Peak of the Devil: 100 Questions About Peak Oil Answered

By Chip Haynes

What's that peak oil thing you keep jabbering on about?

"Peak oil" is the phrase used to describe the point where the world's oil supply, well, peaks. A fairly easy concept there. It's the best we can do, and the best we will ever do, when it comes to pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. After peak oil, it's a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Accomplishing Innovation Press
• Release date: Oct 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781644509388

Chip Haynes

Chip Haynes is an artist, writer, cyclist, juggler living in Tampa, Florida. In 2009, New Society Publishers of British Columbia, Canada, published both "The Practical Cyclist, bicycling for real people" in 2009 and "Wearing Smaller Shoes, living light on the big blue marble" in 2010. Satya House Publications of Hardwick, Massachusetts published Chip's "Peak of the Devil, 100 questions (and answers) about peak oil" in 2010 as well. Two out of three won awards and picked up some cool endorsements. So there.Chip is currently dabbling in fiction and poetry when he's not pedaling in shorts and sandals.

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Dedication

For the beautiful light of my life, the Lovely JoAnn.

Introduction

Some years ago, in 1997, I had just begun to ride a bicycle to work on a daily basis and decided to look for information about car-free communities on the internet. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, you know how it goes on the internet: You start off looking for one thing and end up someplace totally different. (And if you’re lucky, no one catches you.) I began to see references to peak oil in relation to those car-free communities listings, and after seeing a few of those, I did a little point-and-click and found a whole new (scary) world out there: the world of peak oil. I was intrigued. I was mesmerized. Alright, fine; I was obsessed.

I began to read everything I could about peak oil, and after awhile, I began to write about it as well. At the end of the 20th Century, peak oil was still what you might politely call a fringe subject. It was not well known, and many that knew about it thought it was wrong. I mean, after all, we’ve got plenty of oil, right? We can’t possibly run out. Can we?

After over ten years of reading and writing about it, the public’s perception of peak oil is changing. What was once an event predicted far in our future is now an event that may have happened several years ago. Peak oil’s funny that way: It can only be seen in history, years after it happens. Attitudes have changed as well. Where so many people once thought peak oil was the mantra of (and I’m being polite here) nut jobs in army blanket ponchos that haven’t seen a decent shower since the last good rain, we now know that those unwashed nut jobs were right all along. Yes, Virginia, there is a peak oil. It has either passed or is here or is about to be here, but no matter which, it is something we will all have to face, and maybe quite soon and with little warning. So consider yourself warned. And welcome to the future.

After reading all that I have read about peak oil, and writing a few things on the subject myself, I did put off writing this book for years. Why write yet another book on peak oil? There are some very good books out there on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. I’ve read a lot of them. Do we (do you) really need this book? Yeah, you kind of do. This is not an overly happy subject. People that study peak oil are routinely labeled as doomers (I’ve always liked the phrase, doomsluts, but that’s just me), and the subject can be a real buzz kill. And who wants to read that? No, wait, don’t put this book down yet! Despite the serious gravity of the subject, there is some hope. Really. Read on and learn about peak oil and what we have to look forward to in the years ahead. Yes, it can be sobering, but if forewarned is forearmed, you can go into it with a bit of knowledge and maybe that will help. And a smile can’t hurt, either.

By the way, my profound thanks as always to my wonderful and perfect wife, the Lovely JoAnn, for putting up with me for well over twenty years now. I love her more than I can ever tell her. Now: What would you like to know about peak oil? Ask away.

Meanwhile, ten years later. Okay, twelve.

Wait, it’s been thirteen years? Seriously? Man, where does the time go? This book was originally released by Satya House Publications in late 2010, but then Julie and Joe retired and the book just sort of sat down and waited. Now, in this last year, along comes Four Horsemen Publications, what have I got to offer them? Well, how about one that’s already been printed once? Yep! The rights changed hands and off we went again! I read through the original book and didn’t have to change a word. Good for me, bad for you. We’re still facing this thing, and it hasn’t got any better. If anything, the longer we can maintain the status quo, the worse the drop at the end. Better hang on.

My compliments and thanks here to everyone at Four Horsemen, for trusting me and putting up with me. The honor is mine. Every time.

Now go pump your bike tires.

Chip Haynes

Somewhere in Tampa…

March, 2023.

The 100 Questions 
About Peak Oil 
Answered:

1.

What’s this peak oil thing you keep jabbering on about?

Peak oil is the phrase used to describe the point where the world’s oil supply, well, peaks. A fairly easy concept there. It’s the best we can do, and the best we will ever do, when it comes to pumping conventional crude oil out of the ground. After peak oil, it’s all downhill, production-wise. Too many people think that peak oil means the oil is going to run out, and that’s not quite right. The oil will not run out. Not ever. It will, over time, get increasingly rare and probably expensive (before it’s worthless), but there will always be at least a little bit of oil for us to use. Well, for someone to use. Probably not you and me, unless I sell a whole shipload of books. No pressure.

It’s all about the classic economic issues of supply and demand. If supply exceeds demand, as oil did for many years, there’s plenty to go around, the price stays low and everybody’s happy. Good times. If the item in question (like oil) gets a little scarce, or the demand for oil rises faster than the oil can be supplied, then the price of oil goes up. With oil, right now, we’re seeing a little of both; that is, the oil is getting scarce as the demand continues to rise. A double whammy. Lucky us.

So peak oil is an event. A point in time. True, it’s an unseen event we won’t be able to figure out until long after it happens (much like our own maturity), but it will happen. Or maybe it already did. It’s tough to tell because people don’t like to talk about it. And yes, we’re back to talking about peak oil here. The thing is, once we pass that peak, we’re going to slide though a period of Interesting Times. Yes, eventually things will settle down, but until they do, we’re going to be in for a great many changes, and not all of them will be what you might call good. But they will be interesting. You have my word on that.

Some years ago, peak oil was something that was going to happen far, far in our distant future. No need to worry. Just keep driving. Everything’s fine. When I began reading about peak oil in the late 1990’s, it was going to happen around 2035. That was a long ways away. Then a funny thing happened: the more I read about peak oil, the closer it got. That is, the predictions for when global peak oil would occur moved back in time faster than we were moving forward. That prediction for peak oil in 2035 became 2030, then 2025, and then 2020. After just a few years, I was reading about peak oil by 2015, then 2010 and then…

And then, after about 2005, I started to read about how maybe peak oil had already happened. Huh? What? Hey, what happened to 2035? How did this event slip backwards thirty years? As it turns out, we were using up more oil, and finding less oil, than anyone could have predicted. Whoopsie. Our bad.

2.

Well, whose fault is that?

Mine. Yours. Theirs. Ours. There’s plenty of blame to go around. With almost seven billion people on planet earth, each one-seven-billionth of the human population of planet earth doesn’t have to use a whole lot of oil for all of us to use a whole lot of oil. As a result, we do. Lately, we’ve been (literally) burning through about eighty million barrels of oil a day . That’s about 3.36 billion gallons of oil. (There are 42 gallons of oil to a barrel, in case you were wondering.) For you metric types, that’s over 12.7 billion liters of oil. A day. Every day. Weekends and holidays included. That’s a lot of oil. We use it in a million different ways, for a million different things, day and night. And even if you, personally, don’t think you used any oil today, rest assured that oil was used on your behalf. There’s virtually no way, in this modern world, for you to use no oil at all. C’est la vie. (That’s French for Deal with it, Little B uckaroo.)

We each use oil to travel, in our homes, and where we work and play. In addition, oil is used to grow and deliver the food we eat, the clothes we wear and virtually everything in our homes and offices. Oil, in some manner, is used to generate or help generate virtually all electric power at some point in the process, even if we’re just talking the oil it took to make the tires on the bicycle of the guy who washes the dust off the solar cells once a month. Oh, and it probably took some oil to make those solar cells, too. There seems to be no way for Modern Man to get around using oil, even if all he did was stand naked in a field. And trust me, no one wants that. They told me.

People use oil, businesses use oil, nations use oil. Collectively, we are at the grand peak of The Oil Age. We’re at the top of the heap. Check out the view! I can see my house from here! Over the last hundred years or so, we went from being the coal-fired Victorian Industrial Revolution to being Hydrocarbon Man, powered by great unseen forces of liquid pumped from the bowels of the earth to give us speed and powers far beyond those of our ancestors. It’s a wonder we all aren’t wearing leotards, capes and fancy helmets. (We lucked out there.)

So what’s happening to change all of that? How is it that we are going from the top of the heap to the bottom of the pile? Who pulled the rug out from under us?

3.

Can we blame M. K. Hubbert?

You can if you want to, but it won’t do any good, and it won’t change a thing. (And he’s long gone, so he won’t care if you do.) Still, back in the 1950’s, Shell Oil geologist Marion King Hubbert was able to prove that a single oil well, using the conventional pumping technology of the day, would produce more oil every day until it reached its total mid-point of overall production. After reaching that mid-point, and producing half of all it would ever produce, the oil well would go into decline. That decline would be slow at first, but the depletion rate would increase as the overall production chart would graph a near-perfect bell curve. Hubbert’s Curve, as it turns out. The top of that curve, the maximum production at mid-point, was now known as Hubbert’s Peak. Hubbert’s theories were not in any way popular (certainly not with his employer, Shell Oil), then or now, but as it turns out, he was right. That was exactly what an oil well does.

Then a not-so-funny thing happened. What Hubbert had to say about the production curve of a single oil well, as it turns out, could also be applied with equally annoying accuracy to an entire oil field. The entire oil field reached peak production at the mid-point of its overall total production. And, just like that single lonely oil well, once it did reach that mid-point high, it went into a permanent decline. Bummer, dude. Could this get any worse?

Of course it could. The overall oil production of entire oil-producing nations can also be plotted with Hubbert’s infamous little curve. Hubbert predicted, back in the mid-1950’s, that US lower-48 state oil production would peak around 1970 and go into an irreversible decline after that. You can imagine how thrilled Shell Oil was to have such a cheerful, upbeat employee. It’s a wonder he didn’t get beat up. But he was right, and his prediction did come true: US lower-48 state oil production did peak around 1970 and has been in decline ever since. So Hubbert may not have gotten invited to a lot of parties, but no one could fault his accuracy.

Now, how about we kick it up a notch? What about the whole world? Could Hubbert’s curve, initially devised to track the production of a single oil well, be used to figure the oil production of an entire planet? Absolutely. Well, sort of. That is to say it could, if we had all the accurate, unfiltered data for every oil field in the world. But we do not. Using what data can be obtained, and allowing for, um, discrepancies (a very polite, non-litigious word for lies), a great many people have tried for years to predict when the world will reach peak oil. With mixed results, obviously. That would explain the vagaries when it comes to the questions of When will it happen? and/or When did it happen? and the occasional Hey, what just happened? As it turns out, we can predict all we want, but we will only know after the fact. But don’t blame Hubbert. He did the best he could.

4.

Why should I care?

You don’t have to care at all. Many people don’t. Most people don’t. Mention peak oil to the average person, and their eyes will glaze like a donut. This can be a great defense at parties when you get cornered by someone even more boring than you. (And yes, as a matter of fact, I do speak from experience here. Why do you ask?) The cool kids do not hang around the cybercafé and talk about peak oil. Not yet, anyway. Still, maybe you should care, at least a little. Peak oil is (or will be, pick one) a major event in the history of the human race and have a tremendous impact on our overall global progress and development. It really is a big deal. You really should care, even if you don’ t want to.

This pesky peak oil thing is going to sneak up and bite you in so many different ways, I hardly know where to begin. Obviously, the price of gasoline is what most people think of when they think of oil, but in truth, virtually everything we buy and/or use is in some way connected to oil. That means everything we do will be touched by peak oil, even if you do hardly anything at all. Good luck dodging this one. You can’t.

Peak oil will have a serious impact on the price (and availability) of food, clothing and shelter. It will radically change how we travel, and if we even travel at all. It will change our education system, commerce at every level and the world of finance from top to