Planning for peak oil - what it will mean

Cities including Toronto, Vancouver and Portland have shown that people do not take their cars to work when they know they will never have to wait more than 10 minutes for public transport.

A congestion charge could be applied for people taking their car into the city. The money raised could go to public transport development.

What are the implications of peak oil for urban planning? We need transport-oriented development, where we allow a heavier density of housing close to railway stations and so on.

Greater investment in freight rail infrastructure should be happening now because it is far more fuel efficient. Air travel is highly fuel intensive, and it is likely that in the future this mode of travel will be used only for business purposes rather than tourism.

We are told by the South Australian government that we are on the brink of a mining boom. I do not have figures for South Australia, but the Queensland task force report does.

The Queensland report states that the mining industry is the second largest consumer of petroleum products in that state, with oil-based products making up 50 per cent of its energy use. The more remote the mine, the more it is likely to consume, particularly diesel for power generation. The amount of processing that occurs on site also determines the degree of oil dependence and, therefore, vulnerability.

The exploration stage of mining is also highly oil dependent. Once up and running, the mines use oil products for the extraction and trucking of ore, and flights into and out of the mines. The Queensland report gives some interesting examples of the dependence on oil. For example, New Hope Coal Australia uses 16,063,000 litres of oil to produce 2,068,000 tonnes of coal, that is 7.6 litres of diesel to produce one tonne of coal. And we need 100 litres of oil for one ounce of gold.

Ninety per cent of the energy used in agriculture is oil-based. In Australia we have low fertility soils. Without the pesticides and fertilisers they have become reliant on, will farmers have enough produce left to export? If not, what impact will that have on our state's economy?

As a consequence of climate change and reductions in water we can expect dairy products to increase in cost, so we are already bearing a cost in terms of our food. Fishing will be quite strongly impacted by peak oil, given that 30 per cent of costs are fuel-related, and this has been increasing as distances to reach fishing grounds have increased.

Australia has already reached its oil peak and our reserves are on the decline, with less than 70 per cent of our oil coming from local fields. This means that we are now seriously dependent on imported oil, often politically unstable countries. Australia is supposed to maintain an equivalent of 90 days' oil supply, according to the Agreement on International Energy. In practice, Australia is lucky to have 50 days' supply at any one time.

At a state level the situation is far more drastic since the closure of the Port Stanvac refinery. South Australia holds between 10 and 17 days of petrol, and there were two days in December last year when the supply of diesel was one day short of nothing - a potential disaster for freight transport and Adelaide's train services.

Without a refinery the South Australian government might have to start prioritising the use of diesel. For instance, most remote communities are dependent upon diesel for their electricity generation. Perhaps the state government can assist these communities with the installation of solar and wind alternatives.