From American University via Eurekalert, professor Matthew Nisbet demonstrates that the impact of peak petroleum on public health may be a way to unite conservatives and liberals in an effort to move away from fossil fuels and towards alternative forms of energy.
Peak Oil & Public Health: Political Common Ground?
WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 8, 2011)—Peak petroleum—the point at which the maximum rate of global oil extraction is reached, after which the rate of production begins to decline—is a hot topic in scientific and energy circles. When will it occur? What will the impact be? While geologists and economists debate the specifics, American University School of Communication professor Matthew Nisbet believes peak petroleum and the associated risks to public health may provide an opportunity to bring conservatives and liberals together in the move toward alternative forms of energy.
“Somewhat surprisingly, conservatives are more likely to associate a major spike in oil prices with a strong threat to public health,” said Nisbet—an expert in the field of climate and energy communication. “This could present a gateway to engagement with conservatives on energy policy.”
In a forthcoming peer-reviewed study at the American Journal of Public Health, Nisbet and his co-authors find that 76% of people in a recent survey believe oil prices are either “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to triple in the next five years. A dramatic spike in oil prices is a commonly recognized outcome of peak petroleum.
Even more telling is that 69% of respondents believe a sharp rise in oil prices would be either “very harmful” (44%) or “somewhat harmful” (25%) to the health of Americans. According to the survey, strong conservatives were the most sensitive to these possible risks, with 53% believing that a spike in oil prices would be “very harmful” to human health. Similarly, in a separate analysis of the data, those who were strongly “dismissive” of climate change (52%) were the most likely of any subgroup to associate a sharp spike in oil prices with a negative impact on public health.
According to Nisbet and his co-authors, this creates a challenge and an opportunity for the environmental and public health communities. Peak oil and energy prices are often talked about in terms of economic and environmental impact, but rarely as a public health concern. Nisbet argues that his findings show reason to reframe the debate.
“These findings suggest that a broad cross-section of Americans may be ready to engage in dialogue about ways to manage the health risks that experts associate with peak petroleum,” said Nisbet. “Peak petroleum may not currently be a part of the public health portfolio, but we need to start the planning process.”
The study was co-authored with Edward Maibach of George Mason University and Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 11th Hour, and Surdna Foundation.
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Jeff L says:
August 9, 2011 at 11:32 am
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Jeff, that is exactly what I do for a living. Perhaps the difference is that I have been quite successful at it.
I’ve worked 30 years as a geologist, geophysicist, and independent oil producer. I have worked all over the world, and have found oil everywhere I’ve worked. I don’t worry one bit about peak oil.
I own interest in 25 year old wells in which we have drilled horizontal legs through old casing which are now producing more than they did at initial production. I’ve developed methods to recognize source rocks on seismic data and mapped the extent of several source units. When I look at the merging of the horizontal multi stage fracs with the lateral extent of source rocks, the reserves I see coming available in the future are enormous.
Certainly, it will be intensive work to produce, and flow rates are low compared with some conventional wells but the Bakken alone will soon be at 700,000 bod.
There will be many more Bakkens developed.
As far as the “Twilight in the Desert” crowd goes, Deffeyes writes about how he was the first person to examine Ghawar core outside of Saudi Arabia, and that it gave him insight to the imminent watering out. He spent a whole week on the subject. Actually, my wife spent years on that reservoir, and had a nice set of thin sections with her in Saudi Arabia, England and at the Exxon Research lab in Houston long before Deffeyes saw any of it. She does not concur with him, and indeed, water cuts have been dropping recently.
“To quote a member of our 3840 kHz Group: “The cure for high prices is – high prices.””
So you do not think that the recessions of the part are due in no small part because of high energy prices? The economy can absorb any level of oil pricing? There are studies that show there is a good inverse correlation between economic growth and the price of energy. Oil price goes too high, and you hurt the economy, less money for investment and inovation.
This debt crisis is being made much worse because of high energy prices.
BTW, I have been following the peak oil literature for more than 10 years now. I don’t agree with some of it, as I do not think we are heading for a cliff, at least not because of oil depletion. If there is a cliff it’s because of the global debt that can never be paid off.
Really!?
You think energy prices (take gasoline for instance) are that out-of-line adjusted for inflation?
.
It doesn’t matter who they sell it to.
China doesn’t buy more oil than it needs for consumption and their SPR needs.
If Venezuela sells “X” barrels of oil to China… China won’t be buying “X” barrels of oil from someone else.
If anyone needs a problem to gnaw over…
too many supertankers being built.
To think, for one minute, that anyone who can afford to build VLCCs has not done their homework….
Richard Wakefield says:
August 9, 2011 at 2:47 pm
“There are studies that show there is a good inverse correlation between economic growth and the price of energy.”
“BTW, I have been following the peak oil literature for more than 10 years now. I don’t agree with some of it, as I do not think we are heading for a cliff, at least not because of oil depletion.”
These are statements i fully agree with. (Basically the entire comment but wanted to highlight these two)
Oil … is known as a ‘fungible’ commodity … as well as wheat, precious metals, and currencies.
Fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution, like in global trade …
.
Most of the oil price rise was due to quantitative easing. Since January 2009, the price of oil has almost exactly tracked the Adjusted Monetary Base.
The correlation is unmistakable.
A good portion of the current financial situation can be blamed on the high costs of doing anything and everything, because of ridiculous enviormental ransoms on progress. The great interstate highways and freeways of the US and Canada were designed, and built in around a decade, now a single bridge can take a decade to repair. Actual building costs are dwarfed by the enviormental costs.We are so lucky to have roadways and railways, because we would never be able to build them now.
Doug says:
August 9, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Nice.
I drink, very occasionally as he is terminally busy running around doing his job, with an oil assayer. He said, late last year, that we only find oil where we look for it. It’s all political.
It is way cheaper to create “peak oil” hysteria and drive prices up to insane heights than to invest into exploration and development of new oil fields. That’s what “Big Oil” has discovered.
However, the break-even point for synthetic fuels made from coal via the Fischer–Tropsch process is near, and it threatens the whole diabolic scheme with abrupt collapse (because the coal market is much more diversified than the oil market with its express and hidden cartels).
Fortunately “carbon footprint” of synthetic fuels (and of coal in general) is much higher than that of geo-hydrocarbons, so the natural track for “Big Oil” to follow is to jump on the cAGW gravy train and help banning coal utilization as much as possible. This is the sure fire way to a prolonged peak oil (price) period and to the huge (extra)profits that come with it.
And of course this is why an ever larger sum of Big Oil money goes into warmist propaganda.
Now you can see the dirty secret behind the unholy marriage of cAGW & peak oil.
China partnering with Cuba to drill off the Florida Keys:
http://news-science-news.blogspot.com/2011/01/marinebiologyinternational-drilling-off.html
But we can’t drill because of the obstructionist enviros.
Friends:
The race is on to find the next scare that will replace AGW before its final demise.
Peak Oil or Ocean Acidification? Which will it be?
They are both nonsense but so was AGW, and so was Y2k before that, and so was Acid Rain before that, and so was …
Richard
Richard Wakefield :
At August 9, 2011 at 11:36 am you assert:
“Coal to oil is a negative ERoEI, in that it takes more energy to make the oil from coal than you get out of it.”
Rubbish!
Anyway, if that were true (it is not) then it would be irrelevant. What counts is economic cost and competitivenes, not ERoEI.
Suppose it took 2 tonnes of coal to produce syncrude (i.e. synthetic crude oil) with energy content equivalent to 1 tonne of coal. Would that mean the syncrude was worthless? Only if it cost more than natural crude oil with the same energy content.
Since 1994 it has been possible to produce syncrude from coal at competitive prices with natural crude by use of the Liquid Solvent Extraction (LSE) process.
Richard
A lot of hot air being vented here. As usual.
While I don’t for a moment swallow this ‘unlimited supply form the mantle’ story for a second, it is true that world in situ reserves are stil plentiful. Peak ‘conventional oil’ may be behind us, but unconventional oil is the future.
A reliable estimate is that of all the oil known on the planet,some 30% is conventional ‘sweet’ crude (including that which has been burned) accounts for circa 30%, the remainer is heavy oil and tar sands. Even Wikipedia reproduces this familar plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum
consider also that reservoir recovery has historically been low – as low as 10% of reserves in situ, a figure leaving plenty of room for improvement by the employment of Enhanced Oil Recovery; gas or water reinjection, submersible pumps and improved infill drilling and drainage strategies.
We’re by no means close to running out of oil, but we shall have to get used to paying what is worth rather than taking it for granted, especially as we have to be smarter about recovering what remains in situ. Consider a European offshore field abandoned in the 1990s as uneconomic by a medium oil company after recovering a paltry 10% of in situ reserves owing to reservoir qualities indefatigable by the cutting edge technology of the time (and there were easier fields to exploit naturally enough to the bean counters), now about to be re-developed by a smaller operator with lower over heads and today’s cutting edge technology. Technology which will seem as archaic as hand dug wells and collection by leather bucket tomorrow.
We may also be advised to consider getting used to LNG or ‘white’ syntheticsonce the Texas tea becomes too expensive to squander under the bonnet of your Toorak Tractor. Perhaps this is the real gist of the ‘peak oil’ paranoia?
In any case, how much of your (US) potential offshore reservoirs have even been scratched? (answer only some of the GoM, and offshore California). Get over your watermelon parties’ paranoias about muff-diver whales and explore some of your remaining 90-odd% offshore territory, you never know what might turn up (after all it appears that eco-mentalists are happy that seabirds and fish can handle vast offshore wind parks. Watermelon’s bleatings aside, it will all be drilled one way or another, some day. It’s a question of when the cost-benefit-who gives a rat’s jacksie what tree huggers say anyway analysis say it’s worth putting a rig off the east coast and spudding a well).
The real arguments may come when drilling in ultra deep (international) waters with seabed rigs (who earns the tax and royalties then?), and when exploration finally moves to the Arctic and Antarctica (who even owns it?)
Peak oil 2011; just more watermelon’s desperate bleating for attention.
But let’s not be too smug about squandering such a useful commodity eh?.
Richard Wakefield says:
August 9, 2011 at 2:17 pm
,” Texas terminal decline. They have all had these technologies applied and are all depleting, rapidly.”
Actual data ( I prefer to use data) Shows that from 2005-2010, Texas gas production jumped from 6,047,428,633 mcf to 7,4451,850,066 mcf
Oil Production increased from 348,941,955 bbl to 364,116,746bbl.
If anyplace should be old, mature and in decline, it is Texas. It is not. Production is increasing.
When is US going to accept what has been known in Russia since 1951. Why do think Russia is now world’s 2nd largest exporter of oil & gas. Oil is virtually unlimited. Just get real! http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.econ/2004-08/0126.html
David Middleton says:
August 9, 2011 at 3:14 pm
“Most of the oil price rise was due to quantitative easing. Since January 2009, the price of oil has almost exactly tracked the Adjusted Monetary Base.
The correlation is unmistakable.”
But when you go back a few years, the correlation of the US monetary base with the Oil price breaks down.
see graph 2 on this page, US monetary base since 2000 – no similarity to the Oil price.
So as long as there’s no good explanation i consider your correlation an indirect link – maybe QE and QE2 spurred the economy and economic activity correlates with the Oil price; i would consider that likely.
http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/www.twitter.com/page292681?oid=510999&sn=2009+Detail&pid=294690
Richard Wakefield says, RichardWakefield says ………… abiotic has been debunked. I guess thats why Russia is now producing so much Go figure
Doug says: August 9, 2011 at 4:16 pm
How long do you think it will take to double Texas oil and gas extraction?? It would be a fantastic deficit reducer if the US could get back on the export side of the oil equation. Unfortunately us in the UK have been having dramatic falls in oil and gas extraction over the last decade to make us net importers now.
Doug says:
August 9, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Doug, you have me interested in what “watering out” means. I’m a mineral guy. A friend of mine runs some old wells in Ontario where (he claims) the average rate of depletion is up to 15% per year. His wells deplete at closer to 4-5%. He claims people just don’t take care of old wells and the banks expect 15% depletion per year and that is what they estimate when providing credit lines.
If there was any validity to oil prices doubling or tripling in the next 5 to 10 years, the crude oil futures market certainly does not reflect this.
So, all the Peak Oil believers, you should take advantage of the futures market. Put your money where it will do you some good. Buy crude oil futures because they are CHEAP at only $91.58 per barrel, out to December, 2019. see
http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/energy/crude-oil/light-sweet-crude.html
The price will be doubling or tripling in five years? Hardly.
Oil consumption escalating at 2 or 3 percent per year? Again, not at all. The growth has been linear, as I show at the link in the earlier comment.
The fact is that technology for developing oil is advancing much more rapidly than oil is being consumed. No peak oil, not now, not ever.
Smokey says:
August 9, 2011 at 3:34 pm
China partnering with Cuba to drill off the Florida Keys:
http://news-science-news.blogspot.com/2011/01/marinebiologyinternational-drilling-off.html
But we can’t drill because of the obstructionist enviros.
=========================================================
They prefer China’s policies towards environmental impacts and health. What I find amazing is the simplistic view of these obstructionists. It is so simplistic I have a hard time believing it is anything other than anti-American sentiments being manifested. What these mental giants fail to understand, is that the oil off of our coasts, with or without us will be drilled. It will be refined and used. We actually do more harm to our environment by not letting us get to the oil as opposed to other nations unmoderated by regulatory agencies such as the EPA. But they have to know that right? They can’t be that simple minded as to believe that if we don’t get it no one else will. Are they that ignorant? For those worried about CO2, what restrictions does China put on CO2 emissions? India? Outside the very few western nations concerned about CO2, no one else cares. They’re going to burn fuel with reckless abandon with no regulatory agencies to watch over them. The net effect? More atmospheric CO2.
Why is it the solutions are always the same…. one world government, ridiculously high taxes and elimination of the middle class and loss of freedoms? They are losing on the AGW hoax now so they are looking for a new way to bring their vision of the new world order to fruition.
Same scam… just trying to put on a new set of clothes.
Steve E. Perhaps you didn’t know, but the US has the largest reserves of fossil fuels on the planet. If the EPA and the current administration would let us start to develop them we would have enough fossil fuels available for a couple hundred years. If we continue to invest in REAL alternative energy sources, like nuclear and especially FUSION, we will have plenty of energy long before fossil fuels run out. Wind power is a joke, extremely expensive, plus it kills an enormous amount of birds and destroys the environment. Electricity prices could easily be cut in half and gas could go for under $2 a gallon if the government would get out of the way. Talk about a great boost to the economy and jobs, this would definitely be the fast track.