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What does Peak oil mean and why should you care?
Can you imagine some point in our past, when Trog the cave man dipped his walking stick into the tar pit and then threw it on the camp fire?
He burns it because he couldn’t get the sticky black stuff off the end of it.
He may have said something like “I say old chap that black stuff burns remarkably well”
Hey, he might have!
And from that day on, man has been using up the worlds oil reserves, at break neck speed.
Then you can also imagine some day in the future when Trog’s son Troy goes to the tap on the worlds last known oil well and nothing comes out of the end.
“Bugger”
Now I don’t subscribe to the notion that oils going to run out anytime really soon.
Not next week anyway, but I do think we have hit peak.
Peak is when the world oil producers can no longer supply enough oil to meet the demands of the world’s demand for oil.
I personally believe we reached peak sometime in 2004, the start of the war in Iraq is as good a place as any.
Because the war was never about Weapons of Mass Destruction, much more like Wells of Mass Dollars.
The World War on Terror (WW4) is like all wars, they require heaps of Energy to win.
Energy (read Power) comes out of oil wells in 2005 and every single thing that the World uses, has an oil component.
Example: How much oil is used to put a loaf of bread on your table?
Farmer uses diesel in his tractor to produce the wheat, Trucker hauls it to the mill, Millers turn it into bread, Trucker hauls it to the shop, and you haul it home.
This is where you get the term “Food Miles” from.
You will start hearing a lot more about Food Miles in the years to come.
So if we have reached the peak of the available oil lake/mountain, what does the other side of this mountain look like and what can we expect.
The experts expected there to be a plateau of supply that falls away slowly at first and then rapidly as Larger Nations around the world reached out and say “that’s mine”
Then the Military and other Government agencies within those countries say “Hey, that’s ours”
Now that America has jumped in first, I wonder how long it will be before other nations start to reach out and grab other people’s property for their own.
At first I thought that the mountain may have a plateau on top and regular, cheaper oil may last a few years, but since then Katrina’s recent escapades on the Gulf Coast of America has knocked out 40 odd oil refineries and drilling rigs
I think this mountain will look much like the graph I have inserted below.
The oil refinery owners say some of them will take five years to get back on line.
So if the oil producing nations are finding it difficult to supply enough oil now, due to too great a demand, how the hell are they going to get on after Katrina’s little effort?
If you think prices are high now, wait another year.
And what do you think will happen when some of the bigger nations (read Large Armies) that don’t have any fuel of their own, wake up and start looking over their neighbour’s fence.
Do you honestly believe that New Zealand is going to get enough supplies to keep things running smoothly, as they have been in the past?
One of the statements I hear quite often when discussing this subject is “Oh there’s heaps of oil out there, I read an article all about it in the women’s mags”
Really, you’ve seen it, this oil then?
The guy that owns it is going to give you some?
He might sell you some at hugely inflated prices, and of course the Government will get their percentage.
Someone that also wants it is not going to try and steal it before it gets here by fair means or foul? Yeah right.
The large shipping companies are going to want to come all the way to New Zealand when they could just take it to some where closer? Yeah right.
People; wake up, if there was heaps of oil out there for everyone to have some of, the price would be cheap. There may well be some out there that the finders are keeping quite about, but I’ll bet it’s put away for strategic purposes.
Because when it really starts to hit the fan folks, the army with the oil is going to be the winner and it probably won’t be our Army.
Our friends might give us some, for a while. But don’t bet your wages on it.
So what can we do about this perplexing set of problems?
Enter the Drivertek International Trucker of the Year Competition.
Start raising the profile of this issue by talking with your friends and employers.
If the big players in the oil industry are sitting on an alternative to oil, let’s see it; let’s see the distribution system they have in place for this new wonder fuel. Let’s have a look at the motor that will power the transport industry into the 21st Centaury. If none of these things exist, then start coming up with your own solutions to the problem.
Because if we swamp the big players with hundreds of alternative solutions, that actually work.
Two things will happen. 1) We won’t need them. 2) The price of fuel will drop like a rock.
But then, that is “Just an old Truckers point of view”
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