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Good News! – Tasmania’s university, UTAS, has moved ahead of state government, having just released its Peak Oil Risk Analysis.

Described as a global first for the tertiary education sector, the UTAS study has investigated the likely impacts of increasing world oil prices on its business operations staff and student population.

Amid continuing media headlines that the US is experiencing an energy bonanza and will soon rival Saudi Arabia in production of hydrocarbons, it is somewhat disturbing how many people are reading those pointed headlines at face value, some even questioning whether oil depletion is a problem after all.

For those who wish to dig deeper than the headlines, below are some links to articles that give a much more robust picture of the true story.

At last here’s an Australian produced video “What the Economic Crisis Really Means – and what we can do about it ” that explains in just 12 minutes the depth of the human predicament and what can be done about it.

Expertly produced with neat hand drawing animation, this educational video explains the slowly disintegrating global economy and its relationship with oil depletion (= rising energy prices).

If you read the mass media you’ll be forgiven for believing that Peak Oil is simply not a threat to us any more. So what is going on? If world oil supply is peaking why have oil prices been on such a roller coaster in recent times?

As with climate and wild weather, oil prices will go up and down from month to month, with many peaks and troughs, but underneath all of that ‘noise’ is a steady one-way progression that, in the long run, we can’t run away from.

Dear climate / peak oil champion,

We are asking for a few moments of your time to petition the state government.

To his credit, in 2010 Minister Nick McKim gained budget 
funding for an important ‘Oil Price Vulnerability Study’ to be undertaken.

Now, two years later and 9 months after its foreshadowed 
release there is no sign of the study. We do know that it has been completed and is now gathering dust in government.

In march Peak Oil Tasmania co-hosted a visit to Tasmania by Canadian writer and systems analyst Nicole Foss, who presented at two lively lectures in Hobart and Launceston. Foss is an expert in the complex global financial and energy systems and focuses a lot of her work on the pressing problem of oil depletion.

Thanks to Hobart climate science writer, Peter Boyer, here is his overview of what Nicole had to say:

Turns out this report’s conclusion was too much for some to handle, so the federal government decided not to publish it back in 2009.

Leaked to a French agency early in Decemer 2011, this is a thoroughly researched run down of the global peak oil predicament and concludes that we’ll start to see a terminal decline happening by around 2016.

Here’s a snapshot of oil prices on the global market. Brent crude is the oil market that Australia is tied to, so from this you can see trends in prices that are affecting us over time.

The chart speaks for itself. Note that by clicking on the four options below the chart you can see how oil prices are changing over different periods time frames. The spike in 2008 coincides with the global financial meltdown and this is followed by an inexorable growth in price.

Our Peak Oil forum in July attracted much interest, especially from people interested how peak oil relates to local government and local communities.

This video clip gives an excellent overview of Peak Oil, it’s consequences and government and community responses – with a particular focus on Tasmania.

(Delivered by Todd Houstein at the forum.)

How can your local council respond to peak oil in the best possible way?

Some councils are large and well resourced. Others less so. Some may have already taken steps to address the issue. Most have not done so yet. Some will be much more impacted by peak oil than will others.

In short, no one-way-fits-all.

Sustainable Living Tasmania is presenting a ‘Living Smart’ workshop this coming Monday, focussed on peak oil.

This is an opportunity to find out about likely impacts of peak oil on daily life and how best to prepare and respond.

Any strident advocacy of electric vehicles feeds our society’s lust to maintain at all costs our patterns of unsustainable living. Every step along the way, the electrification debate needs to be placed into the much more important context of making our cities and communities less car dependent. Lose sight of the larger context, then we lose the sustainability argument and unintentionally end up feeding the other side of the debate instead.