I just rented A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash from Netflix, and I have to tell you: it makes “An Inconvenient Truth” look like the Feel-Good Movie of the Year.
It paints a pretty dire picture. I have to ask the other Dopers out there… have you seen this documentary? Is the future as grim as it purports?
Link to Wikipedia article about the movie.
From which I see that Matt Simmons, ‘peak oil’ maven, is interviewed in it. While the jury’s still out, I’m personally not going to bet against the guy.
Just because a lack of oil means higher prices for:
[ul]our most portable fuel source?[/ul]
[ul]fertilizer, leading to higher food costs[/ul]
[ul]plastics[/ul]
On the minor plus side as oil costs go up more oil is profitable to extract, which can help slow the increase. It’s also likely that R&D will increase for efficient use, extraction, and substitution as the price goes up. It seems likely that it’ll hammer everybody’s economy fairly hard, though.
Not having seen the film, though, I can’t offer an opinion on whether or not it’s sufficiently grim.
Well, according to the Wikipedia entry, it predicts what amounts to permanent worldwide depression.
Of course, if it becomes permanent, then it would become the norm, so would it technically be a depression…?
I haven’t seen the film either, but the only “crash” involved is going to be prices crashing through various barriers, upwards. There’s plenty of oil, but we are running out of cheap oil. The price of oil is only a small component of plastic so we should be OK there, but we need to find a better way of getting around soon - including choosing not to travel so much.
It’s ridiculous. The author confuses having an oil shortage with having an energy shortage. Even if energy costs double, it won’t break the economy. And at double the current price, a whole slew of energy options become available: Nuclear, bio-fuels, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. We’re already building an electric-car infrastructure with hybrids. Plug-in hybrids powered by nuclear could average 500 mpg.
There may be a period of heavy reinvestment in the energy sector as inefficient cars become obsoleted faster, factories and offices invest in lower-power technologies, major new construction of nuclear is undertaken.
Over time, we’ll get good enough at using the new power sources that costs will come down again, leading to major economic growth.
The economy has undergone these transitions before. The rise of the computer cut huge swaths through the old world economy. So did the automobile. 100 years ago, 50% of the population was involved in food production and distribution. Now it’s something like 4%. That’s a massive change to the economy. So we’ll have another one.
Here’s where the Julian Simon proposition should be made. Whenever Simon heard someone make dire predictions about economic or environmental collapse coming in the near future, Simon would pull out his checkbook and offer the person a check for 10 grand- in exchange, Simon would get the person’s house in exactly ten years.
Why wouldn’t a pessimist JUMP at such a chance? I mean, if you REALLY believe the world is going straight to Hell and that there’ll be no future, you should take the ten grand and enjoy it now, knowing your house will be worthless soon enough.
But for some reason, even the most pessimistic folks never took Simon up on his offer…
Hmm, there are folks in this old thread of mine who’d probably have taken it. I’m thinking specifically of the man who was planning to be living on a lifeboat by this year, or the one moving to New Zealand.
Sir, let me first say that I have great respect for you. I see your name come up quite a bit and you strike me as a sound pragmatic fellow based firmly in reality. That said, I think that dismissing the situation as “ridiculous” is a bit off the mark. Have you seen the documentary I cited or are you talking about something else? If you haven’t seen the item I’m inquiring about, I invite you to rent it and get back to us. Like I said, I value your insight, but it would be useful if we were talking about the same thing.
I haven’t seen the documentary, and don’t know that I’ll get the chance to do so. I don’t have an online movie rental account.
If the movie doesn’t just repeat the standard ‘peak oil’ arguments, could you just repeat the main themes of the movie so that those of us who haven’t seen it can debate the issues you think it raises?
One person’s pessimism is another person realist. Scientific projection is the element that distinguishes one from the other, and the projections in this documentary certainly didn’t seem easy (for me) to wash away with a little good-ol’ American Optimism™. I don’t want to misinterpret your intent, so I have to ask: are you saying the documentary’s experts are pessimists?
In the meantime, let’s use your definitions and say I’m a pessimist. No, I wouldn’t take the offer either because no one is saying that the coming storm is due within ten years. I do think, however that the effect of decades of damage/inaction probably won’t be fixed overnight and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And since these remedies — whether measured in ounces or pounds — will certainly have price tags attached to them (not to mention a quality-of-life components) spending less now is simply more fiscally sound that paying more later. Not only that, but having knowledge and not acting upon it just feels like a big selfish “F@¢& You” to our future generations. I know I don’t wanna get called to the carpet by my grandchild asking “What was wrong with you people back then?”
Because if he’s a genuine pessimist, he’ll assume that if he takes the bet there won’t be a crash ? 
More seriously, even without oil a house will keep the rain off, and it’s a place to store canned food and so forth. And unless the pessimist is a raving fanatic, he’ll assume he might be wrong; if nothing else, what if it’s fifteen years instead of ten ? Now, he has to put up with five years of homelessness on top of the economic disaster.
The film is already back in the mail so though I can provide the themes you request, I can’t provide the specific cites and data points — the meat, if you will — that a debate is going to need. Moreover, being brand new to the “peak oil” topic, I don’t know how different it is to the standard “peak oil” arguments.
But the themes I took away are:
American consumers and it’s auto industry have not demonstrated a significant abandonment from low-milage automobiles.
America relies on the automobile for it’s residential dispersion. Suburbs and rural areas are especially at risk.
Densely-populated and newly-emerging Chinese and Indian societies will increasingly demand their shares of the remaining oil reserves. The quote I remember is “They’re just getting to the party when the keg is already half-empty.”
Air travel is also especially susceptible to the inevitably rising oil prices. Cheap airfare will become a thing of the past. I extrapolated this to serious effects on shipping (FedEx, UPS) and the prevalence of business travel. This has serious implications for the way we do business. I think of the way airlines faltered after 9/11 when people didn’t want to fly might be mild compared to when we simply cannot afford to fly.
Everywhere I look is plastic. From this computer in front of my face right now to the containers in my fridge to components in my car.
The film also had grim outlooks on the viability of alternative fuels based on the findings of the researchers appearing in the film.
I saw the movie in question. One point it raised which I thought was interesting, if true, is that the world currently uses 10 terrawatts of energy from fossil fuels and it would thus require 10,000 nuclear power plants as a replacement – which would then mean the world supply of uranium would be exhausted within a decade or two.
This I found troubling, because I was under the impression that an enormous amount of uranium could be extracted from the ocean. Reading this IAEA page makes me feel…somewhat nervous, since it doesn’t seem to think we’ll be increasing nuclear too much, and it says we have an 85 years supply, but it also says:
For the movie to to lump oil in with coal is not correct in my view, since we have plenty of coal left. In fact, that’s the main reason I’m not too worried about peak oil – if nothing else, we can use coal to make electricity to power electric cars (and planes?). It’ll be a huge pain in the ass and may involve an economic downswing, but we won’t be using a horse and carriage for transportation as depicted in the movie.
If we don’t have either fusion or advanced solar by the time coal runs out though, we’re screwed as a species. The graph Hubbert showed in the movie was disheartening, since it is true – eventually, in a couple hundred years, all this will cheap fuel will be gone forever. It actually makes me wonder how many alien civilizations ran into this problem, or are as lucky as us to have so much free energy lying around…
We can get plenty of uranium from the oceans, or by reprocessing spent fuel. It’s just that the environmentalists/conservationists have a self-defeating hatred of nuclear energy, so they use whatever statistics will make nuclear look bad.
As for the upcoming crash, I suspect that America will be hit harder than Europe, due to it’s hostility toward nuclear power, the political power of the oil companies, and America’s sheer self indulgent arrogance. I expect America to ride the oil bandwagon down in flames, and to have serious trouble converting to nuclear or anything else, because by the time we seriously try our economy will be collapsing due to the lack of oil.
Trivially false. For example, a Model T Ford has about the same MPG as a GM Buick Lacrosse, but the latter car weighs three times as much, goes faster, and can carry far more and in a far safer manner, all for about the same fuel consumption.
So what? Change is nothing new.
My brother models oil reservoirs for a living. From what he’s told me, the keg is nowhere near half-empty. And new reserves are still being discovered. It’s just a question of how much it costs to extract the oil.
Funny how air prices have generally been going down. And fuel efficiency has been going up: the Airbus A380’s fuel consumption is 2.9 litres per passenger per 100 km whereas a 747-400 uses [Google Answers: What is the amount of fuel used in]4.5 litres per passenger per 100 km. Looking at the Ford Trimotor of 1925-33 we can see that at cruising speed of 145 km/h, it consumed 173 litres, with 8 passengers for 14.9 litres per passenger per 100 km.
(Declaration of Interest: I used to work for a company affiliated with Airbus.)
So? There are often easy alternatives.
Recognise that the film is highly biased. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Just that you need to not take things as gospel and question, question, question.
So the era of cheap oil is passing: we now have an opportunity to use domestically produced fules, and avoid sending billions of $/year, into one of the most backward and reactionary areas of the world (the ME). That alone might be worth it-the muslim crazies can stay in their desrt and do what they damn please. I’m happy with that.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard similar ideas advanced in a few different places. Anyone who thinks the movie has a point has a very weak grasp on history and economics. Will oil run out one day? Sure, but so what? As prices increase there will be incentives for others to develop new energy options. It has happened in our past as we moved from using coal or whale oil to petroleum.
As far as running out of oil, just read this article and see how ludicrous these claims are: Home - CEEPR. As the article shows, people have been thinking we’re running out of oil since the 1800’s. We haven’t yet, so I’m not too worried about it.
Well, yeah - most things become abundant if you allow for sufficient price increases. That can still translate into what most people would consider shortages at prices that the market will bear.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘break the economy’ but if the cost of electricity doubles, it would certainly cause a recession. If the price of oil goes to $200/barrel, which is where Simmons has (literally) bet it will be by 2010, it will cause a recession. The problem is, we won’t adapt to $200/barrel oil until it’s been at that price for awhile, due to the ~10 year lifetime of the typical passenger car. (Hence the desirability of CAFE standards to get a head start on that process.) And if oil really is peaking in the next few years (or has already happened), this won’t be a situation like 1973 or 1979 where the price of oil goes up suddenly, then levels off. It will keep on going up, and we’ll always be chasing it, unless the world reduces its consumption faster than the rate that production tails off - and how likely is that?
So peak oil really could cause a long-term recession.
That’s because they haven’t had the incentive to do so. Even at $3.00/gallon, gas is a relatively small part of the operating expense of a car. For example, let’s assume a car gets 20 mpg, and the person drives 20,000 miles in a year (quite a bit higher than the average). That’s 1000 gallons of gas, or $3,000 per year. In comparison, the car itself probably depreciates more than that, and if the car was bought new for $30,000, the debt servicing costs are probably half that amount. Heck, I pay almost half that amount for my downtown parking stall.
This does not mean consumers are lemmings who will drive over a cliff and refuse to change vehicles even when gas becomes unaffordable. They will change when the incentives are right. If peak oil theory is true, then by and by gas will hit a price that makes the mileage of the car the key operating expense. Then you will see a huge transition to low mileage vehicles.
The only thing they are at risk from is somewhat higher commuting costs. That may be a good thing - it will cause people to choose lower-energy lifestyles. It will stem the migration of people into the 'burbs. All the things the environmentalists want.
Doesn’t change a thing, other than perhaps the rate of increase of oil.
At 2.9L/100km, it costs about 1/4 the amount in fuel to fly a distance as it does to drive it in a typical car. If anything, high fuel costs might push more people into airplanes.
We’ll have plenty of petroleum for use in plastics long after it becomes too expensive to burn in cars. And we have alternatives.
Not having seen the film, I don’t know what their problems are. But here’s the real reason which won’t be a problem: We don’t need any breakthroughs to come up with energy alternatives. We have multiple replacement energy sources lined up and waiting for the cost of oil to get to the point where they are viable. We KNOW we can use nuclear - France gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear. We KNOW we can make electric cars - we’ve been making them since the car was born. They may not have the range, or be as fast or as cheap as gas cars, but if the alternative is societal collapse, you can bet we’ll use them.