Peak oil - keep your eye on the donut and not the hole

Easy oil delivers such a wealth of net (excess) energy and goods, that we are free to indulge in all sorts of charades in order to satisfy our personal ambitions. Cheap transport has permitted us to bury local food production under a sea of suburbs. Our agricultural system is totally dependent on oil and natural gas, not only for mechanisation but also for fertiliser and the pesticides so necessary for large-scale monoculture.

Want a litre of milk? No problem. Just jump in the old jalopy and potter on down to the local for a carton of nature's finest.

How far away is the shop? Does it matter?

How did the milk get there? Who cares! That's what we pay the captains of industry for. It's their problem, not ours.

Suppose, just suppose, that the (global) depletion of oil and gas is with us here and now. Let's say it's no longer a poisoned apple to be left for the grandkids, but something we must face right now. For example, we know that UK North Sea oil and gas production peaked in 1999. We know that thanks to Thatcher's free-market policies, the deposit was plundered hastily and sold cheaply. Didn't they know there is not enough energy in a $1,000 note to boil a cup of tea? The UK will soon have to go cap-in-hand to other countries in the hope of sourcing natural gas.

We know that US natural gas is critically depleted and that they depend on it for electricity, fertiliser and a host of other processes. We know that they are drawing down the Canadian reserves using the free trade agreement. We know that the US administration is meddling in the affairs of Venezuela and other neighbours because the fear is that the gas and oil (and profits) found there might be wasted on the indigenous populations.

We know our Prime Minister has offered the warm cloak of Australian and Timorese gas to the shoulders of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. It must be a comfort to know that US troops are based near the Darwin gas terminal.

Sniff, sniff - er, does anyone smell gas?

Retired geologist Colin Campbell (Texaco, BP, Amoco) cautioned:

Throughout history, people have had difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. Reality is what happens, whereas illusion is what we would like to happen. Wishful thinking is a well-worn expression. Momentum is still another element: we tend to assume that things keep moving in the same direction.

The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy reality. There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the iron grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half-truth and the flat out lies.

Prophetic, if not apocalyptic words from Campbell, dovetailing very nicely into the crappy script that our leaders are presently reading from. It is hard to credit the torrent of oil energy that has been flowing silently throughout our entire lives. I am reminded of the great London sewerage system, the operation of which goes largely unnoticed by the industrious yet ignorant ants’ nest above.