Sorry for not posting in a while. This blogging isn't as easy as I thought it might be.

Oil Infiltration

I was walking through my local Target store the other day thinking about our dependency on oil as I seem to do quite often these days and began looking around to see just how many items are directly manufactured from oil. Here is a list though by no means a complete one. If you have other ideas please reply.

1. Anything made from plastic (How big is that category?!!)

2. Cosmetics

3. Many pharmaceuticals

4. Fertilizers (It literally grows the food we eat)

5. Cleaning products

6. Most synthetic fibers (Clothing)

7. Paints, dyes & ink (So if it has color thank oil)

Then I got to thinking, which is always bad, about how many items we use are indirectly related to oil. The first that came to mind naturally was gasoline. Though its not sold at Target I used it to power my car to get there.

Of course I found some things not made from oil but more indirectly related. I happened to be looking at microwave popcorn (I've found that Orville Redenbacher's 'Corn on the Cob' style by far is the best). OK, so its not made from oil but how did it come to be and be here for me to look at?

Well, the fields were cleared & tilled by machinery powered by oil, the seeds were planted using oil driven tractors, the crops were tended by the same tractors, the plants were treated with pesticides and fertilizers both made from petroleum derivatives, the pesticides were sprayed from aircraft powered by aviation fuel, the corn was harvested by a combine powered by fuel, the corn was driven to market in a truck, the corn was packed in plastic, driven to another plant packed in its signature red box, then driven again to a Target distribution center, It's probably on a large pallet which was moved by a forklift (maybe electric powered by most likely gas powered), loaded onto another truck and transported to my Target store.

Now keep in mind that for each sub -process of this popcorn production how large a part oil plays. The construction of the tractors, combines, aircraft & trucks, the machinery at the processing plants and the actual plant buildings. You can keep taking each step back further and further too:

For instance; is there wood in the plant? Yes, for pallets and other items for sure. How did the wood come to be there? It's harvested by a gas powered chainsaw, then put onto a truck using a fuel powered lift, moved via truck to a sawmill that had how much oil used in its construction?....and so on and so on. The list becomes endless.

What I suppose I'm trying to say in a rather wordy manner that incidentally gives you a little insight of what it's like to be me (scary ain't it?) is that oil is a part of us. It has ingratiated itself into every aspect of our lives & society. We are utterly and completely dependent on it and not only dependent on it but we depend on it being plentiful and cheap.

Without oil the store would be empty, well to be technical the store would not exist in the first place. But should oil become scarce and expensive the store shelves would be bare. What would you do then? What will we all do then? This isn't a hypothetical problem. We WILL face this problem perhaps soon than we expect. T. Boone Pickens, perhaps the world's best known oilman, said, "I think we peaked globally last year in production." meaning 2007.

Like the little black & white cartoon link at the bottom of this blog says; "How Will You Ride the Slide?" I've got some thoughts on that too. Maybe for my next post I'll get into them.

Please let me know if you think I'm wrong. I so dearly WANT to be wrong!

Added a Link and a Correction

I have added a link to what I think is the best Peak Oil site I have found thus far. It's called appropriately "Wolf at the Door". In it you will find a very thorough explanation of Peak Oil, its causes and possible consequences. I would also strongly recommend you read Mr. Thompson's essay "Twilight of the Modern World".

I would also like to point out a slight error I made in my first post. The Shell geologist is M. King Hubbert not Hibbert as I wrote should you wish to explore his work further.

Okay, Here We Go

If you don't know about Peak Oil (PO) I hope this blog will at least give you an introduction to it. Believe me there are many others out there who can explain more than I can. I see my mission simply to inform people about this problem. Hopefully your visit here will get you curious about the subject and encourage you to learn more. If that is done I will consider myself successful. In the meantime I'll try to post when I find something of importance.

If you are familiar with PO then you are one of two types; either you are a believer or a skeptic. I've found both to be passionate. I wish it were possible for me to be a skeptic. In my research (and I've done MANY hours) I TRY to find rebuttals of PO. If the problem really isn't there then all is well.....GOOD! That's what I hope the case to be! However, try as I might, I simply cannot get past the logic of the idea, and here is why I believe:

Crude oil is a finite resource. It has to run out. It's scientifically impossible for it not to. But remember this, and this is a crucial point in talking about PO. PO is not about running out of oil its about running out of cheap & plentiful oil. Mankind will probably never run out of the stuff. I'm sure that 500 years from now somebody somewhere will be pumping crude oil from the ground. It's the idea that the cheap & plentiful supply of oil that our entire society is based on will be diminished.

Every area of the world that has ever been a major oil producer has followed the same curve, often called the Hibbert curve after Shell Oil geologist Marrion King Hibbert who accurately predicted that the US would reach it's production peak in the early 1970's. In fact the United States reached it's maximum oil output in 1970. The curve is a steady up slope after extraction first begins. It continues to rise till oil extraction reaches it's maximum or "peak". After a short plateau the field or fields begin to yield less and less till the field reservoir is totally depleated.

This happened in the small corner of Northwest PA where I grew up. This little area of Pennsylvania was the OPEC of it's day. Production rose, peaked and fell. We then found even greater fields in Texas & Oklahoma. Production there rose, peaked and fell. We found oil in Alaska. We went and built a big pipeline to get it. Production rose, peaked and is currently falling. The North Sea fields, the wells in the Gulf of Mexico, Saudi Arabian, Iranian and Kuwaiti oil fields have all peaked and are in their plateau phase or in decline. If you look at the world as one giant 'region' then it follows that world oil production will follow the Hibbert curve. I would encourage you to watch the short black & white animation in the video section at the bottom of the page

As I said, this is why I subscribe to the PO theory. If I have been successful in informing you about PO that's all I can ask for. If I have please leave a quick comment. If you happen to disagree with me please post and tell me why. Remember I WANT my concerns/fears to be relieved. All I ask is that you be respectful. I have seen many sites where rudeness abounds as this subject seems to provoke intense feelings on both sides. I welcome frank discussions