 Top News - April 30, 2008 |
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Lifestyle has to change now
We’re living peak oil |
By Kevin Ma
Staff Writer
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Welcome to peak oil.
World oil prices topped $118 a barrel last week, the highest level on record, and world leaders warned these prices were contributing to food shortages around the world. This is probably just the beginning, according to a CIBC World Bank report released last Thursday. The bank’s chief economist predicts that oil prices will hit $200 a barrel by 2012, driving gasoline prices to $2.25 a litre and forcing fundamental changes to the Canadian economy.
Peak oil is the theory that global oil production has or will max out in the near future, causing a rapid escalation in energy prices. Peak oil is a partner of that other major world problem climate change, as rising fossil fuel use contributes to both. While the worst effects of climate change may be decades away, peak oil’s punch could hit within a few years.
Most analysts agree the question is not whether peak oil will happen, but when. When it does hit, if it hasn’t already, Canada will need a policy path that addresses both it and climate change simultaneously. That path is conservation. Canada needs an ambitious campaign of energy conservation to cut its fossil fuel consumption if it is to address the twin threats of climate change and peak oil.
Have we peaked?
David Hughes addressed the climate change/peak oil connection in mid-April at a talk at the University of Alberta. Hughes has studied Canada’s energy resources for 30 years with the Geological Survey of Canada and is a member of the Post Carbon Institute, a prominent peak oil think-tank.
Climate change is happening, he says, but the impacts of its cousin, peak oil, will hit us first. All non-renewable fuel production is likely to peak by 2050, with oil predicted to peak in about 2013. "Since 1984 the world has been consuming more oil than it’s been discovering. We now consume three to four barrels of oil for every barrel we refine. We’re really eating into our bank account of past discoveries."
The world still has plenty of potential energy in the ground, Hughes says, including coalbed methane, shale oil and the oilsands. "What counts is the energy we can get out of the ground at an energy profit," or affordable energy, and that’s on the decline. New sources of fuel such as the oilsands yield just seven barrels of energy for every one put in, a far cry from the 100 to one ratio of conventional oil. Other fuels, such as biofuels or shale oil, have even thinner returns.
This intersects with rising demand to drive prices higher. The International Energy Agency predicts global energy demand will rise 50 per cent by 2030, much of it due to China and India, and has called for $22-trillion in investment before then to meet this forecast.
Not everyone agrees the peak is upon us. The National Energy Board predicts oil prices will stabilize at $50 a barrel by 2030 despite a 43 per cent jump in Canada’s energy use, the result of greater efficiency and vast oilsands expansion. Whether the more than $60-plunge in oil prices this implies is realistic is up for debate.
Higher prices also discourage further consumption, notes Andrew Leach, environmental economist at the University of Alberta, and can drive development of alternatives that can grow supply and hold off the peak. "We’re looking for something that won’t happen," he says of peak oil.
Alternate energies will satisfy some global demand, Hughes says, but not enough of it. "If we can succeed in nearly quadrupling non-conventional oil," he says, referring to biofuels and other fringe fossil fuels, "it could make up 8.9 per cent of forecast world demand. Significant, but not a panacea."
Some of these alternative sources also drive climate change. The National Energy Board predicts that Canada’s emissions are on track to rise 24 per cent by 2030 due in most part to oilsands expansion. Since most researchers suggest Canada’s emissions would need to fall by about 40 per cent by that time to avoid more than two degrees of warming, this seems counterproductive.
Does it matter?
Higher energy prices are and will have detrimental effects on many parts of Canadian society.
Take health care, for example, says Don Spady, an associate professor of public health sciences at the University of Alberta who spoke on peak oil last week. "Right now, we really don’t have a good idea as to what’s going to happen," he says, but history suggests a number of effects. In 2000, fuel prices in Britain jumped drastically as a strike by fuel truckers effectively cut off the nation’s gasoline supply — instant peak oil. Hospitals had to stop all elective surgeries, he says. Ambulances had to speed along at 25 kilometres an hour to conserve fuel. Outpatient clinics closed as doctors could not afford to drive to them. Medical waste piled up in hospitals as no one could afford to dump it. The strike lasted just 10 days.
A longer price crunch could affect availability of medicines, Spady says, most of which are petroleum-based. "This isn’t going to happen tomorrow…but it will happen, and it will happen in my children’s lifetime."
High prices are already having an effect on food supply. Corn and wheat have tripled and doubled in price respectively since 2000, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, partly because fuel for trucks, tractors and fertilizer has jumped and partially because more food is going towards biofuels to counter high oil prices. (Droughts, market speculation, and shifting diet are also factors.) Food riots have broken out in several nations as a result, and the UN has already announced it will not have enough food available to help everyone who needs it.
Two problems, one solution
Climate change and peak oil are both driven by fossil fuel use. More use means more warming and more expense, resulting in climatic and economic disruption. Both problems can be solved through conservation.
"The number one priority is energy conservation," Hughes says. You can use hyper-efficient technology to cut a coal power plant’s emissions by about half, for example, but that won’t make a difference if coal demand doubles as projected by 2030.
Hughes and others call for a paradigm shift in energy consumption, one where we move away from lives powered by cheap energy. "This is a difficult problem, but not an insoluble problem," Hughes says, especially since there is so much low hanging fruit for us to grab. Home renovations can cut energy use and emissions considerably, he notes, as can investment in public transit. Road tolls and lower speed limits can discourage gas use, while higher energy fees can fund efficiency improvements. "Energy has to be a lot more costly," he says. "A barrel of oil is equivalent to eight years of human labour."
Peak energy will happen — and climate change is happening — because we live in a finite world. Technology and efficiency can help us with both problems, but actually solving them requires changing our lifestyles to live with this reality. "This is going to be fixed," Hughes says. "Mother Nature will take care of it, so there’s really only one question: how will this transition occur?"
Will we choose conservation, in other words, or have it thrust upon us? |
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