Peak
Speak 2: 15 July 2006 at BedZED, Wallington,
Notes
by Mandy Meikle, Depletion
Comments in [brackets] are my personal notes & not necessarily
an accurate transcript of the proceedings
Fossil fuels give a positive energy budget but alternatives like
wind and biofuel don’t. What is sustainable development? Look back to
pre-industrial age and/or pre-oil age to see what population could be
sustained. Some estimate that without fossil fuels, global population wouldn’t
have exceeded 1.5 – 2 billion. Difficult to stock pile if you don’t know what
will have value in future e.g. will gold be valuable? Self-sufficiency requires
skills which most people simply don’t have. Eco-villages may become
‘lifeboats’.
Also food production suffers without oil or gas-based pesticides
and fertilisers.
In 1750, the start of the Industrial Revolution, the
Lifeboat analogy – if the crew are all drunk and the boat is
heading for rocks but only you realise this, what do you do? Panic?
Get drunk too? Or alert the passengers in the hope that some will believe you,
manning the lifeboats and salvaging what you can?
Q&A
Population – who is the problem? 5billion
poor people or 1 billion rich people? Doesn’t really
matter as we still have the same problem to face whether 10 or 200 years hence.
Soil Association, Permaculture Association and others have said that we can
feed all 60 million people in
Economic turmoil is the problem. Economic growth relies on debt
(Chris Cook). Need a new economic system – better wealth distribution.
Non-believer – one attendee didn’t believe Peak Oil would
occur in next 2 or 3 decades but he did agree that economic system has to
change and that we have to use fossil fuels more efficiently.
Public debate – why aren’t more people talking about Peak
Oil? They are in denial and there’s a lack of willingness for the corporate
model to be changed. Naresh, the eco-psychology
speaker, mentioned Transition Town Totness and
compared our attitude to oil as an addiction. Another speaker didn’t agree with
the negativity in
Chris edits The
Oil Drum UK
Gas is regional compared to oil. So although global Peak Gas may
be 10 years after Peak Oil, regional peaks will have a bigger impact because
gas is less easy to transport than oil. DTI (2004) energy flow chart shows
total energy use is predominantly oil and gas. Peak Oil is an economic problem.
Electricity supply is all or nothing – at any one time, there either is
electricity or their isn’t. [brown-outs allow reduced
voltage to keep some low-energy equipment running but all power stations need
to keep up to frequency]
The DTI’s Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) showed that in winter 2005/06 coal burn was 18%
higher and gas 17% lower than previous winter. The coal was imported. Not sure
of capacity to continue this trend plus coal releases more than twice the CO2
than gas per unit of electricity generated. Old Magnox
(Magnesium Oxide - nuclear) reactors are small and due to close relatively
soon. AGRs (Advanced Gas Reactors - nuclear), built in the 1980s will run
longer but Torness (2023) and Sizewell B (2030+) have longest life left.
The options for coal-fired power stations are to close or spend
money cleaning up their emissions or clean the coal first. The Large Combustion Plant Directive suggests
that coal plant could be mothballed over the summer months & only used to
keep winter supplies up. Expected
Electricity is vital not just to keep the lights on but to
maintain our water supplies, communications, public health, hospitals and so
on. There is a lot to do in very little time. Conservation is the biggest thing
we can do now. While it is hoped that renewables will come on line, even just
20% by 2020 won’t happen with the current legislation.
Q&A
Changes to planning laws have been made in the past to speed
things through, e.g. it’s no longer valid to object to mobile phone masts on
health grounds only.
Coal gasification, to convert coal to gas products, is energy
intensive. Makes no sense to burn coal to generate
electricity to gasify other coal - net energy.
Coal reserves - there are 250 million tonnes of total coal in
the
Nuclear extensions - some AGRs could be extended depending on how
degraded their cores are. Recent reports of cracks in nuclear cores may be
exaggerated as the core constantly loses material under neutron bombardment. New
nuclear plant - building them on existing reactor sites might speed up
planning issues. Core life can be extended by running the reactor at a lower
level.
Fast breeders deal with uranium depletion but are not likely
to be commercially viable within 20 years.
Naresh Giangrande: Biofuels
on the
Naresh is working with
No mix of renewables can replace oil’s net energy, so demand
reduction is paramount to our energy future. Biofuels can play their part.
Biodiesel can have a positive net energy but if all the oil-seed rape grown in
the
BioFuels plc in Teeside
is a member of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. We’ve never used
biofuels before so there is some variation in the estimates of its viability -
from very little to those who believe biofuels could supply twice current
global demand without impacting on agriculture, forests or biodiversity!
There are several types of biofuel. First generation biofuel feed
stocks include old chip oil and abattoir wastes. While such wastes are
produced, they should be converted into something useful rather than landfilled. Advanced first generation biofuel feed stocks
include alga and Jatropha (the latter is believed to
be under sustainable cultivation in the tropics, which algal systems are still
at experimental stages, some using waste CO2 to feed the algae).
Second generation biofuel technologies include hydrolysis of
lignin and cellulose (timber wastes) using enzymes to make bioethanol, and
gasification using Fisher Tropsch synthesis of
biodiesel. The more energy required to process materials into biofuels, the
less attractive the process.
Naresh ended with a quote from Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth):
“When faced with a radical crisis, when the old ways of being in
the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn’t
work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems,
an individual human - or a species - will either die out or become extinct or
rise above the limitations of their condition through an evolutionary leap.
This is the state of humanity now and this is its challenge.”
Q&A
Biodiesel car - one member of the audience had a biodiesel
conversion (cost about £1,000 and uses vegetable oil). He commented that it is
a good talking point with others about transport and energy issues and showed
others what was involved during lunch break.
Other alternatives - Butanol has
advantages over palm and soya oil, being developed by
BP. Hemp oil is another and there’s a number of other
biomass materials, like willow and pampus grass. But
the bottom line is still to reduce car numbers.
Ecopsychology - consumption
doesn’t fill us. We know that a sense of community is what drives humans. [from political parties and religion to football and other
common causes, which often enable us to tolerate people we normally wouldn’t.
This is lost from most modern towns and cities - scale often adding to social
isolation] We have to reduce consumption. How can we
grow ourselves out of this mess? Biofuels would have to be locally produced
otherwise transportation could use more energy than the biofuel would give.
Donnachadh McCarthy: reducing your footprint
Donnachadh McCarthy is author of “Saving your
planet without costing the earth” (www.3acorns.co.uk). This was a very inspiring talk.
14 years ago, Donnachadh was a ballet
dancer and had the chance to visit the Amazon. What he learnt there about the
destruction of the rainforest and its people (only 10% of the Amazonian people
are left in the rainforest) made him become active and address the impact of
his lifestyle on others. Glaciers in
Donnachadh’s first action
was to buy a bottle of organic tomato ketchup - a small first step for today he
uses less than 20 litres of mains water per day (the average is 160 litres),
his carbon emissions are about half a tonne per year (EU average is 8.5
tonnes), and his domestic waste amounts to just half a wheelie bin per year! He
also has a rainwater harvester to feed water to his toilet.
Donnachadh now helps others to green up their act.
Fashions can be a problem, such as halogen bulbs which are not quite as bad as
incandescent bulbs but the fittings are frequently for multiples. He told of
one man he visited who had 15 halogen bulbs lighting his bathroom. Donnachadh has one main light and one side-lamp per room.
Since 1999, Donnachadh has sold
electricity back to a
There is a need to consider psychology at all levels and we need a
bottom-up revolution. Donnachadh was active with the
Lib Dems for many years, but found politics too slow.
Many of his lifestyle achievements involved years of battling with the
authorities. Now he gives talks and reminds people to measure change - you
can’t change 100% every day. But the pressure is on as we only have 5 - 10
years to make 70 years’ worth of change.
Q&A
Dealing with local authorities - Donnachadh’s
been trying to get his own local authority to introduce planning guidelines to
ensure that new houses have to have 10% of their electricity coming from
renewables. Southwark now require rainwater harvesting, composting, roof
orientation suitable for solar heating and cycle sheds for new builds. Being an
opposition councillor helped.
Insulation - Donnachadh lives in
an old but quite draft-proof house and only replaces windows with double
glazing when they need replaced. He has used warmcell
when renovating but the house is an on-going project.
Best renewables for limited budget - depends on
non-monetary factors, e.g. solar PV needs a south-facing roof, whereas for
solar water heating this is less important. Domestic wind turbines are not well
developed yet so prepare to be experimental. Donnachadh’s
house so far has cost £12 - 20,000 but some people spend that on cars and
holidays. Donnachadh doesn’t have a car. Market
should be stimulated by social housing sector taking on micro-renewables -
social housing should be cheap to run.
Doly Garcia: Peak Oil and the
Doly heard about Peak Oil and was amazed that
so little was being done to prepare for it that she taught herself and is working
on presentations to give to others. She has spoken to green groups in
Transport - currently 80 - 90% by car. Commuters will
still go to work as oil prices rise, but how will they get there? Local food
links need to be made between farmers and catering companies and restaurants. Doly’s group advises the local Council, businesses and
individuals of ways to reduce their oil consumption but sells it to them as
ways to save money rather than tackle climate change.
Electricity - in 1990, 67% was generated from coal and 0.5% by natural
gas. By 2004 it’s 33% coal and 40% gas. If the dash for gas worked so well over
just 15 years, surely there’s hope that the next 15 years could se a dash to
demand reduction, if there was the will to do it.
Heating - 71% of households use gas for central heating - if the
gas isn’t available how will these people heat their homes? Doly
showed a DTI graph projecting future energy consumption until 2025, where
energy consumption decreases in 2010 after which it increases thanks to the gas
component increasing - how can this be?
Brighton has no energy-intensive industry but tourism and visitor
attractions waste a lot of energy and should be encouraged to save, e.g. by
replacing old items with new energy efficient versions when they need replaced.
The economics of
Food and water - food shortages are unlikely in
Q&A
Awareness-raising - it is important that people who understand
what Peak Oil’s going to bring, go out and talk to all sectors of society and Doly was commended for her work. One woman asked why
supermarkets had such high ceilings, which wasn’t really answered but it is a
good point to raise the waste we tend not to see because we’ve grown up with
it.
Food - Doly has found that local
farmers are willing to go to the people to sell. Branches of Sainbury’s and some other supermarkets are now stocking
local seasonal vegetables but it is very small scale and most consumers just
don’t think of air-miles.
Powerswitch (conference host)
is writing to all MPs about Peak Oil issues (with John Hemming, LibDem MP) but acknowledge that civil servants should also
be targeted.
Changing behaviour - the Big Ask is a Friends
of the Earth campaign asking people to change their ways to tackle climate
change but it ignores other sectors, like industry & business, which misses
the point that we all have to change. A comment was made about avoiding
unemployment, to which Paul Mobbs replied that he’d
spent years avoiding employment! If you have no money you cannot over-consume.
Chris Cook:
alternative financial systems [http://www.opencapital.net/]
Chris Cook left finance in 1996. Realising how middle-men
manipulated the oil markets, in 2001 he contacted Iranian officials with a
proposal for a Middle East Exchange with a benchmark price not based on Brent
crude. The Saudis were against this idea but after 9/11 they changed stance to
‘not opposing’ the idea. The elite in
The idea is to have an Iranian oil ‘napster’
market network connecting producer directly with consumer. A
clearing union, a bilateral transaction with some guarantee. A new legal way to trade oil. Limited Liability Partnerships
(LLPs) are a new corporate body which isn’t actually
a partnership. Not many people have heard of these LLPs,
but they represent a revolutionary way to link people together and finance
opportunities.
In LLPs stakeholders are all on the same
side. You might borrow from investors (e.g. to build a wind farm) and pay back
at 0% interest but pay back in electricity over 20 years at today’s prices LLPs are tax transparent and a means of investment which
doesn’t go against Islamic principles of money lending. Chris has worked with
Scottish people a lot. We have to talk about money’s-worth of an output, not
the money itself.
Q&A
Iranian oil bourse - is this going forward? There never was a date
set so it’s not delayed, as is sometimes reported. If it goes ahead, it would
be a
Currency - does money still change hands and in what
currency? It’s got a barter element and the currency can vary under agreement.
Iran/US hostilities - is this to do with petroeuros/dollars?
The key reason for hostilities is that it suits both sides. The Americans care
about Iraqi oil and Iranians can control
[From Grand Theft
According
to Chris Cook, the former International Petroleum Exchange director and founder
of the Iranian Oil Bourse, the recent sabre-rattling toward
PSA =Production
Sharing Agreement]
Ervin Menyhart: how to build your network for a post-Peak Oil
world
Ervin Menyhart is a Hungarian who left
the corporate world to teach yoga and belongs to a Peak Oil group in
We have a 3-dimensional problem - depletion of resources,
population/demographics and environmental destruction. How did we get here?
We’ve traded everything away for the allusion of comfort. Where is the
paperless office we were promised, for example. We are
detached from the system in which we exist. No person to person responsibility
with business dealings (e.g. call centres aren’t even in
Ervin proposed the pyramid scheme for building your network - the
power of 5. Find your 5 ‘best’ people to tell about Peak Oil (e.g. friends,
relatives or those likely to prepare for Peak Oil). Clean up your own act, then
demonstrate to these 5 people how it can be done and help them to go on and
each find 5 others. This mechanism for building an organic network has been
sullied by pyramid selling scams but it’s still valid if you choose well and
support your group. Make it fun too, for yourselves and to encourage others to
join. Ervin has devised STAG nights, where STAG means Social Transition Action
Group - need equivalent for women!
Q&A
Belief - what if people don’t believe you? If so, they
won’t be one of your 5.
Pyramids tend to collapse when you reach a point where everyone is
already in it. If this happens we have won! However, more likely that everyone
has been approached and rejected the idea. If group working, these people may
be persuaded next time around. Remember that, on average, the Peak Oil message
has to be heard 3 times before it sinks in.
Skills - small-scale local work and big-scale lobbying
are 2 different sets of skills which appeal to different people. This network
can, in theory, build so quickly that soon you should have people with skills,
e.g. those who work for the local council or businesses.
Communication - Newman’s newsletter was sent from an audience
member to his mates each week for 10 weeks, after which he invited anyone
interested in Peak Oil issues to let him know. This led to a surprising number
of people thanking him for the information and interested in receiving more.
Because it’s easier not to do something than to do something, we will have a
bumpy ride. The more preparation and understanding now, in theory, the more
empowered people will be to live in a post-peak world.
Mutual co-operation - Ervin understands how mutual
co-operation works from his childhood in
The day ended with a screening of The power of community - how Cuba survived peak oil, an
excellent film (53 mins) showing what can be achieved
when people pull together. However, it was pointed out in the discussion
afterwards that in recent years things in