Bullshit of the week: “Oil shortages by 2020 due to Western ‘profligacy’”
As seen in The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/oilprices/7206410/Oil-shortages-by-2020-due-to-Western-profligacy-says-energy-boss.html
"Drivers need to start treating oil as a scarce commodity and switch to green transport to avoid shortages by 2020, according to the chief executive of Scottish & Southern."
So; we need to stop using oil now, to prevent us from having to stop using oil in the future..
""It's GCSE economics that if production is constrained and demand increases from emerging countries, the price will go up and up and up," Mr Marchant said."
It's also GCSE economics that the price rise itself will curb the rise in demand
"One car in China adds far more value than a second car sitting in the driveway of some house in the UK."
Newsflash: An unused car uses no fuel
"Mr Souter, the transport boss, has proposed more radical solutions than incentives to buy green vehicles. He called for the abolition of the lowest bands of tax that hit those with problems paying their energy bills and the establishment of a tax on carbon emissions. "This would help redistribute wealth and the people using carbon would be paying for it," he added."
So now he wants to increase taxes on energy (increasing the price) to make energy more affordable? Is this the same logic that says we should deal with rising oil prices by artificially inflating the retail price of fuel using fuel duty?
The industry group [the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security] wants the government to explore electrification of the railways and overhaul the transmission and distribution network.
Does it now? Would this be the 'industry group' that consists of Ian Marchant, head of Scottish and Sourthern Energy; Sir Richard Branson, head of amongst other things Virgin Trains; Brian Souter, the chief executive of Stagecoach, and Philip Dilley, chairman of engineering group Arup? Are they trying to say that rail magnates, electricity companies and civil engineers want government investment in civil engineering projects to benefit railways and electricity companies? Whatever next!
As a forklift dealer and part-time radio DJ I think that the government should invest billions of pounds in buying lots of new forklifts and subsidising internet radio stations, paid for with a new "not using forklifts or listening to internet radio" tax. If they don't do that they are condemning the UK to certain economic and environmental doom.
February 12th, 2010 - 16:40
Hrm. There is certainly plenty of BS flying around, but one thing is for sure: Peak Oil will happen, and when it does most countries will not be able to sustain their current population, yet alone their economy.
Transport use of oil aside, just about all manufactured goods use oil in some way shape of form. Go in to any high street store and find something that’s not surrounded in plastic for example.
In the house where I am currently sat, I literally cannot see a single thing that does not either contain some form of plastic or was originally wrapped in some form of plastic. That alone is a scary amount of oil-based derivatives, and it’s the tip of the iceberg (not that we’ll have any icebergs left according to some ppl).
How do you wean entire countries off their oil dependance? Maybe start ahead of schedule with some token gestures to lessen the shock in years to come?
February 12th, 2010 - 17:54
Guy; thanks for the comment.
For the record I do absolutely agree that some sort of ‘peak oil’ scenaio is on the way, but I also firmly believe that most of the problems so caused will sort themselves out relatively easily.
Taking the use of plastic packaging as an example; when oil reaches a certain price the use of plastic for a certain application (e.g. pop bottles) becomes expensive compared to using another material (Glass? Aluminium?). Pop bottlers will begin using the cheaper material for cost reasons.
The same process will happen for every other use of oil (or any other commodity). Shipping pallets won’t be wrapped in plastic stretch film if each roll costs £30 to make…
The real problems will occour where there are currently only poor alternatives to oil, for example as a fuel for transport. Currently the energy density of oil-based fuel is very hard to beat. Alternative technologies are very much in development though, spurred by the knowledge that the end of oil is inevitable and at that time the company selling the best car/lorry/plane/ship that doesen’t need oil for fuel is going to make a whole heap of cash. I hope that satisfactory, ‘cheap’ (relatively) and practical solutions are found in time.
In my opinion, there is little (economic) benefit to ‘forcing’ a mass change early, so long as the preparation and development of alternatives continues (there may of course be environmental benefits). Stopping using oil now would be like throwing a toothpaste tube away early, because “It’ll run out soon”. We may as well continue to use oil for each purpose for as long as it remains economical, and presuming a free market the economics are reflected in the price of oil and the relative costs/benefits of each use.
[Following is a half-baked opinion. Don't take it too seriously] If I were to be completely cynical, I might suggest that a wise country will let someone else make all the mistakes about how to organise transport and everything else in a post-oil world, and copy the best eventual solution. Remember, the UK developed the first commercial jet airliner (which was flawed and crashed), lost a load of money on the prototypes while US companies copied the eventual sound design to great success…
February 12th, 2010 - 19:03
The thing that bugs me is that I feel big brother is trying to sort it all out behind closed doors and history shows that such methodology leads to a shipment of fail.
With something like peak oil, that’s clearly going to affect everyone, surely everyone should be given the facts so that a) the facts can be publicly scrutinised and verified and b) the wisdom of crowds can kick in to start finding and trying solutions that make sense.
Regarding your comment about a wise country waiting to see what others do, yes, that makes a lot of sense. It’s the Micro$oft approach – let other people create a solution, iron out the kinks and prove it’s viable, then use it as the basis for your own solution and market it better thus reaping the rewards of their hard work. While the originators struggle to deal with the side effects of the v1.0 thing they produced, the late arrival comes out with a more erudite v2.0 and wipes the floor.
February 12th, 2010 - 22:23
I don’t want to get too involved in the whole argument as thats usually what i’m doing on youtube, but the reason they are moaning about oil so much is so they can enforce this carbon tax bs, if you followed the climategate story and actually read the emails yourself you will know that various parts of the data are either altered or untrue for other reasons, example one of the stations in russia gathering data from tree bases or something, is situated above a steam pipeline that heats the nearby facilitys. you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that means the readings we’re hotter than the actual tempreture. this is one of many examples in the emails. apparently this is being looked into by “experts” who will decide on the 1st of march weather they want to admit the corruption or deny it. imho they will say “there is no evidence of foul play” and carbon tax will be enforced before the election, be it the truth or no.
not to mention the environmental effects AND heating caused by, nukes, HAARP similar anteenas AND radio in general, electricitys effect, the sun, total human heat waste planet wide, none of these things are taken into account.
looking foward to the talk show, I didn’t think the uk had free thinkers left thanks to youtubes censorship of political subjects.
also, don’t forget to vote in march, preferably not labour, I might top myself if they win again.
ps. i’m not a conspiracy theorist i’m a conspiracy researcher
pps. I need to stop going on so much and figure out how to sum this up…carbon does not cause heat, heat causes carbon, just look at toast!…yea that sounds about right lol.