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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wildcatter says:
Jeff L says:
August 9, 2011 at 11:32 am
Hope this post doesn’t sound too harsh, but there are clearly people posting on here based on emotion, not data & that’s not good science.
For everyone of you peak oil doubters, is there a single one of you who actually looks for & produces oil for a living? How has ever looked at a well decline curve ? a field decline curve? a basin decline curve? From your comments, I highly doubt it.
Jeff L : I’m a wildcat explorationist and have been for 20 years. Your comments are simply wrong. US gas reserves today are about 400% greater than they were 10 years ago. The danger for those of us on the frontier is that someother damn wildcatter or worse for us one of the big sisters is doing something more effectively or using better technology than I am. And thats the point that the idiots (they know who they are) dont get. Hydrocarbon reserves ARE UNLIMITED. It’s a perpetual game of technology of extraction and cost. THATS ALL, plain and simple .
except when you have to pay the bill from Halliburton
Even if we have passed peak oil, why would we then put the energy markets in the hands of bureaucrats? The market would be the best arbiter of what is next.
Steve from Rockwood says:
August 9, 2011 at 5:36 pm
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.”
Sorry I can’t help you with specifics. “Watering out” is just a term for when the water % of produced fluids gets so high it costs more to pump and dispose of the water than the oil will pay for. Some wells are economic at 95% water.
As far as decline rates, again, they range from 80% a year to 1% a year. There are so many factors involved that it is meaningless to generalize.
Yeah… The correlation does break down before the massive quantitative easing began.
The quantitative easing began in late 2008. It drove up the price of just about every globally traded commodity denominated in $US. It also drove up the stock market.
The Fed flooded the market with almost $2 trillion worth of monetary stimulus and Obama flooded it with more than $1 trillion worth of deficit-financed fiscal stimulus. The return was two decent quarters of growth (Q4 2009 & Q1 2010), inflated commodity prices and an artificially resuscitated stock market.
Australia wakes up to peak oil
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3201781.htm
I do hope that “Peak Oil” is remote. America continues to rely almost exclusively on automotive transportation to move its people and goods to market. At least 20% of America’s GDP is devoted to the vehicles and fuel that get people and products where they need to go. Moreover, I’d wager that the average American spends as much annually on automotive transportation (car payment, gas, maintenance, insurance, taxes) as on rent or mortgage payments. Our vehicles also demand ever more asphalt and concrete on which to drive park and maintain them. And we sacrifice some 36,000 lives a year on America’s roads, not to mention injuries and property damage. Driving to and from work is dangerous activity in which we engage every day so that we can be economic animals. We have little choice; mass transportation doesn’t exist anywhere except Atlanta, New York City and Washington, D.C. Metropolitan and regional bus systems exist to move people who don’t need to be anywhere at any particular time as slowly as possible while annoying drivers who do have to be somewhere. And, sadly, Americans seem unwilling even to consider constructing a mass transportation system that will move its people and products rapidly and efficiently as an alternative to automotive transportation. With ever more Twittering morons driving roads eroding from neglect, I do hope “Peak Oil” is remote.
“Hydrocarbon reserves ARE UNLIMITED”
So how come the super giant fields are all in terminal decline? Are you saying a field is NEVER depleted?
“I guess thats why Russia is now producing so much Go figure”
I guess you did not read the link about Russian oil production, here is it again:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7878
Twighlight in the Desert also goes into detail about Russian oil production, which is also now in terminal decline.
“Oil Production increased from 348,941,955 bbl to 364,116,746bbl.”
Texas oil production curve: http://www.mnforsustain.org/images/oil_lisbon_laherrere_us_texas_fig6.jpg
Lower 48 state oil production curve:
http://www.mnforsustain.org/images/oil_lisbon_laherrere_fig2.jpg
Peak oil? Sounds like a solution to CAGW to me, or can we have simoultanious and contradictary disasters? They’ve lined up so many something is going to kill us all.
I’m with Steve:
Steve from Rockwood says:
August 9, 2011 at 10:37 am
“I am waiting patiently for the tipping point of peak taxes.”
“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.”
China is buying up FUTURE oil needs right now, bypassing the open market. South America, Africa, Iran. They even want our tar sands as we debate making a pipeline to the west coast (BIG mistake in my opinion). All the future lock up by China means LESS available oil for everyone else in the future, especially when total world supply flow is dropping due to depletion. And not just oil, China locked up a deal with Russian for 25 years of coal. Chine used to have enough coal for their own domestic needs, now they have to import coal for future demand.
Well, enough for me, fellas. I’ve made the case, posted the reports. It’s up to you now to read those reports. Just remember it’s not about what’s in the ground, so claims of this potential deposit or that potential deposit, doesn’t mean anything. What counts is flow rate, and ERoEI. A huge field with a slow flow rate will last a long time, but won’t help stem the over all depletion rate.
I have not posted anything about what we should do about it. I’ll leave that to the Prophets who claim to know the future. Personally, my position is the same as that found at http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
The next 20 years is not going to be like the last 20 years, there won’t be economic growth. Take the time to go through that course, excellent.
Blah blah blah. @richard Wakefield says:
August 9, 2011 at 9:01 am “…The expectation is the MOST that will ever be extracted is 1% of what’s in the ground….” There’s the fly in your ointment. Whose “expectations”? What are their assumptions?
Let’s look at the Bakken – 465 billion barrels estimated in situ. Think of some ways to recover more than 1%. Similarly every giant and supergiant oil field; dead by conventional techniques when they are maybe 10% to 50% (few at this upper level, I “expect”) depleted. Think of some ways to economically recover those multitrillion barrels. You’ll be a zillionaire.
Richard, old tool, have you ever worked out how much of the element CARBON exists (in one form or another) in a) our solar system and b) the earth?
What about Hydrogen – ever worked out the percentage (either mass or molar or percentage of atoms) of hydrogen exist for a) and b)?
Now, combine these two elements, under pressure (and temperature) for some 10 tens of millions of years (ostensibly since planet formation) in a situation subterraneously for b) some variable distance below the surface in the direction towards the core …
.
Last one tonight, Texas gas production, including shale gas:
http://static.texastribune.org/media/images/TxTrib-NaturalGas001.png
Richard Wakefield –
Better …
.
“Let’s look at the Bakken – 465 billion barrels estimated in situ. Think of some ways to recover more than 1%. Similarly every giant and supergiant oil field; dead by conventional techniques when they are maybe 10% to 50% (few at this upper level, I “expect”) depleted. Think of some ways to economically recover those multitrillion barrels. You’ll be a zillionaire.”
You are not reading my posts, I have already explained that the super giant fields are in tertiary recovery, there is nothing beyond that. This is explained in the post with the depletion reports,. You’d be wise to read them and understand what is already going on. There is nothing left to extract from those fields, even leaving 50% or more behind, because of geology and physics. There simply isn’t any way of getting the rest.
China’s national oil companies are buying working and revenue interests in producing oil fields and exploration plays… Just like western oil companies do. The oil production is then sold at the best available price.
China’s oil consumption is fed by oil purchased at the best available price.
Richard Wakefield says:
August 9, 2011 at 7:53 pm “blah blah”
Bullsh*t. You aren’t going to be a zillionaire.
Doug B boils it all the way down. Peak oil or no peak oil. The free market eventually finds the best solution to the problem. Even were i convinced that peak oil is real and that we are close to or at that point, i would not favor government intervention. Look at the enormous cost of current regulation, in any of its forms. The government can’t even collect revenue efficiently (look at the cost of the IRS combined with compliance costs of taxpaying entities as a percentage of revenue collected). More the point of this topic, what do the peak oil is here/near crowd propose as a course of action? And please demonstrate how this course of action is superior to (free) market forces. And if it is not too much to ask, cite similar examples of regulation/intervention that achieved a high benefit to cost ratio.
Even though Richard Wakefield has said it more than once , it is clear many people don’t understand – Peak Oil has nothing to do with RESERVES & has everything to do with rate – how much oil each & every day can you pump out of the ground ?? … and the corollary , at what price?? I am surprised about the number of geoscientists who continue to talk reserves here, not rates – and peak oil is only about rates. It personal opinion that daily demand will outstrip daily supply before we reach a peak in our ability to produce – and at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters, because that’s when prices really go up.
I should mention that just because we hit a peak does not mean there will be a catastrophe – a catastrophe is highly unlikely because this is a gradual event. Just as with AGW, even if true, it doesn’t mean there will be a catastrophe. The catastrophic interpretation of both these becomes purely a political issue, used to scare people into a certain way of thinking. It is important to understand that Peak Oil does not equal catastrophe.
A much more likely scenario is that as supply & demand curves get progressively closer (whether at the peak or before), prices will rise & economies will adjust. Other fuels & energy will become more cost competitive & we will use them in greater amounts because it will make economic sense to do so. If prices rise too fast, the demand side of the equation will be hit through a slowing of the economy, which will then drop the price & demand will resume. There will always be a balance between supply demand & price over the longer term, thus there will be no catastrophe – because we do have other sources of energy (& incrementally more expensive hydrocarbon production such Green River shale , gas to liquid, coal to liquids, etc which will also become cost competitive).
So, although everyone is getting all worked up about this, at the end of the day, whether the peak is near or far, there is no reason for a catastrophe – just incrementally more expensive energy, which we will all adjust to.
Anecdote of the day :
Earlier this year China did a huge deal with Chesapeake Energy in the Denver Basin for a Niobrara oil play. When China, who is scouring the world for reserves, decides that a largely unproven oil play with marginal reserves , high declines & small rates (on a world wide basis) is worth investing in, it is saying a lot about what kind of oil production is left to find. If China can’t do better than a Niobrara play in the D-J basin, we will have some very serious problems in keeping our production rates up worldwide.
“Peak oil is about flow rates and ERoEI.”
Wrong, Peak oil is not about ERoEI. Peak oil is simply the amount of oil produced that is sent to the markketplace, It does not matter how much energy is needed in the production. The latter affects the economics, but as long as the free market is making the investment, not the taxpayer or the Chinese, I don’t care.
Keep in mind that producing ethanol from corn can have a ER0EI value near 1 or less than one and as long as it gets a subsidy from the government it will continue. Fortunately fossil fuels don’t require a subsidy but they get essentially the same tax treatment in the US as other business including foreign tax credits. As long as you are consuming the “energy in from the oil” well or using lower cost energy it is still possible to make money. I worked on one of the earlier tar sands extraction plants in Alberta and it was built when oil was about $12/bbl. They do require a lot of Capital but that was cranked into the economics. These are extremely profitable today with today’s oil prices.
Similarly CCS uses so much energy that one needs to burn more coal to produce a fixed amount of energy out than required without CCS. CCS is an energy hog and is a waste of tax payer dollars.I find it amusing that the greenies only talk about ERoEI for fossil fuels.
I don’t know whether we’re really running out of oil or not, and suspect most of the rest of us don’t really know either. But I still say that if one of my students handed in this “study” as a reference in an essay, I’d hand it back and tell them to find some actual evidence — of anything. This frakin’ poll is worth what every other poll about scientific matters is worth: an F.
” American University School of Communication professor Matthew Nisbet “
Give me a break. School of Communications? These people mainly teach TV set arrangements, make-up for news anchors, and how often to get your hair colored. Did they do their survey in the ubiquitous broadcasting green room? The only comment this study deserves is, “So what?”
Richard Wakefiled :Abiotic oil debunked: http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf
Once before I asked you to cite the relevant details in your alleged “debunk” that addresses the entropy problem with the fossil fuel hypothesis, as detailed here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/99/17/10976.long
You could not cite the relevant paragraph, which means you didn’t read your own link or you do not understand it. The meta study you cited, like the fossil hypothesis itself, is just a steaming pile of anti-scientific bombast.
For your enlightenment, here is an incomplete compendium of physical evidence that I compiled over the last year in response to the peak oil topic:
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com/
I hope some of the content is of value to you.