Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

"Peak Oil" - the global crisis?' LSE Debate Review

stuffit | 15.12.2005 23:59 | Ecology | Globalisation | Birmingham

Peak Oil arrived at the London School of Economics on Wednesday night with a debate organised by Powerswitch.org.uk and co-ordinated by Merlin Matthews.

Peak Oil - the global crisis
Peak Oil - the global crisis


The main advertised speaker was Chris Skrewbowski, editor of Petroleum Review with the panel featuring Paul Mobbs, author of 'Energy Beyond Oil', Tim Dyson, Prof of Population Studies LSE, and Merlin Matthews, ex LSE student who founded a recycling charity, re-cycle.org.The chair was David Kingsley.

Skrewbowski gave a brief introduction to the concept of Peak Oil, highlighting some of the evidence that points to the peak occurring sooner than many economists seem to think, and also why the market-led ideas proposed as 'solutions', are both a smokescreen and a distraction from the bigger issues.

To summarise, the key-points from the talk were:

1>World oil supplies are going to peak soon as production is falling at 5% per year. 90% of known reserves are in production. All the biggest and best fields have already been found.
2>Within the next ten years demand will outstrip supply and oil will become more and more expensive.
3>Oil has the greatest energy density of any fuel, and it provides amongst other things
transport, heating, fertilisers + pesticides, gas, plastics, inks + dyes and electricity.
4>Renewables cannot replace this - wind and solar are good for electricity but you cannot fly planes or build roads or grow food with them.
5>Things may fall apart.

After Skrewbowski's talk, the debate was opened up for questions from the audience. The questions were open and varied, including one storming contribution from a Rwandan refugee who voiced alarm at the implications of peak oil for the poorer nations, particularly in light of the war on Iraq. His concern is that rogue nations would use military force in a darwinian 'survival of the biggest' to ensure that the we in the west can maintain our current lifestyle with a new flurry of resource wars. He won a large round of applause from the audience.

Another was a contribution from a student of LSE who pointed out that the Middle East has vast amounts of oil reserves still remaining and that we should, if necessary, secure them by force just like in Iraq!

Aside from the ethical considerations of invading other countries and spilling blood for oil, Paul Mobbs from the panel pointed out that the original estimates for known reserves in the Middle East were vastly updated during the late 80's, with countries doubling or quadrupling their reserve estimates and in one case by a factor of 10!

It is alleged that this increase came about due to new OPEC rules which rewarded bigger producers by allocating them larger quotas. There has not been a corresponding increase in oil fields or other activity in the Middle East to explain the extra reserves. This is also another reason that the peak may be sooner than people think.

The difference between individual and industrial consumption was highlighted with one audience member asking "..whats the point of me reducing my energy use by boiling less water in my kettle when from my window i can see Canary Wharf, at night, with every room brightly lit?"

Mobbs backed this up by pointing out that 31% of UK energy consumption is for domestic users - the majority by far is for transport and industry, or as it's otherwise known, capitalism. The C word wasn't mentioned once during the entire evening, but it was clear that big changes are expected. When you have the editor of Petrol Review bemoaning economists for not living in the real world, and advocating that people should work for collective solutions rather than engaging in an individualistic and competitive manner you know something is afoot.

Two last questions concerned food and electricity.

Audience member: If we covered every roof in the UK in solar panels, wouldn't that help?
Paul Mobbs: Do you mean PV panels for electricity or for Solar thermal heating?
Audience member: Electricity
Paul Mobbs: Oh dear. Domestic electricity accounts for just 9% of UK energy use. If you are talking about solar thermal panels then that could be a valuable contribution as most heating is provided by oil and gas. (Space heating and hot water accounted for 82% of domestic use, and 64% of commercial uses.)

Concerning agriculture, a question was asked about what impact the end of cheap oil, and therefore affordable pesticides and fertilisers, will have on food production.

Tim Dyson gave a confused answer saying that as long as we can still get nitrogen in the soil there should still be high yields, but he seemed unsure whether oil and gas peaking would affect this, (it does). Other panel members pointed out the problem of top-soils' nutrient depletion comes from industrial monoculture which is a large reason for continued fertiliser use anyway. The likelihood is that food will have to produced more locally as transport will be uneconomic.

Cuba was cited as a example of a country that headed into an agricultural crisis and emerged intact, the massive increase in urban food production using organic techniques and biological pest controls lead to stability of supply.

The talks carried on after the event finished. I got the feeling a lot of the people were both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by the talks. Unpleasantly, as the crisis appears to be a lot sooner than previously realised, with seemingly no viable alternatives to oil in hugely varied sectors. Pleasantly surprised, as it wasn't all doom and gloom - there are possible ways through this and a lot of them directly counter what to many people is a blatantly unfair and unjust system. Are conventional economics and capitalism about to have the rug pulled out from under them?

Paul Mobbs summed it up:

Less is a four letter word.

Useful Sites:

1>Energy Beyond Oil –  http://www.fraw.org.uk/ebo/archive.html
2>Powerswitch website  http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/
3> Review of Oct 05 'End of Oil' conference -  http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=976&Itemid=2

stuffit /





stuffit

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech