Govt must get serious about peak oil

John de Bueger looks at the implications of "peak oil" and suggests New Zealand should be getting serious about it.

A predictable howl erupted when it was announced that some parts of the conservation estate might be opened-up to small-scale mineral extraction.

This contrasted markedly with the barely audible mutterings from the same quarter when Gerry Brownlee announced late last year that offshore oil exploitation from our continental shelf held the key to future prosperity, with likely annual exports of tens of billions of dollars.

Given that the Zealandia plate on which these islands float is about one-third the size of Australia, it follows that the potential of offshore oil and minerals dwarfs any onshore prospects, even if it was Otago placer gold that kick-started this country's economic development.

My initial suspicion was that thoughts of mining in national parks was a just a decoy tactic to redirect eyes onshore while the foreshore and seabed issue was being thrashed out, but perhaps this is being a little too Machiavellian.

It is more likely that our Minister of Energy has little or no idea of the real worth of untapped oil reserves (anywhere), given the coming realities of peak oil.

When he was asked some questions on this matter at an energy conference late last year, he gave the impression that even if he had heard of the concept, he certainly hadn't mastered its implications.

In this respect Gerry is exhibiting the archetypal behavioural response of the caveman - a condition I hasten to add that he shares with 95% of the human race, and 100% of politicians.

That is a total inability to rationally weigh the seriousness of future risks against pressing short-term expediency.

This human character flaw stems from primordial days when surviving an attack from circling sabre tooth tigers was higher up the do-list than laying in stores for the coming winter.

Given human greed and frailty, it isn't surprising that the majority of the world's population remain utterly indifferent to the looming energy crisis, but one might have hoped that an Energy Minister would know better.

It is time his officials briefed him more thoroughly, and to this end I can recommend a recent UK doomsday report that was sent to me recently by a reader - the First Report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES).

The document is exactly what its title says, and very sobering reading it makes.

It was prepared by an eminent committee, well-balanced with participants from both the oil industry and those with green agendas.

You might have thought that such a panel would have been incapable of reaching a clear consensus, but not so.

The document (which you can google), spells out the inevitability of the coming crisis in the most stark of terms. The entire global industrial and economic base has been constructed on the premise that cheap energy will last forever.

It won't.

While there will still be plenty of oil for the next 40 years, the days of cheap energy are over.

To visualise what cheap means, compare the cost of the manual labour equivalent of the energy locked up in a single barrel - five men working a 12-hour day for a year - or about $US60,000 rather than $US70 a barrel.

The International Energy Agency expects the crunch - when oil supply won't be able to meet demand - to hit by 2013.

This isn't far off, but no-one seems to care less, or even show the slightest inclination to address it.

The fall-out from peak oil will start slowly and just get worse and worse; lay-offs, riots, and resource conflicts.

Some authorities believe peak oil production has been passed, and that we are already on the way down.

Those of us living in the shadow of Mt Egmont might visualise peak world oil production being of a similar shape.

It isn't.

It is more like a wavy plateau with a gently sloping downhill future flank - like say, Mt Ruapehu from a distance, or the cross-section of a mountain range in Maniototo.

The sobering fact is that change takes time - and changing the world from cheap abundant oil to expensive renewables (or nuclear), is going to takes decades longer than cheap oil will be there to facilitate that change.

It isn't just power generation.

Our jobs, and whole way of life - particularly where they require transport fuels - are going to be dramatically affected.

Pouring billions into building new motorways in Auckland, or Transmission Gully, or putting bypasses around the likes of Bell Block is ridiculous if traffic volumes are going to peak and then fall in line with fuel price hikes.

If you want to see what the world looked like before there was cheap energy, take a walk around a small medieval French town - narrow winding streets with pokey little houses above shops and dingy workplaces, all designed to minimise walking.

We won't be going back to that, but life in the new suburbs, dependent on wide-scale car commuting, is going to become very difficult indeed. While crossing bridges before reaching them is silly, a wise man keeps an eye on the distant horizon.

Given the gravity of the looming energy situation, and the relatively minor returns likely to be achieved by mining in the national parks, instead of poking a stick into a hornet's nest, it would make more sense if the Government set up a similar review body to fully analyse the implications of peak oil on this country.

John de Bueger is a New Plymouth writer and engineer.