Below is a local newspaper article about me, Aaron Wissner. This is a strong article because of its on-target nature. It quickly summarizes, and then greatly expands on the earlier Wall Street Journal story. It is also an outstanding piece on which to write some good explanation on the concepts of peak oil and shortage.
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Wall Street Journal interviews Wayland teacher about 'peak oil'
WAYLAND — Wayland Union Middle School teacher Aaron Wissner wants to get the word out that energy is about to get very expensive — a Wall Street Journal article would do nicely.
That's exactly what he got recently. The business publication sent reporter Neil King Jr. out to Wissner's Middleville home for three days of interviews.
King arrived on Saturday, Jan. 12, to meet Wissner at a local pizza restaurant with about a dozen others concerned with what they view as a looming oil shortage.
The shorthand term for this is "peak oil." Wissner can point to research online that explains why he believes oil production has reached its peak; supply will now begin to decline. With demand for that oil staying the same or increasing over time, prices for that decreasing supply of oil will skyrocket.
"Ten years ago, oil was $10 per barrel," Wissner said. "World oil production is now about 84.5 million barrels a day. We've been stuck at that for over three years. Now a barrel of oil is up over $90—it even got to $100 (briefly).
"There are enough oil geologists saying that it's safe to say that we might have reached our peak production."
Those high oil prices trickle down to many aspects of modern life. This is something his students at Wayland Union Middle School are already learning.
On Day 3 of his Wall Street Journal interview, Wissner brought King into his first couple of classes.
"I did a lesson on peak oil," Wissner said. "I interviewed the kids to demonstrate how easy it was to pick up the concept."
He asked his students what effect the high oil prices will have on farmers in Allegan County.
"I remember one student who said that his father and grandfather were both farmers," Wissner said. "Fuel prices were cutting into their earnings."
That, coupled with poor rainfall, put the family into the red.
"He said that if things continue, the changes would force his family out of business. It's going to have a real impact on the farmers," Wissner said.
Wissner knows from his math background and his reading about economics that high fuel prices drive a lot of other costs up — everything from food to travel will take hits. He also does not believe advances in technology alone will be able to soften the blow of these sharp price increases.
He may not be able to prevent an oil shortage, but he has committed to help others prepare for the future.
He's founded a non-profit group called Local Future.
According to the Web site, "Members of Local Future…take the initiative to increase independence for themselves and their communities. Their shared value system of truth, compassion, understanding, sustainability, renewal and community guides their actions toward a vision of a prosperous local future."
Wissner hopes to replicate similar groups in the Wayland, Grand Rapids and Caledonia areas.
This article is extremely well written by local reporter Ryan Lewis. He gets to the point quickly, and then brings it down to the local level. This is the best example of an accurate and clear follow up article to the Wall Street Journal peak oil story. Lewis does a great job of providing information about the upcoming events. The best part may be the response from the 8th grader whose father and grandfather are farmers, and how Lewis tied that into a general concept of long-term inflation.
As with any story, no matter how well written, there is always room for clarification. I've found that writing the clarifications has been useful; both for my own thinking process, and for readers, because it fills in gaps, and clears up uncertainties.
"…energy is about to get very expensive …" – The trick here is that it is not 100% certain that oil prices will be higher (on average) this year over last year. The reason is because a global downturn in the economy could cause a reduction in demand for oil such that the demand falls faster than the supply. In this case, the price of oil may "retreat", perhaps even back into the $50 dollar range. I'm not sure how likely this scenario is, and recession is not a good thing for most people. Plus, even with a recession, the oil exporting countries, and OPEC, could restrict their exports to match the decline in demand, in order to maintain the current price level. It is a complex situation, and there are certainly more factors that come into play (oil futures players, geopolitics, weather & climate, etc).
If there is not a recession, the price will go up, because demand will continue to increase, and without a commensurate increase in supply, that is the only possibility in our global market. Global oil supply has not increased from an average of 84.5 million barrels per day for nearly four years. What can be predicted, with a fair amount of certainty, is the long term trend, which is that oil will get more expensive, decade after decade, simply because the supply will be decreasing year after year, while our demand for oil continues to remain high. (See this one minute video for the economics behind this.)
"…looming oil shortage." – Here is a similar concept, the idea of "shortage". In the global marketplace, there is never an actual shortage, so long as the supply lines are open, weather is good, and everything is working as it should be. Hurricane Katrina showed that we could have shortages due to an interruption in the supply line, even when the actual production of oil is fine. Perhaps the word shortage should be reserved for such events, but it is unlikely that most people will restrict the term to that single use.
In our market place, even if oil extraction dropped by 50% over the next decade, we might not have shortage. There would certainly be higher prices and probably recessions during those ten years, but it would be likely that everyone that could afford oil would get it. This could seem like a shortage to those who could no longer afford to fill up their gas tank, or buy imported food, so from a certain point of view, it would be a shortage. It could be thought of as a shortage of $50 oil, or $100 oil, or $2 gasoline, or $3 gasoline. In peak oil articles, this is referred to as "The End of Cheap Oil". What would still be there would be the $1,000 a barrel oil and the $25 a gallon gasoline. (These are made up numbers, not a prediction, see below.) So "shortage" is an interesting concept, but one which takes a bit of thinking to really understand.
"…prices… will skyrocket." – This depends on the state of the global economy. If demand decreases faster than supply, then prices may go down, or at least level off. Decreasing demand implies recession. If global demand remains the same, or continues to grow, then yes, the price trend will be increasing.
Will prices "skyrocket"? I think the oil shocks of the 70's give us an idea of what sort of impacts might occur… great political pressure to do something, possible rationing at the pump, a high inflation rate, loss of jobs and growing unemployment, "back to the land" movements, etc. There is probably a limit, during any given year, of the highest price that an economy can bare for fuel (given a functioning market economy). I don't think the USA, for example, could ever triple the gasoline price in one year, the impacts to the economy would be so great, before that level were ever reached, and so much demand would be "destroyed", that the price simply could not go that high. Of course, this is talking constant dollars. With a high inflation rate, anything could happen. We've seen in other countries that have fallen into the hyperinflationary trap, and we are not immune.
Overall, this story by Ryan Lewis is right on target. It exposes the point of the matter, helps to "raise the alarm", and has the potential of getting people and families thinking about what the future holds. If we had more top quality local peak oil reports like this one, we would be making good progress towards educating the public, and preparing for an honest change toward real local sustainable solutions.
Comment by: PT (David Alexander) (Jan-19-2009) Web site
The basic conclusions about the steadily increasing scarcity of liquid fuel and of fossil fuels, and about our inability to easily replace those dwindling sources of energy, those conclusions seem inescapable. Some of the other conclusions about maintenance are a bit speculative (for example, there may be a small amount of fuel, or alternative fuel, used for transport of parts and maintaining of the electric grid, since it is of great importance for many functions of society).
It should also be pointed out that extracting some of the remaining coal, oil, and natural gas requires incredible amounts of water, and results in contamination of additional fresh water as well, while also requiring significant energy inputs, so that the tar sands of Canada and the oil shale and gas shale held by the United States would come at a high price and have a slight if any net energy benefit. Continuing to burn fossil fuel will add to the greenhouse gas / climate change risk.
What are we waiting for? We need to move full speed ahead with wind, wave, and advanced solar technologies. And what should come before even those? Massive energy efficiency / conservation efforts. It is time to see these as the mission for our next twenty or thirty years, at least.
The media, governments, world leaders, and public should focus on this issue.
Global crude oil production had been rising briskly until 2004, then plateaued for four years. Because oil producers were extracting at maximum effort to profit from high oil prices, this plateau is a clear indication of Peak Oil.
Then in August and September of 2008 while oil prices were still very high, global crude oil production fell nearly one million barrels per day, clear evidence of Peak Oil (See Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of "Oil Watch Monthly," December 2008, page 1) http://www.peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/2008_december_oilwatch_monthly.pdf.
Peak Oil is now.
Credit for accurate Peak Oil predictions (within a few years) goes to the following (projected year for peak given in parentheses):
* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)
* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008)
* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst; Samuel Foucher, oil analyst; and Stuart Staniford, Physicist [Wikipedia Oil Megaprojects] (2008)
* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)
* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)
* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)
* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell geologist (2005)
* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)
* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)
* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)
* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)
* Fredrik Robelius, Oil analyst and author of "Giant Oil Fields" (2008 to 2018)
Oil production will now begin to decline terminally.
Within a year or two, it is likely that oil prices will skyrocket as supply falls below demand. OPEC cuts could exacerbate the gap between supply and demand and drive prices even higher.
Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. There is no plan nor capital for a so-called electric economy. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society”:
"By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame."
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
Comment by: PT (David Alexander) (Feb-13-2008) Web site I was driving this morning and suddenly became aware of the gas prices (at Exxon, where I don't go due to their evil actions in the Alaska matter) and saw the range of $3.45 to $3.85. I suddenly said to myself, "Uh-oh, it is starting". Of course rates may go down again as Aaron says, based on demand, but overall we are seeing an underlying up-creep in the prices, and I believe it will accelerate in the next few years.
Years from now, those of us with a bit of doubt now will be saying, how could I have doubted the obvious. World demand keeps ticking upwards at a significant rate, and supply is steady or ticking downwards. When two trains head towards each other on the same track, what happens?
Aaron Wissner is a teacher, educator, organizer and guest speaker. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, with emphasis on mathematics, science, and education. Mr. Wissner has taught and consulted for sixteen years in public school, in areas ranging from mathematics, science, computers, to leadership and television news production. He is the founder and organizer of the grassroots Local Future Network, a non-profit educational outreach organization dedicated to saving Earth through culture change.
Fossil Fuel
newculture
Below is a local newspaper article about me, Aaron Wissner. This is a strong article because of its on-target nature. It quickly summarizes, and then greatly expands on the earlier Wall Street Journal story. It is also an outstanding piece on which to write some good explanation on the concepts of peak oil and shortage. 
PT (David Alexander)
I was driving this morning and suddenly became aware of the gas prices (at Exxon, where I don't go due to their evil actions in the Alaska matter) and saw the range of $3.45 to $3.85. I suddenly said to myself, "Uh-oh, it is starting". Of course rates may go down again as Aaron says, based on demand, but overall we are seeing an underlying up-creep in the prices, and I believe it will accelerate in the next few years.
