Photographer : Deposto
It is one of the most sought-after resources on the planet. It is used in everything from petrol to plastics, and is so valuable that it has been called “black gold.” “It” is crude oil, and it is running out.
The world’s industry, transportation and commerce rely on oil, so it’s only natural that we use a lot of it. Unfortunately, in recent years, we’ve been consuming much more oil than we’ve been discovering. For this reason, some scientists suggest that we may have hit “peak oil.”
What is it?
“Peak oil” is the point at which we consume more petroleum per year than we produce, and when peak oil happens worldwide, it will no longer even be worth the time or money it takes to find new oil reserves.
You may be asking, “So what?” The truth is, peak oil could affect you more than you realise. The average Australian consumes six and a half litres of oil every day, three quarters of that being used for transportation.
What’s the worst part? Australia passed peak oil as a nation in 2000, and now imports 30% of all its oil. By 2010, it’s estimated that that figure will be closer to 50%.
It’s hard to say exactly what will happen once peak oil hits across the globe. Some scientists say that it will be the end of civilisation as we know it, while others claim there will really be no difference at all due to recent advances in energy technology.
The potential for disaster is certainly clear, even past the issue of petrol prices. In fact, refueling your car could be the least of your worries. Without cheap oil, the price of plastic, a petroleum product, would fly through the roof, affecting the prices of everything from computers to clothing. Since oil is used in the production of fertilizer, the same could happen to food prices. It’s easy to see how limited availability of oil could change every aspect of our lives.
Don’t panic!
But don’t fret just yet. No one can say exactly when peak oil will occur. Some scientists say it happened last year, while more optimistic estimates say sometime around 2015.
Not only that, but as the price of crude oil rises, other, traditionally harder methods of oil extraction become more cost-effective. After crude oil, a rock called “oil shale” is one of the most plentiful sources of petroleum in the world. The United States Energy Information Administration believes the world supply of oil shale to be 2.6 trillion barrels of usable oil—that’s approximately 66 years worth of fuel at current consumption rates.
Searching for alternatives
The problem is, by relying oil shale and other such sources of petroleum, we’re merely delaying the problem. If we don’t investigate other types of energy, we’ll have the same problem we do now in half a century. The point is, we can stretch our supply for a while longer, but we will eventually run out of oil.
What we can do is use this extra time to wean ourselves off oil. There are currently promising efforts underway to reduce or eliminate oil consumption. Auto companies are developing hybrid cars that run partly off rechargeable batteries, and a new fuel called “biodiesel”:http://www.actnow.com.au/Issues/Biodiesel.aspx is a product of renewable crops like corn.
Individual actions make a difference, too. Try cutting down on petrol consumption by using public transportation or carpooling with friends and coworkers. When possible, ride a bike or walk to your destination—you’ll be keeping not only the planet and the economy healthy, but yourself, too!
How do I know this?
Deffeyes, K S,
Hubbert’s Peak, Current Events,
http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-events.html
Lynch, M C,
CRYING WOLF: Warnings about oil supply,
http://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/world-oil.dir/l...
May, S,
Submission to the Senate Inquiry into Australia’s future oil supply and alternative transport fuel.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/rrat_ctte/o...
Wikipedia Online Encyclopaedia,
Oil reserves,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Countrie...
