RISING GASOLINE AND CRUDE OIL PRICES:Symptoms of Peak Oil

The rising prices of gasoline toward $3 a gallon and more and of crude oil toward $60 a barrel and more are among the growing symptoms of a deeper problem—the global peaking of our petroleum supply.

Peak oil is the time when the Earth’s supply of the non-renewable fossil fuel of petroleum reaches its mid-point. Oil will continue to flow, but it will become much more expensive and harder to extract. Gasoline is already over $5 a gallon in Europe and elsewhere. Meanwhile, the demand for oil grows, especially in industrializing countries like China and India.

China is now the world’s second largest consumer of oil, after the US. One of its biggest oil companies made an unsolicited $18.5 billion bid June 23 for the California- based Unocal, a large independent oil company. This bold bid by the state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corporation marks China’s growing economic power and its need to secure oil to fuel its further industrialization.

Most petroleum experts agree that peak oil will occur; the date of the peak and its consequences are debatable. Some geologists have been predicting a peak since the 1950s, thinking that it would probably happen sometime into the 21st century. More recently a number of prominent oil experts—such as geologists Kenneth Deffeyes from Princeton, Colin Campbell, formerly with Amoco Oil, and investment banker Matthew Simmons-have contended that it could happen during or even before 2007.

The US government is well aware of peak oil. It funded the Hirsch Report, which was released and suppressed earlier this year. Its lead author, Robert Hirsch, has worked for the US Department of Energy. Entitled “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management” the report asserts that, “World oil peaking is going to happen. The development of the US economy and lifestyle has been fundamentally shaped by the availability of abundant, low-cost oil. Oil scarcity and several- fold oil price increases due to world oil production peaking could have dramatic impacts.”

The Hirsch Report dismisses the power of the market to solve peak oil and advocates the need to exclude public debate and environmental concerns. It calls for, “ Intervention by governments…because the economic and social implications of oil peaking would otherwise be chaotic.” The report concludes, “The world has never faced a problem like this.”

The federal government has chosen to conceal the importance of oil shock. National governments in Japan, Germany, France, and elsewhere have informed their populations and made contingency plans for potential economic, political, and social problems.

Some municipal governments in America are also making plans. For example, Sebastopol Mayor Larry Robinson in Sonoma County, Northern California, has scheduled a series of town hall meetings in the fall to address peak oil and related issues, including the Iraq War.

“My intention is for the peak oil meeting be a community brainstorming session of what we can do as a community to minimize chaos and the disruption of our lives,” Mayor Robinson explained. “Sebastopol is already doing things that will help us prepare for peak oil—like supporting a farmers market, Solar Sebastopol and programs to encourage compact, high-density, city-centered living, rather than suburban sprawl that is automobile dependent.”

Nearby Santa Rosa, also in Sonoma County, is home to two of the world’s most active communicators about peak oil: Richard Heinberg and Matt Savinar. Heinberg is the author of two recent books—“The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies,” and “Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World.” He teaches at the Santa Rosa campus of New College of California. Heinberg was well received this summer on speaking tours through Europe and Africa, as reported on his website www.museletter.com.

Savinar is an attorney who maintains the popular website www. lifeaftertheoilcrash.com. He is also the author of the book “The Oil Age is Over: What To Expect as the World Runs Out of Cheap Oil, 2005-2050.” Savinar’s book employs a unique format—the posing of 113 commonly asked questions about peak oil, followed by his answers. The questions are grouped in chapters such as “Alternatives to Oil,” “Peak Oil and Global War,” and “Managing the Crash.”

The importance of staying close to home in semi-rural Sonoma County-rather than moving in a panic-was agreed upon by a group that gathered in small-town Windsor June 20. Eight people ranging from their 40s into their 60s met for the fourth time to discuss and plan how to respond personally and practically to oil shock. A similar group has been meeting regularly in tiny Willits, further north in Mendocino County.

On a round table before the Windsor group were over half a dozen books, including James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century.” Earlier in the month Kunstler spoke to various audiences of hundreds of people at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco’s financial district, at Silicon Valley’s Google, and at a bookstore close to the University of California at Berkeley.

Retired Santa Rosa fire fighter Andrew Aguilar hosted the Windsor meeting. It included reports on some of the many peak oil meetings that have been occurring and are planned in the San Francisco Bay Area. “Kunstler was somber,” Aguilar reported. “I’m keeping my eyes and ears open to find resources to be self-reliant. I had been thinking of moving, but now I will probably stay here.”

Civil engineer Peter Schurch agreed, “I go through periods of feeling that I want to flee. I was going to sell my house. Now I plan to stay here and turn my backyard into a farm.” Dr. Shepherd Bliss, sb3@pon.net, has taught at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo for the last two years. He will soon move back to the San Francisco Bay Area, partly because of peak oil.