I recently attended a one week Oil & Gas conference in south Texas. There were about 350 people present — almost all of them highly knowledgeable about the upstream and downstream industries. Moreover, a high percentage of the attendees were engineers and technical specialists. These people know the oil and gas industry — both onshore and offshore.

As is normal, the conference was kicked off by a keynote speech from a senior executive. Not only is this person extremely well-informed about the energy and process industries, he is also open minded and willing to engage in new ideas and concepts. During his talk he noted that production of oil from existing wells is steadily declining (he used the phrase “depletion never sleeps”). He also noted that increasing world-wide demand for oil will lead to a shortfall of around 80 million barrels per day about two decades from now. What made this talk so interesting from my point of view is that it was taken for granted by both the speaker and the audience that new supplies of oil will make up for this shortfall, but no specifics as to how this was to be done were provided.

As far as I am aware I was the only person there who challenged the premise of the above speech. I wrote a short email to the executive. In it I referred to an article that had been published two months earlier by Kurt Cobb. The title of the article was Time to Worry: World Oil Production Finishes Six Years of No Growth. The article provides persuasive evidence that we are not going to find reserves that will generate 80 mmbpd two decades from now. Following my email we had a brief and friendly conversation — but no minds were changed.

I have had similar experiences of non-comprehension of the Peak Oil problem from other colleagues, all of whom are intelligent, well-informed and generally flexible in their thinking. Moreover they are typically working on projects that result from our running out of oil in the easy places. The projects typically have one or more of the following features:

• They are in difficult-to-reach places such as the Arctic or ultra-deep water;
• They involve extracting hydrocarbons from oil sands/tar; or
• They are in difficult locations politically.

In spite of their exposure to the practicality of Peak Oil, it seems that few engineers and other oil and gas professionals understand that we will eventually run out of affordable oil because the costs of exploration and extraction will be prohibitively high.

I have often wondered why there seems to such a low level of awareness and/or acceptance of the Peak Oil thesis among oil and gas the technical experts. Some thoughts as to why this may be are outlined below.

But, before presenting my thoughts, it is important to stress that the people I work with are not being cynical, i.e., it’s not that they know exactly what is going on and choose to ignore the facts. It is true that these experts generally are paid well by the oil and gas industry and are probably reluctant to embrace an idea that can lead to a decline in their standard of living. But they are also intellectually curious, and would surely be willing to discuss Peak Oil, at least informally.

With those disclaimers out of the way, some of the possible reasons for non-acceptance or pushback are listed below.

Daily Living

The first reason is also the simplest. Day-to-day life continues as normal: the freeways are as clogged as ever, head hunters continue to call, and new car sales are brisk. A week after the conference described above, we went out to dinner a local restaurant on Saturday night. The waiting time was 90 minutes. In other words, “Just look around you — there are no signs of Peak Oil”. Of course there are problems: unemployment remains high, gas prices are stuck above $3 per gallon, home building is slow and the nation’s deficit seems to be out of control. But there have always been problems — life consists of ups and downs (particularly in the energy business). There is no sign that things have changed fundamentally.

Supply and Price

A very common response to the Peak Oil thesis is that, as the price of oil goes up, so the oil companies will have more funds with which to search for oil in ever-more difficult locations such as ultra-deep offshore water and arctic locations. This response aligns with the experience of the more seasoned professionals. For example, forty years ago the offshore industry in the Gulf of Mexico consisted primarily of small, four leg platforms in shallow water (less than 1000 feet). As production from these platforms declined and oil prices went up, so the industry was able to move into deeper and deeper waters, with considerable success.

There would seem to be no reason for the trend of higher prices leading to more production not to continue.

Technology

Engineers and technical specialists have high confidence in new technology, and that technology will lead to the production of more oil and gas. This belief is not just blind faith — they have seen the continuing developments in areas such as horizontal drilling, SCADA control systems and LNG transportation. There is no reason to believe that new technology will not continue to be invented and implemented so as to produce more oil from new and existing fields. Just as the Peak Oil message doesn’t fully align with day-to-day experience, as discussed above, it doesn’t align with the career experience of many energy professionals.

They are also comfortable with the possibilities of new technology leading to shifts in the way society is organized. The transition from gasoline to electricity as a means of powering automobiles is a challenge, not a threat.

Related to a belief in technology is a need to understand basic principles and research. This is why I wrote the essay “Hubbert the Optimist”. In it I present the findings and conclusions of the most important person in the Peak Oil community: Dr. M. King Hubbert. I try to present those conclusions in a neutral and professional manner. (If time permits, I may attempt similar essays to do with the work of other leaders such as Dr. Robert Hirsch.)

Crying Wolf

Anyone talking about Peak Oil almost always runs into the roadblock created by the dismal job that the Global Warming community has done in conveying its message. Why the communications have been so poor is a topic that falls outside the scope of this article. (The high level of funding for the “other side” is certainly a factor.) But, when presented with arguments to do with Peak Oil, many people may think on the lines of, “I heard this once before, and it all turned out to be exaggerated and misleading. Fool me once: shame on you; fool me twice: shame on me.”

Imagination

“We don’t serve neutrinos here,” says the bartender.
A neutrino walks into a bar.
(Internet joke)

The discussion here follows the “An Engineer’s View of Peak Oil” blog series. Titles in that series are:

• Part 1: Synthesis
• Part 2: Leadership
• Part 3: Peak Forests
• Part 4: Innovators
• Part 5: Imagination

In the fifth essay — “Imagination” — it was noted that necessity is indeed the mother of invention. Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine in 1712 because such an engine was needed, not because it seemed like a good idea. The development of new technologies requires not only a perceived need, but also imagination and innovation, and engineers are often very well positioned to provide leadership in these areas.

This is not to say that new inventions are guaranteed to happen. Nor that they will lead to a “better” society. For example, the industrial society that rose up from the invention of the steam engine was, in many ways, much worse for ordinary people than the earlier agrarian economy.

Negatives Do Not Sell

One of the basic rules of selling is that you never say, “If you don’t buy my product or service then something bad will happen”. You say, “If you do buy my product or service then something good will happen.” Of course, this is simply a semantic issue, but it makes a huge difference to the manner in which the message is received.

The message from the Peak Oil community is almost 100% negative. Apart from some rather vague and romantic “back to the earth” discussions, the future that is portrayed is unremittingly bleak. In the words of John Michael Greer, “There is no brighter future”. Yet, as discussed in the first section, life for most people is not so one-sided; it’s a muddle of good news and bad news.

Realistically, it has to be admitted that it is difficult to make the Peak Oil message a positive one. But, given that engineers have high confidence in new technology, maybe the message could be framed in the following manner. “The oil industry that we knew is coming to an end. There is much uncertainty and there are no guarantees, but you engineer are in a great position to lead us to a future based on new technology”. For example, the Kurt Cobb article alluded to above could be re-titled, “Opportunity to Make Money with New Energy Sources as World Oil Production Stays Flat”.

Conclusions

The conclusions that I draw in this and previous essays are as follows:

1. We are entering a new world (the “Synthesis”). None of us know what it will look like.
2. Engineers and professionals in the oil and gas business are not persuaded that Peak Oil is a problem. When they look at their day-to-day life, their experiences to do with new technologies, and the unconvincing discussions to do with climate change, they remain skeptical.
3. The decline of oil supplies will be a forcing function that may lead to technological innovations that create the Synthesis. The impetus will not come from government, large oil companies or individual activists. It will come from business men and women such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. And they will be driven not by a desire to “do good”, but to make money and to become famous.
4. The Peak Oil community does itself little good by dwelling on the bad news. People don’t want to hear it and they throw up instinctive objections. It is far better to communicate around the proverb, “There are no problems, only opportunities”.

Therefore if the Peak Oil predicament is presented as a challenge — an opportunity to be grasped — then engineers and innovators may just come up with a response to the Peak Oil predicament.

M. King Hubbert (1903-1989)

Introduction

This article describes and analyzes the paper Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels presented by M. King Hubbert at the American Petroleum Institute (API) in San Antonio, Texas in March 1956. Dr. King’s paper is of great importance because it provided the technical basis for the topic of what later became known as “Peak Oil”; it also set the tone for the writings of many later Peak Oil authors.

Dr. Hubbert’s paper is in two parts. The first part analyzes the fossil fuel industry of his time (the early 1950s) and provides forecasts as to likely production rates over the next half century. The second part of the paper is to do with the transition that he expected to see from fossil fuels to electricity generated by nuclear power plants.

The first part, the analysis of the fossil fuel industry, was very insightful and formed the basis of the forecasts he made with regard to the future production of oil in the United States (he also predicted the timing of peak oil production world-wide almost exactly, although his forecasts as to the quantities of oil that would be produced were low, mostly because some major new oil prospects had not yet been discovered in the 1950s.)

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

It may turn out that most current Peak Oil writings will eventually be considered as being a series of footnotes to Hubbert.

The second part of the paper, however, missed the mark. Although the nuclear power industry now constitutes an important part of the overall energy mix, the optimism that Dr. Hubbert showed regarding the transition from fossil to nuclear fuels has not turned out to be justified.

Seminal Publications

Over the centuries various papers have been seminal, i.e., they planted the seeds for a new way of thinking about the world. An example of such a paper is that written by Galileo Galilei in the year 1632 in which he explained the workings of the solar system. Sir Isaac Newton published an equally important paper, his Principia of 1687, that provided a mathematical framework for the scientific world that was good until the early 20^th century and the introduction of the theory of relativity.

Naturally, all of these great authors drew on the work of others, and Hubbert was no different in this regard; his paper contains approximately 30 citations. But, as the great Isaac Newton himself said, If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Future historians may well look back on Dr. Hubbert’s 1956 paper as being of equal importance to those from Galileo and Newton. Specifically, Hubbert identified:

• He discussed the issue of fossil fuel production in a global context.
• He recognized the finite nature of fossil fuel reserves.
• He developed a generic (Hubbert) curve to show how production of fossil fuels peaks and then declines.
• He understood the fact that continued exponential growth in a finite world cannot continue.
• He had a grasp of the social implications of his research.

We also now recognize that his confidence in the potential for nuclear power was over-stated. Reasons for this include:

• Nuclear power has turned out to be much more expensive to implement than was anticipated in the 1950s;
• Nuclear power has considerable associated baggage to do with safety and waste disposal that were not considered to be critical in Hubbert’s time; and
• Energy sources are only fungible to a limited degree. Considering just road transportation it is impractical to consider that the world’s motor fleet can be converted to electricity in just a few years.

Faith in Technology

Probably the biggest difference between Dr. Hubbert and Peak Oil writers of the present day is in his confidence in the ability of new technology (nuclear power) to make up for the decline of fossil fuels. The charts below are from his paper. The first shows how he saw nuclear power taking off around the year 2000; the second is his 10,000 year overview. It shows that nuclear power will provide much more energy than the declining fossil fuels, and will do so for centuries.

By contrast, most current Peak Oil writers appear to have given up on new technology as a replacement for fossil fuels. Instead they are focusing on issues such as localization and self-sufficiency. The boundless confidence of the 1950s has been replaced by an inward-looking, minimalist approach. In other words, Dr. Hubbert was an optimist; modern writers are either more realistic or more pessimistic, depending on one’s point of view.

Crisis as a Forcing Function

The reason that Dr. Hubbert’s prediction to do with nuclear power was wrong can be attributed to the difficulties to do with nuclear power that he may not have been aware of. These include high capital cost, concerns to do with safety and the disposal of radioactive waste. But a more fundamental reason for his miss may be that it takes a crisis to generate the impetus for change. As has been pointed out in earlier postings as this site, the steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria about two thousand years ago. Yet it was only when the “Peak Forest” crisis hit that Thomas Newcomen developed the first working steam around the year 1712 (Sutton 2011).

Hero of Alexandria’s steam engine (c. 50 AD)	Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine (c. 1712 AD)

With respect to Peak Oil there has been no shortage of good ideas for alternative energy sources.It might be that these ideas have not gained traction is that people in general do not yet accept the thesis of Peak Oil. After all, it is hard to sell the concept of Peak Oil to people stuck in their normal morning traffic jams.

If and when the Peak Oil problem becomes self-evident to the majority of people then individuals such as those discussed in previous posts in this series may step forward with replacement technology. They will not be motivated by altruism but by a desire to become rich and famous. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Many people in the Peak Oil community will respond that time is running very short, and they may very well be right. Moreover, the previous technological innovators built on newly available forms of low entropy energy. Specifically

• Isambard Kingdom Brunel / anthracite
• Henry Ford / gasoline
• Steve Jobs / electricity

Innovators of our time will have to work with energy sources that are at a much higher entropy level.

Analysis of the Hubbert Paper

This section provides a tabular analysis of Hubbert’s paper. The first column shows the pertinent Page or Figure number; the second column provides a quotation from the relevant section of the Hubbert page; the third column offers discussion and analysis.

Conclusions

It is concluded that Dr. Hubbert’s paper was seminal or foundational. This paper appears to be the first that pulled together all the parameters of what is now known as Peak Oil. The paper was fundamentally optimistic in as much as he anticipated that not only would nuclear power replace fossil fuels, but that energy supplies would grow substantially and last for hundreds of years. We now recognize that this optimism was unfounded.

However, as the word community comes to grips with Peak Oil issues it may be that the innovators of our generation may find new sources of (higher entropy) energy that can help move to a new technological base.

Citations

Hubbert, M. King. Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels. Drilling and Production Practice. American Petroleum Institute (1956).

Oil Drum. May 2009. www.theoildrum.com/node/5395

Sutton, Ian S. November 2011. http://peakengineering.wordpress.com/2011/11/

Whitehead, Albert North. Process and Reality. Free Press (1979).

OPERA Neutrino Experiment

“We don’t serve neutrinos here,” says the bartender.
A neutrino walks into a bar.
(Internet joke)

Introduction

This is the last in the current series to do with “An Engineer’s View of Peak Oil”. The previous four articles were:

• Part 1: Synthesis
• Part 2: Leadership
• Part 3: Peak Forests
• Part 4: Innovators

• Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859)
  He, and industrial pioneers like him, took inventions such as Newcomen’s stationary steam engine and created the Victorian industrial world.
• Henry Ford (1863-1947)
  Ford did not invent the automobile, nor did he invent the production line. But his industrial leadership led to the creation of our world of freeways, supermarkets and suburbia.
• Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
  Jobs’ leadership created the world of instant and mobile communication that we are living in now.

This essay is the fourth in the series: “An Engineer’s View of Peak Oil”. The first three parts were entitled:

1. Synthesis
2. Leadership ; and
3. Peak Forests

In the first essay I postulate that we are entering a very new and different type of society as the supply of oil (and other raw materials) dwindles. This new world — the “Synthesis” — will have its roots in both pre-industrial and industrial societies but it will not be the same as either.

In the second essay — “Leadership” — I argue that the nature of the new society is not necessarily something that is “just going to happen”. Human beings, working as individuals, can help lead the transition, and that many of those leaders will be engineers and technologists. I further argue that the leadership has to come from individuals;­ it cannot come from government, large corporations or societies and associations.

The third essay — “Peak Forests” — provides an example of such a change. It discusses the changes to society that resulted in one of the first shifts in the source of energy: the transition from wood to coal as a a primary source of fuel in the early 18^th century resulting from the deforestation of much of Europe. However, this transition meant that some means for removing water from the underground coal mines had to be developed. This was done through the invention of the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729). He and others like him kick-started the Industrial Revolution because, once it became possible to produce large quantities of coal further developments of the industrial economy became possible.

This fourth essay aims to show that Newcomen’s achievement set a precedent; other gifted and driven individuals were able to introduce new technology and engineering methods, and so help transform the societies in which they lived. Three examples of such individuals are provided. They are:

• Isambard Kingdom Brunel;
• Henry Ford; and
• Steve Jobs.

(It can be argued that, had these individuals not existed, then the on-going historical changes would have thrown up other people who would have achieved very similar results. Leo Tolstoy makes this argument in his great novel War and Peace; he postulates that historical trends created Napoleon, not the other way around. Or, as the old schoolboy joke has it, “It turns out that the Iliad was not written by Homer after all — no, it written by another fellow of the same name.” Regardless of what creates such individuals, the fact remains that they are needed to lead transitions in society.)

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859)

The first of the three leaders to be discussed here is Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was very much an engineer’s engineer. The journal The Engineer said of him in the year 1910, “In all that constitutes an engineer in the highest, fullest and best sense, Brunel had no contemporary, no predecessor.”

His achievements (and failures) are extraordinary; they include the following:

• Builder of bridges that used new and technology;
• Designer of steam-powered ships that crossed the Atlantic Ocean;
• Founder of a major railway company (the Great Western); and
• Instigator of the new 7 ft 0¼ in railway gauge (an initiative that was later abandoned).

From the point of view of this series of essays to do with Peak Oil what best characterizes Brunel’s achievements is that he was able to take inventions that others had made (the suspension bridge and the steam engine, for example) and make them part of the physical fabric of the society in which he lived. He was also a successful business man, and was very much in the “Victorian swim” — he was both a product and a creator of the society in which he lived. At the time of his birth, for example, most long-distance transport was via stage coach. By the time he died the railway had become the standard means of moving people and freight over long distances.

(The same transformation can be seen in the works of Charles Dickens. His first novel— The Pickwick Papers — is set in the year 1827 and features many stage-coach journeys by Pickwick and his companions. In the later novel, Dombey and Son set in the 1840s much of the incidental action hinges on the introduction of the railways and the effect that they had on society.)

Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Henry Ford

Henry Ford did not invent the motor car, although he did build cars as a young man while working on his family farm in Michigan. What he did, in his own words, was to “build a car for the great multitude”. The car that he was talking about was the Model T, of which eventually over 15 million were made. His achievement was not to do with the motor car per se. What he did achieve was a massive reduction in the time that it took to build a car; going from 12 hours to just 24 seconds. These efficiencies meant that he was able to put implement a corresponding reduction in the price of the Model T.
From a Peak Oil point of view the significance of Ford’s innovations was that he gave ordinary people the freedom to go anywhere any time. This in turn led to the development of the nation’s highway system and the growth of suburbia. An ironical consequence of these changes is that those people who are not able to drive, either for economic or personal reasons, may find that their freedom of movement is now severely restricted — without a car someone living in suburbia is trapped; anywhere that they want to do is likely to be too far to walk.

Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

He managed the development of early PCs, the iMac, iTunes, the iPhone and the IPad. He also created the Apple retail stores. Like other industrial leaders he had his failures along with his successes, but like them he transformed the society in which he lived.The achievements of Steve Jobs are comparable to those of Brunel and Ford. Like them he was not an inventor, but he took the inventions of other people and not only commercialized them, but changed society in the process. Just as Henry Ford helped create suburbia and all its attendant paraphernalia such as supermarkets and freeways, so Jobs took the early personal computer and graphical interface software and became a leader in the technology that has led to such an extraordinary increase in personal communication.

Characteristics

The very brief biographies provided above for the three men that are the focus of this essay show that they share some characteristics, including the following:

• Ambition;
• Innovation;
• “In the Swim”;
• Professionalism.

Ambition

The three men discussed in this essay were not altruistic; they were not working for the good of society or for some general concept of progress. They were, in fact, working for themselves. All three of them made a good deal of money (although Brunel may not have been able to hold on to all of his earnings).

But they were probably driven by other personal goals in addition to simply being rich. The fame that they achieved in their own lifetimes was probably particularly important. In this regard, it is interesting to note that, after all these years, Isambard Kingdom Brunel is still one of the most highly regarded of British citizens. (The wax statue below is on display at the Swindon Steam Railway Museum.)

Innovators

The leaders described above did not invent new technologies. Brunel did not invent the railway locomotive, Ford invented neither the automobile nor the assembly line, and Jobs did not invent the Internet. All of them were, however, brilliant innovators. They were able to take the inventions and of others and create products that radically changed the society in which they lived.

“In the Swim”

Although these leaders were strong individuals they did not act in isolation. The picture above shows Isambard Kingdom Brunel with powerful men of this time. (He is the short man, third from the left.) He was very much a part of the Victorian scene.

Similarly, Steve Jobs was famous for his product announcement conferences and his use of the phrase, “One more thing”. He was not an inventor operating in isolation — he was totally a part of the society in which he worked.

Engineers

The three men discussed in this essay were not engineers in a formal sense (in the case of Brunel because formal engineering education had not been initiated in his time). However they all had an excellent grasp of technology and understood how to manage engineers and technical specialists.

Boldness

Broad Gauge Locomotive

Successful leaders are bold — they are willing to take a risk with their new ventures, and they will sometimes fail — potentially on a grand scale. For example, Isambard Kingdom Brunel elected to create the broad gauge railway. His public justification for this move was that the wider gauge would provide greater efficiency for freight trains and great comfort for passengers.

While both of these claims were true, he was being more than a little disingenuous. He was actually creating a new operating system which, he hoped, would become an in industry standard. (In this regard, Steve Jobs did much better; his Apple computer operating system still survives, and even flourishes, against the “standard gauge” from Microsoft.)

The fact that these men were bold and willing to take a risk does not mean that they were reckless. Indeed, one of the attributes of a good engineer is that he or she recognizes that mistakes can have catastrophic consequences. Therefore a high level of quality control is not an option and all work should be conducted to a high level of professionalism.

Low Entropy Energy

A key to the success of these innovators was that each had available to him a new source of low entropy energy. Brunel used anthracite (see previous essay) to power his steam engines and other machinery; Henry Ford built his transportation empire on the availability of refined fuels, particularly gasoline; and Steve Jobs’ computers and communication devices worked because a cheap, reliable source of electricity was available (provided by natural gas, coal and nuclear power).

Future innovators will not be so lucky — indeed, the key aspect of the Peak Oil crisis is that there are no more readily available sources of low entropy energy available to us, at least in concentrated form.

Conclusions

The previous essays in this series have argued that, if there is to be a way of developing a new type of society in the wake of Peak Oil, then that transformation will be provided by individuals providing leadership. These individuals should show many of the following traits:

• They are engineers or at least have a grasp of the principles of technology and engineering and will be able to lead teams of engineers.
• They will be bold and be willing to take risks.
• At the same time, their professionalism will discourage them from taking unjustified risks when it comes to safety and environmental compliance.
• Although they will have strong individual and leadership skills, they will be fully integrated into the society that they find themselves in.
• They will have strong communication and public relation skills. These skills will allow them to be effective at raising money and influencing powerful people.

The above attributes are likely to be found in the leaders of a society that is moving toward ever-decreasing supplies of oil. But — and it’s a big “but” — the new generation of leaders will not be able to draw on large quantities of low entropy energy to form the basis of their achievements.

The next essay in this series — “Post-Peak Brunel” — will provide some guesses as to where technological developments may take us in a world of dwindling oil supplies.

Our books and ebooks are available at our Sutton Technical Books site.

Newcomen Steam Engine

Introduction

This is the third in a series of essays on the overall theme of, “An Engineer’s View of Peak Oil”. The idea for the essays came from my thoughts to do with the ASPO-USA conference held in Washington, DC in November 2011, and also with subsequent discussions with Jonathan Callahan of Mazama Science, who is also  an editor of the highly regarded The Oil Drum.

The first essay was entitled “Synthesis”. In it I discussed the idea that the post Peak Oil world will a synthesis built upon the “Thesis” of the pre-industrial world and an “Anti-Thesis” of an industrial world in which we are living now and which is likely approaching its end point. The second essay was called “Leadership”. In it I argue that the post Peak Oil world will be created by individuals acting as leaders, but that those leaders are not likely to come from government, large companies or voluntary associations such as ASPO-USA. Instead leadership will be provided by young men and women who understand that we are running out of sources of low entropy energy sources, but simply factor that issue into their money-making visions for the future.

The “Peak Forests” Challenge

Before discussing this concept of leadership further it might be useful to take a step back in order to compare where we are now with situations that humanity has faced before. In particular, it is useful to look at the concept of “Peak Forests”, and to wonder why there was not an ASPF (Association for the Study of Peak Forests) 300th anniversary meeting in Shropshire, England this year.

European Forest

The picture to the left was taken by myself in the year 2007 from a boat on the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct on the Llangollen canal in Wales looking down on the River Dee. (The aqueduct was completed in the year 1805.) The forest shown in the picture once spanned all of northern Europe. However, over the centuries the trees were cleared to provide fuel for domestic and industrial purposes, and the land was then used for agriculture and buildings. By the beginning of the eighteenth century forest clearance had reached a crisis point — fuel shortages were becoming more and more severe. The world had entered an era of “Peak Forests”.

Thomas Newcomen

An alternative fuel, anthracite (high quality coal), was well known to the people of that time and had been used for centuries, mostly for domestic heating. Some of this coal was located in surface seams, but, as demand increased so those seams became depleted and it became necessary to dig down below the surface of the earth to find new coal (“Peak Surface Coal”).

But the development of underground coal mines was often severely restricted by associated flooding. If the water could not be removed from the mines then coal mining would become infeasible in many locations.

Therefore high capacity pumps were needed to remove the water. And those pumps would require an engine to drive them with much more power than could be provided by human or animal muscle power. Hence, necessity being the mother invention, the industrialists of that time had to invent the steam engine. Thomas Newcomen, who was also a Baptist preacher, developed such an engine to pump water from the Cornish tin mines around the year 1710, but his invention could be used in any type of mine.
The essential point here is that men such as Newcomen did not invent these early machines because it seemed like a “good idea” or as part of a quality improvement or Six Sigma program. Model steam engines had been invented two thousand years earlier but had never been commercialized. Newcomen and his brethren developed the working steam engine because they had to – the forests were “past peak”. (A second point is that these machines were developed and commercialized by individuals, not by government or other large institutions, as discussed in the second essay in this series.)

One consequence of the invention of the Newcomen engine was that larger quantities of coal could now be mined; hence it was possible to operate more steam engines, which in turn meant that more coal had to be mined, and so on. This exponential growth in the number of steam engines and the amount of coal mined illustrates how Jevon’s Paradox comes about.

I took the picture on the left in March of this year at the Blists Hill Victorian Town (highly recommended). This area of north-west England is one of the places where the industrial revolution started in the early 18th century. In the foreground of the picture is of a pile of anthracite, the high quality coal that put the “Great” in “Great Britain”.

And So On

The invention of the steam engine led to the need for further inventions. For example, coal is much denser than wood. Hence the horse-drawn carts used to haul the coal became bogged down in the primitive, muddy roads of the time. So it became necessary to develop the iron railroad over which the carts could run more efficiently. Then the steam engine design based on Watt’s development of the Newcomen engine could then be mounted on a frame and wheels and used to haul the coal wagons. And so the railway industry developed.

(This line of thought opens up the discussion as to whether the Industrial Revolution led to the invention of the steam engine or whether the steam engine led to the creation of the Industrial Revolution. Such a chicken and egg discussion is way outside the scope of this essay.)

To sum up: a major driver for the development of the Industrial Revolution was the necessity to address the problem of “Peak Forests”. And the men of that time were successful – so successful that the problem of “Peak Forests” just went away. Whether or not there are more or fewer trees in Britain now than there were 300 years ago I know not. The point is, that from an energy supply point of view, the question is no longer important.

Need for Imagination

It is tempting to draw an analogy between the “Peak Forest” problem of 1700 and the “Peak Oil” problem of 2000. If the analogy holds good then men and women of our time will come up with the technologies that allow our society to perform an end-run around the “Peak Oil” problem. Hence ASPO will go the way of ASPF. The catch is, of course, that there is no other source of low entropy energy readily available to us as there was to the people of the eighteenth century. There is no shortage of new energy sources. But they all require investments of large quantities of low entropy energy in order to extract them; it now takes a lot more than the invention of a crude steam engine to open up a new world of energy.

But the broader lesson is that, when faced with a challenge such as that presented Peak Forests, humanity — or more specifically certain talented and energetic individual human beings — have used that necessity to invent a solution.

Victorian Slum

Will this type of creative response take place in our time as we face the challenge of Peak Oil? None of us know. And there is certainly no guarantee that the new world (the “Synthesis” of Part 1) will be “better” than the word we live in now. After all, the Newcomen engine led to the creation of a society in which many people worked in atrocious conditions, lived in slum housing and died from the one of the many sources of industrial pollution. Still, it will be interesting to see if the future leaders of our society will be able to organize an end-run around the whole concept of Peak Oil in the way that Newcomen and the men of his generation did around Peak Forests.

Our books and ebooks are available at our Sutton Technical Books site.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

This essay is the second in a series to do with the “Synthesis” that will represent the post-Peak Oil world. The series was prompted as a result of my attending the annual ASPO-USA meeting in October 2011 in Washington, DC. As I stated in the first article I very much enjoyed the conference, particularly the networking, but I was disappointed that there was not more input from technical experts and engineers. The discussions seemed to focus primarily on the social and economic impact of resource depletion. At times there almost seemed to be an air of fatalism as if the best we can do is to ameliorate the consequences of Peak Oil and related predicaments such as climate change. Que sera sera. Nor was there much discussion to do with the creation of a new and different society.

Need for Leadership

Henry Ford

Very few people in the Peak Oil community, myself included, believe that technology will provide a silver bullet that will maintain our current life style. There can be little doubt that we are in for some wholesale changes in the coming years – and many of those changes will be less than good. But, given the right leadership, we may be able to help create a future that is less dire than many fear. Our first reaction is to expect national governments to provide such leadership. But, except maybe in times of war, governments do not lead – and nor should they; their job is to provide an efficient and fair infrastructure in areas such as the court system, basic education for children, a sound financial system and defense against external enemies. As can be seen from the feebleness of the response of governments around the world to the climate change and economic crisis issues that we currently face, government is not good at leading us to a new and different future – particularly if sacrifice on the part of the citizens is called for.

Nor will leadership generally come from large companies. They have the resources and the people, but it is rare for such companies to initiate what is sometimes referred to as “disruptive change”. Such changes are threatening to their existing business, and are difficult to manage. (Which probably explains why there are so many management consultants, and so few leadership consultants.) Even companies such as Kodak, who recognize that change is upon them (from film to digital photography) struggle to maintain the leading position that they once had.

Voluntary associations, such as ASPO, provide an invaluable service with regards to research and education, but they generally lack the size or financial resources to make much of an impact. In the case of the ASPO annual meeting, for example, the 300 or so people who attended are not likely to be noticed by top politicians or industry leaders. Where these smaller organizations, such as ASPO (the Association for the Study of Peak Oil) and publications such as The Oil Drum can have their greatest impact is in providing unbiased research and education.

Leaders Have Followers

Steve Jobs

So where is the leadership to come from? Well, leaders are defined as being individuals who have followers. Therefore leadership must come from individuals who want to make a difference. But they want to make a difference not for idealistic reasons, but because they want to become rich and famous (and they love intellectual and business challenges – they are problem solvers). They achieve their goals by leveraging the resources of existing society and creating large institutions that are big enough to materially change the course of the world.

Who are these leaders and where will they take us? Such questions are fundamentally unanswerable. Even the leaders themselves may be surprised as to the destinations that they reach. But, if they have a good grasp of Peak Oil and the other systemic problems that we face, then they may be able to help create a Synthesis that is built on the best of our existing structures.

For the vast majority of us who are not leaders, what should we do? Probably two things: (1) provide information and education as discussed above, and (2) get out of the way – let the leaders lead.

Subsequent articles in this series discuss some examples of the people who have actually spearheaded such transitions. It will be suggested that many of these individuals exhibited two traits that will be very important for us going forward: confidence and technical knowledge.

As an engineer I was disappointed that there was not more discussion to do with the role of technology in the future world. There seems to be agreement that technology will not provide a silver bullet that maintain business-as-usual, but there was little recognition that engineering and technology skills – properly deployed – could help mold the post-oil future. One of the sages that I follow most closely is John Michael Greer, has said “There is no brighter future”. But he has also stated, “. . . think of the way the peak oil debate was stuck for so long in a binary that insisted that the extremes of continued progress and sudden catastrophic collapse were the only possible shapes of the postpetroleum future.” In other words a range of possible futures faces us and, I would argue, it is engineers who can help create a future that may be less dire than many fear, and the creation of that future will require both imagination and leadership – topics that were not high on the agenda at the ASPO meeting.

By repute the philosopher Georg Hegel developed the concept of an “Hegelian Synthesis”. The argument goes that a system is in an initial condition: the “Thesis”. In reaction Thesis an “Anti-Thesis” develops and replaces the Thesis. The Anti-Thesis itself then collapses to create a “Synthesis” that has its roots in both Thesis and Anti-Thesis, but is not identical to either. This concept is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

The example commonly used to illustrate this idea is that of late eighteenth century France. The Thesis was the aristocratic, monarchical system (l’ancien régime). It was replaced by its Anti-Thesis the republican government (aux lanternes). This system itself collapsed, to be replaced by the Synthesis: the Napoleonic Empire.

The same construct can be applied to Peak Oil, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

First we have the Thesis: the pre-industrial world. This is replaced by the Anti-Thesis: the industrial world in which we now find ourselves, and which is running into so many limitations. But the future world – the Synthesis – will not be return to pre-industrial times; we have learned too much just to go back as if nothing had happened. And the future world will not be Business as Usual (our current Anti-Thesis). Instead, the future Synthesis will incorporate elements of both systems, but will not be the same as either. It was the lack of discussion to with the unpredictable Synthesis that most concerned me with ASPO-USA 2011. We seemed to be unable to “think the unthinkable”. We have not grasped the words of J.B.S. Haldane, “I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

The Oil Drum

Jonathan Callahan, an editor at The Oil Drum, notes than an example of a Synthesis that was available to all the participants at the ASPO conference. “. . . I spent three days cruising around town [Washington D.C.] on rental bikes from capitol bikeshare. This system combines old fashioned bicycle technology with modern high tech sensors and an iPhone app that lets you know which bike lots have bikes or spaces to park. It was an amazing example of the synthesis of old and new . . . and it actually got me where I wanted to go faster and much more pleasantly than the metro.” This example is an illustration, I would argue, of Greer’s eco-technic future.

None of the above states are inherently better or worse than any other. For a French aristocrat the Thesis was the best situation, for an industrial technologist or French patriot living twenty years later the Synthesis probably presented the greatest opportunities. So it is with a post-Peak Oil future. The Synthesis that our society develops will be what it will be: for some it will represent a wonderful opportunity, for others it will represent bitter failure. But we can be sure that it will look like something that none of us can now envisage.

Why would engineers be the ones to lead the transition to a new Synthesis? Well, as will be discussed in future essays at this site, there are plenty of historical precedents for such leadership. And, when exposed to the theories of Peak Oil, engineers very quickly “get it”. They may not have heard about the concept of EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested), but rate concepts are part of their intellectual furniture. Similarly, they are fully trained in the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the concept of entropy.

If this argument to do with Hegelian synthesis is accepted as a path forward, then the inevitable question becomes “what does the Synthesis look like?” The answer is not known to us; it will require some “bright young thing” to give us vision and leadership, not because it is the “right thing to do” but because he or she wants to be seen as a leader and because he or she would like to become very wealthy in the process.

A final thought concerning ASPO-USA 2011: at the beginning of this essay I noted that I was able to attend the conference because I was in town anyway. Immediately prior to the conference (the first Thursday, in fact) I gave a presentation to a group of about thirty chemical plant and supply chain managers. Then, following the conference, I attended a two-day meeting on the topic of offshore safety at the Department of Interior. I work for a large engineering services company, and I will expense my trip costs in the normal way for the first and the third meetings. But with regard to ASPO I didn’t even bother to ask my management for permission to attend (which would allow me to expense the meeting). Why not? Why is it that Peak Oil is a forbidden topic, even though an engineering services company really ought to know about the topic so that it can structure and market its services appropriately?

Our books and ebooks are available at our Sutton Technical Books site.

The basic idea behind the theory of Peak Oil is simple: the amount of oil underneath the earth’s crust is finite and we are using it up. New discoveries (such as ultra-deepwater) are not replacing what has already been used, and low grade sources (such as tar sands) are marginally economical.

The social and economic implications of Peak Oil are profound. As explained in our first full article in this series – Synthesis – we are entering a new world built on the foundations of pre-industrial society and of the the industrial world in which we live now. What this new world will look like, none of us know, but we must do our best to prepare for it.

Engineers had much to do with the creation of the industrial revolution (and the eventual depletion of oil reserves). And, as we move into the post-peak world engineers will have both an opportunity and a responsibility to help create a new society and economic structure. The posts here at “Peak Engineering” will discuss how this might be done.

The posts will generally fall into one of three categories:

1. Explanations of Peak Oil basics such as the Hubbert Curve and EROEI. These posts will be written for engineers, so they will not hold back on technical and mathematical concepts.
2. Thoughts as to how society may change in the coming decades as oil resources deplete.
3. The challenges and opportunities that engineers will face during those decades.

Discussions to do with Peak Oil seem to drift inexorably into other areas such as the current economic crisis, climate change and the depletion of other critical resources such as rare earth metals. While it will be impossible to refer to such issues, we will attempt to focus on oil only.

Much excellent research on the topic of Peak Oil has of course already been published, so this blog will include many references. As a starter, we have found the following sites to be invaluable:

• The Oil Drum;
• The Archdruid Report; and
• Our Finite World.

There are many others, of course, and we will always provide links. We also provide information at our own Sutton Technical Books, particularly with regard to safety and environmental issues.