The Oil Drum Goes Down Under

The Oil Drum has recently gone ‘down under’ with an Antipodean site, The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand.

As I suggested in an earlier post, don’t rely on governments or oil companies to tell you about peak oil - the maximum limit of world oil production which many experts consider has already occurred or will occur soon. The NZ Government, for instance, recently released the “New Zealand Energy Strategy to 2050″. You’d expect peak oil would warrant more serious attention than a few paragraphs, given the significant concerns that a range of experts – including people who have held senior positions in the oil industry – have about the peak’s imminent timing, and about how conventional oil is not substitutable (in any serious way) by oil sands and biofuels.  But the Government’s view on peak oil is essentially “move along, nothing to see here”:

“So while there will, at some point, be peak ‘cheap’ oil from conventional sources, the world has plentiful sources of fossil-based oil.” (NZES page 47).

Read about peak oil, transport and sustainability here at The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand.

Some Practical Motoring Advice

Thank goodness we’ve got the NZ Automobile Association (AA) giving us practical advice on dealing with the end of the era of cheap oil. In this Stuff article, AA spokesman Mark Stockdale suggests that one way to beat the petrol price hike is to use supermarket petrol discount vouchers:

“It’s definitely worth shopping around. You can save a lot of money by shopping somewhere else and picking up your petrol somewhere else with one of the vouchers.”

Sounds great, but hang on, let’s check the math. Mr Stockale says that most vouchers offer on average a discount of 4c a litre of petrol. The petrol tank of my car takes 45 litres. 45 litres x 4c = $1.80. So, I’ve slashed $1.80 off the cost of a tank fill. If I fill my car’s tank every week (I don’t but let’s pretend) then 52 weeks x $1.80…I save $93.60 per year. 

Am I missing something here? Or is this one of those ‘bargains’ that aren’t really bargains? Sorry AA, but $1.80 a week doesn’t seem like “a lot of money” to me. Try giving your members better advice, like leaving the car in the garage and walking or cycling.

>> “Extremely Lame”

Forewarned is Forearmed

 

With the price of crude oil closing in on US $100 a barrel, now seems like a good time to talk about peak oil.

The Oil Drum, an authoritative US-based energy website I read regularly, has posted a short, readable and useful introduction to peak oil. (Peak oil is maximum global oil production; many experts consider that the peak has occurred, or will occur soon.) The document can be downloaded as a power point presentation or pdf. I’d encourage you to read it and other posts, and forward it to friends and family.

As The Oil Drum says, don’t rely on governments or oil companies to tell you about peak oil. Praemonitus praemunitus – to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Extremely Lame

 

Petrol is now NZ 173.9c a litre, diesel 127.9c a litre. 

As world oil prices close in on US $100 a barrel, and the price of petrol and diesel climbs in New Zealand, the Automobile Association (AA) says that the latest pump price rise is “a disappointing development, leading into Christmas, when people are going to be travelling more”. It urges its members to take advantage of supermarket discount deals.

This is the AA’s stock standard response to rising pump prices. Its lame complaint shows no comprehension of the deep structural factors driving the global oil supply crunch and the shortfall between global supply and demand. These include the approach of maximum global oil production (“Peak Oil”), soaring demand for oil in developing economies like China and India, continuing heavy oil consumption in western countries, and endemic conflict and instability in oil producing regions such as Iraq and Nigeria. These factors mean that the era of cheap oil is upon us and petrol shortages will soon be commonplace.

Rather than encouraging people to cling to their delusions about care-free motoring, the AA should be preparing its members for a future in which the oil supply is very tight and the oil price is very high. It should advise members to buy smaller, fuel efficient cars, and get to work on public transport or by walking or cycling. It should lobby government to boost public transport, cycleways and long distance rail, rather than building more motorways.

Is it realistic of me to think that the AA ostrich might pull its head out of the sand? Probably not. The AA is car-crazy – just look at its website, which currently features a review of the grotesque Hummer, and an article that tells you how to help “your child” buy his or her first car. Expect to hear more plaintive bleating from the AA when pump prices surge again.  

(Photo: Brett Phipps/NZ Herald.)