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Oil is the excrement of the devil - el excremento del diablo.
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Oil is black blood.
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Oil is the blood of the dinosaurs.
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This is the bloodstream of the world economy.
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Oil is the blood of the Earth.
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We are moving from an era of cheap, abundant energy
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to an era of scarce, hard to get, expensive energy.
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At the same time, we are making ourselves dependent
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on some extremely unstable regimes in some very nasty parts
of the world.
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Keeping the World dependent on oil as long as possible
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is important.
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Not one in fifty, not one in a hundred of the people in our
country
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have any inkling of the potential problem that we're facing.
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Increased unemployment, poverty, bankruptcy, starvation,
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they're all of a kind of the things that happen when a society
collapses.
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So we enter an entirely new world of quite unbelievable dimensions,
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and yet it's only a few years away.
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Hello, folks, I'm a carbon atom.
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And since I'm an essential part in each of the hydrocarbons
in crude oil,
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I'm here to give you the inside dope on gasoline.
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Oil is not like wheat, we are not growing it every year.
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Oil is an outcome of many millions of years of geological
history.
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The great bulk of the World's oil was formed at just two very
brief moments
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of extreme global warming, 90 and 150 million years ago.
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Animals and plants that died in the ocean were compressed
by
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more deposits of sand, and over the years
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these deposits squished and compacted more and more,
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and then, over time, they were cooked, which was what we call
"the kitchen".
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And when the organic material was
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buried to a depth of about 2000 meters,
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chemical reactions converted it into oil.
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This was formed once, briefly, over geological time.
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And so, we are using this stuff up over one or two centuries.
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One barrel of oil, the refined product that with 42 gallons
of gasoline
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you can buy for a little over a hundred dollars
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will produce as much energy, as much work
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as you would get from 12 people working all year for you.
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You take an average man, performing physical labor for 25000
hours,
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to produce the amount of energy just contained in that one
barrel of oil.
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That barrel of oil, if it's pulled out of the ground in Iraq,
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can be pulled out of the ground for one dollar.
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You invest a dollar and you get back 25000 hours of human
labor.
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That is an energy source that is so dense, it's essentially
free energy.
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All non-renewable, it's all extremely capital intensive
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and it's probably the most invaluable raw natural resource
we've ever discovered.
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You are about to know the thrill of seeing that which has
never been seen before.
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You are about to enter a beautiful, exciting, wonderful new
world.
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The world if 1960.
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For the first time in history, you'll see:
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A wonderful new world of Fords.
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The 1960 Thunderbird!
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Oil is our God. And ok, if somebody says they worship Jesus,
Buddha, Allah,
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whoever, they actually worhip petroleum.
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70% of the barrel of oil is refined into transportation fuels.
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Which include motor gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel,
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railroad fuel and maritime fuel.
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98% of all transportation energy comes from oil.
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Construction of an average car
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consumes somewhere between the energy equivalent of
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27 and 54 barrels of oil, depending on whose statistics you
use.
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Construction of an average desktop computer
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consumes 10 times its weight in fossil fuels.
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Microchip consumes 630 times its weight in fossil fuels during
its construction.
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For every calorie that you eat in the United States and
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probably similar number in other industrialized nations,
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burns 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy.
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There are 6.4 billion people, I think, living on the planet
now,
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most of them are reasonably well fed and that's the consequence
of
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what was called the Green Revolution in the second half of
the 20th century.
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Green Revolution consisted in very large measure
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of fertilizing land with petrochemicals,
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fertilizers that are derived from petroleum.
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Farming has changed more in the last 50 years than it did
in the previous 1000.
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A farmer today can work 5 times the land his father worked,
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and still have time for leisure that his father never knew.
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The petroleum that runs these modern hired hands
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has not confined progress and farming to the fields,
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Life is easier for the farm wife, too.
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What it comes down to is that the oil industry has to please
Mrs. Martin,
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and millions just like her.
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Already today she has used some 87 petroleum products,
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including the plastic bacon wrapper and the wax of the milk
cotton.
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She'll top a 100 before the day is over.
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Liquids that come out of oil as it's processed and refined,
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create the building block for all of our
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petrochemical, chemical, plastic, pharmaceutical,
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you know, zillions of things.
- Tires,
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insecticides, cosmetics, weed killers,
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A whole galaxy of things to make a better life on Earth.
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And you know, it isn't just oil companies
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that try to outdo each other competing for the customer's
dollar,
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the same story is true of almost every successful
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business enterprise on the whole planet.
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Well, whether you know it or not,
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every single preparation on this beautiful lady's dressing
table,
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every single thing she is wearing, is influenced by oil.
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Just before her, let's take away all these articles dependent
upon petroleum:
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her hand mirror, cosmetics, perfume
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and manicure set made of plastics.
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Her synthetic silk negligee, her silk under...
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ooh, science can go no further.
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The Caspian Sea was one of the earlies oil provinces in the
world.
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People were simply digging holes to produce oil in Baku
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and oil production really took off when western oil companies
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were granted concessions in the late 1800's.
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By 1900, 95% of Russian oil was coming from Baku.
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In their heyday these oilfields produced up to
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5000 tons of crude oil per day.
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Baku then became a huge industrial centre
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and one of the most affluent cities in the world.
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Where is daddy, mommy?
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Well, Jeff, I'll just show you.
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We are here, in the United States.
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And daddy is down here, in Venezuela.
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Here, where the lake Maracaibo oil fields are.
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That's where daddy is working, Jeff.
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And when he finds a place for us to live,
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we're going down there too.
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Venezuela discovered oil at the beginning of the 20th century.
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The real first discovery was about 1914.
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The real turning point was on the 16th of December, 1922
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when there was a blowout in a well that was being drilled
at Cabimas,
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and it became known as the day of the black rain.
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150 thousand barrels in the air, for two or three days running.
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And that put Venezuela an the world oil map, once and for
all.
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In that one time, Venezuela became the largest exporter in
the world.
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It was the US, not Saudi Arabia that was the world's leading
producer of oil,
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and in fact much of our military and industrial might
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arose out of our giant oil industry.
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We were, essentialy, the Saudi Arabia of the world up until
about the 1950s.
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McCamey was a boom town for many, many years.
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Their attitude was that this was going to last from now on,
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and I know that those people then could not foresee
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you were ever going to pump all the oil out of the ground
in this part of Texas.
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And they couldn't picture ever running out of oil
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because it was everywhere and got on everything.
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Off course now we realize that you're going to deplete your
supply,
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sooner or later.
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They're not making a lot of dinosaurs anymore.
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Oil is a magnet for war.
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Oil starts wars.
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The Sudan, for example, Darfur.
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What everybody is treating as an ethnic and a religious struggle
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is infact, in part, a struggle about major oil finds located
in the south.
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Which means that the government in the north, a different
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ethnic and religious makeup, is displacing those people
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and moving them out of the area so that those oil revenues
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belong to them.
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Oil has always been associated with war.
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Our very first wars, World War I, World War II,
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have very important elements of oil in them,
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as a reason for the war, as allowing the war to go on,
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as a way of securing supply.
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During World War II, which was the war of engines, the continuous
supply
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of oil from Baku ensured the Russian victory against the Germans.
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During the 70s there were the political problems, the war
between
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the Egyptians and the Israelis in which the oil boycott took
place.
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Khomeini's revolution, we have the Palestinian problems,
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wars between Iraq and Iran...
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First war that was absolutely about oil was Saddam Hussein's
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invasion of Kuwait which was really about seizing an oil field.
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Excellency, ladies and gentlemen,
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Iraq oil is a giant that has been kept dormant for so many,
many years
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This oil has been the least explored,
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the least developed, and the least produced.
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There are lots of people who will tell you that
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oil had nothing to do with the war, if you go to Washington.
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And we used to call it the O-word that nobody would say.
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But in fact, all evidence points to the fact that the United
States
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which did not secure areas of weapons of mass destruction,
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but did in fact secure the oil fields. The United States had
plans
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to bring in US companies in Iraq where they
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have previously not been allowed to operate.
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That there were maps of the oil fields involved in the planning
of the war,
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that in 1998, long before the war people were arguing for
this
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as the way of securing energy supplies in the United States.
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I can't get inside their heads to know all of the rationale
for going to war in Iraq
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but there are many people who believe at least a part of the
reasons
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for being there is the geopolitical position of Iraq and the
fact
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that it's right in the middle of world's oil patch.
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The Iraqis wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
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And they were happy that the Americans helped, but look at
what happened.
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After Saddam Hussein, there is no institutions,
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there's no state, there's no army, there's no real police
force,
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people are kidnapped, killed, decapitated...
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There is no law, they made the country stateless, without
a state.
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Instead of creating conditions for peace,
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they are making conditions for conflict.
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More and more oil is going to come from less and less stable
places.
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Less and less secure places, places that actually challenge
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taking of oil in the first place.
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Oil fuels war, it's a catalyst for war,
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it is something that prolonges war, it intensifies war,
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this is not a pretty picture.
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I suppose that the classification of reserves
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depends on the motivations of the person that's classified
them.
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Try to keep people guessing in a way, keep them off balance.
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Most numbers that you will see around the world that lead
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to these numbers that we were talking about include
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proven plus probable, and sometimes even possible.
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00:24:05,758 --> 00:24:10,832
In fact, the public data is extremely misleading and misunderstood,
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00:24:12,262 --> 00:24:17,914
OPEC exaggerated how much oil it's got left, for all sorts
of political reasons.
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You know, this is an old story,
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casting doubt on the numbers of reserves in the Middle East,
as published.
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In 1985 Kuwait over night added 50% to its reserves,
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at that time the OPEC quota, that is the amount of oil that
each
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of the OPEC countries could produce was based
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00:24:46,147 --> 00:24:48,151
on the reported reserves.
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00:24:48,192 --> 00:24:51,231
So the more you reported, the more you could produce.
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Two years later Venezuela doubled its reserves over night,
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and that caused the other countries, finally Saudi Arabia
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00:25:00,953 --> 00:25:03,758
to announce enormous increases over night,
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simply to protect their production quota.
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And these numbers have not changed since.
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And it's absolutely implausible to imagine that the
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number should stay the same, when they're all the time producing.
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I've asked them that same question.
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You know, you produce 8 or 9 million barrels of oil a day,
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and at the end of the year the reserves are the same as they
were
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00:25:31,273 --> 00:25:34,174
at the beginning, as the same as they were 10 years ago,
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they said "Well that's our plan."
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You know, "We produce this oil, then we prove up reserves
to offset
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the oil that we produced during the year, so at
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the beginning of the next year, our reserves are exactly what
they were
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00:25:49,867 --> 00:25:52,119
the year before."
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Would you believe that or not? I don't know, but that's what
they say.
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Their plan, that's the way it works.
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OPEC countries do not care about what might happen 20 years
from now,
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or 30 years or 40 years, they care about what they get now
today.
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Because, these are politicians, they want more money,
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more money to spend.
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Rationally or irationally, whatever it is, but they have budgets.
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And they became prisoners of their budget.
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What may happen 20 years from now,
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by that time they are dead. They don't care.
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I'm afraid that we're gonna run out of oil and gas
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a lot sooner than lots of people think.
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Well it appears to me that when it peaks,
239
00:27:22,625 --> 00:27:25,732
that they've taken more than half of it out of the ground.
240
00:27:26,145 --> 00:27:28,565
Of course, as time goes on they might find a way
241
00:27:28,565 --> 00:27:31,397
to extract more of that oil than they do now.
242
00:27:31,497 --> 00:27:34,973
They can extract it over a period of time, but it's not necessarily
243
00:27:34,959 --> 00:27:40,060
economically feasible, well it might be at $50 a barrel or
more.
244
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,732
But we're gonna come to time when we don't have oil.
245
00:27:43,732 --> 00:27:47,073
This is one of the, you know,
246
00:27:47,293 --> 00:27:51,515
the obsession of many oil people and,
247
00:27:51,615 --> 00:27:56,203
they say "Well, we will reach a point in which oil production
will not increase anymore
248
00:27:56,217 --> 00:27:58,472
and we'll be equally peaking out."
249
00:27:58,513 --> 00:28:04,413
And then it will decrease slowly. We are here, we are near,
we are not, nobody knows.
250
00:28:04,866 --> 00:28:10,504
They tried to take the example of the oil production in the
United States.
251
00:28:13,089 --> 00:28:16,857
The real saga of petroleum continues at a greater pace than
ever.
252
00:28:16,994 --> 00:28:22,013
Down in Peru, in California, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania.
253
00:28:22,096 --> 00:28:26,125
Millions of workers, engineers, geologists find new reserves,
254
00:28:26,138 --> 00:28:29,205
build new rigs, sink new shafts.
255
00:28:29,305 --> 00:28:33,825
US have been the largest oil producer on Earth for almost
a hundred years.
256
00:28:34,072 --> 00:28:36,754
And nobody thought we'd ever peak.
257
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,398
The pump does not know when midnight comes.
258
00:28:40,989 --> 00:28:43,203
Days are the same to it.
259
00:28:43,547 --> 00:28:46,778
Each day, every day
260
00:28:46,878 --> 00:28:50,669
it brings us another 24 hours of progress.
261
00:28:51,261 --> 00:28:56,087
Building our nation, guarding its security,
262
00:28:56,582 --> 00:29:00,130
assuring the future of America.
263
00:29:01,202 --> 00:29:05,616
And many, if not all, oil geologists thought that that was
going forever.
264
00:29:05,974 --> 00:29:08,476
Throughout this half century, Dr. Hubbert
265
00:29:08,490 --> 00:29:11,144
has been a continuous student of energy resources
266
00:29:11,158 --> 00:29:13,591
and their implications in human affairs.
267
00:29:13,798 --> 00:29:17,098
As long as 20 years ago, Dr. Hubbert was
268
00:29:17,112 --> 00:29:19,655
pointing out to his colleagues in the petroleum industry
269
00:29:19,697 --> 00:29:22,406
that the United States would probably reach its peak
270
00:29:22,419 --> 00:29:25,871
of petroleum production within 10 to 15 years.
271
00:29:25,926 --> 00:29:29,597
He was virtually laughed out of his profession for making
such a ridiculous prediction.
272
00:29:29,611 --> 00:29:32,856
The optimists back then were saying "This is crazy,
273
00:29:32,870 --> 00:29:36,816
we're finding 6 barrels of oil for every barrel that we consume."
274
00:29:36,830 --> 00:29:39,676
"We're never gonna run out or peak, or anything like
that."
275
00:29:39,676 --> 00:29:43,815
He realized that oil discovery had peaked in the 1930s and
was declining.
276
00:29:43,870 --> 00:29:47,376
And he could extrapolate that to figure out how much oil there
would be altogether.
277
00:29:47,418 --> 00:29:50,965
The amount that you discover initially starts out rising very
rapidly
278
00:29:51,062 --> 00:29:55,352
but after a while it slows down because there's less of it
to discover.
279
00:29:55,452 --> 00:30:00,825
And eventually it will turn over and come back down again
like that.
280
00:30:01,251 --> 00:30:04,620
Now the rate of production of oil, extraction and use of oil
281
00:30:04,675 --> 00:30:07,768
will be a second bell-shaped curve and it comes necessarily
later
282
00:30:07,796 --> 00:30:10,766
that this, because you have to discover it before you can
produce it.
283
00:30:10,807 --> 00:30:14,300
So it will be a second curve like this, for production.
284
00:30:18,398 --> 00:30:21,739
And it too will eventually go to zero, and this peak here,
285
00:30:21,808 --> 00:30:26,662
the peak in the production curve, is what's referred to as
Hubbert's peak.
286
00:30:28,972 --> 00:30:32,547
If we have only produced about 50 billion barrels in 100 years,
287
00:30:32,647 --> 00:30:36,851
and if we have 100 billion barrels still to go...
288
00:30:36,951 --> 00:30:40,426
I wonder how long will it be before there's an oil shortage?
289
00:30:40,481 --> 00:30:46,325
The US will hit the peak of oil production in about 10 or
15 years from that date.
290
00:30:46,425 --> 00:30:50,533
When 1970 came along, sure enough, it happened just as he
said it would.
291
00:30:55,497 --> 00:30:58,687
It turns out that in December 1970
292
00:30:58,687 --> 00:31:03,101
the US peaked at 10.2 million barrels a day,
293
00:31:03,128 --> 00:31:06,140
and then oil prices went through the roof,
294
00:31:06,181 --> 00:31:10,003
we went on a drilling boom of epic proportion.
295
00:31:14,844 --> 00:31:18,543
10 years later we were drilling and completing 4.5 times
296
00:31:18,570 --> 00:31:22,228
more oil wells than we were doing back when we peaked,
297
00:31:22,255 --> 00:31:25,569
and our domestic oil production from the lower 48 and
298
00:31:25,583 --> 00:31:29,323
the shallow waters of the intercontinetal shelf had already
declined
299
00:31:29,337 --> 00:31:33,421
from 10.2 million barrels a day to 6.9 million barrels a day.
300
00:31:36,391 --> 00:31:39,993
It doesn't sound terribly illogical for the living on
301
00:31:40,007 --> 00:31:42,950
more oil consumed every year than we found for 30 years.
302
00:31:42,963 --> 00:31:46,456
I guess it's inevitable sooner or later we were gonna reach
that.
303
00:31:50,196 --> 00:31:55,944
The last great frontiers of new oil discoveries
304
00:31:55,999 --> 00:31:59,464
turned out to be Alaska North Slope oil,
305
00:31:59,564 --> 00:32:03,466
Siberian oil and the North Sea.
306
00:32:04,332 --> 00:32:11,482
And those discoveries happened in 1967, 68 and 69.
307
00:32:22,290 --> 00:32:24,889
Finding oil in the North Sea was a big surprise,
308
00:32:24,916 --> 00:32:27,900
noone could reasonably have expected that.
309
00:32:32,025 --> 00:32:34,665
Our famous Lady Thatcher came to power,
310
00:32:34,679 --> 00:32:38,694
she said we want initiative and enterprise and enthusiasm
311
00:32:38,722 --> 00:32:42,379
and competition and all these things. And, sure enough,
312
00:32:42,379 --> 00:32:46,216
everybody went to produce oil as fast as they knew how.
313
00:32:47,151 --> 00:32:51,235
But there's a strange irony relating to this subject,
314
00:32:51,290 --> 00:32:55,374
that the better you do the job of exploiting oil and gas
315
00:32:55,415 --> 00:32:57,945
the sooner it is gone.
316
00:33:07,846 --> 00:33:10,073
The British government now admits
317
00:33:10,128 --> 00:33:13,483
that it becomes a net importer next year, I think.
318
00:33:13,689 --> 00:33:17,622
And that it's gone in 2020. This is a huge change.
319
00:33:30,616 --> 00:33:33,298
So to imagine that there's any well missed
320
00:33:33,367 --> 00:33:36,777
as big as North Sea is just implausible.
321
00:33:43,102 --> 00:33:45,494
As we look around the world into other countries,
322
00:33:45,536 --> 00:33:50,486
we see this same pattern being repeated in one country after
another.
323
00:33:50,555 --> 00:33:54,776
Today there's about 58 countries that are physically producing
324
00:33:54,790 --> 00:33:57,568
less today than they have in the past.
325
00:34:13,504 --> 00:34:16,873
The world has now been sufficiently explored
326
00:34:16,901 --> 00:34:21,397
for the oil industry to know now all the promising areas.
327
00:34:21,438 --> 00:34:24,697
All the big promising areas have been identified.
328
00:34:25,220 --> 00:34:30,734
We're always a drill bat away, from some fabulous new territory,
329
00:34:30,775 --> 00:34:35,079
that's the great thing about exploration. But, realistically
330
00:34:35,106 --> 00:34:37,994
it's been a long, long period of time,
331
00:34:38,094 --> 00:34:42,944
since we've actually discovered a significant new basin.
332
00:34:43,178 --> 00:34:47,936
I am hopeful and optimistic about the way
333
00:34:47,949 --> 00:34:54,096
inovation, scientific technology and oil engineers
334
00:34:54,123 --> 00:34:57,121
can continue findind more oil.
335
00:35:00,765 --> 00:35:03,254
I love hearing all these economists say, well,
336
00:35:03,281 --> 00:35:06,471
"Technology and ingenuity will bring out all these changes."
337
00:35:06,485 --> 00:35:09,992
And I say "Give me a break." I do know oil field
technology backwards
338
00:35:10,005 --> 00:35:12,274
and forwards and the blackboard is dry.
339
00:35:12,315 --> 00:35:16,757
And it took 30 to 35 years to develop all of these great tools.
340
00:35:16,857 --> 00:35:20,538
We already have fantastic technology to find oil,
341
00:35:20,552 --> 00:35:24,581
we have seismic surveys which are of unbeliveable resolution,
342
00:35:24,581 --> 00:35:27,936
you can see the smallest formations in the Earth's crust.
343
00:35:27,950 --> 00:35:31,497
We have very advanced engineering to produce oil.
344
00:35:35,815 --> 00:35:40,669
And all of these great tools that ended up being great enhanched
345
00:35:40,669 --> 00:35:44,574
production techniques, were basically super-straws
346
00:35:44,822 --> 00:35:49,593
just sucking the last easy oil out of the ground at faster
rates,
347
00:35:49,621 --> 00:35:54,145
and to no extent significantly increasing the amount of oil
348
00:35:54,158 --> 00:35:56,881
that was gonna be produced from a significant oil field.
349
00:35:56,936 --> 00:35:58,930
That was all myth.
350
00:36:09,573 --> 00:36:15,472
Some oil is cheap, easy, fast to produce, others is the exact
opposite.
351
00:36:17,630 --> 00:36:21,934
There's a big difference between producing oil from
352
00:36:22,044 --> 00:36:25,468
free flowing well in the Middle East that just comes roaring
out,
353
00:36:25,568 --> 00:36:28,095
and digging up a tar sand in Canada,
354
00:36:28,195 --> 00:36:30,872
which is more or less a mining operation.
355
00:36:34,021 --> 00:36:37,940
They are using more energy from natural gas
356
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:43,220
to produce the oil than they're getting from oil shales and
tar sands.
357
00:36:46,273 --> 00:36:49,999
So that even the fact that people are saying "Well, we're
gonna tap the oil sands."
358
00:36:50,068 --> 00:36:53,327
that right there tells you that we're close to peaking.
359
00:36:53,368 --> 00:36:58,497
Because you don't go to those areas, unless you've used up
all the good stuff.
360
00:37:10,845 --> 00:37:13,581
2/3 of the oil reserves are in the Middle East,
361
00:37:13,609 --> 00:37:16,455
which mean basically the Persian Gulf, and that's
362
00:37:16,483 --> 00:37:18,312
10 times as much as any other source.
363
00:37:24,994 --> 00:37:29,835
Right now, the only region of the world that hasn't peaked
is the Middle East.
364
00:37:58,656 --> 00:38:03,523
Most of the serious projections for 2030 envision the Middle
East
365
00:38:03,623 --> 00:38:06,906
producing 50-51 million barrels a day.
366
00:38:08,006 --> 00:38:12,874
We know that Iran peaked at 6 million barrels a day back in
1978,
367
00:38:12,915 --> 00:38:16,504
struggles to stay between 3 and 3.5 million barrels a day.
368
00:38:16,641 --> 00:38:21,578
Kuwait struggles to keep their 2.5 million barrels a day intact,
369
00:38:21,619 --> 00:38:24,067
they keep "Maybe we can add a half million barrels a
day,
370
00:38:24,094 --> 00:38:27,449
maybe the UAE can add half a million barrels a day."
So to get there
371
00:38:27,549 --> 00:38:32,688
you would have to have Saudi Arabia be producing between 20
and 25
372
00:38:32,702 --> 00:38:35,631
million, or even 30 million barrels a day.
373
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,579
Those days are long gone. You know, up to 15 million barrels
a day is now
374
00:38:43,592 --> 00:38:47,676
their sort of new magic number for 50, 75 or even a 100 years.
375
00:38:47,855 --> 00:38:51,471
There are other powerful voices within Saudi Arabia
376
00:38:51,485 --> 00:38:54,978
that are clearly sending the message out
377
00:38:55,005 --> 00:38:59,447
"12 million barrels a day? Yeah, that's probably ok,
but we really shouldn't
378
00:38:59,447 --> 00:39:02,499
even think about producing any more than that, ever."
379
00:39:05,854 --> 00:39:10,846
They had an intense exploration effort for the last 35 years
380
00:39:11,107 --> 00:39:15,617
and with the exception of one field, the Qatif Field, that's
the only
381
00:39:15,617 --> 00:39:22,176
significant exploration success they had from 1967 through
2005.
382
00:39:25,133 --> 00:39:30,605
If Saudi Arabia has now exceeded their sustainable peak supply,
383
00:39:30,922 --> 00:39:35,171
then I would argue with some clarity that the World
384
00:39:35,271 --> 00:39:39,090
has now exceeded sustainable peak supply.
385
00:39:55,054 --> 00:39:58,492
When you reach the peak, you're at the top of the mountain.
386
00:40:04,693 --> 00:40:06,934
Sometimes, down the other side is
387
00:40:06,962 --> 00:40:11,637
very, very gradual slide, and other times down the other side
is fairly stiff.
388
00:40:17,151 --> 00:40:22,129
What really matters, and matters enormously, is the view
389
00:40:22,225 --> 00:40:27,244
that comes into sight on the other side of this peak, when
we see this long
390
00:40:27,285 --> 00:40:31,919
relentless, remorseless decline heading off into the valley.
391
00:40:34,807 --> 00:40:39,138
Point is that the whole world has got used to this growing
side of the
392
00:40:39,166 --> 00:40:42,988
mountain range, has to face the opposite side.
393
00:40:47,100 --> 00:40:51,046
We have moved now to the point in which
394
00:40:51,087 --> 00:40:54,319
virtually everyone accepts that there is a peak.
395
00:40:54,332 --> 00:40:58,306
M. King Hubbert had predicted that worldwide it should be
occuring about the
396
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:03,243
turn of the century. That slipped a little because of the
Arab oil embargo and the
397
00:41:03,243 --> 00:41:06,020
oil price spike highs and the worldwide recession that
398
00:41:06,034 --> 00:41:08,977
reduced the demand for oil quite significantly.
399
00:41:08,977 --> 00:41:13,858
And it's now pushed peak oil off till, many people believe,
about now.
400
00:41:14,573 --> 00:41:18,162
We are coming to the end of the first half of the age of oil.
401
00:41:20,128 --> 00:41:24,267
During this 150 years, we have seen the growth
402
00:41:24,295 --> 00:41:30,730
of everything. Of industry, transport, trade, agriculture.
403
00:41:30,785 --> 00:41:34,237
We've seen an explosion of the number of people.
404
00:41:37,523 --> 00:41:43,683
All of this was made possible by the cheap, abundant supply
of oil based energy.
405
00:41:57,337 --> 00:42:01,669
Demand is on the march, and supply is flattening out.
406
00:42:01,769 --> 00:42:05,326
You will have to supply, if you want to meet the demand,
407
00:42:05,326 --> 00:42:09,754
from the current level of 80 million barrels a day to a 120
408
00:42:09,809 --> 00:42:12,600
millions barrels a day in year 2030.
409
00:42:13,151 --> 00:42:15,543
But, in order to meet that profile,
410
00:42:15,612 --> 00:42:20,273
you would have to add new oil in the amount of 200 millions
barrels a day.
411
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:25,168
Because a lot of that new oil will have to go to compensate
for depletion
412
00:42:25,196 --> 00:42:27,410
of existing wells.
413
00:42:39,304 --> 00:42:44,818
In the early 70s over half the globe essentially didn't use
any oil.
414
00:42:56,643 --> 00:43:00,686
The only serious oil consumers were Europe,
415
00:43:00,879 --> 00:43:04,866
not an awful a lot of Japan, the United States,
416
00:43:04,894 --> 00:43:08,318
Canada, and the former Soviet Union.
417
00:43:09,665 --> 00:43:12,731
Africa didn't use any oil of any volume.
418
00:43:15,949 --> 00:43:21,037
Middle East didn't use any oil. None of Asia used any oil,
and neither did Japan.
419
00:43:22,357 --> 00:43:25,588
Today, Papua New Guinea hardly uses any oil.
420
00:43:25,808 --> 00:43:29,507
There's probably a two or three islands in the South Pacific
that don't use any oil.
421
00:43:29,741 --> 00:43:35,640
Everybody else is hooked on trying to create a society that
looks like us.
422
00:43:43,904 --> 00:43:49,198
The demand for energy is rising faster than was predicted
even 5 years ago.
423
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:53,667
People all around the world can see the way the developed
countries live,
424
00:43:53,708 --> 00:43:57,118
and how good life the people have in those areas.
425
00:43:57,132 --> 00:43:59,965
So they want to emulate us, they want to be able to drive
cars,
426
00:43:59,992 --> 00:44:02,605
they wanna live in nice houses. They wanna have air conditioning
427
00:44:02,632 --> 00:44:05,795
and refrigeration. And why shouldn't they?
428
00:44:18,005 --> 00:44:23,891
Demand for energy will only increase as India's standard of
living rises,
429
00:44:23,991 --> 00:44:28,277
its economy becomes even more diverse and dynamic,
430
00:44:28,456 --> 00:44:33,709
and it continues to narrow the gap with more developed nations.
431
00:44:48,930 --> 00:44:52,657
China is not about to have a hard landing, they're exponentially
432
00:44:52,684 --> 00:44:55,434
expanding their need for energy.
433
00:44:55,778 --> 00:44:58,074
And they're just getting started.
434
00:45:04,166 --> 00:45:07,727
Most urban Chinese believe that they will own a car within
5 years,
435
00:45:07,741 --> 00:45:10,697
it is the fastest growing automobile market on Earth.
436
00:45:11,234 --> 00:45:14,616
Something like a third of them already have driver's licences.
437
00:45:14,781 --> 00:45:19,003
And so, the demand for oil and for gasoline in China
438
00:45:19,103 --> 00:45:21,409
is really going to take off.
439
00:45:26,620 --> 00:45:31,103
Last year China increased their importation of oil by 25%,
440
00:45:31,117 --> 00:45:33,427
they're now the number 2 importer in the world.
441
00:45:33,510 --> 00:45:38,776
They increased their use of oil, I read a figure of 14.7%.
442
00:45:38,876 --> 00:45:43,438
But that's very consistent with an economy that's growing
at 10% a year and
443
00:45:43,479 --> 00:45:46,573
by the way, at 10% growth rate it doubles in 7 years,
444
00:45:46,641 --> 00:45:50,656
4 times bigger in 14 years and they're requiring more and
more energy.
445
00:45:51,867 --> 00:45:55,112
China and India are kind of getting to the party when the
446
00:45:55,112 --> 00:45:58,164
glass is literally half empty, at this point.
447
00:45:58,302 --> 00:46:02,908
So, they're gonna have to fight with the rest of us to get
what's left.
448
00:46:14,486 --> 00:46:18,543
Well, the Hummer, I believe is more of a status symbol.
449
00:46:18,643 --> 00:46:23,067
Where, you know, "Look at me, look at me."
450
00:46:23,135 --> 00:46:26,628
"I can afford the Hummer, I'm driving the best."
451
00:46:28,635 --> 00:46:32,582
You're going to get somewhere around 10 miles per gallon,
constant on the road.
452
00:46:32,609 --> 00:46:35,909
That's either highway or city driving.
453
00:46:37,037 --> 00:46:42,977
6.0 liter, 325 horse power at 380 foot-pounds of torque.
454
00:46:58,460 --> 00:47:01,609
Well, we are a role model whether we like it or not,
455
00:47:01,637 --> 00:47:05,473
we use 25% of the world's oil.
456
00:47:05,573 --> 00:47:11,881
We're only 1 person in 22, we have only 2% of the known reserves
of oil.
457
00:47:17,945 --> 00:47:20,145
We are prohibitive users of energy.
458
00:47:20,172 --> 00:47:23,899
But we'll go on doing that so long as we are rich and the
energy is cheap.
459
00:47:29,839 --> 00:47:33,854
We pay more for bottle of drinking water than we go for gasoline.
460
00:47:34,157 --> 00:47:36,948
Gasoline is just about the cheapest liquid you can buy in
the United States,
461
00:47:36,948 --> 00:47:40,977
and as long as that's true, Americans are not going to be
concerned.
462
00:47:43,988 --> 00:47:47,838
Service that is tops, and gas that's extra fine
463
00:47:47,866 --> 00:47:50,822
there's a smile for every mile at the Esso sun.
464
00:47:50,864 --> 00:47:58,358
E - s - s - o - makes - your - car - gooo. Happy motoring!
465
00:48:00,406 --> 00:48:05,013
In America we right now think... People are having their eyes
gouged out
466
00:48:05,027 --> 00:48:11,132
paying $3.20 for a gallon of gasoline. That's 20 cents a cup.
467
00:48:11,232 --> 00:48:16,577
And 20 cents a cup sound pretty trivial but if you have a
passenger car,
468
00:48:16,677 --> 00:48:21,514
average american passenger car, you can get 1 to 6 people
in it
469
00:48:21,555 --> 00:48:24,745
throw a bunch of stuff in the trunk,
470
00:48:24,845 --> 00:48:28,471
go a mile and a half in 20 minutes, for 20 cents.
471
00:48:28,571 --> 00:48:30,878
Now if you don't have gasoline,
472
00:48:30,878 --> 00:48:33,655
and you try to bargain with a guy with a horse driven car
473
00:48:33,683 --> 00:48:37,519
or someone coming by with a bicycle or maybe you're lucky
enough to have a rikshaw.
474
00:48:37,619 --> 00:48:42,937
"Excuse me, would any of you like to take me and my friends
a mile and a half
475
00:48:42,951 --> 00:48:46,182
for 20 cents?" Those people would laugh at you.
476
00:48:46,282 --> 00:48:53,511
So, I would think that we would need to get oil prices up
to
477
00:48:53,611 --> 00:48:59,506
you know, $5 a cup, some number that starts to equate with
478
00:48:59,506 --> 00:49:03,508
what we actually spend readily on a lot of things that are
nearly as
479
00:49:03,590 --> 00:49:07,193
valuable and also are non-renewable.
480
00:49:12,858 --> 00:49:17,134
People in third world countries cannot understand why, for
instance
481
00:49:17,176 --> 00:49:24,051
the Europeans try their best in conservation measures and
taxation measures
482
00:49:24,092 --> 00:49:26,581
and the Americans are not doing it.
483
00:49:42,394 --> 00:49:45,708
Not one in fifty, not one in a hundred of the people in our
country
484
00:49:45,722 --> 00:49:50,040
have any inkling of the potential problem that we're facing.
485
00:49:51,043 --> 00:49:55,897
If we wait until peak oil to start making the transition,
there will be
486
00:49:55,911 --> 00:50:01,205
very serious economic consequences. If we anticipated by 10
years
487
00:50:01,260 --> 00:50:03,969
there would be meaningful economic consequences.
488
00:50:03,983 --> 00:50:08,424
To have no economic consequences, you need to anticipate it
by 20 years.
489
00:50:08,699 --> 00:50:11,573
I'm almost dead certain we don't have 20 years,
490
00:50:11,587 --> 00:50:14,364
I don't think we have 10 years, I think we're pretty much
there.
491
00:50:15,107 --> 00:50:17,857
Thank you all for coming, please be seated.
492
00:50:18,627 --> 00:50:21,721
Lay the facts out for everybody to see.
493
00:50:22,271 --> 00:50:26,616
I don't think that people in positions to tell the public
494
00:50:26,616 --> 00:50:28,692
about it from an official standpoint
495
00:50:28,706 --> 00:50:31,456
have been totally honest with us about the problem.
496
00:50:31,484 --> 00:50:35,306
The person who will win an election is somebody who can most
persuasively
497
00:50:35,361 --> 00:50:39,871
lie to the population, which is tell them what they wanna
hear.
498
00:50:39,913 --> 00:50:43,185
Which is that the future's gonna be great, just follow me.
499
00:50:43,914 --> 00:50:47,118
If our energy resources are properly developed,
500
00:50:47,214 --> 00:50:51,835
they can fulfill our energy requirement for centuries to come.
501
00:50:52,192 --> 00:50:57,637
What is needed now is decisive and responsible action to increase
502
00:50:57,665 --> 00:51:02,519
our energy supplies. Action which takes into account the needs
of our economy,
503
00:51:02,574 --> 00:51:05,846
of our environment, and of our national security.
504
00:51:05,946 --> 00:51:10,191
In Ancient Greece, the person who brought bad news was executed,
505
00:51:10,219 --> 00:51:14,715
and politicians who bring bad news frequently are not reelected.
506
00:51:17,617 --> 00:51:21,879
Our political system is just controlled by major corporations.
507
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:26,596
The steps we need to take to reasonably address this, in some
type of rational way
508
00:51:26,623 --> 00:51:28,741
require downscaling.
509
00:51:28,782 --> 00:51:31,890
So if you are the CEO of a big company are you gonna contribute
money
510
00:51:31,917 --> 00:51:35,052
to the politician who says "Hey, I wanna slow down the
economy."
511
00:51:35,121 --> 00:51:37,500
"I wanna sell fewer cars."
512
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,718
Obviously, more people will drive less, and that will cause
people to...
513
00:51:40,690 --> 00:51:43,990
The cars won't need to be maintained as much.
514
00:51:44,090 --> 00:51:47,125
That will shrink the automotive manufacturing sector, which
will
515
00:51:47,153 --> 00:51:49,463
shrink the entire economy. Nobody's gonna vote for that.
516
00:51:49,490 --> 00:51:51,787
I don't even know if I'd vote for that.
517
00:51:52,612 --> 00:51:56,902
More than any other country in the world, America is a nation
on wheels.
518
00:52:03,007 --> 00:52:05,606
The automobile and the power behind it
519
00:52:05,634 --> 00:52:08,617
have been major factors in the growth of our country.
520
00:52:08,717 --> 00:52:12,509
We can drive anywhere we want to, at any time, for any reason,
521
00:52:12,550 --> 00:52:14,599
including fun.
522
00:52:15,039 --> 00:52:19,576
We're in some ways a victim of our own success.
523
00:52:23,874 --> 00:52:28,231
Suburbia is in a lot of trouble because the whole model of
suburbia is
524
00:52:28,231 --> 00:52:33,410
you commute 30, 40, 50 miles to your job and back.
525
00:52:35,809 --> 00:52:41,345
And that's only viable so long as you've got relatively cheap
oil and gas.
526
00:52:55,701 --> 00:52:59,300
It's not just that the country is spread out, we've evolved
our cities
527
00:52:59,321 --> 00:53:01,889
for the use of cars. The cities will have to be rebuilt from
scratch
528
00:53:01,910 --> 00:53:05,279
practically to have more efficient and usable public transportation.
529
00:53:05,342 --> 00:53:08,310
This is quite different from the cities in Europe which were
already
530
00:53:08,331 --> 00:53:11,320
basically in place before the car was invented.
531
00:53:18,079 --> 00:53:21,368
So, yes, it's going to be a terrible blow to the United States
when we
532
00:53:21,385 --> 00:53:24,218
no longer have the oil that we love so much.
533
00:53:32,668 --> 00:53:37,356
What we avoided so long and the three things that we need
are now in very short supply.
534
00:53:37,390 --> 00:53:40,611
One of them is money and in our country we don't worry about
money, we just
535
00:53:40,662 --> 00:53:44,018
borrow it from our kids and our grandkids and accumulating
a debt.
536
00:53:44,069 --> 00:53:46,818
But the other two things we can't borrow from our kids and
our
537
00:53:46,835 --> 00:53:50,545
grandkids, and that's time and energy.
538
00:54:06,112 --> 00:54:10,244
In order to make energy available to invest and buy time
539
00:54:10,261 --> 00:54:14,629
we have to have a very vigorous conservation program.
540
00:54:14,849 --> 00:54:20,347
Since the US uses the fourth of all the world's oil, we clearly
need to lead there.
541
00:54:23,248 --> 00:54:26,166
I believe that our American people have a great spirit of
542
00:54:26,199 --> 00:54:29,083
entrepeneurship and patriotism, if they really knew what the
543
00:54:29,117 --> 00:54:32,507
problem was, that they would be very responsive in doing what
I think
544
00:54:32,541 --> 00:54:35,644
are the necessary things to get ourselves to the other side
545
00:54:35,678 --> 00:54:38,157
with as few bumps as possible.
546
00:54:40,873 --> 00:54:44,516
If you tell the Americans "There's a brand new hydrogen
powered car
547
00:54:44,549 --> 00:54:47,383
that you can go and buy instead of your car." They'll
say "OK, great."
548
00:54:47,417 --> 00:54:50,823
And they'll go buy it. But if you tell them they're gonna
have to use a bicycle,
549
00:54:50,923 --> 00:54:53,859
that's the type of adaptation that they have to make.
550
00:54:53,876 --> 00:54:56,102
People aren't willing to do it.
551
00:55:01,550 --> 00:55:04,856
Sunday, July 20th, 1969.
552
00:55:04,956 --> 00:55:09,966
Around the world, nearly a billion people watch this moment
on television
553
00:55:10,017 --> 00:55:14,722
as the first man from Earth prepared to set foot upon the
Moon.
554
00:55:14,773 --> 00:55:17,539
If the president of the United States, as JFK said in the
1960
555
00:55:17,572 --> 00:55:20,001
"We will put a man on the Moon in this decade.",
and we did
556
00:55:20,035 --> 00:55:22,818
an enormous technical challenge to do that, but we did it.
557
00:55:22,851 --> 00:55:26,629
If a president of the United States said "I challenge
our scientists
558
00:55:26,646 --> 00:55:30,846
and engineers to teach us how to kick the fossil fuel habit
in a decade.",
559
00:55:30,863 --> 00:55:33,308
I think it could be done.
560
00:55:34,371 --> 00:55:37,811
Well the problem that we're facing is probably more like
561
00:55:37,811 --> 00:55:40,881
colonizing Pluto, than putting the man on the Moon.
562
00:55:40,981 --> 00:55:45,182
If JFK had said "We're gonna have a 100 thousand people
563
00:55:45,182 --> 00:55:48,926
living in three-bedroom houses on Pluto in ten years.",
564
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,911
well obviously we would not have been able to accomplish it.
565
00:56:01,879 --> 00:56:06,196
In the last 40 years, the Bush administration is the administration
that has
566
00:56:06,213 --> 00:56:09,755
the closest connections with oil companies themselves.
567
00:56:11,644 --> 00:56:15,928
And it is the the administration that has most greatly married
568
00:56:15,945 --> 00:56:19,318
energy security with national security and the US foreign
policy.
569
00:56:19,368 --> 00:56:22,505
When you have only 2% of the known reserves of oil and
570
00:56:22,556 --> 00:56:26,486
use 25% of the world's oil and import 2/3 of what you use,
571
00:56:26,503 --> 00:56:29,842
that has to affect your foreign policy.
572
00:56:34,312 --> 00:56:38,966
They believe that the way to secure oil supplies
573
00:56:39,066 --> 00:56:43,689
that would in fact get the support of the American people
and
574
00:56:43,723 --> 00:56:49,491
create a more stable world is to democratize the Middle East.
575
00:56:49,794 --> 00:56:54,719
They believe that this issue of promoting democracy to the
Middle East
576
00:56:54,753 --> 00:56:58,497
is a way of actually securing oil supplies.
577
00:57:00,942 --> 00:57:07,436
East and West are united in pioneering a new frontier of progress.
578
00:57:07,824 --> 00:57:13,946
Serving the interest of the Saudi Arabs, serving the interest
of the United States,
579
00:57:14,671 --> 00:57:20,709
and demonstrating the vitality of the American system of free
enterprise.
580
00:57:21,215 --> 00:57:24,673
A system, which from this new frontier
581
00:57:24,690 --> 00:57:28,518
is pumping into the trade of the world oil,
582
00:57:28,618 --> 00:57:32,853
one of the materials that is making a truly great contribution
583
00:57:32,953 --> 00:57:37,828
to our modern civilisation.
584
00:57:43,832 --> 00:57:49,162
The basis of our foreign policy in the United States from
1945 to today
585
00:57:49,178 --> 00:57:55,638
was essentially an exchange of secure, cheap, reliable oil
586
00:57:55,638 --> 00:57:59,028
to the United States in return for protection
587
00:57:59,062 --> 00:58:02,064
for the governing rulers of Saudi Arabia.
588
00:58:02,164 --> 00:58:05,808
That exchange is in fact threatened.
589
00:58:21,847 --> 00:58:26,772
10, 15 years ago the per capita income in the country was
about $28000,
590
00:58:26,806 --> 00:58:30,854
today it's $6000. There has been a huge drop
591
00:58:30,921 --> 00:58:35,104
in the standard of living of the average Saudi.
592
00:58:49,018 --> 00:58:51,531
Saudi Arabia has got a very young population,
593
00:58:51,615 --> 00:58:55,798
a lot of people coming on to the labor market, not the jobs
for them
594
00:58:55,815 --> 00:59:00,588
and the sense they don't feel that they are the stakeholders
in the society,
595
00:59:00,638 --> 00:59:02,174
They feel alienated.
596
00:59:02,224 --> 00:59:05,901
There are lots of tensions between the oligarchy which rules
the country
597
00:59:05,934 --> 00:59:10,016
and the population which inhabits the country and many people
think
598
00:59:10,050 --> 00:59:12,984
within the fundamentalist movement that the
599
00:59:13,035 --> 00:59:17,319
regime, the goverment of Saudi Arabia is totally corrupt,
600
00:59:17,336 --> 00:59:21,856
that it is basically selling the oil to the West, and the
West
601
00:59:21,872 --> 00:59:25,903
is arming the regime, and the regime uses the guns against
its own population.
602
00:59:28,298 --> 00:59:32,312
The fundamentalist movement is strong and it's dangerous.
603
00:59:41,572 --> 00:59:44,962
No doubt that some of these people who are making
604
00:59:44,979 --> 00:59:49,988
problems in Iraq and committing terorrist chastises are actually
Saudis.
605
00:59:52,602 --> 00:59:56,616
This is a formula for real conflict, this is a formula
606
00:59:56,650 --> 00:59:59,719
for a country that is on the way
607
00:59:59,770 --> 01:00:03,531
to some very very dangerous outcomes.
608
01:00:03,767 --> 01:00:09,670
The stability of Saudi Arabia over the long run is in fact
questionable.
609
01:00:23,837 --> 01:00:28,678
If their kingdom was to fall apart, it's very unlikely that
610
01:00:28,711 --> 01:00:32,203
the United States, particularly, would simply stand by and
let it fall apart,
611
01:00:32,220 --> 01:00:35,137
given its significance as an oil exporting country.
612
01:00:40,754 --> 01:00:44,734
We would see certainly the US intervention, despite
613
01:00:44,768 --> 01:00:50,148
all the lessons and the problems that have been associated
with Iraq.
614
01:00:50,248 --> 01:00:55,292
One thing that many people, me included, fear is that when
this happens
615
01:00:55,309 --> 01:00:58,328
we will simply go and take by force of arms the oil that we
need.
616
01:00:58,378 --> 01:01:00,267
And that will make us into a very different country
617
01:01:00,301 --> 01:01:03,016
and the world into a very different world.
618
01:01:03,674 --> 01:01:07,756
We're looking at, essentially, a generation long,
619
01:01:07,823 --> 01:01:11,736
multigenerational resource wars.
620
01:01:15,041 --> 01:01:18,988
Ultimately, there really are only two options.
621
01:01:19,088 --> 01:01:25,937
One is to militarize the taking of oil, which means to
622
01:01:25,987 --> 01:01:29,968
get your population to understand that if they want to continue
623
01:01:29,985 --> 01:01:34,488
to drive SUV's and have the cars and consume energy in the
way they are,
624
01:01:34,588 --> 01:01:38,057
that they will be in war after war.
625
01:01:39,935 --> 01:01:44,995
The other position is to begin to prepare for what we all
see coming,
626
01:01:45,049 --> 01:01:47,702
which is an end to the era of cheap oil,
627
01:01:47,752 --> 01:01:53,760
and to invest in alternative technologies for energy
628
01:01:53,776 --> 01:01:58,281
that are cleaner, safer, and have less detrimental effects
629
01:01:58,315 --> 01:02:03,705
on the political and social makeup of oil exporting countries
themselves.
630
01:02:08,277 --> 01:02:13,250
For a century we didn't spend a nanosecond
631
01:02:13,350 --> 01:02:17,939
actually really taxing ourselves as to could we ever actually
come up
632
01:02:17,955 --> 01:02:21,927
with a replacement for oil and natural gas.
633
01:02:36,394 --> 01:02:42,251
Natural resources can become depleted
634
01:02:42,318 --> 01:02:48,308
but human creativity is inextiguishable
635
01:02:48,442 --> 01:02:54,649
I believe that once oil depletes, the genious of humankind
636
01:02:54,749 --> 01:02:59,505
will invent alternative sources of nutrition and fuel.
637
01:03:04,511 --> 01:03:09,751
The Stone Age ended not because we ran out of stones,
638
01:03:10,369 --> 01:03:15,758
we moved from the horse to the automobile not because we ran
out of hay.
639
01:03:19,913 --> 01:03:23,618
I don't dismiss the ingenuity of man.
640
01:03:25,403 --> 01:03:29,074
The step that we are embarking on today is the hybrid electric
641
01:03:29,124 --> 01:03:33,480
automobile, which has both an internal combustion engine
642
01:03:33,530 --> 01:03:35,949
and an electric motor.
643
01:03:37,735 --> 01:03:42,557
I drive a Prius car, it gets 45 miles per gallon, if gas were
$10 a gallon
644
01:03:42,574 --> 01:03:47,230
I could still fill a tank and go 500 miles on it, and that's
not too bad.
645
01:03:48,214 --> 01:03:51,635
Well, even if you waved the magic wand and hybridized
646
01:03:51,652 --> 01:03:54,705
every car on the road right now, we'd still be consuming
647
01:03:54,739 --> 01:03:58,560
the same amount of gasoline that we are now, in about 5 or
7 years.
648
01:03:58,593 --> 01:04:01,897
Because, again, with each passing year the economy grows,
and we
649
01:04:01,914 --> 01:04:04,867
have to consume more and more oil.
650
01:04:10,374 --> 01:04:14,012
We have very big challenges to face in this century.
651
01:04:14,045 --> 01:04:17,750
This is a planet that has 6 billion people on it now, perhaps
652
01:04:17,783 --> 01:04:20,286
9 billion people by the end of the century.
653
01:04:20,303 --> 01:04:24,541
The problem is enormous, 14 terawatts of energy we need
654
01:04:24,641 --> 01:04:28,045
by 2050, we need a new source of that much energy.
655
01:04:28,145 --> 01:04:33,218
That's the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil, per day.
656
01:04:42,546 --> 01:04:45,149
We've got 700 million internal combustion
657
01:04:45,183 --> 01:04:47,953
engines running around the roads of the world.
658
01:04:47,986 --> 01:04:51,006
Again, we're talking about the scale
659
01:04:51,056 --> 01:04:54,210
and we are thinking about what does it take
660
01:04:54,260 --> 01:04:58,816
to really replace fossil fuels for transportation.
661
01:04:59,116 --> 01:05:03,121
The big one, of course, which is hydrogen, that's the one
that's gonna
662
01:05:03,221 --> 01:05:07,159
do the trick and replace oil, eventually.
663
01:05:07,543 --> 01:05:14,401
Well, the hydrogen economy is conceptually a good idea.
664
01:05:14,501 --> 01:05:18,289
If you look in reality, it has major challenges.
665
01:05:18,323 --> 01:05:23,746
The problem also for industry is sort of a chicken and an
egg thing.
666
01:05:23,846 --> 01:05:28,702
Industry is reluctant to really invest heavily into
667
01:05:28,735 --> 01:05:32,123
fuel cell technology, because there's no hydrogen infrastructure
668
01:05:32,139 --> 01:05:35,327
to deliver and produce cheaply hydrogen. On the other hand
669
01:05:35,393 --> 01:05:39,481
this infrastructure is not in place because there's no demand
for hydrogen.
670
01:05:39,515 --> 01:05:42,969
So how do you get this started? And both again
671
01:05:43,019 --> 01:05:46,373
need substantial breakthroughs in technology,
672
01:05:46,423 --> 01:05:50,545
fuel cell technology, hydrogen production technology,
673
01:05:50,612 --> 01:05:54,116
transportation of hydrogen and storage of hydrogen,
674
01:05:54,183 --> 01:05:56,269
fundamentally unresolved issues.
675
01:05:56,369 --> 01:06:00,106
The economics right now are that we use the equivalent
676
01:06:00,140 --> 01:06:02,943
of 3 to 6 gallons of gasoline to make enough hydrogen to
677
01:06:02,977 --> 01:06:06,164
drive a car the same distance that 1 gallon of gasoline would
drive it.
678
01:06:06,247 --> 01:06:09,234
So, the hydrogen economy at this point makes no sense.
679
01:06:09,301 --> 01:06:13,456
If you talk about hydrogen, it may take at least 40 years.
680
01:06:13,556 --> 01:06:17,978
Easily 30 to 50 years. Easily.
681
01:06:35,215 --> 01:06:40,138
The principal drawback to biomass is that it's generally pretty
inefficient.
682
01:06:44,810 --> 01:06:48,097
A couple of pretty respected scientists in our country believe
that
683
01:06:48,131 --> 01:06:51,502
if you look at all of the energy inputs in the producing ethanol
684
01:06:51,535 --> 01:06:56,791
you put more fossil fuel into producing the ethanol than the
energy you get out.
685
01:06:57,108 --> 01:07:01,597
The quantities that could be made available from ethanol
686
01:07:01,630 --> 01:07:05,852
and biodiesel are very very small, and would replace
687
01:07:05,852 --> 01:07:09,757
only a small percentage of the fuels that we consume today.
688
01:07:10,308 --> 01:07:14,563
Even if you took the biodiesel production, scaled it up to
the maximum,
689
01:07:14,663 --> 01:07:18,034
and that scaled that up another ten times, you're still talking
about
690
01:07:18,067 --> 01:07:21,788
a drop in the bucket compared to what we get from oil.
691
01:07:26,577 --> 01:07:32,601
How much of our food acreage are we gonna convert to growing
fuel?
692
01:07:32,635 --> 01:07:37,624
How much world hunger can we stand if that's the fuel of choice?
693
01:07:50,005 --> 01:07:54,094
Nuclear energy will be expensive, and the experience that
694
01:07:54,111 --> 01:07:58,649
we have gathered over the last 20, 30, 40 years in terms of
safe storage of
695
01:07:58,683 --> 01:08:03,138
materials, especially in Europe where there's much more discussion
about
696
01:08:03,171 --> 01:08:06,042
how to treat the waste and what to do with that.
697
01:08:06,058 --> 01:08:09,145
This needs to be rethought.
698
01:08:09,479 --> 01:08:13,400
People are nervous about the risk of an explosion or a
699
01:08:13,434 --> 01:08:19,124
nuclear event of some sort and then there's a danger of terrorist
activity.
700
01:08:19,307 --> 01:08:22,295
If you wanted to build enough to replace all the fossil fuels
that we burn
701
01:08:22,345 --> 01:08:26,533
worldwide today, which is 10 terawatts, you would have to
build 10 thousand
702
01:08:26,583 --> 01:08:29,770
of the biggest possible nuclear plants. And if you did that
703
01:08:29,787 --> 01:08:34,359
and burn U-235 in them, the worldwide reserves of uranium
would
704
01:08:34,376 --> 01:08:37,646
be exhausted in somewhere between one and two decades.
705
01:08:37,713 --> 01:08:40,833
So, it would be a bridge, at best.
706
01:08:48,743 --> 01:08:52,781
Wind energy is becoming more popular and economically viable,
707
01:08:52,798 --> 01:08:56,235
but because of its intermittency and low power density, it
will never
708
01:08:56,252 --> 01:09:00,290
contribute more than a small fraction of our energy supply.
709
01:09:14,741 --> 01:09:21,215
When you talk about wind or solar energy ... these are very
small.
710
01:09:21,399 --> 01:09:26,889
Oh, yeah, I see it's started.
- Can we turn that on a little bit more?
711
01:09:27,390 --> 01:09:30,009
- There it goes.
- OK.
712
01:09:30,109 --> 01:09:34,515
So here, this is actually artificial light, but in sunshine
it does the same thing,
713
01:09:34,548 --> 01:09:39,721
and so this little machine is converting light directly into
electric power.
714
01:09:39,738 --> 01:09:43,726
It will convert 10 or 12% of sunlight directly into electric
power.
715
01:09:43,776 --> 01:09:48,415
We have the technology right now, we know how to do it.
716
01:09:48,448 --> 01:09:51,702
We wont build big power plants tomorrow morning, but we know
how.
717
01:09:51,736 --> 01:09:56,792
It takes a lot of development and so on, but we know how to
do it now.
718
01:10:03,834 --> 01:10:06,370
Total amount of sunlight that falls on the planet
719
01:10:06,403 --> 01:10:09,657
is 20000 times the amount of fossil fuel power we're using
now.
720
01:10:09,674 --> 01:10:12,628
So we are awash in sunlight, there's plenty of energy from
sunlight,
721
01:10:12,661 --> 01:10:14,647
we just haven't begun to learn how to use it properly.
722
01:10:14,697 --> 01:10:19,419
The real barrier to implementing solar electricity now is
its cost.
723
01:10:24,208 --> 01:10:29,431
To generate the same amount of power we now use in fossil
fuel
724
01:10:29,531 --> 01:10:34,437
you'd have to cover land area roughy half the size of the
state of California.
725
01:10:37,491 --> 01:10:40,261
All of the solar cells made in the world up till now probably
726
01:10:40,277 --> 01:10:43,648
would only cover about 10 square kilometers, it's a tiny fraction
of it, so
727
01:10:43,748 --> 01:10:47,953
not impossible, not unthinkable, but really a huge technological
challenge.
728
01:11:02,621 --> 01:11:05,625
We've got to look at all of these sources of energy
729
01:11:05,675 --> 01:11:09,596
and if you add them all together, you must be very optimistic
about
730
01:11:09,613 --> 01:11:13,250
each of these sources to believe that we can produce anything
like
731
01:11:13,301 --> 01:11:17,506
the quantity and quality of energy that we're getting from
fossil fuels.
732
01:11:17,539 --> 01:11:20,273
Our worldwide demand now is somewhere between 25 and 30
733
01:11:20,292 --> 01:11:24,147
billion barrels a year and it's increasing at an alarming
rate.
734
01:11:24,194 --> 01:11:27,398
And that's really where the problem is, the demand is so huge,
735
01:11:27,437 --> 01:11:31,708
there is nothing that we can imagine to replace oil in those
quantities.
736
01:11:36,406 --> 01:11:40,425
There are lots of ideas around, and the ideas are just vapour
until
737
01:11:40,445 --> 01:11:44,172
somebody actually tries them and shows that they either work
and
738
01:11:44,211 --> 01:11:47,123
have side effects or don't have side effects or don't work
or whatever.
739
01:11:47,123 --> 01:11:50,404
That's called research and that's exactly what we're not doing.
740
01:12:26,807 --> 01:12:30,923
You can't undo where you are, so...
741
01:12:30,981 --> 01:12:34,204
Evolution is always forwards, we're never going backwards,
so
742
01:12:34,282 --> 01:12:39,155
we will never be back to the farm because evolution just went
743
01:12:39,155 --> 01:12:44,144
into different way, so we basically just have to adapt to
the new conditions.
744
01:12:44,901 --> 01:12:49,386
It's very unlikely that once we've run down the other side
of Hubbert's peak
745
01:12:49,425 --> 01:12:52,861
that we're going to be able to maintain the kind of lifestyles
746
01:12:52,900 --> 01:12:56,337
that we're now maintaining. This oil is so cheap,
747
01:12:56,375 --> 01:13:02,239
it's so readily available, there was just such an enormous
temptation to exploit this
748
01:13:02,277 --> 01:13:08,063
and to set up a quality of lifestyle that will be impossible
to maintain.
749
01:13:11,344 --> 01:13:15,499
There is something about the horse that has an appeal
750
01:13:15,599 --> 01:13:20,275
that the automobile doesn't. The horse is a living thing and
it's...
751
01:13:20,294 --> 01:13:24,876
Often times between an owner and a horse
752
01:13:24,896 --> 01:13:28,254
a certain amount of affection develops.
753
01:13:31,963 --> 01:13:36,272
We're going about 9 miles an hour right now.
754
01:13:59,415 --> 01:14:04,812
We had a kind of a trial run for what would happen when oil
peaks.
755
01:14:07,103 --> 01:14:11,277
No gas. - No gasoline? - No.
756
01:14:11,377 --> 01:14:15,238
There was a temporary peak in 1973. Middle East and OPEC countries
757
01:14:15,257 --> 01:14:19,859
were angry about the 1973 war in Israel and they embargoed
the oil.
758
01:14:19,878 --> 01:14:22,615
And we immediately had panicked toward the future of our way
of life
759
01:14:22,635 --> 01:14:25,663
and made mile long lines at gas stations.
760
01:14:44,942 --> 01:14:50,281
In the future, things like driving cars and air travel period
761
01:14:50,320 --> 01:14:53,038
will be not something that the average person can afford
762
01:14:53,038 --> 01:14:58,028
but something that's only available to the super-elite, the
1/10 of 1%.
763
01:15:02,823 --> 01:15:05,852
About the graduate student that came to see me and he said
"Tell me,
764
01:15:05,891 --> 01:15:08,240
will my grandchildren ever ride in an airplane?"
765
01:15:08,279 --> 01:15:12,822
It was a ripping question because the answer might very well
be "No."
766
01:15:17,229 --> 01:15:21,442
And the air travel will essentially stop.
767
01:15:40,138 --> 01:15:44,681
Many people tend to think that it was money that made the
world go round,
768
01:15:44,781 --> 01:15:48,215
when in reality it was the underlying supply
769
01:15:48,234 --> 01:15:50,758
of cheap energy, much of it coming from oil.
770
01:15:50,858 --> 01:15:54,389
You end up with asking "What is more real, is it the
financial market,
771
01:15:54,408 --> 01:15:57,534
or is it the oil supply in the ground?"
772
01:15:57,689 --> 01:16:00,504
And everybody will come to the conclusion what is more real,
773
01:16:00,504 --> 01:16:04,795
is the oil supply in the ground. The financial system is a
system full of
774
01:16:04,814 --> 01:16:09,086
petrodollars and if you take them out it's bound to shrink.
775
01:16:14,444 --> 01:16:17,822
There isn't a company quoted on the stock exchange
776
01:16:17,922 --> 01:16:23,064
that doesn't tacitly assume a business as usual supply of
cheap oil.
777
01:16:23,122 --> 01:16:26,617
Well, that isn't there anymore, that means that virtually
every company
778
01:16:26,656 --> 01:16:31,238
is overvalued on the stock exchange. And as the financial
community
779
01:16:31,257 --> 01:16:35,586
recognizes this, well that might trigger some kind of overreaction
780
01:16:35,586 --> 01:16:39,586
and stock market collapse. I think it's very likely.
781
01:16:42,381 --> 01:16:46,633
I wouldn't be surprised, personally, if it doesn't trigger
another
782
01:16:46,633 --> 01:16:51,099
Great Depression comparable to the one of the 1930s if not
worse,
783
01:16:51,118 --> 01:16:56,923
because this one is imposed by nature rather than being a
speculative bubble.
784
01:16:57,023 --> 01:17:02,845
I've taken this timespan here from 5000 years ago to 5000
years in the future.
785
01:17:02,942 --> 01:17:06,611
What we call recorded history began about 5000 years ago.
786
01:17:06,711 --> 01:17:14,862
So, what this shows is that this spike here is the episode
of the fossil fuels,
787
01:17:14,882 --> 01:17:19,852
coal, oil and natural gas, and every other kind of fossil
fuel in human history.
788
01:17:19,871 --> 01:17:22,570
It's the most disturbing thing that's ever happened to human
species.
789
01:17:22,609 --> 01:17:25,055
It's responsible for our technological society and
790
01:17:25,094 --> 01:17:29,132
and in terms of human history is a very brief epoch.
791
01:17:43,091 --> 01:17:47,557
At the time of Christ there were about 300 million people
on the planet.
792
01:17:47,615 --> 01:17:53,109
which had about doubled by the end of 18th century, when coal
came on,
793
01:17:53,167 --> 01:17:58,798
then came good old oil and suddenly the population went up
6 times.
794
01:18:05,593 --> 01:18:09,398
I don't think that we could sustain the present population
of the globe,
795
01:18:09,418 --> 01:18:11,883
much less what it will be in 20 or 30 years,
796
01:18:11,922 --> 01:18:13,980
without the use of petrochemicals.
797
01:18:13,999 --> 01:18:17,009
Does it mean we have got to go back to a population
798
01:18:17,028 --> 01:18:20,426
not much different than what it was before oil?
799
01:18:27,997 --> 01:18:32,909
In the absence of fossil fuels, how many people can the world
support?
800
01:18:33,550 --> 01:18:37,802
Many people believe maybe 1.5 - 2 billion people.
801
01:18:43,277 --> 01:18:46,888
You don't often hope you're wrong, I really hope I'm wrong,
802
01:18:46,927 --> 01:18:50,654
everybody I know who's concerned about peak oil hopes they're
wrong.
803
01:18:50,693 --> 01:18:54,363
I don't think I'm wrong, I don't think they're wrong.
804
01:19:15,777 --> 01:19:20,417
We are facing some sort of unprecedented, unparallaled situation,
805
01:19:20,417 --> 01:19:25,503
and that explains why it is so difficult for one to really
806
01:19:25,562 --> 01:19:29,192
accept it, one thinks there's got to be a solution.
807
01:19:31,872 --> 01:19:36,687
It's somehow contrary to our mindset to think about these
things,
808
01:19:36,725 --> 01:19:40,006
we just don't like to do it, we've gotten used to the filling
station
809
01:19:40,006 --> 01:19:42,724
that has been there for as long as we can remember, and
810
01:19:42,802 --> 01:19:45,850
normal people say "Well it's gonna be there into the
future."
811
01:19:45,870 --> 01:19:52,276
It's very hard. And it's doubly hard because it really has
never happened before.
812
01:19:53,305 --> 01:19:58,275
It's a strange issue of mindset and attitude and experience
and behaviour that
813
01:19:58,314 --> 01:20:02,255
somehow leaves us so unprepared for this situation.
814
01:20:03,634 --> 01:20:07,866
We identify as species called hydrocarbon mammal who lives
815
01:20:07,866 --> 01:20:12,390
on the strength of all of this oil, well his days are definitely
numbered.
816
01:20:12,817 --> 01:20:17,574
Whether modern kind of homo sapiens as a species altogether
817
01:20:17,632 --> 01:20:21,282
will carry on living some different, simple way,
818
01:20:21,321 --> 01:20:23,864
that's another question.
819
01:20:37,629 --> 01:20:41,822
Right now we don't have the kind of political leadership,
not only we in US,
820
01:20:41,842 --> 01:20:45,803
the whole world doesn't have the kind of political leadership
that would make us
821
01:20:46,269 --> 01:20:49,802
aware of this problem and do something about it.
822
01:20:52,015 --> 01:20:56,054
There's little hope for the politicians taking the lead in
this
823
01:20:56,154 --> 01:20:59,509
'couse it's difficult in government for people to...
824
01:20:59,548 --> 01:21:03,354
It's much easier for a politician to react to a crisis when
it's happened,
825
01:21:03,412 --> 01:21:05,975
than to take steps to prepare for it.
826
01:21:07,819 --> 01:21:11,760
It's only about the public that calls their representatives
and Congress and says
827
01:21:11,779 --> 01:21:16,361
"You must do something and we are prepared to support
you
828
01:21:16,400 --> 01:21:19,817
in whatever you'll take." You don't have those telephone
calls
829
01:21:19,817 --> 01:21:22,457
being made today.
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