December 6, 2012 • 37 mins
A 2012 report showed that the U.S. may be energy-independent in just a few years, but not too long ago the specter of peak oil loomed large on the political and economic landscape. Join Chuck and Josh as they visit the consequences of running out of oil.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is
stuff you should know the podcast. And it's election day.
(00:22):
We didn't mention that before. Oh yeah, you know, it's
election day. I'm not sure when this is gonna come out.
I can tell you exactly it's gonna come out. How
do we know about this one? Well, it'll come out
either the twenties, seventh or twenty nine of November. Yeah, great,
what a great time to talk about pek oil. Yeah,
the holiday season. Everybody's still digesting Thanksgiving dinner. Um, it's
(00:48):
a little chilly out. It's what's every It's what everyone's
thinking about right now when football and sports and stuff
like that in fall colors. Let's talk about oil instead.
When will the world's oil production be outstripped by demand irrevocably?
That's right, that's what peak oil is. That's what we're
(01:10):
talking about. Before we get started, I need to just
clear something up. Peak oil is a definite thing. So
where's the controversy when it's gonna happen, When it's gonna happen,
and exactly what will happen after it? Help because reading
this I was a little confused. It seemed like some
people were like denying that it was going to happen
at all or something. Yeah, we got run out of
(01:31):
oil at some point. So if you talk to any
peak oil adherent there's there's definitely some that are a
little more the sky is following them, and I think
they probably represent the minority, especially now. But if you
went back to two when I wrote this, remember Matt Baker, Yes,
(01:51):
Matt Baker, he used to work here. He was a developer.
He got me into this, and he would go to
like yeah, yeah, Matt, Yeah, he would go like meetings
and like about the future without oil and like I
mean like he was big time into it. And at
that time, there are a lot of like very smart
people talking very loudly saying like, dudes, we may have
(02:12):
already hit peak oil and we need to start doing
something about it or else, like we're really in really
big trouble. Those those voices have quieted down quite a
bit due to some developments in the last couple of years.
It's almost kind of like a throwback. There's a lot
of stuff happening. But um, for the most part, there
(02:32):
is agreement that we will one day hit peak oil.
And the definition of peak oil is now when we
run out of oil, but when our oil production right
like removing it from the ground, it can no longer
keep up with demand. The whole reason that this will
probably happen is because oil is a very finite resource, right, yes,
(02:53):
and we are not treating it as such. No, So
those two things combined mean that we're gonna gonna run
out at some point. But even if we did treat it,
like even if we did conserve our oil, but we
didn't bring any other type of energy into it, it's
it's a finite resource. Like it takes ten million years
for um, these these fossil fuels at least to be
(03:15):
produced to turn into crude oil. Um. The reason we
have so much of it is because there was a
massive die out of large dinosaurs. Now see I read
that the dinosaurs had very little to do with it,
and then it was like other, uh, living creatures. Well,
you tell me who said that that's that's that's a
good look it up. Some guy a lot smarter than me. Okay,
(03:37):
So but regardless, regardless Um. The dinosaurs may or may
not have had something to do with it. But things
that lived at least ten million years ago and whose
corpses were subject to these specific geological processes form oil.
And there's only a very limited amount of it. It
is the definition of a non renewable resource petroleum. We're
(03:58):
going to run out of it event filling. But like
you were asking, like when that happens, and what happens
when we reach that point. That's what the debate over
peak oil is. Because some people think we may never
hit peak oil. Um, we may. We may come up
with great alternative energy on the gaps as it were, right, um,
(04:19):
and and like maybe we'll just leave oil behind, will
never go back and like use up the whole world's
apply because something else will come along or will master
wind technology and we'll be fine. But for the most part,
people agree that we will hit this point of peak oil,
which again isn't running out of oil, it's where production
plateaus and starts to decline, demand keeps increasing. Yes, I
(04:44):
think you have a big problem there. If people don't
get that by now, well no, if you the third time,
if you talk to I can tell you that people
who are peak oil adherents are very very satisfied with
us right now because we pointed that out three times,
because it's a big, big misconcept. Wait, is that him
now he's coming in here to give us a bat
on the back? I guess who could that be? King
(05:06):
Hibbert Hubbert? He's dead? Probably, well, I believe, so all right,
let's get it. Mean he was working in the fifties,
So I guess we kind of we laid out while
we're talking about but it is all based on M.
King Hubbert's Hubbart curve. That's right. Do we need to
talk about the VP reporter? Is that old news? Well
they do that every year. Okay, so what does the
(05:28):
recent one say? Do you know? Well, this is one
of the recent developments. So this BPU Statistical Review of
World Energy um BP compiles all of this energy information
every year and it's a huge, awesome PDF of like
energy information and um In two thousand eight they published
(05:49):
that they that we have one point or one thousand,
two d and thirty eight billion barrels of oil improved reserves.
That's one point to trillion barrels of oil improved reserves. Now,
proved reserve doesn't mean that like you already have it
in a barrel. It means that some seismologists has done
a geological survey of an area and said, yeah, there's
(06:12):
oil there and it has a ninety percent chance of
being easily extractable. Okay, and you probably have this many
barrels in this reserve. That's a proven reserve, right, there's
also probably stuff that we haven't found out there yet.
That's that adds to the whole oil base. But BP
(06:32):
set in two thousand eight that we have one point
two trillion barrels of oil. In two twelve they said
that we have one point six trillion. So we added
four hundred billion barrels of oil in four years. That's
a that's a that was a huge thing that quieted
everybody down. Okay, well that's good. Yeah, UM could be
(06:53):
a little hinky because, um, the people giving up this
information um get you know, they get money and funding
based on things like this. Yeah, if you remember, and
they're not um, they're not checking their work as it were, either.
So what you have is, um, you're not being audited,
(07:15):
and if you lie about your numbers, you might get
more funding. So a lot of people say, wait a minute,
shouldn't trust reports like this there and yeah, there's for
every for every bit of information or data, there's basically
two ways to look at it. It's either truthful or
here's all the reasons why it's probably not truthful. I
know this is one of those things. Is just the
point counterpoint just goes on and on and on. Yeah,
(07:36):
And the reason why is because we have no idea
how much oil is left on earth, Like, we can't say,
and like the people who supposedly do know have reason
to not be truthful about it, right or to exaggerate it.
Even so, Um, the BP Statistical Review is very very
widely respected. It's also criticized for that reason that you
(07:57):
just said. But um, the the the whole idea behind
this is what we were is based on what the
guy who we were talking about, M. King Hubbard, came
up with in the nineteen fifties, which is called the
Hubbard curve. Right. Yeah, and this just makes sense to me.
I don't know why it took this guy to come
up with this, um, but it basically says, you know,
(08:18):
what oil reserves are gonna follow, what trajectory, Um, you're
gonna tap it and you're gonna pump oil out and
after that production is gonna plateau and then it's gonna decline. Yeah,
it took some smart guy to figure that out. Yeah,
and I feel where you're coming, and I think the
same thing, But I think like there's a specific like
(08:40):
like this guy really grafted it out and could predict
like within maybe a year or something like that, which
he did. The reason why everybody listens to Hubbard was because, um,
he predicted that the US would hit its own peak
production in sometime between n and seventy. Well, he missed
it by a year. The you s oil production peaked
(09:01):
in nineteen and it's been declining ever since. Um. And
this guy has made other great predictions. But the point
is his Hubbard curve for any oil reserve, if you
look at all of the reserves on Earth, is one
large reserve, then the Earth's oil supplies to follow the
same predictable curve. And eventually, when you hit this plateau
(09:25):
and production starts to decline, it's inevitable. Right, That's right.
It makes sense to you, it makes sense to me.
So where's the problem? Uh, Well, the the In two
thousand seven, the Government Accountability Office published another study that said,
all right, we need to you know, guard ourselves against
(09:47):
this potential fallout from the peak oil problem. And so
there's a lot of factors here. You liken it to
a marathon. This is a terrible analogy. I would say
a relay race. That's where you messed up. Oh yeah, yeah,
because any got different team members doing better or worse, oh,
contributing or detracting. I walked right by that, man, I
(10:09):
walked right by that. So let's look at a relay race.
And each of the runners in your relay race is
going to represent um oil consumption production or alternative fuels.
So as alternative fuels get more advanced, then you're gonna
be using less oil. So that's great um as uh
consumption um, I guess you know we're trying to make
(10:31):
moves to just consume less, right or conserve? Yeah, and
conserving the uh Obamas put in place a lot of
um stringent um rules for car manufacturers, the CAFE standards.
So in August he did he signed in something and
a lot of that doubles the CAFE standards to fifty
four point five miles per gallon by that's awesome. Yeah,
(10:54):
and that will huge impact on oil consumption. So if
you're in your little relay race still, that means oil
is stabilized a little more because you're just not using, using, using,
you're decreasing supply, which is taxing demand, or you're decreasing demand,
which is taxing supply lines. But then other bad things
can happen. One of the little relay racers might get
hung up by, um, the fact that China and India
(11:17):
are growing in many ways and need some of that oil,
and so all of a sudden you're going to be
using more oil. And it's just a sort of a
give and take, a little seesaw effect until I guess what,
do you get a plateau? Or or that's just the
changes the formulas. I think part of the analogy that
I've I got wrong too was like I was making
(11:37):
all these racers like racing towards the peak oil line,
the finish line. Humanity is like on a way on
its way toward that, but how fast we get there
depends on these things. So it's almost like they're marbles
or jacks or stuff for us to trip their banana peals.
These are different kinds of banana appeals. Okay, some are slipper,
more slippery than others. Very good then, UM. One thing
(12:01):
is for sure is that here in the United States
we use a lot of oil for UM transportation, that's
the primary use of UM. What's the percentage now, seventy
of all oil goes to transportation in the US? Does
that worldwide? In the US? Sorry? UM? And as of
(12:21):
now we are getting the good news is we're at
a twenty year low for for for an oil imports
were right, that's a very glib percentage, Like when it
gets the energy. You really have to pay attention to
what how a statistic is worded, because there's a lot
of different factors involved. There's a lot of different ways
(12:43):
of looking at And that's a really good example of
seventy of all of our petroleum goes to transportation. That's
mind boggling figure. But what we're really talking about is
not oil consumption or energy consumption. We're talking about where
that oil goes to and actually are assumption of oil
in the US has declined in the last few years.
So while we're still using seventy of all that oil
(13:05):
for transportation, we're actually using less oil overall. What about
the imports though, is that what you were talking about, Well,
the imports have actually declined as well. No, no, that's
what I said. But you said that's the stat that
you have to be really wary of. Well, you have
to be wary of all the two stats. But no,
like there are some that are just kind of broad
and above boards, and one of them is how much
we're using how much we're importing UM and are actually
(13:28):
we're we're importing more but we're using less. So we're
importing something like UM sixty of all the all the
petroleum we used in two thousand eleven we imported, yeah,
which is more than the fifty eight percent in two
thousand seven. So it took a sharp decrease in because
we're at now as of August of two thousand twelve.
(13:51):
No way, Yeah, it's a twenty year low for foreign
oil imports. Okay, all right, so we currently we're using
UH as far as this two thousand and eleven, we
used an average of eighteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty
five thousand barrels per day, which is a very British
way of saying eighteen point eight three five million barrels
(14:12):
a day. Yes, a day. It's a lot yeah, a
lot of petrol, which is also very British, right, Um,
but we we were importing less and that's actually less
than we were using before. And you say there's a
sharp decline down to what down to where at a
twenty year low supposedly of foreign imports of imports not
(14:33):
necessarily consumption imports. Okay, and why uh, well, a lot
of reasons. I know that they found a lot more
oil in America recently, apparently Texas and I think one
of the Dakotas. And from what I understand, also natural
gas is stepping up in in providing a lot more
energy than it was before. Good for you natural gas. Yeah,
(14:56):
aside from the whole fracking problem. Frack that so chuck,
where are we at all? Right? I think we're the
problems the other side of the coin. Two thousand six,
the Cambridge Energy Research Associates said, you know what, We've
got lots of oil. Don't you worry about it. We've
actually got three point seven four trillion barrels, three times
(15:18):
as many as uh, you guys said as the peak
oil proponent coil proponent. Yeah, that's that's you guys. And um,
and don't you worry about it. It's gonna be an
undulating plateau. It's gonna be this drop off, and we
got oil for decades and decades that we can fill
in the gaps as things come along with other forms
(15:39):
of energy, and the sky is not falling. Just shut
up and watch Dancing with the Stars, right, And if
you read that BP reported, it says that we have
enough improven reserves to last us uninterrupted for fifty four
point five years. Fifty four point two years UM, which
is a very long time. That's a lot of oil.
Peak oil people say that it's great, man, that's awesome,
(16:01):
But we can't just sit back and say, well, we're
just gonna keep going like this for fifty four years,
because we will shoot ourselves in the foot. The whole
point of believing in peak oil is saying that you
we have to take steps now to make sure that
when we hit that fifty four point two year we're fine.
(16:26):
We're totally covered. But as you say, there are plenty
of people out there, like the c r A or
SIRA that says, you guys are crazy. Just settle down, yeah, Like,
and you know the reason they say things like this
is because there's a lot of oil out there that
we haven't even touched. In the Arctic, for example, Um,
maybe a hundred and eighteen billion barrels of oil. And
(16:48):
we know it's out there. This is not a theory. No,
they're discovered in the fifties. Yeah, it's we know it's
out there. It's just really expensive to go get because
it's in the Arctic. Yeah, this costs a lot of
lobbying money to get into the Arctic to under the ocean.
Lots of oil down there. It's just very deep. We're
just we're just waiting, and we got this oil shell
all over Canada. Canada is basically like one big oil
(17:09):
shell in the Western US too. Don't worry people, We've
got all these these super fields that we haven't even
discovered yet. There's tons of oil. Don't worry about it,
so chuck. The reason why we have all this oil
but it's just sitting there, um, is mainly because it's
expensive to get it. Under these conditions, you still have
(17:30):
plenty of oil that's easily gotten right, um. And usually
the way we get oil is in a three stage process,
and most companies are only up to stage two, so
it's really a two stage process. Does anyone even go
to the third stage. Not yet in the future. Sorry.
Uh that that's like that when when oil prices rise
(17:54):
so high that your paycheck goes to buy gas, that's
when they can afford. Yeah, because when you're paying twenty
dollars a gallon for gas, then they can afford to
go down to the art exactly. It's an economic incentus.
So normally when you get oil um stage one is
where you like tap the reservoir and oil pretty much
just bubbles up out of the ground. You get about
(18:16):
ten percent of that reservoir from that first stage. Second
one you have to exert a little bit of effort.
You pump some CO two or some water into there,
and you recharge it and it starts to come up.
You get anywhere from like another twenty Yeah, I think
a lot of the if you watch, like there will
be blood. I think those early guys, those were the dudes.
(18:36):
I mean, they're the dudes that are now you know,
the one percent, Like I don't even think they were
probably going secondary. They were just going around from oil,
you know, tapping that top ten percent cheaply and just
moving on. But but now they move on after the
second stage. Yes, after the second stage gesture you've taken
(18:57):
um anywhere from what thirty two, which means there's fifty
of that reservoir still left. You cap it and say, well,
let's mark the spot and move on. P on it right,
put you a little flag down. Well, now you want
to use like some sort of um phosphorescent or fluorescent
(19:18):
like crayon the market and you can come back with
the black light and be like, oh here it is
X marks the spot. So they cap it again because
of expense, because to go down and get that final
is just too expensive right now. Same with extracting oil
from oil shale or tarsans or um getting into the
Arctic or into the deep ocean. There's just not an
economic incentive. But if you are a m a critic
(19:43):
of peak oil, you're going to say we'll get to
that when, like we have all that extra stuff out there.
Calm down, Yeah, right. It is kind of good to
know in a way, you know, it's it's it's it's not.
I mean, I guess it's probably good that it's exp
and because it would be very human like to just
(20:03):
suck those things as dry as a bone and then
move on and they're my friend, you just tapped into
the central theme of peak oil. It is very humanlike
to just keep plotting along and and suck something down
to the bone and not look beyond that day when
the bone is dry. Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's sad.
(20:28):
I've always wondered too if the Earth needed oil, and
I've looked it up on the internet and I can't
find anything. Remember I talked about this before. I don't
remember what that was. And I researched again a little
bit last night. I was like, and I can't find
any intelligent person on the internet that it's not just
some message board saying, you know, oil is the blood
of the Earth and the planet and if we suck
(20:48):
it dry, like why do you think we have earthquakes? So,
but I don't know. There's oil and earth. It's conservaive function, right,
I would imagine, maybe I would think. So I tend
to think of things is um as a whole like that,
like the Earth has Maybe there's reasons for everything like that,
or even if there isn't a reason, that's been around
(21:09):
so long, even something's become dependent on it. So it's
important to something else other than our cars, right, And
it is a lubricator and it is found within hard rock.
I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. So Chuck, we talked
about UM, how this article is kind of almost a throwback.
(21:30):
It's a it's like a snapshot of like this kind
of I don't want to say hysteria because I think
it's it's right. But there was a lot of stuff
going on in like two thousand and eight that we're
making these peak oil adherents UH say hey, we're right.
Everybody pay attention. And probably the thing that UM verified
their beliefs more than anything else came on July eleven,
(21:53):
two eight, when oil reached an all time high of
a hundred and forty seven dollars of barrel. That is expensive, right,
And if you believe in peak oil, or if you
are an adherent of the peak oil idea, UM, this
is like one of the four horsemen riding out of
the sky. But the thing was they ended up being UM.
(22:14):
They were duped like everybody else by the speculators who
had driven up prices, but they were saying, no, this
is a problem. This is part of what they call
peak light, which they think we've hit. Peak light is
basically where production starts the plateau and we don't realize
that it's going to eventually decline. But we're in the plateau,
(22:34):
and um, there will be like little highs and lows,
and all of those are going to each one reflects
this smaller scale, longer time frame version of the actual
peak oil. But it's kind of, um, it's like the smaller,
smaller version of it. Once we hit the peak, and
they think that's where we are now. Um, And if
(22:54):
you ask me, that peak sounds an awful lot like
what Sara was saying. The undulating plateau and peak light
sound like they're virtually the same. Maybe so, yeah, but
they disagree on when we hit that. Well, oil per
barrel is lower now. Um, thankfully, that's one big thing.
As far as this month goes, eight six dollars and
(23:15):
thirty seven cents, we've added since two thousand and eight,
we've added almost half a trillion barrels of oil improve reserves.
It's a big one. So we're moving in the right
direction in some ways. Yeah, correct. Alternative fuels. Alternative fuels
are making up a lot bigger chunk they make up
for the first time. And here's a good example of
(23:36):
another statistic. You have to pay attention to alternative fuels
UM or renewables and nuke and hydro. For the first
time ever in world energy consumption make up more of
the energy being used than any single fossil fuel for
the first time ever in two thousand and eleven has happened.
(23:57):
It's great covering growth and can omption. So there's your
there's a very big key factor that means that everything
passed the year before. That's the growth in consumption, right,
So it's covering of that, not of all energy consumption.
So it sounds like this huge enormous number and it's
(24:18):
a good hardening number, but it's not what you think. Like,
you really have to pay attention when you're talking about
energy consumption or energy stats they're true, because stats can
be very misleading in this realm, right, and so um
one of the big problems with peak oil is anytime
you say, well, hey, we have stuff in the Arctic reserve,
so we're fine, there's a lot of other problems that
come up in conjunction with it. Oil is it's very dirty,
(24:41):
uh literally and metaphorically that's right. You could destroying ecosystem
very easily, very easy in the Arctic, very precious balanced ecosystem. Okay,
so let's just think all of our money into all
alternative energy. It sounds like you're saying, yeah, I would
say that's a great move, but um, it can be
(25:03):
uh promising on one hand, but things like switch grass
and say yello stick ethanol are very corrosive and it's
very expensive to retrofit gas pumps at a gas station
and gas storage tanks. It's like a grand gas station. Yeah,
so it's not like there's some super easy answer. Well
plus also plus also it's like, um, you're taking investment
(25:24):
money away from finding new oil fields coming into alternative energy,
which isn't necessarily a bad thing until you realize that. Well,
wait a minute, we are. We're globalized, so if you
take away oil from China and India, you're gonna slow
down this economic engine. Strike that balance, right. It's Homer
with the goldfish and Mr Pinchie again with the salt.
(25:47):
You know, it's the same thing. Coal. Um, they can
actually make liquid coal now that can power a vehicle,
which is great with no alterations. You can pump it
right into your car. The bad thing is, um, coal
is really dirty and you're going to be emitting four
to eight percent more greenhouse gases than gasoline. Even so
(26:07):
again no easy answer. Well, the same goes for natural gas.
Natural gas made up of UM. The energy provided in
the US that was consumed was provided by natural gas
last year. That's huge. It's more than coal came out
of nowhere. Right. But the problem is is that you
have fracking alongside of that, Like to exhibit, you have
(26:28):
to basically like create an environmental disaster every time. UM.
So there, Yeah, there's all these problems with mitigating it,
but the worst thing you can do is nothing. This
one report that's kind of like peak oil adherence Bible
found it's called the Hirsh Report, Yeah, or a k a.
(26:48):
Peaking of World oil production, colon impacts, mitigation and risk
management and UM. Robert why they call it the Hersh Report.
Robert Hirsch put this together and basically laid out three scenarios.
It's UM, do nothing, start ten years ahead of time
to help out this problem, or start twenty years ahead
(27:08):
of time to to really head off this problem and
to head off these mitigations. It's UM figuring out alternative fuels,
decreasing demand UM basically like just doing whatever you can
to take the pressure off of production. Yeah, so that
we still have oil, we're just using less of it. Yeah,
(27:31):
And unsurprisingly, he says twenty years before it would be
the best way to handle this, ten years before. If
you did that, he said, it could be a pretty
smooth transition. Um, if you start ten years before, then
what were You're gonna have a problem for about a decade,
a shortfall And if you don't do anything, then you're
gonna have at least a twenty years shortfall. And so
(27:53):
what we're talking about, and there's like, yes, a global
energy um shortfall. Scared, that's scary times there, because oil, petroleum, crude,
oil and petroleum are found in our medicine, our foods.
They are used by the tanker trucks and ships that
deliver petroleum use petroleum to deliver it. It's everything to everybody.
(28:18):
It's the lifeblood of of the global economic engine. And dude, like,
we've never experienced anything like what like the catastrophic collapse
that would happen if we experience a ten year global
energy shortfall. I got two words for you, mad Max. Yeah,
I think, yeah, I don't I think like I don't
(28:39):
see an end of that, Like if we experienced ten
years or twenty years, I don't see how we would
ever come out of that. Yeah, I mean, because it's
easy to say, well, get on your bicycle, but like
you said, it's not just hey, I put gas in
my car to go to work. It is everything, Like
all of a sudden, I can't get food delivered to
the grocery store with medicines. Uh. Yeah, it's pretty scary thought.
(29:02):
And the big part of the I guess probably the
biggest problem is like we won't know when we hit
peak oil until a few years afterwards, when all these
telltale signs start coming. And I'm sure most people won't agree,
so it'll probably be several years afterwards. But when it's
just painfully obvious that, oh, production is being outstripped by demand.
Supplies can't keep up with demand anymore, and it looks
(29:24):
like it's never going to go back up, which means
we've hit peak oil, which means we're in trouble. What
mitigation measures do we have in place? Yeah. One thing
you don't want to hear someone say is oops, you know,
especially when you're talking about the global economic engine. Yeah,
and I think you said some people claim that it
might have already happened in two thousand five. Others say, um, no,
(29:47):
you know what we're good to. What is when we
hit that undulating plateau, which which which should be not
a problem as far as serious concerned. But even um
is what you said the most conservative peak oil. Um,
that's about say enthusiasts, but inherences. Um, And yeah, that's
the latest they think it's going to happen as far
(30:09):
as as when I wrote this in two thousand and eight. Now,
a bunch of stuff have happened. Remember, we added almost
half a trillion barrels of oil, we're using less, our
cafe standards were increased recently. Um, the three point four
percent of all new car registrations in the US and
two thousand eleven, No, two doesn't twelve so far, Um,
we're hybrid or electric, which is one percent just a
(30:31):
few years ago. But it's such a drop, it is,
But like all of those drops count in like just
kind of prolonging this this point until we get to
peak oil. Alternative energy UM investments are up. It's like
we're doing all this great stuff and as a result,
all of the people, all these really loud voices that
(30:52):
had like a real stage in two thousand eight and
had the ears of a lot of people who were
um governing at the time. Um these the climate has changed,
and I wonder if like it was because of a
lot of these peak oil adherents shouting really loud that
we have made some concessions. But now I wonder if
we're just going to become complacent, right, like, oh well
(31:13):
we staved it off, we're fine for now, and we're
just gonna kick it on down the road, because I
don't see a lot of effort going into it. I
mean not there's some, but certainly not what is needed.
I just feel like we're all headed towards the cataclysmic
like collapse of humanity. Eventually we're all going to turn
on each other and and ruin ourselves, and the Earth
(31:35):
will be scorched and empty. May not be anytime soon,
we're maybe hundreds and hundreds of years from now. Who knows,
but anyone that thinks that humans on planet Earth or
we're gonna be around infinitely forever because we're humans, it's just,
you know, they're pooling themselves as fool's gold. Nice. How's
(31:55):
that for happy? That was perfect. If you wanted to
learn more about peak oil, you can type those words
into the search bar at how stuff works dot com
and will bring up this article. And I said search
bar s means it's time for listener mail, Chuck, I'm
gonna call this where's the orchestra um? This is from
(32:19):
Eric Stephens and he is a double bass player principal
double bass player in an orchestra near Cologne, Germany. And
he listened to the Ben s Alicia about music and emotion,
which we got great feedback on. And he says many
thanks to Ben, who played another fantastic and inspiring performance.
He's a beautiful open way of discussing music. I couldn't
(32:40):
agree more. Many thanks to him for mentioning the importance
of classical music. It's an art form that, unfortunately two
feetle too few people are exposed to now, having a
lot to do with its financial and logistical complexities, but
nonetheless one of the most powerful and underrated forms of
music today, and it has contributed so much to how
we in the Western world here proceed of music today.
(33:01):
I would really love it if you guys could get
out and hear another performance sometime. Even more so if
you encourage s Y s K listeners to get out
and experience and support their local orchestras. Um. It is
difficult time for orchestras right now, and has been mentioned
many are being forced to downsize or fold altogether. This
is one of the reasons why I've ended up in Germany,
(33:21):
which still heavily supports many orchestras with state financing and media.
The appreciation is very deeply rooted in the culture out here,
and while it's a slightly different situation in the States.
I want to remind people that classical music is not
exclusive unless you make it so. And I would go
on to even point out that he means orchestral music.
(33:41):
Classical is a period of time. Oh yeah, you know,
way to correct him. He probably doesn't appreciate that. Um,
it is not exclusive unless you make it so. So
you don't need to have a tuxedo or a deep
musical education to appreciate the extreme beauty and the importance
of it. Couldn't agree more. Please give it a chance,
He'll keep it alive. And uh, that is very good advice.
(34:06):
Support your local orchestra. I guarantee you whatever town you
live in, unless you're in some really backward Kansas Field town,
you probably got an orchestra. Even if it's a smallest town,
you might am an orchestra. Yeah, if you're in a
big city, you definitely have an orchestra. Yes, go out
and see. It's usually pretty cheap. Um, it's not like
paying for you know, sixty bucks to go see Jack
(34:29):
White make noise. I like Jack lydextra, but he's charging
too much. Sixty bucks ahead. Yeah, when he played that,
he got that rack. Rock and tours fan together tickets
for like sixty or seventy by bucks. It's a lot
for one album of material for a lot anyway. Um,
thank you for all the years of explaining the world
(34:49):
through fantastic podcast. I hope for many years to come
to hear these. When I drink my delicious colch beer tonight,
I'll roast you guys, he says Sheera Grusa. I'll call
own Eric Stephen's thanks a lot. Stephens appreciate that orchestra.
I'm in favor of encouraging our listeners to go out
to an orchestra. We got a good one a specific
(35:11):
day where all stuff you should know, listeners go out
to the orchestra. Well, I don't think you can count
on an orchestras playing on that day in every town
and arts. Well, let's find out about it. Let's find
out all right, let's even get that together, like like, no,
I don't think we can make that happen. But maybe
there's a day when the orchestras typically play like traditionally speaking,
Or how about like this winter season, make a commitment
(35:33):
to go out because you're gonna be darn sure that
building orchestra playing some sort of Christmas classical concertos. All right,
that's it. You you have to go out and see
an orchestra this winter. Yeah, but don't. No, Cracker is
not bad depending on where you see it. I like
(35:53):
it's a little doll really thinks huh oh for me? Sure,
there's like giant soldier and a huge there's a rat
that hits people with this. There's a lot of stuff
going on. Um, well, what do you like to go see?
You see Christmas Carol? No, I mean I don't do
any of that stuff. I see I see Jack White
(36:14):
and complain. Um, let's see if you have a favorite
band you'd like to see that you think Chuck and
I should see, or a performance of some sort uh,
whether it's Nutcracker or Jack White or whatever. Well, we've
already covered this too, so you should probably leave them alone. Um,
we want to hear from you. You can tweet your
suggestions to us at s y ESK Podcast. You can
(36:37):
join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
and you can send us a general email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is that how Stuff Works dot
com
Welcome to you Stuff you should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is
stuff you should know the podcast. And it's election day.
(00:22):
We didn't mention that before. Oh yeah, you know, it's
election day. I'm not sure when this is gonna come out.
I can tell you exactly it's gonna come out. How
do we know about this one? Well, it'll come out
either the twenties, seventh or twenty nine of November. Yeah, great,
what a great time to talk about pek oil. Yeah,
the holiday season. Everybody's still digesting Thanksgiving dinner. Um, it's
(00:48):
a little chilly out. It's what's every It's what everyone's
thinking about right now when football and sports and stuff
like that in fall colors. Let's talk about oil instead.
When will the world's oil production be outstripped by demand irrevocably?
That's right, that's what peak oil is. That's what we're
(01:10):
talking about. Before we get started, I need to just
clear something up. Peak oil is a definite thing. So
where's the controversy when it's gonna happen, When it's gonna happen,
and exactly what will happen after it? Help because reading
this I was a little confused. It seemed like some
people were like denying that it was going to happen
at all or something. Yeah, we got run out of
(01:31):
oil at some point. So if you talk to any
peak oil adherent there's there's definitely some that are a
little more the sky is following them, and I think
they probably represent the minority, especially now. But if you
went back to two when I wrote this, remember Matt Baker, Yes,
(01:51):
Matt Baker, he used to work here. He was a developer.
He got me into this, and he would go to
like yeah, yeah, Matt, Yeah, he would go like meetings
and like about the future without oil and like I
mean like he was big time into it. And at
that time, there are a lot of like very smart
people talking very loudly saying like, dudes, we may have
(02:12):
already hit peak oil and we need to start doing
something about it or else, like we're really in really
big trouble. Those those voices have quieted down quite a
bit due to some developments in the last couple of years.
It's almost kind of like a throwback. There's a lot
of stuff happening. But um, for the most part, there
(02:32):
is agreement that we will one day hit peak oil.
And the definition of peak oil is now when we
run out of oil, but when our oil production right
like removing it from the ground, it can no longer
keep up with demand. The whole reason that this will
probably happen is because oil is a very finite resource, right, yes,
(02:53):
and we are not treating it as such. No, So
those two things combined mean that we're gonna gonna run
out at some point. But even if we did treat it,
like even if we did conserve our oil, but we
didn't bring any other type of energy into it, it's
it's a finite resource. Like it takes ten million years
for um, these these fossil fuels at least to be
(03:15):
produced to turn into crude oil. Um. The reason we
have so much of it is because there was a
massive die out of large dinosaurs. Now see I read
that the dinosaurs had very little to do with it,
and then it was like other, uh, living creatures. Well,
you tell me who said that that's that's that's a
good look it up. Some guy a lot smarter than me. Okay,
(03:37):
So but regardless, regardless Um. The dinosaurs may or may
not have had something to do with it. But things
that lived at least ten million years ago and whose
corpses were subject to these specific geological processes form oil.
And there's only a very limited amount of it. It
is the definition of a non renewable resource petroleum. We're
(03:58):
going to run out of it event filling. But like
you were asking, like when that happens, and what happens
when we reach that point. That's what the debate over
peak oil is. Because some people think we may never
hit peak oil. Um, we may. We may come up
with great alternative energy on the gaps as it were, right, um,
(04:19):
and and like maybe we'll just leave oil behind, will
never go back and like use up the whole world's
apply because something else will come along or will master
wind technology and we'll be fine. But for the most part,
people agree that we will hit this point of peak oil,
which again isn't running out of oil, it's where production
plateaus and starts to decline, demand keeps increasing. Yes, I
(04:44):
think you have a big problem there. If people don't
get that by now, well no, if you the third time,
if you talk to I can tell you that people
who are peak oil adherents are very very satisfied with
us right now because we pointed that out three times,
because it's a big, big misconcept. Wait, is that him
now he's coming in here to give us a bat
on the back? I guess who could that be? King
(05:06):
Hibbert Hubbert? He's dead? Probably, well, I believe, so all right,
let's get it. Mean he was working in the fifties,
So I guess we kind of we laid out while
we're talking about but it is all based on M.
King Hubbert's Hubbart curve. That's right. Do we need to
talk about the VP reporter? Is that old news? Well
they do that every year. Okay, so what does the
(05:28):
recent one say? Do you know? Well, this is one
of the recent developments. So this BPU Statistical Review of
World Energy um BP compiles all of this energy information
every year and it's a huge, awesome PDF of like
energy information and um In two thousand eight they published
(05:49):
that they that we have one point or one thousand,
two d and thirty eight billion barrels of oil improved reserves.
That's one point to trillion barrels of oil improved reserves. Now,
proved reserve doesn't mean that like you already have it
in a barrel. It means that some seismologists has done
a geological survey of an area and said, yeah, there's
(06:12):
oil there and it has a ninety percent chance of
being easily extractable. Okay, and you probably have this many
barrels in this reserve. That's a proven reserve, right, there's
also probably stuff that we haven't found out there yet.
That's that adds to the whole oil base. But BP
(06:32):
set in two thousand eight that we have one point
two trillion barrels of oil. In two twelve they said
that we have one point six trillion. So we added
four hundred billion barrels of oil in four years. That's
a that's a that was a huge thing that quieted
everybody down. Okay, well that's good. Yeah, UM could be
(06:53):
a little hinky because, um, the people giving up this
information um get you know, they get money and funding
based on things like this. Yeah, if you remember, and
they're not um, they're not checking their work as it were, either.
So what you have is, um, you're not being audited,
(07:15):
and if you lie about your numbers, you might get
more funding. So a lot of people say, wait a minute,
shouldn't trust reports like this there and yeah, there's for
every for every bit of information or data, there's basically
two ways to look at it. It's either truthful or
here's all the reasons why it's probably not truthful. I
know this is one of those things. Is just the
point counterpoint just goes on and on and on. Yeah,
(07:36):
And the reason why is because we have no idea
how much oil is left on earth, Like, we can't say,
and like the people who supposedly do know have reason
to not be truthful about it, right or to exaggerate it.
Even so, Um, the BP Statistical Review is very very
widely respected. It's also criticized for that reason that you
(07:57):
just said. But um, the the the whole idea behind
this is what we were is based on what the
guy who we were talking about, M. King Hubbard, came
up with in the nineteen fifties, which is called the
Hubbard curve. Right. Yeah, and this just makes sense to me.
I don't know why it took this guy to come
up with this, um, but it basically says, you know,
(08:18):
what oil reserves are gonna follow, what trajectory, Um, you're
gonna tap it and you're gonna pump oil out and
after that production is gonna plateau and then it's gonna decline. Yeah,
it took some smart guy to figure that out. Yeah,
and I feel where you're coming, and I think the
same thing, But I think like there's a specific like
(08:40):
like this guy really grafted it out and could predict
like within maybe a year or something like that, which
he did. The reason why everybody listens to Hubbard was because, um,
he predicted that the US would hit its own peak
production in sometime between n and seventy. Well, he missed
it by a year. The you s oil production peaked
(09:01):
in nineteen and it's been declining ever since. Um. And
this guy has made other great predictions. But the point
is his Hubbard curve for any oil reserve, if you
look at all of the reserves on Earth, is one
large reserve, then the Earth's oil supplies to follow the
same predictable curve. And eventually, when you hit this plateau
(09:25):
and production starts to decline, it's inevitable. Right, That's right.
It makes sense to you, it makes sense to me.
So where's the problem? Uh, Well, the the In two
thousand seven, the Government Accountability Office published another study that said,
all right, we need to you know, guard ourselves against
(09:47):
this potential fallout from the peak oil problem. And so
there's a lot of factors here. You liken it to
a marathon. This is a terrible analogy. I would say
a relay race. That's where you messed up. Oh yeah, yeah,
because any got different team members doing better or worse, oh,
contributing or detracting. I walked right by that, man, I
(10:09):
walked right by that. So let's look at a relay race.
And each of the runners in your relay race is
going to represent um oil consumption production or alternative fuels.
So as alternative fuels get more advanced, then you're gonna
be using less oil. So that's great um as uh
consumption um, I guess you know we're trying to make
(10:31):
moves to just consume less, right or conserve? Yeah, and
conserving the uh Obamas put in place a lot of
um stringent um rules for car manufacturers, the CAFE standards.
So in August he did he signed in something and
a lot of that doubles the CAFE standards to fifty
four point five miles per gallon by that's awesome. Yeah,
(10:54):
and that will huge impact on oil consumption. So if
you're in your little relay race still, that means oil
is stabilized a little more because you're just not using, using, using,
you're decreasing supply, which is taxing demand, or you're decreasing demand,
which is taxing supply lines. But then other bad things
can happen. One of the little relay racers might get
hung up by, um, the fact that China and India
(11:17):
are growing in many ways and need some of that oil,
and so all of a sudden you're going to be
using more oil. And it's just a sort of a
give and take, a little seesaw effect until I guess what,
do you get a plateau? Or or that's just the
changes the formulas. I think part of the analogy that
I've I got wrong too was like I was making
(11:37):
all these racers like racing towards the peak oil line,
the finish line. Humanity is like on a way on
its way toward that, but how fast we get there
depends on these things. So it's almost like they're marbles
or jacks or stuff for us to trip their banana peals.
These are different kinds of banana appeals. Okay, some are slipper,
more slippery than others. Very good then, UM. One thing
(12:01):
is for sure is that here in the United States
we use a lot of oil for UM transportation, that's
the primary use of UM. What's the percentage now, seventy
of all oil goes to transportation in the US? Does
that worldwide? In the US? Sorry? UM? And as of
(12:21):
now we are getting the good news is we're at
a twenty year low for for for an oil imports
were right, that's a very glib percentage, Like when it
gets the energy. You really have to pay attention to
what how a statistic is worded, because there's a lot
of different factors involved. There's a lot of different ways
(12:43):
of looking at And that's a really good example of
seventy of all of our petroleum goes to transportation. That's
mind boggling figure. But what we're really talking about is
not oil consumption or energy consumption. We're talking about where
that oil goes to and actually are assumption of oil
in the US has declined in the last few years.
So while we're still using seventy of all that oil
(13:05):
for transportation, we're actually using less oil overall. What about
the imports though, is that what you were talking about, Well,
the imports have actually declined as well. No, no, that's
what I said. But you said that's the stat that
you have to be really wary of. Well, you have
to be wary of all the two stats. But no,
like there are some that are just kind of broad
and above boards, and one of them is how much
we're using how much we're importing UM and are actually
(13:28):
we're we're importing more but we're using less. So we're
importing something like UM sixty of all the all the
petroleum we used in two thousand eleven we imported, yeah,
which is more than the fifty eight percent in two
thousand seven. So it took a sharp decrease in because
we're at now as of August of two thousand twelve.
(13:51):
No way, Yeah, it's a twenty year low for foreign
oil imports. Okay, all right, so we currently we're using
UH as far as this two thousand and eleven, we
used an average of eighteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty
five thousand barrels per day, which is a very British
way of saying eighteen point eight three five million barrels
(14:12):
a day. Yes, a day. It's a lot yeah, a
lot of petrol, which is also very British, right, Um,
but we we were importing less and that's actually less
than we were using before. And you say there's a
sharp decline down to what down to where at a
twenty year low supposedly of foreign imports of imports not
(14:33):
necessarily consumption imports. Okay, and why uh, well, a lot
of reasons. I know that they found a lot more
oil in America recently, apparently Texas and I think one
of the Dakotas. And from what I understand, also natural
gas is stepping up in in providing a lot more
energy than it was before. Good for you natural gas. Yeah,
(14:56):
aside from the whole fracking problem. Frack that so chuck,
where are we at all? Right? I think we're the
problems the other side of the coin. Two thousand six,
the Cambridge Energy Research Associates said, you know what, We've
got lots of oil. Don't you worry about it. We've
actually got three point seven four trillion barrels, three times
(15:18):
as many as uh, you guys said as the peak
oil proponent coil proponent. Yeah, that's that's you guys. And um,
and don't you worry about it. It's gonna be an
undulating plateau. It's gonna be this drop off, and we
got oil for decades and decades that we can fill
in the gaps as things come along with other forms
(15:39):
of energy, and the sky is not falling. Just shut
up and watch Dancing with the Stars, right, And if
you read that BP reported, it says that we have
enough improven reserves to last us uninterrupted for fifty four
point five years. Fifty four point two years UM, which
is a very long time. That's a lot of oil.
Peak oil people say that it's great, man, that's awesome,
(16:01):
But we can't just sit back and say, well, we're
just gonna keep going like this for fifty four years,
because we will shoot ourselves in the foot. The whole
point of believing in peak oil is saying that you
we have to take steps now to make sure that
when we hit that fifty four point two year we're fine.
(16:26):
We're totally covered. But as you say, there are plenty
of people out there, like the c r A or
SIRA that says, you guys are crazy. Just settle down, yeah, Like,
and you know the reason they say things like this
is because there's a lot of oil out there that
we haven't even touched. In the Arctic, for example, Um,
maybe a hundred and eighteen billion barrels of oil. And
(16:48):
we know it's out there. This is not a theory. No,
they're discovered in the fifties. Yeah, it's we know it's
out there. It's just really expensive to go get because
it's in the Arctic. Yeah, this costs a lot of
lobbying money to get into the Arctic to under the ocean.
Lots of oil down there. It's just very deep. We're
just we're just waiting, and we got this oil shell
all over Canada. Canada is basically like one big oil
(17:09):
shell in the Western US too. Don't worry people, We've
got all these these super fields that we haven't even
discovered yet. There's tons of oil. Don't worry about it,
so chuck. The reason why we have all this oil
but it's just sitting there, um, is mainly because it's
expensive to get it. Under these conditions, you still have
(17:30):
plenty of oil that's easily gotten right, um. And usually
the way we get oil is in a three stage process,
and most companies are only up to stage two, so
it's really a two stage process. Does anyone even go
to the third stage. Not yet in the future. Sorry.
Uh that that's like that when when oil prices rise
(17:54):
so high that your paycheck goes to buy gas, that's
when they can afford. Yeah, because when you're paying twenty
dollars a gallon for gas, then they can afford to
go down to the art exactly. It's an economic incentus.
So normally when you get oil um stage one is
where you like tap the reservoir and oil pretty much
just bubbles up out of the ground. You get about
(18:16):
ten percent of that reservoir from that first stage. Second
one you have to exert a little bit of effort.
You pump some CO two or some water into there,
and you recharge it and it starts to come up.
You get anywhere from like another twenty Yeah, I think
a lot of the if you watch, like there will
be blood. I think those early guys, those were the dudes.
(18:36):
I mean, they're the dudes that are now you know,
the one percent, Like I don't even think they were
probably going secondary. They were just going around from oil,
you know, tapping that top ten percent cheaply and just
moving on. But but now they move on after the
second stage. Yes, after the second stage gesture you've taken
(18:57):
um anywhere from what thirty two, which means there's fifty
of that reservoir still left. You cap it and say, well,
let's mark the spot and move on. P on it right,
put you a little flag down. Well, now you want
to use like some sort of um phosphorescent or fluorescent
(19:18):
like crayon the market and you can come back with
the black light and be like, oh here it is
X marks the spot. So they cap it again because
of expense, because to go down and get that final
is just too expensive right now. Same with extracting oil
from oil shale or tarsans or um getting into the
Arctic or into the deep ocean. There's just not an
economic incentive. But if you are a m a critic
(19:43):
of peak oil, you're going to say we'll get to
that when, like we have all that extra stuff out there.
Calm down, Yeah, right. It is kind of good to
know in a way, you know, it's it's it's it's not.
I mean, I guess it's probably good that it's exp
and because it would be very human like to just
(20:03):
suck those things as dry as a bone and then
move on and they're my friend, you just tapped into
the central theme of peak oil. It is very humanlike
to just keep plotting along and and suck something down
to the bone and not look beyond that day when
the bone is dry. Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's sad.
(20:28):
I've always wondered too if the Earth needed oil, and
I've looked it up on the internet and I can't
find anything. Remember I talked about this before. I don't
remember what that was. And I researched again a little
bit last night. I was like, and I can't find
any intelligent person on the internet that it's not just
some message board saying, you know, oil is the blood
of the Earth and the planet and if we suck
(20:48):
it dry, like why do you think we have earthquakes? So,
but I don't know. There's oil and earth. It's conservaive function, right,
I would imagine, maybe I would think. So I tend
to think of things is um as a whole like that,
like the Earth has Maybe there's reasons for everything like that,
or even if there isn't a reason, that's been around
(21:09):
so long, even something's become dependent on it. So it's
important to something else other than our cars, right, And
it is a lubricator and it is found within hard rock.
I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. So Chuck, we talked
about UM, how this article is kind of almost a throwback.
(21:30):
It's a it's like a snapshot of like this kind
of I don't want to say hysteria because I think
it's it's right. But there was a lot of stuff
going on in like two thousand and eight that we're
making these peak oil adherents UH say hey, we're right.
Everybody pay attention. And probably the thing that UM verified
their beliefs more than anything else came on July eleven,
(21:53):
two eight, when oil reached an all time high of
a hundred and forty seven dollars of barrel. That is expensive, right,
And if you believe in peak oil, or if you
are an adherent of the peak oil idea, UM, this
is like one of the four horsemen riding out of
the sky. But the thing was they ended up being UM.
(22:14):
They were duped like everybody else by the speculators who
had driven up prices, but they were saying, no, this
is a problem. This is part of what they call
peak light, which they think we've hit. Peak light is
basically where production starts the plateau and we don't realize
that it's going to eventually decline. But we're in the plateau,
(22:34):
and um, there will be like little highs and lows,
and all of those are going to each one reflects
this smaller scale, longer time frame version of the actual
peak oil. But it's kind of, um, it's like the smaller,
smaller version of it. Once we hit the peak, and
they think that's where we are now. Um, And if
(22:54):
you ask me, that peak sounds an awful lot like
what Sara was saying. The undulating plateau and peak light
sound like they're virtually the same. Maybe so, yeah, but
they disagree on when we hit that. Well, oil per
barrel is lower now. Um, thankfully, that's one big thing.
As far as this month goes, eight six dollars and
(23:15):
thirty seven cents, we've added since two thousand and eight,
we've added almost half a trillion barrels of oil improve reserves.
It's a big one. So we're moving in the right
direction in some ways. Yeah, correct. Alternative fuels. Alternative fuels
are making up a lot bigger chunk they make up
for the first time. And here's a good example of
(23:36):
another statistic. You have to pay attention to alternative fuels
UM or renewables and nuke and hydro. For the first
time ever in world energy consumption make up more of
the energy being used than any single fossil fuel for
the first time ever in two thousand and eleven has happened.
(23:57):
It's great covering growth and can omption. So there's your
there's a very big key factor that means that everything
passed the year before. That's the growth in consumption, right,
So it's covering of that, not of all energy consumption.
So it sounds like this huge enormous number and it's
(24:18):
a good hardening number, but it's not what you think. Like,
you really have to pay attention when you're talking about
energy consumption or energy stats they're true, because stats can
be very misleading in this realm, right, and so um
one of the big problems with peak oil is anytime
you say, well, hey, we have stuff in the Arctic reserve,
so we're fine, there's a lot of other problems that
come up in conjunction with it. Oil is it's very dirty,
(24:41):
uh literally and metaphorically that's right. You could destroying ecosystem
very easily, very easy in the Arctic, very precious balanced ecosystem. Okay,
so let's just think all of our money into all
alternative energy. It sounds like you're saying, yeah, I would
say that's a great move, but um, it can be
(25:03):
uh promising on one hand, but things like switch grass
and say yello stick ethanol are very corrosive and it's
very expensive to retrofit gas pumps at a gas station
and gas storage tanks. It's like a grand gas station. Yeah,
so it's not like there's some super easy answer. Well
plus also plus also it's like, um, you're taking investment
(25:24):
money away from finding new oil fields coming into alternative energy,
which isn't necessarily a bad thing until you realize that. Well,
wait a minute, we are. We're globalized, so if you
take away oil from China and India, you're gonna slow
down this economic engine. Strike that balance, right. It's Homer
with the goldfish and Mr Pinchie again with the salt.
(25:47):
You know, it's the same thing. Coal. Um, they can
actually make liquid coal now that can power a vehicle,
which is great with no alterations. You can pump it
right into your car. The bad thing is, um, coal
is really dirty and you're going to be emitting four
to eight percent more greenhouse gases than gasoline. Even so
(26:07):
again no easy answer. Well, the same goes for natural gas.
Natural gas made up of UM. The energy provided in
the US that was consumed was provided by natural gas
last year. That's huge. It's more than coal came out
of nowhere. Right. But the problem is is that you
have fracking alongside of that, Like to exhibit, you have
(26:28):
to basically like create an environmental disaster every time. UM.
So there, Yeah, there's all these problems with mitigating it,
but the worst thing you can do is nothing. This
one report that's kind of like peak oil adherence Bible
found it's called the Hirsh Report, Yeah, or a k a.
(26:48):
Peaking of World oil production, colon impacts, mitigation and risk
management and UM. Robert why they call it the Hersh Report.
Robert Hirsch put this together and basically laid out three scenarios.
It's UM, do nothing, start ten years ahead of time
to help out this problem, or start twenty years ahead
(27:08):
of time to to really head off this problem and
to head off these mitigations. It's UM figuring out alternative fuels,
decreasing demand UM basically like just doing whatever you can
to take the pressure off of production. Yeah, so that
we still have oil, we're just using less of it. Yeah,
(27:31):
And unsurprisingly, he says twenty years before it would be
the best way to handle this, ten years before. If
you did that, he said, it could be a pretty
smooth transition. Um, if you start ten years before, then
what were You're gonna have a problem for about a decade,
a shortfall And if you don't do anything, then you're
gonna have at least a twenty years shortfall. And so
(27:53):
what we're talking about, and there's like, yes, a global
energy um shortfall. Scared, that's scary times there, because oil, petroleum, crude,
oil and petroleum are found in our medicine, our foods.
They are used by the tanker trucks and ships that
deliver petroleum use petroleum to deliver it. It's everything to everybody.
(28:18):
It's the lifeblood of of the global economic engine. And dude, like,
we've never experienced anything like what like the catastrophic collapse
that would happen if we experience a ten year global
energy shortfall. I got two words for you, mad Max. Yeah,
I think, yeah, I don't I think like I don't
(28:39):
see an end of that, Like if we experienced ten
years or twenty years, I don't see how we would
ever come out of that. Yeah, I mean, because it's
easy to say, well, get on your bicycle, but like
you said, it's not just hey, I put gas in
my car to go to work. It is everything, Like
all of a sudden, I can't get food delivered to
the grocery store with medicines. Uh. Yeah, it's pretty scary thought.
(29:02):
And the big part of the I guess probably the
biggest problem is like we won't know when we hit
peak oil until a few years afterwards, when all these
telltale signs start coming. And I'm sure most people won't agree,
so it'll probably be several years afterwards. But when it's
just painfully obvious that, oh, production is being outstripped by demand.
Supplies can't keep up with demand anymore, and it looks
(29:24):
like it's never going to go back up, which means
we've hit peak oil, which means we're in trouble. What
mitigation measures do we have in place? Yeah. One thing
you don't want to hear someone say is oops, you know,
especially when you're talking about the global economic engine. Yeah,
and I think you said some people claim that it
might have already happened in two thousand five. Others say, um, no,
(29:47):
you know what we're good to. What is when we
hit that undulating plateau, which which which should be not
a problem as far as serious concerned. But even um
is what you said the most conservative peak oil. Um,
that's about say enthusiasts, but inherences. Um, And yeah, that's
the latest they think it's going to happen as far
(30:09):
as as when I wrote this in two thousand and eight. Now,
a bunch of stuff have happened. Remember, we added almost
half a trillion barrels of oil, we're using less, our
cafe standards were increased recently. Um, the three point four
percent of all new car registrations in the US and
two thousand eleven, No, two doesn't twelve so far, Um,
we're hybrid or electric, which is one percent just a
(30:31):
few years ago. But it's such a drop, it is,
But like all of those drops count in like just
kind of prolonging this this point until we get to
peak oil. Alternative energy UM investments are up. It's like
we're doing all this great stuff and as a result,
all of the people, all these really loud voices that
(30:52):
had like a real stage in two thousand eight and
had the ears of a lot of people who were
um governing at the time. Um these the climate has changed,
and I wonder if like it was because of a
lot of these peak oil adherents shouting really loud that
we have made some concessions. But now I wonder if
we're just going to become complacent, right, like, oh well
(31:13):
we staved it off, we're fine for now, and we're
just gonna kick it on down the road, because I
don't see a lot of effort going into it. I
mean not there's some, but certainly not what is needed.
I just feel like we're all headed towards the cataclysmic
like collapse of humanity. Eventually we're all going to turn
on each other and and ruin ourselves, and the Earth
(31:35):
will be scorched and empty. May not be anytime soon,
we're maybe hundreds and hundreds of years from now. Who knows,
but anyone that thinks that humans on planet Earth or
we're gonna be around infinitely forever because we're humans, it's just,
you know, they're pooling themselves as fool's gold. Nice. How's
(31:55):
that for happy? That was perfect. If you wanted to
learn more about peak oil, you can type those words
into the search bar at how stuff works dot com
and will bring up this article. And I said search
bar s means it's time for listener mail, Chuck, I'm
gonna call this where's the orchestra um? This is from
(32:19):
Eric Stephens and he is a double bass player principal
double bass player in an orchestra near Cologne, Germany. And
he listened to the Ben s Alicia about music and emotion,
which we got great feedback on. And he says many
thanks to Ben, who played another fantastic and inspiring performance.
He's a beautiful open way of discussing music. I couldn't
(32:40):
agree more. Many thanks to him for mentioning the importance
of classical music. It's an art form that, unfortunately two
feetle too few people are exposed to now, having a
lot to do with its financial and logistical complexities, but
nonetheless one of the most powerful and underrated forms of
music today, and it has contributed so much to how
we in the Western world here proceed of music today.
(33:01):
I would really love it if you guys could get
out and hear another performance sometime. Even more so if
you encourage s Y s K listeners to get out
and experience and support their local orchestras. Um. It is
difficult time for orchestras right now, and has been mentioned
many are being forced to downsize or fold altogether. This
is one of the reasons why I've ended up in Germany,
(33:21):
which still heavily supports many orchestras with state financing and media.
The appreciation is very deeply rooted in the culture out here,
and while it's a slightly different situation in the States.
I want to remind people that classical music is not
exclusive unless you make it so. And I would go
on to even point out that he means orchestral music.
(33:41):
Classical is a period of time. Oh yeah, you know,
way to correct him. He probably doesn't appreciate that. Um,
it is not exclusive unless you make it so. So
you don't need to have a tuxedo or a deep
musical education to appreciate the extreme beauty and the importance
of it. Couldn't agree more. Please give it a chance,
He'll keep it alive. And uh, that is very good advice.
(34:06):
Support your local orchestra. I guarantee you whatever town you
live in, unless you're in some really backward Kansas Field town,
you probably got an orchestra. Even if it's a smallest town,
you might am an orchestra. Yeah, if you're in a
big city, you definitely have an orchestra. Yes, go out
and see. It's usually pretty cheap. Um, it's not like
paying for you know, sixty bucks to go see Jack
(34:29):
White make noise. I like Jack lydextra, but he's charging
too much. Sixty bucks ahead. Yeah, when he played that,
he got that rack. Rock and tours fan together tickets
for like sixty or seventy by bucks. It's a lot
for one album of material for a lot anyway. Um,
thank you for all the years of explaining the world
(34:49):
through fantastic podcast. I hope for many years to come
to hear these. When I drink my delicious colch beer tonight,
I'll roast you guys, he says Sheera Grusa. I'll call
own Eric Stephen's thanks a lot. Stephens appreciate that orchestra.
I'm in favor of encouraging our listeners to go out
to an orchestra. We got a good one a specific
(35:11):
day where all stuff you should know, listeners go out
to the orchestra. Well, I don't think you can count
on an orchestras playing on that day in every town
and arts. Well, let's find out about it. Let's find
out all right, let's even get that together, like like, no,
I don't think we can make that happen. But maybe
there's a day when the orchestras typically play like traditionally speaking,
Or how about like this winter season, make a commitment
(35:33):
to go out because you're gonna be darn sure that
building orchestra playing some sort of Christmas classical concertos. All right,
that's it. You you have to go out and see
an orchestra this winter. Yeah, but don't. No, Cracker is
not bad depending on where you see it. I like
(35:53):
it's a little doll really thinks huh oh for me? Sure,
there's like giant soldier and a huge there's a rat
that hits people with this. There's a lot of stuff
going on. Um, well, what do you like to go see?
You see Christmas Carol? No, I mean I don't do
any of that stuff. I see I see Jack White
(36:14):
and complain. Um, let's see if you have a favorite
band you'd like to see that you think Chuck and
I should see, or a performance of some sort uh,
whether it's Nutcracker or Jack White or whatever. Well, we've
already covered this too, so you should probably leave them alone. Um,
we want to hear from you. You can tweet your
suggestions to us at s y ESK Podcast. You can
(36:37):
join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
and you can send us a general email to Stuff
Podcast at Discovery dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is that how Stuff Works dot
com
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