had never thought of this) is staggering.
A similar thing occurs with peak oil. There are many people who dispute when the peak will occur or how steep the decline will be, and that is fine. There is still much uncertainty even among the experts. But those who flatly deny that oil production will peak at all strike me as obtuse. We know that oil is finite so, at some point, it must reach a high point and decline. We can all see the example of the US-48 where, despite decades of money, technology, expertise and political will, production has relentlessly declined. There seems to be a certain type of person who perversely decides to take up the opposing view of the majority, just to be different. But there's not much we can do about them - rather like Creationists or UFO-believers, no amount of evidence or persuasion can change their minds.
(The title, by the way, comes from a quote by Arthur Schopenhauer: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Rather like oil discovery and production, the two theories have followed a similar path, separated by a number of years. Climate change began to be discussed on the media, first as an idea and then with more support until it was eventually became accepted by almost all scientists, politicians and the public. Peak oil is now at that stage where it is now being mentioned on the media, and scientists and politicians are beginning to discuss it. It has maybe five or ten years left before it reaches the stage that climate change is now at but that will depend on when the price of oil restarts its upward trend.
But one factor that is common to both theories is the 'denier'. (I know this term has negative associations but I shall use it for want of a better term.) I am not talking here about the scientist who studies the subject and comes up with well-supported arguments, nor those who agree with the theory but have doubts about the timescale. I am talking about the ill-informed layman who refuses point-blank to accept the idea.
While I consider myself to have a reasonable knowledge of peak oil, when it comes to climate change, I don't claim any expertise. I am not a climatologist or a geologist. My specialist knowledge ended with my geography 'O-Level'. So when most of the world's scientists say that the world is warming due to human activities, I am not in a position to gainsay them. If the debate was evenly split between scientists, it would be different, but when the Royal Society, World Meteorological Organisation, Federation of American Scientists, and so on (see Wikipedia) accept the premise, then it would be foolish of me with my single O Level to argue against them. Yet the number of (presumably) non-experts who write letters falling back on sunspots or even the fatuous "if you melt ice, it doesn't raise the water level" argument (with the assumption that climatologists had never thought of this) is staggering.
A similar thing occurs with peak oil. There are many people who dispute when the peak will occur or how steep the decline will be, and that is fine. There is still much uncertainty even among the experts. But those who flatly deny that oil production will peak at all strike me as obtuse. We know that oil is finite so, at some point, it must reach a high point and decline. We can all see the example of the US-48 where, despite decades of money, technology, expertise and political will, production has relentlessly declined. There seems to be a certain type of person who perversely decides to take up the opposing view of the majority, just to be different. But there's not much we can do about them - rather like Creationists or UFO-believers, no amount of evidence or persuasion can change their minds.
(The title, by the way, comes from a quote by Arthur Schopenhauer: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Monday, 8 December 2008
Together in Electric Dreams
(Reply to a question on electric cars)
I have mixed feelings about electric cars. In theory we could maybe use them to replace oil but there are many problems.
- A major problem is the difficulty in refuelling. If you are short of petrol, you can pop into a station, fill up and five minutes later you are off. With electric cars, at the moment, you would have to leave the car recharging for a few hours (at least). This is fine if you are travelling to the shops or work and you can leave the car plugged in there while you shop/work. But with any longer journey you are faced with problems. The only option would be to drop off a discharged battery or two at the service station and fit some fully charged ones. But this infrastructure would have to be fitted to stations all around the world. And can you imagine an old man or woman disconnecting a couple of lead batteries and humping them into the station? We would need to have some smaller, lighter batteries which can be easily removed and replaced. These batteries would have to be standardised to every electric car. The time, trouble and cost of preparing every car and garage is phenomenal.
- There is also the problem of recharging your car at home. Fine if you have a garage where you can lock it away and plug it in, but in the UK, many people have to park their cars on the street. What happens then? We would either have to bring the batteries indoors to recharge every night or construct recharging posts all along the street. Again the trouble and cost seem unacceptable.
- Then there is the time and cost of replacing millions (30 million in the UK alone) of ICE-powered vehicles with electric. Can the countries afford it? Can the people afford to replace their cars with brand new (probably expensive) ones?
- Can we produce enough electricity for all these cars? Without oil and gas, we will need more electricity for heating and cooking so there is going to be a tremendous demand everywhere.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Back in the UK...SR
When I was growing up in the 60s and 70s, if you talked about a country that kept its people under surveillance, was introducing identity cards with biometric details, imprisoned people without trial, arrested protesters for wearing a t-shirt, and illegally invaded other countries to steal their resources, there would be no doubt that we would be talking about one of the Communist bloc - the USSR, China or similar. Yesterday, with the Government winning (by bribery) a vote to remove part of Magna Carta, an essential freedom that we have had for nearly eight centuries, that description now applies to the United Kingdom.
It seems incredible that Great Britain, a country that once proudly displayed its democratic freedoms to much of the rest of the world, has now become a warning to that world of what might happen if you let your liberties go beneath the exaggerated threat of terrorism. There has only been one attack on Britain by Al-Qaeda or its supporters, but it has been far more successful than Bin Laden could have dreamed. Hitler, with all his mighty forces, could not achieve what one relatively-minor attack and an authoritarian government bent on control and elimination of opposition have done.
In reality, Britain has never been the shining example of democracy and freedom that its inhabitants have believed. We've never had an elected head of state, even in the Interregnum after Charles I's death and now, eight years into the 21st century, we still don't have one. Nor can we vote for the occupants of the second chamber, and our undemocratic electoral system means that many people effectively have no vote. And neither have our attitudes to other countries been much to be proud of. The Empire initially could be partly excused as something that every other strong country was doing (having no empire in the 16th and 17th centuries would have seriously restricted trade and freedom). But that Empire lasted long after it was considered necessary and more modern times brought equally bad interventions in other countries. A century before the recent oil-based invasion in 2003, Britain had occupied Iraq for its resources. Liberty has always been a relative term in British history.
But now we seem to be firmly heading down the road towards a police state. Maybe this is in preparation for the forthcoming disruption that will follow peak oil but it is hard to imagine British politicians having the far-sightedness for that. It is probably more to do with Lord Acton's famous quotation: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
I will be leaving Britain to work abroad next month and I feel no loss at that departure. I no longer recognise the country that I grew up in. In the words of Thomas Paine:
"My country is the world and my religion is to do good"
It seems incredible that Great Britain, a country that once proudly displayed its democratic freedoms to much of the rest of the world, has now become a warning to that world of what might happen if you let your liberties go beneath the exaggerated threat of terrorism. There has only been one attack on Britain by Al-Qaeda or its supporters, but it has been far more successful than Bin Laden could have dreamed. Hitler, with all his mighty forces, could not achieve what one relatively-minor attack and an authoritarian government bent on control and elimination of opposition have done.
In reality, Britain has never been the shining example of democracy and freedom that its inhabitants have believed. We've never had an elected head of state, even in the Interregnum after Charles I's death and now, eight years into the 21st century, we still don't have one. Nor can we vote for the occupants of the second chamber, and our undemocratic electoral system means that many people effectively have no vote. And neither have our attitudes to other countries been much to be proud of. The Empire initially could be partly excused as something that every other strong country was doing (having no empire in the 16th and 17th centuries would have seriously restricted trade and freedom). But that Empire lasted long after it was considered necessary and more modern times brought equally bad interventions in other countries. A century before the recent oil-based invasion in 2003, Britain had occupied Iraq for its resources. Liberty has always been a relative term in British history.
But now we seem to be firmly heading down the road towards a police state. Maybe this is in preparation for the forthcoming disruption that will follow peak oil but it is hard to imagine British politicians having the far-sightedness for that. It is probably more to do with Lord Acton's famous quotation: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
I will be leaving Britain to work abroad next month and I feel no loss at that departure. I no longer recognise the country that I grew up in. In the words of Thomas Paine:
"My country is the world and my religion is to do good"
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Alternate fuels - the two problems
(Reply to a question on hydrogen)
There are two problems for any fuel attempting to replace oil. One is the production of the fuel and new processes may provide some hope (although we are badly limited by time - we really need something up and running within the next decade).
The other problem though is implementing the fuel. In Britain, for instance, we have 33 million vehicles, virtually all using petrol or diesel. If we switch to another fuel, all of those vehicles will have to be adapted or replaced. Since the internal combustion engine cannot be adapted to hydrogen, that would mean eventually replacing every one of them. The cost (in money for the economy and people, and energy for society) would be prohibitive. And that is without considering the infrastructure needed to create and transfer the hydrogen/fuel cells.
Other fuels have their advantages and disadvantages. With biofuels, diesel engines could be easily adapted to use them and the infrastructure would need little work, although the problems of producing the biofuels create many problems for food and climate change.
Electricity has the advantage that we already have much of the infrastructure with power sockets in every house and garage. But few engines can use electricity so we would have to replace millions of engines.
In the end, I cannot see any feasible replacement for oil as transport. We will simply have to travel less and use public transport more. But hydrogen may have a good future as a "battery", storing the output from renewables for use at other times. It is still a good area to be working in but we must be reasonable with our expectations.
There are two problems for any fuel attempting to replace oil. One is the production of the fuel and new processes may provide some hope (although we are badly limited by time - we really need something up and running within the next decade).
The other problem though is implementing the fuel. In Britain, for instance, we have 33 million vehicles, virtually all using petrol or diesel. If we switch to another fuel, all of those vehicles will have to be adapted or replaced. Since the internal combustion engine cannot be adapted to hydrogen, that would mean eventually replacing every one of them. The cost (in money for the economy and people, and energy for society) would be prohibitive. And that is without considering the infrastructure needed to create and transfer the hydrogen/fuel cells.
Other fuels have their advantages and disadvantages. With biofuels, diesel engines could be easily adapted to use them and the infrastructure would need little work, although the problems of producing the biofuels create many problems for food and climate change.
Electricity has the advantage that we already have much of the infrastructure with power sockets in every house and garage. But few engines can use electricity so we would have to replace millions of engines.
In the end, I cannot see any feasible replacement for oil as transport. We will simply have to travel less and use public transport more. But hydrogen may have a good future as a "battery", storing the output from renewables for use at other times. It is still a good area to be working in but we must be reasonable with our expectations.
Monday, 19 May 2008
The Lure of Home
A common fear amongst those studying the effects of peak oil is thought of mobs of people fleeing towns and cities and invading rural areas. In so many science fiction movies, we see motorways clogged with thousands of cars as people panic and run from impending danger. But the difference between these scenarios and peak oil is that they were fleeing from a known and immediate danger – a flood or a nuclear bomb – whereas peak oil is a slow and gradual breakdown with an unknown set of problems and an unknown timescale.
People are notoriously reluctant to move even when things are bad – consider the inhabitants of cities like London and Plymouth who stayed even when they were being bombed during the War, or the people of Naples or San Francisco who live in the shadow of a constant natural threat that will one day destroy them. People prefer the known to the unknown, familiar surroundings to the unfamiliar, friends to strangers, especially when the place they are fleeing to is alien or, in some cases, if they don’t even know where they are going.
There is also, especially in Britain, the infatuation with owning your own home. If you have spent 20 or 30 years to buy your house, and maybe spent thousand of pounds on improving it, you will be very reluctant to leave it without somewhere definite to go to. The house is recognisable and it’s yours. In a time of fear and uncertainty, the four walls and the garden are something to hold onto. It will almost certainly be the bulk of your assets. If you leave it, who knows what will happen to it, who will invade it.
I believe that the vast majority will stay put, hoping that ‘things will recover’ or ‘the government will sort things out’. If and when they do flee, it will probably be for places they know (relatives and friends) or areas relatively close to home. I can’t see thousands jumping in their cars and using whatever petrol they have left to head off into the country. And those that do will probably be the adventurous, motivated people who would be useful in a survival situation.
In a good location, a house is a blessing; in a bad location, it is a curse.
People are notoriously reluctant to move even when things are bad – consider the inhabitants of cities like London and Plymouth who stayed even when they were being bombed during the War, or the people of Naples or San Francisco who live in the shadow of a constant natural threat that will one day destroy them. People prefer the known to the unknown, familiar surroundings to the unfamiliar, friends to strangers, especially when the place they are fleeing to is alien or, in some cases, if they don’t even know where they are going.
There is also, especially in Britain, the infatuation with owning your own home. If you have spent 20 or 30 years to buy your house, and maybe spent thousand of pounds on improving it, you will be very reluctant to leave it without somewhere definite to go to. The house is recognisable and it’s yours. In a time of fear and uncertainty, the four walls and the garden are something to hold onto. It will almost certainly be the bulk of your assets. If you leave it, who knows what will happen to it, who will invade it.
I believe that the vast majority will stay put, hoping that ‘things will recover’ or ‘the government will sort things out’. If and when they do flee, it will probably be for places they know (relatives and friends) or areas relatively close to home. I can’t see thousands jumping in their cars and using whatever petrol they have left to head off into the country. And those that do will probably be the adventurous, motivated people who would be useful in a survival situation.
In a good location, a house is a blessing; in a bad location, it is a curse.
Monday, 12 May 2008
Write to Vote
I have recently been reading “The Reason of Things” by A C Grayling, a collection of short philosophical essays and, on the whole I agree with what he says about most things. But there is one on which I take a completely opposite view and that is on voting. It is clear that he disapproves of those who do not vote as some of these quotes show:
“The reason that so many are neglectful of their democratic privileges is that they know no history…If they grasped these points, they would not be so cavalier and irresponsible about their democratic duties.”
“The required solution is that voting should be compulsory. One has to respect civil liberty arguments to the contrary, but the fact remains that citizenship imposes duties, many of them (such as paying taxes) already embodied in laws requiring observance on pain of sanction.”
“…Every refusal to vote is an act of self-disenfranchisement in which a citizen, betraying the endeavours of history, demotes himself in to a serf.”
I am fiercely against compulsory voting for several reasons:
First, it goes against the whole idea of democracy – the right to vote for whoever you want also carries the right not to vote. That surely is what freedom means. Forcing someone to vote when they don’t want to strikes me as the sort of thing authoritarian regimes do; that after all is how they get their 99% approval votes. In those systems, people are generally too afraid not to vote and it is only in a genuinely free country that a man or woman can refuse to plod down to the ballot box without getting a late night knock on the door.
Secondly, if people are forced to vote, many are likely simply to put a cross in whichever box comes to hand. Some might deliberately spoil the ballot paper or mark the “None of the above” box (if there is one), but many will no doubt see the walk to the polling station as an annoying imposition and just place their cross down anywhere. Do we really want people elected by chance or by their position on the voting paper? Surely it is better than only those who care or have an interest should vote?
There is also the problem that in Britain we have one of the least democratic democracies in the world. Our nominal head of state is unelected. Our real head of state (the prime minister) is unelected in that we don’t vote directly for him – he just happens to be the leader of the largest party. Our second chamber is unelected and most people effectively have no vote. What I mean by that is that, because we have a first-past-the-post system, in many constituencies, a vote has little meaning. If you live in a safe Labour seat, for instance, voting for Labour will make little difference as will voting for the opposition. And voting for a minor party, wherever you happen to live, is usually a waste of time. If our system used proportional representation, then every vote would have a meaning, no matter how safe the seat or minor the party.
If voter turnout is falling, then we should ask ourselves why, not look for ways to punish those who feel voting is irrelevant or a waste of time. If we could elect our leader, if we could elect the second house, if we had a fair voting system, then more people might consider voting worthwhile and not “a good walk wasted”.
But I would go further with my revision of our voting system: I would bring in a test before anybody was allowed to vote. If my doctor wanted to discuss an illness I had, I would hope that he would consult other qualified people and not just drag people of the street. If my car has a problem, I go to a mechanic, not a dustman or, indeed, a politician. So why do we let people vote who know nothing about politics?
We wouldn’t want to limit voting to just the rich, for instance, or a selected group of people. We have taken too long to progress from that state. But I do think that, before you vote, you should show a minimum amount of knowledge about who you are going to vote for. Nothing complicated, just a few simple questions such as “Name the leaders of the main parties” or “When did women get the vote?” If people did not know these things or couldn’t be bothered to find out, then it suggests they are unlikely to know the difference in the parties and know exactly why they are voting for one over another. The universal franchise would still exist – everybody would still be entitled to vote – but they would have to show some desire to take it seriously first.
The result would be that those who didn’t care about politics, or don’t have the capability to make an informed decision, would be free to ignore the polling booth on voting day. Those who did vote and consequently elected our government would have at least done some research on where to cast that vote. Who knows – making it something you earn rather than have automatically might attract more people to bother in the first place.
“The reason that so many are neglectful of their democratic privileges is that they know no history…If they grasped these points, they would not be so cavalier and irresponsible about their democratic duties.”
“The required solution is that voting should be compulsory. One has to respect civil liberty arguments to the contrary, but the fact remains that citizenship imposes duties, many of them (such as paying taxes) already embodied in laws requiring observance on pain of sanction.”
“…Every refusal to vote is an act of self-disenfranchisement in which a citizen, betraying the endeavours of history, demotes himself in to a serf.”
I am fiercely against compulsory voting for several reasons:
First, it goes against the whole idea of democracy – the right to vote for whoever you want also carries the right not to vote. That surely is what freedom means. Forcing someone to vote when they don’t want to strikes me as the sort of thing authoritarian regimes do; that after all is how they get their 99% approval votes. In those systems, people are generally too afraid not to vote and it is only in a genuinely free country that a man or woman can refuse to plod down to the ballot box without getting a late night knock on the door.
Secondly, if people are forced to vote, many are likely simply to put a cross in whichever box comes to hand. Some might deliberately spoil the ballot paper or mark the “None of the above” box (if there is one), but many will no doubt see the walk to the polling station as an annoying imposition and just place their cross down anywhere. Do we really want people elected by chance or by their position on the voting paper? Surely it is better than only those who care or have an interest should vote?
There is also the problem that in Britain we have one of the least democratic democracies in the world. Our nominal head of state is unelected. Our real head of state (the prime minister) is unelected in that we don’t vote directly for him – he just happens to be the leader of the largest party. Our second chamber is unelected and most people effectively have no vote. What I mean by that is that, because we have a first-past-the-post system, in many constituencies, a vote has little meaning. If you live in a safe Labour seat, for instance, voting for Labour will make little difference as will voting for the opposition. And voting for a minor party, wherever you happen to live, is usually a waste of time. If our system used proportional representation, then every vote would have a meaning, no matter how safe the seat or minor the party.
If voter turnout is falling, then we should ask ourselves why, not look for ways to punish those who feel voting is irrelevant or a waste of time. If we could elect our leader, if we could elect the second house, if we had a fair voting system, then more people might consider voting worthwhile and not “a good walk wasted”.
But I would go further with my revision of our voting system: I would bring in a test before anybody was allowed to vote. If my doctor wanted to discuss an illness I had, I would hope that he would consult other qualified people and not just drag people of the street. If my car has a problem, I go to a mechanic, not a dustman or, indeed, a politician. So why do we let people vote who know nothing about politics?
We wouldn’t want to limit voting to just the rich, for instance, or a selected group of people. We have taken too long to progress from that state. But I do think that, before you vote, you should show a minimum amount of knowledge about who you are going to vote for. Nothing complicated, just a few simple questions such as “Name the leaders of the main parties” or “When did women get the vote?” If people did not know these things or couldn’t be bothered to find out, then it suggests they are unlikely to know the difference in the parties and know exactly why they are voting for one over another. The universal franchise would still exist – everybody would still be entitled to vote – but they would have to show some desire to take it seriously first.
The result would be that those who didn’t care about politics, or don’t have the capability to make an informed decision, would be free to ignore the polling booth on voting day. Those who did vote and consequently elected our government would have at least done some research on where to cast that vote. Who knows – making it something you earn rather than have automatically might attract more people to bother in the first place.
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