Don’t expect 2012 to be any better. More likely, fuel will be getting even more expensive.

Brent crude will average near $111/barrel for 2011, even more than in 2008 when oil prices hit a peak of $147.50/barrel. Some analysts think oil prices will average a bit less in 2012, perhaps averaging $105/barrel. Others analysts predict that oil prices will be even higher than in 2011, projecting WTI (which have consistently been significantly lower than Brent this year) to average $100 per barrel next year, eclipsing 2011′s average of about $95/barrel. Oil-price.net projects WTI prices to be at $112 a year from now.

Nobody is expecting oil prices to drop, or at least not much. Here’s a big reason why: Saudi Arabia, the world’s lowest-cost producer, requires a price of $91/barrel just to break even.

The glory days of cheap gas are over for good. Our memories aren’t playing tricks: remember gas wars, gas at 19.9 cents a gallon? In my Fiat 850 Spyder – $2000 new, right off the lot, and 50 mpg – driving seemed virtually free. We were young and immortal, oil was infinite, and the world was empty and ours for the taking. There were no bounds, no limits. Vietnam and then the first gas crisis in 1973 were the first intimations that the imperial project – to stride over not just the nations of the world, but over Nature herself – was destined to go awry.

A few were prescient. Limits to Growth was published in 1972, foreseeing humanity bumping up against constraints to both sources and sinks by the first decades of this century. Way back in ’56, Shell geologist M. King Hubbard predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970 – a prediction that proved spot on.

Porter Stansbury at The Daily Reckoning posts this chart showing “real wealth” per capita in the U.S. since the mid-’50s.

Note that “real wealth” in the U.S. peaked about the same time as U.S. oil production. Coincidence?

Stansbury measures “real wealth” using a standard commodity index (the CRB) up to 1975 and gold post-1975 (when gold began to trade freely). When peak oil arrived in the U.S., Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard. With the U.S. kissy-face with the Saudis, the dollar became the petrodollar.

I’m not sure I would put a lot of faith into this measure of “real wealth” – but the correlation of peak wealth with peak oil is provocative. There’s no question that the U.S., indeed the entirety of Earth, has become a poorer, more degraded home for humans since 1970, despite decades of “growth” and “progress”. That degradation doesn’t even begin to show up in our accounts.

Around 1970, reality arose and smacked us across the face.  Humanity has been working through the range of responses – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, not yet acceptance – ever since.

The Executive Summary presents the following demand and supply projection for 2035:

Oil demand (excluding biofuels) rises from 87 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2010 to 99 mb/d in 2035. * * *

The cost of bringing oil to market rises as oil companies are forced to turn to more difficult and costly sources to replace lost capacity and meet rising demand. Production of conventional crude oil – the largest single component of oil supply – remains at current levels before declining slightly to around 68 mb/d by 2035. To compensate for declining crude oil production at existing fields, 47 mb/d of gross capacity additions are required, twice the current total oil production of all OPEC countries in the Middle East. A growing share of output comes from natural gas liquids (over 18 mb/d in 2035) and unconventional sources (10 mb/d). The largest increase in oil production comes from Iraq, followed by Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Canada. Biofuels supply triples to the equivalent of more than 4 mb/d, bolstered by $1.4 trillion in subsidies over the projection period.

The “supply” numbers total 100 mbd rather than 99 mbd – let’s presume the 1 mbd discrepancy is due to rounding errors. The IEA projects oil demand will hit 99 mbd in 2035, but the world will be producing only 68 mbd of conventional oil . . . leaving a 31 mbd gap to be filled. NGLs and unconventional oil are projected to cover 28 mbd of that, leaving 3 mbd to be covered by – biofuels? Didn’t the 99 mbd figure for demand exclude biofuels?

That aside, the IEA thinks that the next 24 years will see 31 mbd of “oil” from:

• Natural gas liquids – 18 mbd
• Unconventional sources – 10 mbd
• Biofuels – 4 mbd

This implies three things:

1. That natural gas liquid production will more than double by 2035, from about 8 mbd today.
2. That unconventional oil production doubles by 2035, from about 5 mbd today.
3. That biofuel production will triple by 2035.

Nick Hodge observes the big problem with this is that it’s never been done:

It took us 40 years to add 31 million barrels per day of conventional oil production — the easy stuff.

The IEA is saying we can add the same capacity in half the time using much harder-to-get resources.

Out of the 68 mbd of conventional oil that the IEA projects to be available, 47 mbd – twice the current production of OPEC countries in the Middle East – are from sources yet to be developed, just to offset depletion from existing sources. Really? The world is going to discover and/or develop two more Middle Easts worth of conventional oil, in just 24 years? Where, exactly?

Stuart Staniford at Early Warning suggests that the source of new supply is not likely to be Saudi Arabia. He points out that Saudi production has been fluctuating between 8 mbd and 9.5 mbd since 2003. In response to the interruption in Libyan production early this year, Saudi briefly boosted output to a peak of around 9.7 mbd or 9.8 mbd – not quite achieving a promised 10 mbd – but have since eased back to about 9.5 mbd.

Bottom line: is Saudi Arabia going to save the global economy’s bacon? Here’s Staniford’s assessment:

So are we any the wiser as to the great question of whether Saudi Arabia has significant spare capacity and could increase production to 12mbd or more if only they chose?  Only slightly I fear.  I interpret the fact that the Saudis couldn’t quite meet the 10 mbd promise and almost immediately backed off that, despite amply high prices, as consistent with the story that the recent Saudi production expansions have only gone to offset declines elsewhere (perhaps especially in north Ghawar).  The increasing rig count also suggests a lack of comfort with the amount of spare capacity presently available.

However, I can see that someone who thought the Saudis were able to produce more but are profit maximizers who intend to keep prices as high as possible consistent with not actually throwing the world economy into recession might also be able to tell a story about how the Saudis did the bare minimum to moderate prices after it became clear that the Libya price spike was causing global economic harm but then began gradually lowering production as prices slowly began to fall following the price spike, keeping the world in a state of slow growth, but some growth, while maximizing the Saudi take for its oil.  The one weak point in this story is that it offers no explanation for the rising rig count.

Of course – at this point maybe the difference between the two views doesn’t actually matter that much – either the Saudis can’t produce more or they won’t, but either way the effect is to keep oil prices high enough to be a significant constraint on a world economy that is already struggling.

Continued economic growth is dependent on continued expansion of energy supplies.

The EIA is schizophrenic in thinking there’s a way to square the circle. There’s only one way to head off catastrophic climate change: shrink the economy, by a lot, and quickly. Gail Tverberg at Our Finite World explores the implications:

If GDP growth and energy use are closely tied, it will be even more difficult to meet CO2 emission goals than most have expected. Without huge efficiency savings, a reduction in emissions (say, 80% by 2050) is likely to require a similar percentage reduction in world GDP. Because of the huge disparity in real GDP between the developed nations and the developing nations, the majority of this GDP reduction would likely need to come from developed nations. It is difficult to see this happening without economic collapse.

The reality is, we don’t have a choice. Other limits to growth aside, the energy resources necessary to keep the globe on the economic growth path simply aren’t there; growth will come to an end whether we like it or not. The choice we do have is whether to destroy Earth as a host for human life first.

In the study, titled Emission pathways consistent with a 2°C global temperature limit, the team of scientists reanalyzed a large set of previously published emission scenarios based on integrated assessment models. They found that in the set of scenarios with a ‘likely’ (greater than 66%) chance of staying below 2°C, emissions peak between 2010 and 2020 and fall to a median level of 44 Gt of CO₂ equivalent in 2020 (compared with estimated median emissions across the scenario set of 48 Gt of CO₂ equivalent in 2010).

Current climate models show if the increase in average global temperatures is to be kept below 2°C (3.6°F), emissions must not only peak by 2020, emissions must fall by almost 10% by 2020  – and then continue to fall rapidly to well under half of current emissions by 2050.

Climate scientist Neil Edwards commented on the study’s findings:

The alarming thing is very few scenarios give the kind of future we want.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently announced global CO₂ emissions decreased for the first time since 1990, due to the 2008-2009 economic crisis – but warned, don’t expect a trend. A large rebound is anticipated in 2010. (Note: a report published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency found that global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions increased by more than 5% in 2010, reaching an all-time high.)

The IEA’s findings are contained in a free document that contains highlights from CO₂ Emissions from Fuel Combustion 2011, an IEA statistics publication which will be released in November 2011. The full document, which contains all the latest information on the level and growth of CO₂ emissions, is being released to inform the upcoming UN climate negotiations in Durban. Key findings include:

1. Two-thirds of global emissions for 2009 originated from just ten countries, with the shares of China and the United States far surpassing those of all others (combined, these two countries alone produced 41% of the world’s CO₂emissions).
2. Between 1990 and 2009, CO₂ emissions from the combustion of coal grew from 40% to 43% and natural gas from 18 to 20%, while CO₂ emissions from oil fell from 42% to 37%.
3. Two sectors – electricity and heat generation and transport – produced nearly two-thirds of global CO₂ emissions in 2009, up from 58% in 1990.

In their study, the climate scientists found only three of the 193 scenarios examined would be very likely to keep the warming below the danger level – and all of those require heavy use of energy systems that actually remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. That would require, for example, both creating biofuels and storing the carbon dioxide from their combustion in the ground. Edwards put it this way:

What we need is at the cutting edge. We need to be as innovative as we can be in every way.

In the statement quoted above, Edwards is assuming that the objective is to preserve the energy-intensive economic growth paradigm. But the paradigm is the problem. Every day it is becoming increasingly clear that cutting edge technology and innovation are not the answer.

One example: many Oregonians across the political spectrum, including Governor John Kitzhaber, have promoted forest biomass as a energy source, thinking woody debris from thinning, brush clearing and removing dead trees could help the state meet its renewable energy goals while at the same time restoring forest health and providing jobs in rural communities. But not so fast, say OSU researchers: managing forests for biofuel production will increase carbon dioxide emissions from the forests by at least 14%. The OSU press release quotes co-author Beverly Law:

Until now there have been a lot of misconceptions about impacts of forest thinning, fire prevention and biofuels production as it relates to carbon emissions from forests. If our ultimate goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, producing bioenergy from forests will be counterproductive. Some of these forest management practices may also have negative impacts on soils, biodiversity and habitat. These issues have not been thought out very fully.

Looking to technology and innovation to enable humans to continue to pursue the economic growth that is consuming the very ecosystems that sustain us is just the denial of an addict. What is necessary is acceptance: growth is destructive and must be reversed. We must welcome and embrace the collapse of our current economic system, and learn to live within an economic system that conserves rather than consumes the larger systems of which it is a part.

The excerpt below is from the abstract of the study “Considering oil production variance as an indicator of peak production“:

The primary finding was unprecedented statistical variance in oil production rates as well as in oil prices beginning approximately 2005 to 2010. In the case of oil production rates, variance is at historically low levels. In the case of oil prices, variance is at historically high levels. The data indicate a new higher order of inelasticity between oil price and oil production.

These findings support peak oil forecasts in the range of 2005 to 2010 and together provide strong evidence that geological factors could presently be limiting world oil production.

The inelasticity between oil price and oil production Fleming talks about is evidenced by the wild swings in oil prices over the last six years, as seen in this graph posted by Stuart Staniford at Early Warning . . .

. . . while the lack of response from oil producers can be seen in this graph posted by Gail Tverberg at Our Finite World showing production from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 1965.

MENA Monthly crude oil production, based on EIA data.

MENA’s oil consumption is rising, so even if MENA’s oil production could rise, that does not mean that oil exports would rise. For example, Saudi Aramco projects Saudi Arabia’s domestic consumption will reach an equivalent of 8.3 million barrels by 2028, more than double the 3.4 million barrels equivalent in 2009 – leaving precious little for export.

Ecological economist David Stern recently published a paper on the essential role of energy in economic growth, aptly titled ‘The Role of Energy in Economic Growth“. Stern observes that mainstream economic theory pays no attention to the role of energy; however, physics shows that energy is necessary for economic production and, therefore, economic growth. The “synthesis” model proposed by Stern explains the industrial revolution as a releasing of the constraints on economic growth due to the development of methods of using coal and the discovery of new fossil fuel resources.

Climate considerations aside, for business as usual – the continuation of economic growth – it’s bad enough that the world is bumping up against limits to oil production volume; however, the energy returned on energy investmen (EROI) is dropping, too – it’s costing more and more energy to produce the same amount of oil. A new study titled “A New Long Term Assessment of Energy Return on Investment (EROI) for U.S. Oil and Gas Discovery and Production” finds:

EROI for finding oil and gas decreased exponentially from 1200:1 in 1919 to 5:1 in 2007. The EROI for production of the oil and gas industry was about 20:1 from 1919 to 1972, declined to about 8:1 in 1982 when peak drilling occurred, recovered to about 17:1 from 1986–2002 and declined sharply to about 11:1 in the mid to late 2000s. The slowly declining secular trend has been partly masked by changing effort: the lower the intensity of drilling, the higher the EROI compared to the secular trend. Fuel consumption within the oil and gas industry grew continuously from 1919 through the early 1980s, declined in the mid-1990s, and has increased recently, not surprisingly linked to the increased cost of finding and extracting oil.

A new paper by economist James Hamilton titled Oil Prices, Exhaustible Resources, and Economic Growth documents that a key feature of the historical growth in production has been exploitation of new geographic areas rather than application of better technology to existing sources, and suggests that the end of that era is nigh. Hamilton shows that economic dislocations have historically followed temporary oil supply disruptions.  He concludes:

If the peaking of global production results in further big increases in the price of oil . . . the economic consequences of reduced energy use would have to be significant.

* * *

If the future decades look like the last 5 years, we are in for a rough time.

Most economists view the economic growth of the last century and a half as being fueled by ongoing technological progress. Without question, that progress has been most impressive. But there may also have been an important component of luck in terms of finding and exploiting a resource that was extremely valuable and useful but ultimately finite and exhaustible. It is not clear how easy it will be to adapt to the end of that era of good fortune.

Tom Murphy writes that we now find ourselves in an energy trap.

In brief, the idea is that once we enter a decline phase in fossil fuel availability—first in petroleum—our growth-based economic system will struggle to cope with a contraction of its very lifeblood. Fuel prices will skyrocket, some individuals and exporting nations will react by hoarding, and energy scarcity will quickly become the new norm. The invisible hand of the market will slap us silly demanding a new energy infrastructure based on non-fossil solutions. But here’s the rub. The construction of that shiny new infrastructure requires not just money, but . . . energy. And that’s the very commodity in short supply. Will we really be willing to sacrifice additional energy in the short term—effectively steepening the decline—for a long-term energy plan? It’s a trap!

A rough time, indeed. Effectively coming to grips with this new reality won’t be from the top down; it’s futile to look for or expect political solutions. Rather, doing so will require the kind of “magic” that begins with the individual, and works outward from there. It’s not the destination that matters, but rather the journey. And anybody can take that first step.

The EIA does not collect international production data but apparently pays IHS for the data (at least until the recent budget cuts).

I asked the EIA to comment on Foucher’s observation.  Here’s the response I received from Patricia Smith of the EIA’s International Energy Analysis Team:

Thank you for your interest in the U.S. Energy Information Administration. I have checked with all of the staff involved in putting together our world oil production data series.

The statement “The EIA does not collect international production data but apparently pays IHS for the data (at least until the recent budget cuts).” is not necessarily 100 percent accurate.

It’s true, we don’t “collect” international data from any type of survey or similar tool.  Years ago, there was a program through the State Department, that sent out forms to the U.S. Embassy Posts in a number of countries to collect various mineral and energy data.  That program ceased because of staff shortages, and of course budget cuts.

Actually, we use a variety of sources in compiling our data series including,  IEA, Woodmac, Energy Intelligence (until recently), BP, company contacts, national sources, trade data, and industry reports (Platt’s, MEES, Reuters, Dow Jones, etc.).

In previous years, we did use IHS for a handful of countries with smaller levels of production (Cuba, Belize, etc.).

I hope this is helpful.

Evaluating the accuracy and reliability of EIA’s data series would thus require a thorough evaluation of each of the data sources EIA relies on, plus an evaluation of how EIA uses its data sources in arriving at its reported figures. No small task.

One thing is crystal clear: the recently-announced cuts in the EIA budget will mean EIA data will be less reliable and more open to question in the future.

Calculating the net climate impact of an activity is complex and fraught with uncertainties, requiring tracking many different emissions (not just CO2) and accounting for their (time-varying) impacts. Gavin at RealClimate notes a couple of caveats about the results of the study.

For shale gas extraction (and indeed for most fossil fuel extraction), a big issue is fugitive emissions. The estimates for fugitive emissions are uncertain because they are not being reported, either voluntarily by the industry or through regulation from the states. Fugitive emissions mostly consist of methane, which is relatively more important for a 20 year time frame than it is for a 100 year time frame by a factor of ~3. For lack of anything better, the Howarth study had to rely on admittedly poor observations.

Another problem is that, for other fossil fuels, fugitive emissions weren’t considered.

For an apples-to-apples life cycle comparison, one would need to also update the impacts of coal and oil to include their fugitive emissions, their impact on other short-lived components (black carbon, CO, etc). The Howarth study compared apples to oranges.

Still, the main point of the study remains valid: natural gas, conventional or fracked, isn’t the energy or climate panacea we hoped it was.

Why? Methane leaks out during the fracking process:

Natural gas is composed largely of methane, and 3.6% to 7.9% of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the life-time of a well. These methane emissions are at least 30% more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas. The higher emissions from shale gas occur at the time wells are hydraulically fractured — as methane escapes from flow-back return fluids — and during drill out following the fracturing. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential that is far greater than that of carbon dioxide, particularly over the time horizon of the first few decades following emission. Methane contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas on shorter time scales, dominating it on a 20-year time horizon. The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.

This graph from the paper illustrates the climate impacts of various fossil fuels of 20- and 100-year time frames.

Although the authors concede that the data is far from perfect, natural gas may be just as polluting as coal in the long term – and far worse in the short term due to the higher warming impact from methane when it is first released to the atmosphere during the fracking stage.  Gas is no solution to our energy or climate crises.

Poyourow sets out to confront the the “triple crisis” of global warming, peak oil, and economic collapse. Any long-term plan we come up with is futile unless we anticipate that it will unfold amidst a world of economic contraction:

We have to plan for it, and put alternative financial tools in place to weather it, or it will undermine all of our other efforts.

Poyourow says it takes “raw courage” to confront the end of growth on a personal level, and even more to violate social and political taboos by doing so in public. But in the end, we have no choice – and our options are severely constrained:

Whether it will be a full-scale collapse into chaos like Jared Diamond writes about or Stoneleigh forecasts, or whether we will be successful in creating locally-managed “surge breakers” in time, remains to be seen.  But either way, we’d better try our best to get something in place.

The “techno-fantasy” conceptualized in the chart below – continued growth, “business as usual” – is just that, a complete fantasy. And the “green-tech stability” projection is also a fantasy: it represents a form of bargaining with rather than accepting the reality that renewable .

The uncomfortable reality is, no renewable energy sources are on hand that approach the energy density of fossil fuels. That leaves us with two options. We can choose to accept and deal with reality, with all the creativity, wisdom, and grace we can muster. Or we can continue to deny and resist reality,  destroy the land, the oceans, and the atmosphere and in the end suffer collapse as a consequence of our obdurateness.

The reality is, we  can’t force or cajole a finite world to accommodate infinite growth. As available energy and other resources become more scarce and expensive, there must be a descent.  A a severe contraction in our economic systems is inevitable. And we will have to adapt, voluntarily or involuntarily.

Against the backdrop of this reality, it’s no wonder that our politics – for example, Obama’s nonspeech outlining an energy nonpolicy – are nothing less than an absurdity.

Huge Bardi observes that we can learn an important lesson from the Japaneses – the pre-modern, pre-Fukushima, Edo period Japanese, that is. Like Japan, Earth is an island. To live sustainably and successfully on that island, the winning strategy is adaptation. We need to adjust our needs to what this planet can give us.

Stuart Staniford at Early Warning discounts the importance of last summer’s heat wave and drought in Russia to the current global spike in food prices, instead attributing the spike to diversion of food crops to biofuels. The results of his analysis are shown in this graph.

The biofuel feedstock appears as a negative quantity (the idea being it’s a deduction from global food supply). Staniford’s conclusion: biofuels are much more significant than Russian weather fluctuations as a factor affecting cereal food supplies.

Still think biofuels are a good idea? That it’s more important to feed our cars than our people?

So how are we doing on our project to massively increase U.S. wind and solar generation capacity? This chart posted by Stuart Staniford at Early Warning is not reassuring, at least regarding wind.

The American Wind Energy Association’s Q4 2010 market report reveals that new installations collapsed in 2010.