Global Peakedness

Another hurricane, another chance to wail about “extreme weather”. As Hurricane Dorian scurried along our Atlantic shore I was bemused to hear one commentator complain that so little news coverage of the hurricane linked it to climate change. As the hurricane Dorian tied as the second strongest Atlantic hurricane ever (in terms of windspeed) occurred almost a century ago (1935) and the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever almost half a century ago (1980), I wondered if she thought climate change should be mentioned in order to discredit the notion of global warming-induced extreme weather (not her point).

I’m baffled why Climate Change attracts such widespread, clamorous attention while a threat I believe to be more quantifiable, more immediate, and in the long-run even more catastrophic barely elicits a whimper. That threat is the end to the age of cheap energy, a game-changer whose impact is being felt in the here-and-now and which, without some wonder of technology, will become ever more devastating with time. The magic elixir which has made possible the modern age, liquid fossil fuel, is becoming scarcer and harder to exploit (N.B. But not running out; half the stuff that was out there is still in the ground).

When oil production by conventional means peaked in 2005, total global production stood at 80 million barrels per day (mbd). The smugness of the Peak Oil theorists, who had been predicting the peak for over a decade, was tempered in subsequent years when total production continued to climb, now standing at 100 mbd. But that increase in production has come at a cost: more expensive extraction processes (e.g., hydraulic fracturing), more complex refining techniques (e.g., switch from light to heavy oil), and more expensive transportation methods (e.g., tankers instead of pipelines). The energy complexion of mankind is turning from a satiny, black sheen to a sickly, gray pallor. We look peaked.

To relate our peakedness to the threat you are more familiar with, think of the ever-dwindling supply of liquid fossil fuels as analogous to the ever-increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (both resulting from human activity). The equivalent of the greenhouse effect—the theory that increased CO2 leads to more warming—would be the belief that, as oil and gas becomes scarcer, it becomes more costly to exploit. The “mean cost of energy” is equivalent to the “mean global temperature”. Finally, the consequence of the cost of energy rising: a decline in global living standards threatening civilization itself, equates to the consequences foreseen from global warming: extremer weather, a rising sea level, species extinction (in extremis, our own).

If my prophecy of doom is as valid as that of the global warming alarmists, why are those who assure us petroleum resources are bountiful—almost infinite—not being vilified as “deniers”. Why are there not calculations of “energy sensitivity” (i.e., the relationship between an increase in the cost of energy and expanding impoverishment) analogous to the warmists’ calculations of “climate sensitivity” (the relationship between increased CO2 in the atmosphere and rising temperatures). Why are Big Oil and the oil producing countries not being sued for keeping their data on production and reserves–vital info for measuring peakedness–secret? Where is the cute teenager to make us oldsters feel guilty about the dire future we are foisting on the young through our inaction?

But am I right in my concern? The answer to that question lies in whether the cost of energy is in fact rising. It’s tempting to take the price of a barrel of oil as our measure, but that is not sound as price is a fickle thing subject to distortion from political and economic factors, as well as market manipulation (cf. the failure of the price of oil to skyrocket with the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities). What is needed is a calculation of the social cost of a barrel of oil; namely, how many man-days of labor equivalent (mdle) are needed to produce a barrel of oil (adding in the stored labor represented by capital). Necessarily, the cost of energy must be a construct, built from interpreted bits of data, just as the mean global temperature is constructed from incomplete satellite or weather station data. As with models forecasting future global warming, models forecasting the future cost of energy can be expected to vary widely, but, again as with global warming, the differing predictions do not negate concern over an overall ominous trend.

Another approach to determining whether the cost of energy is rising would be to calculate a global living standard and, if it is declining, blame it on increasing energy costs. Data on such basic indicators of human wellbeing as access to electricity, miles driven, calories consumed, etc., could be collected and used to calculate a “mean global living standard” in the same way a “mean global temperature” is arrived at. Or an anecdotal approach could be taken, attributing every political upheaval, famine, gas shortage, etc. to the peaking of petroleum-derived energy, just as every flood, drought, heat wave, blizzard, or unusually heavy dew is declared “extreme” and attributed to global warming.

Or we could just sit back and count on man’s genius to come up with a miracle, such as finding an economically viable way to harness the energy inherent in hydrogen (similar to the global warming complacents’ faith in fossil fuels being replaced by renewable energy). But crossing our fingers is not a plan. Responding with complacency is as much an insult to man’s genius as expecting a technology-based salvation is a compliment. Sadly, as the history of mankind attested, complacency is our most likely response to the dangers facing us. Sorry, Greta.