Petroleum Use

Petroleum Use

"The program of the devotees of fossil-fuel is a formula for further concentration of wealth and power: keep society hooked on petroleum and uranium; delay the solar transition until the oil and gas are too costly to recover; then burn up the coal and slap a meter on the sun." --Daniel M. Berman and John T. O'Connor, 1996, Who Owns the Sun

Assigned outside reading

Miller, pp. 96-99; 121-126

Assigned online reading

Read for the main ideas: "The End of Cheap Oil," by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherr�re, Scientific American, March 1998 -- "Within the next decade, the supply of conventional oil will be unable to keep up with demand. This conclusion contradicts the picture one gets from oil industry reports..." [3,900 words] Optional update by Colin J. Campbell: "The Imminent Peak of World Oil Production," Presentation to a House of Commons All-Party Committee on July 7th 1999.

Shrinking Net Energy from Fossil Fuels
(tutorial by T. Detwyler) [800 words]

Some Solutions to Petroleum Use

OPTIONAL lecture material

Editorial comment by Thomas Detwyler on Exxon's takeover of Mobil: Rockefeller's Ghost Returns to Prove the "Law of Concentration of Capital" [300 words]

Gasoline-powered handbasket...

Questions to answer concerning petroleum use:

Some ____ % of the energy used to heat the earth and all of our buildings comes directly from _____________. The ___________________ [country] is the world's largest user of commercial energy. In the "developed countries" (or "More Developed Countries") about _____ % of commercial energy comes from nonrenewable resources, mainly ___________, which provides about 37% of all commercial energy. In contrast, in the "developing countries" (or "Less Developed Countries") renewable forms of energy, including mainly _____________________, provide about 41% of all commercial energy. In both Wisconsin and the U.S., about ______ % of commercial energy comes from nonrenewable sources, and per capita energy use of is about ______ times greater than an average person's food energy needs [from lecture].

1. The major advantages of using petroleum are:

2. The major disadvantages of using petroleum are:

3. What advantages does natural gas have over other nonrenewable energy sources?

4. What are the advantages, and disadvantages-- especially environmental ones-- of using coal?

5. Why can't a sustainable society be based on fossil fuels and nuclear fission?

6. According to Campbell & Laherr�re, in the End of Cheap Oil:

(A) What evidence "suggests that within the next decade, the supply of conventional oil will be unable to keep up with demand"?

(B) How does the above assessment compare with most oil industry reports? --What, according to the authors, are the "three critical errors" of the industry appraisal?

(C) What three factors "have often led economists and academic geologists to dismiss concerns about future oil production with naive optimism?"

7. What is net energy and why is it shrinking? In regard to continuing dependency on fossil fuels, especially petroleum, what is the major implication of shrinking net energy?

8. Assuming that sustainability requires humanity to make a transition from dependency on nonrenewable to flow (or renewable) forms of energy, what types of countries face the greatest changes, and why?

9. How and why, in your opinion, will corporate capitalism ease and/or obstruct the transition from nonrenewable to flow energy sources?

"If we want to preserve our civilization ... we must find ways of tapping other energy sources than the quickly vanishing fossil fuels." --Hans Thirring, 1958, Energy for Man

Big Oil...


Dependency on distant, nonrenewable, centralized energy resources	Dependency on local, renewable, decentralized energy resources

"A fossil-fuel civilization is a dinosaur devouring its own tail: it will eat itself to death; the only question is when... Compared to the infinite abundance of sunlight, wind, and growing plants, large fossil-fuel deposits-� especially oil-� are extremely rare... The real solutions to the energy problem are more democracy, more efficiency, more use of renewable energy, and more local control. To hold otherwise is to help rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic." --Daniel M. Berman and John T. O'Connor, 1996, Who Owns the Sun, chapt. 3

Optional resources concerning petroleum use

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Thomas Detwyler maintains this page (tdetwyle@uwsp.edu)
Last updated 8 June 2001