 | Australian Petrol: Very ****ing Expensive (GetUp! does FuelWatch) | TOD: Australia/New Zealand | The Bullroarer - Friday 20th June 2008 |  |
ABC 7:30 Report: Richard Heinberg & Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Posted by Phil Hart on June 19, 2008 - 5:00pm in TOD: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Policy/Politics
It might be too little, too late, but this is some of the hardest hitting journalism we've seen on petrol prices. Kerry O'Brien at the ABC 7:30 Report is clearly no peak oil sceptic.
Monday night he put Kevin Rudd in the hot seat on petrol prices, and you got the impression that Kerry was not playing by the rules of engagement anymore. In that interview, he invoked Richard Heinberg, then on Thursday night he interviewed Heinberg himself.
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Kevin Rudd, if we can start with oil. You and Brendan Nelson are both arguing over very small savings at the bowser, although his small savings are bigger than your small savings.
But isn't it time to look Australians in the eye and tell them the news is only going to get worse on oil?
KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: Kerry, on global oil prices, no one that I can speak to, either within the Government, that is the Treasury who are looking at the long range forecasting here, or abroad, can give you any confidence about where global oil prices will be in three, six, nine, 12 months time.
[Maybe he should have asked somebody at The Oil Drum?]
So this is a massive shock to the global economy. It's happening across all economies at present. What we need to do is frame an intelligent, long term response to this, and Australia as of when we took over Government did not have a long term energy strategy, a fuel strategy.
[We need some really big binoculars.. see the GetUp! FuelWatch ad]
We're working on that, six months into office, and we hope to have something to produce later in the year on that score. Dealing with the long term channel, as well as being mindful of the impact on people's hip pocket now.
So, just in case we didn't get the message from Kerry's interview with Kevin, he interviewed Richard Heinberg (again). There is no attempt to pull the wool over our eyes here: Thursday Night: The end of the petroleum age
Kerry O'Brien did indeed take off the gloves for a little while. I'm confused though, as to why he advocated reducing Excise. Still, it's probably the most blunt series of questions on the subject of Peak Oil that have ever asked of our politicans.
Tony Jones has previously interviewed Heinberg, now Kerry (The Red Menace :D ), and in last nights Q & A, the first questions were on Oil. It seems that the ABC 'gets it'. How long until Australias MSM latch on (even earlier this wek, Channel Nein!s 'reporters' were still harping on about 'speculation' driving Oil prices up)?
Yeah Red Kezza has gone all peak oil lately, so has Tony Jones, who also interviewed Heinberg recently and asked a question about "Hubbert's peak". Other closet peak oilers in the media include Alan Kohler and Robert Gottliebsen.
And Ross Gittins.
I think Kerry was actually trying to force Rudd to say that dropping excise is the wrong thing to do - he couldn't get the answer he wanted and almost stated it himself later in the interview:
The presenter is even more delusional than the PM. Why should the government reduce the excise tax???
technically its cutting paying gst on the excise (ie, a tax on a tax), and the goverment is talking about doing so because
a) they want to appear to be doing "something" about petrol prices (and they currently have budget surplus, although i think spending it on upgrading our train system would be a much better thing to do).
b) during and since the last election both parties have been saying they would (although the current opposition were talking about cutting the excise itself by 5c, rather than removing the gst on excise, which ammounts to about 3.5c).
Andrew
This is the first time on Australian television to my knowledge, that someone of Richard Heinberg's calibre has been interveiwed on a prime time current affairs programme.
Being aired on the Government owned television three days after the pathetic performance of PM Rudd on the subject, Richard was a breath of fresh air on the realities of the subject.
Heinberg was interviewed on Lateline just a few days before.
The ABC has been "switched on" with this issue for a while now... A quick search of the ABC web site will give you a number of hits.
Check out Crude.
I bought this at the ABC store and was disappointed to see that the extended interviews available for viewing for free on the web site are not available on the DVD.
Also, take a look at the 4 Corners production Peak Oil from way back in '06.
I could launch from here into an psycho-babble essay on the reasons why people keep plugging away with BAU but I'm sure that topic has been fairly well flogged to death already.
Regards
Mash
----------
Father, Farmer, Doomer, Engineer, Drummer
It seems to me that we are at PO now or have been there since 2005?
This should make the economic collapse that is anyway coming because of the worldwide creditbubble, to last the rest of ouer lifes.
The very odd thing, is that everything in the real life seems normal. Everybody drives in their cars as usual, and nobody talks about PO. The gasoline price has gone up, but hardly no one complains.
What is happening? Has the masses swallowed the blue pill, or have i been seduced by reading The Oildrum????
Confused.
That's because we can afford to pay much, much, more for fuel. I think OPEC realises this now.
Neo: "Hey"
Trinity: "What?"
Neo: "I used to eat there. Really good noodles."
Giddaye Swede (from France?),
Not seduced. I've been bitching and moaning to other Todsters for months that life as we know it can't possibly be coming to an end any time soon because no-one in MS (much less my immediate circle of family and friends) are talking about it. But clearly crude oil is finite and mankind collectively burns a heck of a lot of it each day - and this obviously can't go on forever. Whether we have a few years to get a plan up and running to slow or counter the problem, or a few decades seems to be the only debate. As a fence-sittle, each day my weight shifts toward the PO boat, though with the seemingly endless upward cost of essentials, "decades" is feeling a little slim.
I didn't vote for Mr Rudd, I'm a Peter Costello fan (ex-treasurer; had a quick chat with him once at the airport while we waited at baggage-claim; something we can still do in Australia, btw). Peter is one of the few politicians who speaks that I don't reach for the remote. But whether he would waffle as much as the current PM in today's environment is unclear to me.
At the end of the day though, we need the PO experts appearing on prime-time MS news and current affairs, not waffle-talk polys - I would think less than 2% of the country saw this interview with the PM; probably half of those switching off as the waffle kicked in (in their minds at least). And these experts need to spell out the plain facts in simple terms. Having said that, the sixty minutes report the other night let the site manager at a Canadian tar-field get away with proclaiming 60mbpd was possible and a 40 year supply; as well as no mention of the energy return on the energy invested equation.
As long as Joes and Janes like myself are left in the MS dark, or worse told "she'll be right, mate!", if and when PO finally bites (in a big way, that is - like Qantas folding?), I fear not many of us will handle it well at all. Indeed, I still wrestle with it myself.
Regards, Matt B
Matt B,
I've been following your posts with some interest--nice to get your perspective.
Keep this reality in mind about Peak Oil:
Right now, even if peak is currently underway, humanity is producing and utilizing more energy than ever before in the entire history of the species. With so much energy being used, much can and is happening. The "world" is going zoooom as never before.
Such is the reality of life at Hubbert's peak: The shock of energy scarcity "sneaks" up at a time when there's so much abundance. Life goes on pretty much normally and then the oil-production downturn arrives. Like a storm arriving in the night, Peak Oil engulfs the unaware. The late Bakhtiari's "four transitions" outline this concept pretty well. The first one, right at peak, is the most like BAU. After that, the world as we know it is expected to change in a myraid unexpected ways. All in a matter of years (approximately 3-4 years per transition by Bakhtiari's estimation).
To anthropomorphize, Peak Oil by its nature is most deceptive.
-best,
Wolf in YVR BC
Thanks Wolf, I appreciate it (indeed, have always been very grateful in the level of detail in the replies as I fumble my way through this!).
Your storm-engulfing-the-unaware analogy is fantasic! Never thought of it like that. Guess I need to start finding the ropes to tie everything down (convincing the wife still remains the problem however, though not in a tying down sense)...
Regards, Matt B
Too much information there Matt!
Oops, sorry. That would be "Evil Matt" speaking (out of context) - happens occasionally, like building up browny points with the mother-in-law, only to say or do something stupid to lose them all. Will I ever learn!
But you do know I'm kidding, right?
Regards, Matt B
Hi Matt,
Things still seem normal here in Oz where the median family still only spends 5% of their income on liquid fuels, plus a few more percent embedded in food and consumer products. We can probably absorb another doubling in fuel prices without much sweat (say two years) and possibly even another doubling after that...
But things are not so relaxed in the third world, where the household budget numbers already don't add up, and that's just for some kero to cook dinner for your kids...
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/06/2008619121558798802.html
(And dang, the nearest firewood's three days' walk away, thousands of metres up the side of a mountain!)
Exactly. Hence the word "peak". There's an aviation analogy that I think is appropriate. The angle of attack at which a wing produces maximum lift is called the critical angle of attack. What happens as you continue past this angle? The wing stalls, rapidly producing less and less lift. The airplane loses altitude. Recovery prior to hitting the ground depends on application of the proper recovery techniques, and how far above the ground you were when the stall occurred.
No sane pilot flies with the wing near the stall without taking corrective action or at least being hyper-vigilant.
What do you think, nice analogy? It seems counter-intuitive, at first anyway, to think of being in big trouble when you're at "the max". I know I was surprised to hear this when I first learned it in ground school. (Coincidentally, at YVR).
Hi Just,
Yes, this is a nice analogy.
Hello from crop dusting South of USA.
Just lost a pilot to exactly this Stall earlier this month.
My Bro in Law says Cessna even did a film on it.
My Bro in Law, a crop duster, said the pilot was too young, 24,
too cocky, we'll make a ton of $$$, and owner had said pilot
doing low level spraying, too much,instead of fertilizing.
From Sweden actually.
I know, just kidding.
Its around the edges. Traffic in Los Angeles has slowed down. More people in the 99 cent stores. Airplane travel is now downgraded - if you could afford Paris then you may settle for New York.
The size of food packages is smaller - smart cars and bikes of all type are in the hood.
I just got a notice from the DWP that my electric rates will go up.
bit by bit
And water rates here in Melbourne, Oz - up by 15% on July 1st to pay for the $5billion desal plant.
Water's still stupidly cheap.
For Block 1 pricing, it's $1.58/klt for supply and sewage. That's $1.58 per tonne. So even if you are the average wasteful Aussie household with 640lt/day of use, that's a buck a day. Half a Mars bar.
Might be a bit more, the rate goes up after 22,440lt use over the billing period of 60 days, but I wouldn't know those rates since I've never used that much (374lt/day).
You'd have to really be pissing it away at a ridiculous rate for the price to hurt you. A burger would get you three thousands litres.
And what's the rise going to be? 14.8%, says news.com.au. Big deal, 15 cents a day, a buck a week. That's less than the difference between filling your small car's fuel tank on Monday and filling it on Friday.
Aussies accuse Poms of being whingers, and yet we're complaining about an extra 24 cents for a TONNE of water.
Not that the desalination plant is a good idea, of course. It'll be powered by... electricity from coal and hydro, both using heaps of water. Brilliant! We just need to get onto those idiot farmers growing rice in the Mallee and stuff like that.
Don't blame the rice growers. This years rice prodn will be about 50,000 tons compared to million plus in "normal" years. Possibly will never see normal years again as even if the drought breaks the dams will take a few years to fill.
The supermarket shelves now mostly have imported rice and my local (ALDI) only has imported rice.
Not this year, no, but that's because of the damage done in previous years.
Because they grew 1,000,000 tonnes in previous years, they can only grow 50,000 tonnes now.
Water's like a bank account gathering interest. If you draw on the interest, you get interest again next year. If you draw on the principal, you get less next year, and less, and... "Oh no, however did I become broke? Someone help me!"
Professor David Paton from Adelaide University, who has studied the decline of bird life in the lower reaches of the River Murray, now says the Mount Lofty Ranges region is showing similar problems.
He says 10 bird species have become extinct and another 60 or so are on the brink.
"There's a real risk that you'll lose half the bird species from this region. I think that's something should no longer be tolerated by any society," he said.
"This generation of South Australians can make a difference we can try and stop those losses.
"But if we leave it too late then, just like the river collapsing, the natural systems around us will collapse."
---------------
A further report due in three years will analyse trends in the river system during drought.
Only a day earlier, a leaked report warned there were only months left to save some parts of the Murray-Darling system.
I guess we can forget about that "further report" then. eh?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/19/2279525.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/18/2277949.htm
I like the idea of using seawater to power the desal...
http://www.ceto.com.au/about/freshwater-and-ceto.php
OK, OK. I get the point. And fair enough. I wasn't complaining though, just pointing it out.
Regards, Matt B
PS. Aren't we supposed to be rating these comments?
Maybe it's half good, half bad ratings :)
Or maybe nobody is bothering because it's pointless.
and to pay for the north south pipeline to steal the water from the Goulburn Valley.
In the United States people complain. They complain about the greed of the oil companies and OPEC, and they complain about environmentalists protecting oil off-shore and in Alaska. There are even some who are furious at the current US regime due to statements made by some "former Alaskan oil pipeline chaplain" about how Alaska has enough oil for the US for "200 years".
"Peak oil is a misnomer. It is an idea perpetrated by the powers that be for the purpose of deceiving the public".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbakN7SLdbk
Exactly. We'll look back on $100 per barrel and marvel at how cheap it was.
It's a different story for people who make $1500 per year, obviously. But in a country like Australia we could keep essential services going at $1000 per barrel (the economy would be in a depression, obviously).
I know, sounds daft, but do a thought experiment:
Suppose oil is $1000 per barrel, and petrol has gone up to $10 per litre.
Imagine you drive 20,000km per year, mostly commuting to work.
Your car gets 10km per litre. You buy 2000 litres of petrol per year.
At $10 per litre, this costs $20k per year. Impossible, right?
Well suppose you log onto a carpool web site and find 2 other people to share the ride with. They live near you, they drive to your house, you all chip in for petrol, you drive your 30km into work and drop them off. Your share of the fuel bill is $7000 per year.
Would you give up you job and resign yourself to a life of poverty over a $7000 p/a fuel bill? I think not.
And if you know a guy with a van, you might get your bill down to $3000 per year.
Obviously the food in the supermarket is far more expensive. Obviously nobody is buying widescreen TVs any more (unless you work for BP). Obviously the economy sucks. And I'd hate to think what life is like in Africa.
But people can still get to work in Sydney at $10 per litre. $1000 oil.
Now if it takes $1000 oil to get people to carpool...then that is what will happen.
(Edit: whoops, meant to post further up in response to quoted comment)
Frankly as a tighht a$$ed bugger I would walk to the car pool or walk/bike to work. At that fuel price and resultant depression there won't be any overtime (probably no job as well) for a big proportion of the population and the people in the outer suburbs will be the biggest victims.
If the economy's in a depression then you're not that likely to have a job to go to.
Anyway, to me the question isn't what level of pain car drivers could afford, but the cost at which oil-based large scale monocrop farming becomes uneconomical. Many Australian farmers are already pushing the limits of available credit to plant each year's crops, and each year where the crops fail sees more & more of them leaving the land.
When the price of oil increases, planting, fertilizing and harvesting will all get more expensive & this would see an accelerating number of farmers throwing in the towel. This means less and less food is produced, in a country where the big cities are a long long way from food growing areas. Is it just me, or does anyone else see a problem with that?
As we speak Resources Minister Ferguson is winging his way to Saudi Arabia to do Rudd's bidding, namely to 'put a blowtorch to OPEC'. That should sort things out.
A recurring thread among TOD ANZ posters was that Australia should use its ample gas reserves (albeit accident prone) as a major replacement for imported oil. The government seems to have taken not one whit of notice. We must keenly await this weekend's breakthrough.
Actually to Marn's credit he has been talking about GTL recently, but less so about CNG, which is infinitely more sensible. But hey, this is Marn we're talking about.
maybe someone has whispered in his ear that CNG is not as problem free as first thought. I ahve recently investigated converting my car to CNG and it is currently virtually impossible in Australia to do it at anything like a sensible economic price. Each engine type needs to be tested and approved before doing it so only the big car manufacturers are really in a position to do the R&D and investment in this and I'd be really surpirsed if they haven't done some.
The fact that CNG is not even rolling out as an option indicates that there is market resistance to the limitations of CNG and therfore not worth rolling out. When the market resistance to only 100kms for each "charge" of gas dissipates, then they will roll them out. The problem may be that by then the economy has tanked so much that the new car market may have shrunk to a point where it just isn't viable to produce cars in such small volumes regardless of waht fuel thay can run on.
I think CNG makes more sense for large vehicles - convert buses and trucks to use it rather than regular commuter cars.
There is also the problem of most of the (currently known) gas being on the west coast, not piped to where all the cars are.
From that point of view GTL makes sense, although we'll be a little more exposed to international market prices than we might be for CNG.
I suspect that Martin does, or is starting to "get it" as well, based on some of his choice of language.
Yesterday he was basically saying that it was supply and demand fundamentals and didn't have anything to do with speculation. He sounded worried.
Boof, what are you smoking? there has never been a gas related accident in Australia, not in WA and especially not in Melbourne, and even if an accident ever occurred the govt will fix it all hunky dory in a day or two.
(I guess it pays to have a solar HWS and a generator when that day or two becomes months).