ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press reports that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing faster than the worst case scenario outlined just four years ago in the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report:

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world’s efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

Humans emitted about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the atmosphere in 2010 than it did in 2009 – an increase of 6%. Joseph Romm at Climate Progress posts these graphics.

China, the United States, and India are the world’s top producers of greenhouse gases. While the U.S. dithers and does nothing to stop global warming, the power to do so has slipped out of our hands. Earth’s fate now lies largely in the hands of others.

Emissions in developing countries are rising very rapidly and are projected to continue doing so. For example, between 1990 and 2009, among the top 5 emitting countries, China increased its per capita emissions by over two and a half times and India doubled them.

The demand for coal in India is expected to increase rapidly in the future, dominated mainly by the power sector as India’s government aims to double power generation over the next decade. India is currently the third largest producer of coal in the world; and India’s coal imports, which totaled 55 million tons in 2010, are expected to rise to 186 million tons by 2014 and to soar to ~300 million tons by 2016. China’s coal consumption rose to 2.28 billion metric tons of coal in the first nine months of 2011, up 10.3% from 2010. China is projected to more than double its consumption of coal by 2035.

OPEC forecasts that the use of all fossil fuels will continue to rise – with the burning of coal to more than double by 2035:

Raymond Pierrehumbert at RealClimate sums up all you ever really need to know about CO2 emissions and climate:

• The peak warming is linearly proportional to the cumulative carbon emitted
• It doesn’t matter much how rapidly the carbon is emitted
• The warming you get when you stop emitting carbon is what you are stuck with for the next thousand years
• The climate recovers only slightly over the next ten thousand years
• At the mid-range of IPCC climate sensitivity, a trillion tonnes cumulative carbon gives you about 2C global mean warming above the pre-industrial temperature.

Pierrehumbert notes we have already emitted about half the trillion-ton figure, so our whole future allowance is another 500 gigatonnes – assuming Earth herself doesn’t kick in. Nehring (2009) estimates that known global economically recoverable coal amounts to 846 gigatonnes, based on 2005 prices and technology. That’s ~634 gigatonnes of carbon, which all by itself is more than enough to bring us well past “game-over.” Proved reserves of conventional oil add up to ~139 gigatonnes C, proved natural gas reserves another ~100 gigatonnes C – and these two energy reserves are so valuable and easily accessible that it’s probably inevitable they will get burned. The carbon associated with the Athabasca oil sands deposit adds up to about 230 gigatonnes; estimates of how much of that will ultimately be economically recoverable vary from 10% to 70%.

And Earth herself is starting to kick in. Drying of northern wetlands has led to much more severe peatland wildfires and nine times as much carbon released into the atmosphere, according to new research led by University of Guelph professor Merritt Turetsky:

Russia, Indonesia and Canada all have abundant peatlands, but they also have been hotspots for intense peat fires in the past decade. Our study shows that when disturbance lowers the water table, that resistance [to fire[ disappears and peat becomes very flammable and vulnerable to deep burning. * * * Currently, peatlands are considered important global stores for carbon. But we’ve shown that human disturbance or climate-induced drying can switch peatlands from sinks to potentially huge sources of carbon, with losses associated with severe burning far outweighing long-term rates of sequestration.

And then there's the shocking conclusion from the study “Amount and timing of permafrost carbon release in response to climate warming” in Tellus by NOAA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):

The thaw and release of carbon currently frozen in permafrost will increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations and amplify surface warming to initiate a positive permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) on climate. . . [Our] estimate may be low because it does not account for amplified surface warming due to the PCF itself. . . We predict that the PCF will change the arctic from a carbon sink to a source after the mid-2020s and is strong enough to cancel 42-88% of the total global land sink. The thaw and decay of permafrost carbon is irreversible and accounting for the PCF will require larger reductions in fossil fuel emissions to reach a target atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Even the International Energy Agency is warning time is running out to avert catastrophic climate change. Fatih Birol, the agency’s chief economist, says he’s not optimistic that anything will be done.

While humans continue to fiddle and burn, Earth’s carbon cycle is slipping beyond human ability to control.

The Federal Highway Administration reports travel on all roads and streets was up 0.9% for February 2011 as compared with February 2010. Cumulative travel for 2011 was up 0.6%. Oregon bucked the trend: VMT in Oregon was down 4.1%.

Calculated Risk posts a chart of the rolling 12-month VMT going back to 1971.

VMT is still well below the previous peak. In the early ’80s, miles driven (rolling 12 months) stayed below the previous peak for 39 months. Currently miles driven has been below the previous peak for 39 months too – so this record will be broken in March.

In February U.S. oil prices averaged $90 per barrel. With oil prices now over $124 (Brent) and $112 (WTI), we may soon see VMT begin to fall again as demand destruction sets in.

We find ourselves in a situation where only demand destruction can keep oil prices in check. Demand destruction means the presumed need for the Columbia River Crossing will never materialize – and also means that the toll-based financing scheme is doomed to failure. Prediction: it will never be built.

A recent post discussed new research showing Greenland and Antarctic ice loss is accelerating. Early Warning has now posted an illuminating graphic comparing the latest results with IPCC estimates.

The blue line is the new estimates from Rignot et al, which only includes contributions from ice sheet dynamics in Greenland and Antarctica – a factor almost entirely excluded from the IPCC estimates. The yellow band is under A1F1, which is an all-out fossil fuel intensive scenario. The green is B1, which is still an economic growth scenario but assumes some fossil fuel consumption is replaced by conservation and renewables. The vertical colored bars at the very right hand show the sea level estimates from the IPCC AR4 report for 2100.

Stuart Staniford sums up the current state of knowledge – and warns there’s plenty we still don’t know:

It looks like we are heading for ballpark a foot of sea level rise by mid century (pretty much regardless of what we do) and 3-5 ft by the end of the century (depending on emissions and uncertainties in the climate sensitivity). . .

The one big caveat is this: the climate system is non-linear and keeps surprising the climate scientists. There may be more surprises ahead.

Bad news for low-lying places and coastal locations. Today’s tsunami caused devastation in Japan and substantial damage along the U.S. west coast, despite arriving at the lowest tide point of the day. Imagine if sea levels were five feet higher.

Calculated Risk reports light vehicle sales were at a 12.62 million SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in January, up 17.5% from January 2010 and up 1.0% from the December 2010 sales rate.

Light vehicle sales remain at depressed levels.

U.S. light vehicle sales remain at levels last seen around 1991-1992, when the population of the U.S. was 50+ million less than it is today – and when there were 35 million fewer licensed drivers, as seen by comparing statistics here and here.

Auto sales peaked in 2005 at 17.4 million, but collapsed to 10.6 million in 2009.

At the current rate of sales, light vehicles appear to be disappearing from America’s roads and streets at the rate of about two million vehicles per year. With a scrappage rate of about 6.1% and about 238,000,000 passenger vehicles in the U.S. (BTS data as of 2008 – the most recent data available – not counting motorcycles or trucks with more than four wheels),  about 14.5 million vehicles are being scrapped each year. The average vehicle on U.S. roads is now 10.2 years old — the oldest since 1997 and a full year older than in 2007, before the recession.

The most important contributors to the world’s total oil production are the giant oil fields. Roughly 500 (about 1% of the total number of world oil fields) are classified as giants. Their contribution to world oil production was over 60% in 2005, with the 20 largest fields alone responsible for nearly 25%. Giant fields represent roughly 65% of the global ultimate recoverable conventional oil resources. The overall production from giant fields is declining, because a majority of the largest giant fields are over 50 years old, and fewer and fewer new giants have been discovered since the decade of the 1960s.

In roughly mid 2004, total world oil production ceased to expand. Instead, new production has only succeeded in keeping world oil production relatively flat. We have since been running faster and faster just to stand still.

Mikael Höök, Robert Hirsch, and Kjell Aleklett have written a study to be published in the journal Energy Policy, titled Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production, that estimates the decline rates of the world’s giant oil fields. Their conclusion: the struggle to maintain production and compensate for the decline in existing production will become harder and harder.

Here are excerpts from the conclusion of their study.

Based on a comprehensive database of giant oil field production data, we estimated the average decline rates of the world’s giant oil fields that are beyond their plateau phase. Since there are large differences between land and offshore fields and non-OPEC and OPEC fields, separation into different subclasses was necessary. In order to obtain a realistic forecast of future giant field decline rates, the subclasses were treated separately to better reflect their different behaviours.

Thus, our average total decline rate for post-plateau giant fields of 6.5% and CERA’s overall 6.3% are in good agreement, and our 5.5% production-weighted giant field decline rate compares reasonably with IEA’s 6.5% and CERA’s 5.8% (Table 10). Offshore fields decline faster than land fields, and OPEC fields decline slower than non-OPEC fields. There are small differences in the data sets and definitions between the studies, but the results from these three studies can be considered approximately equivalent.

* * *

Future decline rates of giant fields that have not yet left the plateau phase can be expected to be higher than those that are now in decline. This is in line with a recent statement about a decline of 10% in mature fields from Petrobras downstream director Paulo Roberto Costa (2008). The crash of the Cantarell field in Mexico and the experiences of the North Sea giants are a vivid example of what can happen to other giant oilfields in the future.

These findings have large implications for the future, since the most important world oil production base – giant oilfields – will decline more rapidly. In the extreme, a potential 10% annual decline in Ghawar would be very challenging to compensate and would create severe problems for Saudi-Arabia and the world. The future behaviour of the remaining giants, especially in OPEC, will be a key factor in future oil supply.

Based on the decline behaviour of giants, decline rate estimates for world oil production are possible because of the large influence of the giants. Many studies have shown that smaller fields, condensate, and NGL will decline at least as fast or faster than giant oilfields, once the onset of decline is reached (CERA, 2007; Höök and Aleklett, 2008; IEA, 2008). Consequently, we believe that there is a strong basis for believing that giant oilfields can be used to set a floor for future decline rate assumptions.

In conclusion, this analysis shows that the average decline rate of the giant oil fields have been increasing with time, reflecting the fact that more and more fields enter the decline phase and fewer and fewer new giant fields are being found. The increase is in part due to new technologies that have been able to temporarily maintain production at the expense of subsequent more rapid decline. Growing average decline rates have also been noted by IEA (2008). The difference between using a constant decline in existing production and an increasing decline rate is significant and could mean as much of a difference of 7 Mb/d by 2030 (Figure 13).

By 2030 the production from fields currently on stream could have decreased by over 50% in agreement with IEA (2008). The struggle to maintain production and compensate for the decline in existing production will become harder and harder. Our conclusion is that the world will face an increasing oil supply challenge, as the decline in existing production is not only high but also increasing.

Sharon Astyk in a post titled City, Country, Suburb? It isn’t Where You Live, But How You Live There offers what I think is sound advice. Railing on about the foolish investments in infrastructure we’ve made since the beginning of the oil age doesn’t get us very far. Rather, as Astyk says:

“I think it is most important to talk about how to live in the suburbs, or the city, or the country in a low energy future.  I think that may be more productive than extended screeds against one model or another.”

Rural areas are likely to suffer first and deepest from the shortage of fuels. As we’ve talked about before here and here, hardships are already being felt.  Property values are falling more the farther away you get from urban cores. High fuel prices are likely to drive commuters – those with no real ties to the countryside – back to urban areas, leaving the countryside to those who have the abilities, inclinations, and family and social connections that will enable them to scratch out a living there. Astyk throws out a vision of what rural life might look like – and while it’s different from what we’re used to now, it’s not all bad.

Astyk also speculates on the future of urban and suburban life – but if  you’ve read her stuff before, you know that she’s verbose.  Rather than attempt to summarize what she has to say, I recommend that you read it yourself.

This week oil prices reached record highs, almost touching $124/barrel. Yet when it comes to the presidential campaigns, complacency rules. Peak oil simply isn’t on any candidate’s radar.

David Cohen at ASPO-USA points out that mitigating anthropogenic climate change is central to all the presidential candidates’ campaigns, and their primary energy initiative is a carbon emissions cap & trade system. While a carbon tax or cap-and trade may be laudable, we have argued that a moratorium on and phase-out of coal would be a better, more effective policy option.

Problems arising from our oil dependency take a backseat to climate change. But unfortunately, given the urgency of the need for action, these are not perceived as urgent – the climate problem is seen as one that can be solved gradually. This approach to our “oil dependency” only makes sense from a climate perspective, which requires us to change our energy consumption and infrastructure over several decades.

John Michael Greer remembers that around 1980 we (and other industrial nations) made a fateful decision to turn back from promising steps toward sustainability made in the previous decade – steps that could have led to a non-disruptive transition to a post-petroleum world. We’ve wasted a quarter century. Now, the chances of transitioning to a non-fossil fuel economy without massive disruption are remote.

The future is uncertain. Constructing a strategy for coping with our future is equally fraught with uncertainty. Relocalization – retooling lifestyles to rely more on local resources and less on a far-flung and increasingly fragile global economic system – is likely to a pretty good strategy to deal with the cascading series of crises that are already unfolding around us (Greer lists “the peak of conventional petroleum production worldwide, soaring prices and incipient shortages in other commodities, spiraling breakdowns in the international debt market, and the fraying of America’s global empire.”).

The one reality that seems clear is that the days of cheap and abundant transportation fuels are over. A rational response to that reality is to begin now to build local economies that minimize the need for transportation, both of goods and people. Resources poured into more infrastructure to support the automobile and the auto-dependent way of life are surely being poured down a rat hole. And we don’t have time, money – or precious energy resources – to waste.

What could be more rational than a moratorium on road building and other automobile-supporting infrastructure such as bridges and parking garages? Our planning needs to be immediately retooled to accommodate development without the automobile rather than requiring accommodation for the automobile.

Truck gardens and organic food production on the outskirts of small and mid-sized cities may be well-positioned to thrive in a world where transport costs have become a major limiting factor. The growth of farmers markets, community-supported agriculture, and direct sales of local produce to local restaurants have laid the foundations upon which local and regional food production networks can grow.

We can be certain that planning for a future as a continuation of our extravagant energy-wasting lifestyles will lead to disaster.

The House Energy and Environment Committee will be meeting at the
LeSells Stewart Center on the OSU Campus, Friday, April 4, starting at
2:00 PM. The committee will focus on climate change and will be taking
testimony from a number of OSU faculty members.

There is opportunity for public comment. The committee asks that you provide 25 copies of any written materials. If you plan to use video, DVD, PowerPoint or
overhead projection equipment please contact Committee Administrator Beth Patrino 24 hours prior to the meeting: beth.patrino@state.or.us

Committee members are: Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, Chair; Rep. Chuck Burley, Vice-Chair; Rep. Ben Cannon, Vice-Chair; Rep. E. Terry Beyer; Rep. Bill Garrard; Rep. Tobias Read; and Rep. Greg Smith.

Russian oil output are expected fall this year for the first time in a decade as rising costs and harder-to-reach fields are making it difficult to maintain production levels.

Output fell 0.7 percent in January and 0.9 percent in February, to 9.79 million barrels a day, compared with the same months last year, according to Energy Ministry data.

The Bloomberg article refers to Russia as the “world’s second-biggest supplier.”  As these charts from The Oil Drum: Europe show, for the last couple years Russia has displaced Saudi Arabia to become the world’s top supplier of crude – although the picture isn’t quite so clear when it comes to all-liquids.

Dan Armstrong has posted a great piece at his Mud City Press site (also at Energy Bulletin) titled “Relocalizing Eden.”

He waxes eloquent about the Willamette Valley:

“The bioregion defined by the Willamette River watershed is one of the most bountiful in the United States. The Willamette Valley is a hundred mile long, two-million acre stretch of prime cropland bordered by a dense, eco-rich coniferous forest. The climate is mild; wet in the winter, dry in the summer. It is excellent for raising livestock and farming, with soil particularly suited for many types of grasses and legumes. There is tremendous flexibility in what can be grown and the way that the various field crops can be rotated for the health of the land.

“Home to a variety of fish and other wildlife, the Willamette River basin is essentially a garden valley, Oregon’s own little piece of Eden.”

He points out that the region has the capacity to feed itself – and fifty years ago, it largely did. But this agricultural picture has been turned inside out. The centralization and globalization of food distribution means that now, nearly everything we eat comes from some place else – most often far away.

This graph in his article is stunning.

More than half of this prime Oregon farmland is being used to grow grass seed – a non-edible luxury item – instead of food.

Armstrong points out that we have lost more than agricultural production in the Willamette Valley. We’ve also lost the capacity to process or distribute what is grown. This means:

“At a very basic level, we are losing the ability to feed ourselves. Again, this is nonsense if not suicide.“

The solution? Relocalization:

“Thus the solution, and the target of food related relocalization efforts in the valley, is changing how and what farmers grow–specifically transitioning to organic techniques and converting grass seed acreage to wheat or other grains and legumes, rebuilding food industry infrastructure, and creating more markets to link buyers, growers, and distributors.”

Armstrong isn’t a relocalization extremist:

“It should be noted that a fully local food economy is not the goal. That would be impossible. But local food buying whether by individuals, food markets, restaurants, or processors needs to be stimulated beyond today’s five percent range to something more like twenty-five or thirty percent. This level of relocalized economic involvement could engender the kind of balance and stability that is needed to bring a modicum of food security to the populace and also a degree of sustainability to Willamette Valley agriculture.”

Lester Brown of the WorldWatch Institute estimates that we could reverse global warming – and at the same time wipe out world poverty, provide universal health care, and stabilize population growth – for about $190 billion a year, or the equivalent of a third of US annual military expenditure.

The $190 billion price tag compares with $1.2 trillion that world governments spent on military budgets in 2006. The United States splurged the most with $560 billion.

Brown told an interviewer from Planet Ark:

“Once you accept that climate change, population growth, spreading water shortages, rising food prices etcetera are threats to our security, it changes your whole way of thinking about how you use public resources.”

The $560 billion figure for U.S. “defense” spending does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120 billion in 2007). In addition, the United States has black budget – military spending which is not listed as Federal spending and is not included in published military spending figures. – Ed.

Kurt Cobb at Resource Insights reminds us that human history

“is chock full of wars, the rise and fall of empires and of whole civilizations, ravaging plagues, breathtaking discoveries, vast migrations, world-changing inventions and cultural evolution. So, it is a puzzle why so much emphasis is now put on the supposed inevitable continuity of modern industrial life.”

Humans have squandered opportunities, let their ambition lead them to destruction, run out of natural resources, and despoiled the landscape beyond repair again and again. We’re now witnessing the collapse of the world’s fisheries, the loss of billions of tons of topsoil to erosion each year, the over-exploitation of water supples, the destruction of vast tracts of forests in the tropics and temperate zones alike. Yet we call it “progress.”

Cobb calls this unquestioned belief in progress a “cult of continuity”:

“The word “cult” in its simplest sense means a system of religious worship. In many cults nothing is more important than the acceptance of certain beliefs without the requirement of evidence. And, because cult members require no evidence (in the scientific meaning of the word) to confirm their beliefs, these members are remarkably immune to evidence that might also challenge their beliefs.”

This blind faith is dangerous because it relieves us of the responsibility to make wise decisions, decisions which might enable us to avoid disaster and actually achieve a sustainable civilization.

HB 3610 would authorize DEQ to adopt rules requiring the registration and reporting of anyone importing, selling, or distributing greenhouse gas generating fossil fuels or electricity. While the bill was passed out of the Committee on Energy and the Environment with a “do pass” recommendation, it was directed to Ways and Means where it is expected to die.

Why? Opposition from utilities and industry interests, who are concerned that any reporting scheme would surely be followed by regulation. And of course that’s the purpose of the bill – to set the stage and gather the information necessary to implement the Western Climate Initiative and adopt a cap-and-trade scheme.

This lack of recognition that we’re in a crisis that requires drastic and immediate action is evidence that we’re still in the “denial” stage of our response to climate change. And here in Oregon, peak oil – outside of Portland and its Peak Oil Task Force – isn’t even on our radar.

John Michael Greer in an article at the Energy Bulletin (and his own Archdruid Report) comparing our response to peak oil with the five stages of grief outlined by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

We can’t expect to arrive at acceptance – of either global warming or climate change – all at once. Individually and as a society, we’ve got to work our way through, step by step, all the way to acceptance.

We still fantasize that we can figure out a way to continue living our lives in something like the way we do now. This refusal to let go is the single largest obstacle in the path of a reasoned response to the predicament of peak oil and global warming. The hard reality we have to face is the fact that the extravagant, energy-wasting lifestyles of the recent past have led us to the brink of climate catastrophe. And the realities of peak oil, soon to be followed by peak gas and peak coal, combined with the EROEI and scaling realities of alternatives, dictate that our profligacy cannot be sustained by any amount of bargaining or any number of grand projects.

Eventually we’ll have to face up to the reality that our way of life is over – and that the alternative will be okay. As Greer points out, if we redefine the situation in terms of managing a controlled descent from the giddy heights of the late industrial age, the range of technological options widens out dramatically.

There are still many (like CERA) who are in denial of peak oil. Anger is seen in our invasion and occupation of the remaining vulnerable oil producing provinces. How dare terrorists and Muslim fanatics deny us of our oil?

We see anger in the climate change context as soon as anybody actually proposes to do anything meaningful. Why do you suppose a carbon tax, the preferred tool of global warming activists and economists, isn’t even on the table? Because it could actually be implemented quickly and comprehensively, without offering the opportunity for entrenched interests to game the system. A carbon tax would actually force us to do something meaningful, now – it would actually accomplish something. We’re not quite ready for that, yet. Bargaining? We can begin to talk about that.

In the energy context, Greer sees bargaining in our rush to futile and destructive projects, like biofuels and nuclear. I would add tar sands and the chimerical “clean coal” to that list.

Given the political impasse, we cannot stand by helplessly.

We can make immediate changes in our own lives to minimize energy usage. Change our light bulbs. Insulate and seal our homes. Drive less. The list is endless. Tiny actions, multiplied many times, add up to something that matters. while saving money.

Even more importantly, the actions of individuals send critical messages to others and help to establish new social norms that tell everyone around us (our neighbors and our children) what “good” or “ethical” environmental behavior is. Social norms are powerful.

It’s critical that we push from the bottom up to get something happen at the state and federal levels. Governments set regulations and policies that affect what we all do in our individual lives. Doing something about global warming requires not just a rational, cognitive response. It needs an emotional response, even a spiritual response, certainly a deep shift in our values. The deeper the social change, the harder, and the longer it will take to bring about. Values and social and cultural norms take generations to change.

And herein lies our dilemma: we don’t have generations, or even decades. If we are to avoid climate catastrophe, if we are to transition to a low-carbon economy, we have to act now. Even tomorrow is too late.