David Strahan 23 Apr 09
David Strahan (centre) addressing the WiT meeting in the UDC Council Chamber
We were delighted to welcome David Strahan from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre to address the meeting on The Last Oil Shock. The meeting was chaired by Peter Riding, and 65 people attended. David based his talk around a Powerpoint presentation which can be downloaded here. The following notes should be read in conjuction with that presentation.
David began by explaining that high oil prices always cause recessions, and although oil prices are currently relatively low, they are bound to spike again when the economy begins to recover from the current downturn. This time there won't be enough oil to sustain the recovery. There is a close relationship between the economy and oil consumption.
Oil supplies will peak soon, then will begin to shrink. Opinions vary about when the peak will come, but the timing is largely irrelevant: it will happen. Of the 98 oil producing countries, 64 have peaked already. Non-OPEC producers will peak around 2010 after which we will be more dependent on OPEC countries than before. OPEC producers are in the habit of exaggerating their reserves for political and commercial reasons, but production will probably peak around 2015.
Could we find some more oil? Yes, but it won't make much difference. Economists tell us that as the price of oil goes up we find more oil. This is clearly nonsense.
It is essential that we decarbonise transport. Non-viable replacements for crude oil are: i) biofuels (because there simply isn't enough land to produce sufficient quantities, quite apart from the issue of taking away from food production) and ii) hydrogen (not an energy source, but a carrier - needs a spectacular amount of energy to produce from electrolysis of water, 70% of the energy being lost in the process). It is unlikely that electric cars will be a mass replacement for conventional cars: it is more likely that our lives will be very different with less commuting etc.
A "supergrid" of renewably generated electricity (using high voltage direct current technology rather than alternating current) which has the potential to supply all our needs has been proposed by Dr Gregor Czisch of University of Kassel. Electricity generated locally won't be sufficient to serve local communities (an ideal that some Transition initiatives are striving for). Sources of energy need to be dispersed to take advantage of local generating potential.
Biofuels are the only current answer to aviation requirements, but they require unfeasible areas of land for production. Algae fuel looks promising but still needs a lot of land. There is no point in expanding the aviation infrastructure unless viable fuel alternatives can been found.
Report by Stephen Willoughby
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