German Military Study Warns of Drastic Oil Crisis

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html

by all • 16 years ago

33 39 16 years ago

elbrodeur• 16 years ago

Non-renewable resources running out is scary and peak oil is fascinating, but with such wildly differing estimates on how long we have it's hard not to be skeptical.

That being said, we should definitely be planning for the future, and it's great to hear that the UK and Germany are taking giant strides (Germany generates the largest amount of solar energy, for instance).

jacquesm7• 16 years ago

Don't rule out their wind installations either, I'm living within sight of some of the largest windmills they're currently operating, the E82 series, 2MW each, there are thousands of them now in Germany.

It's very impressive to stand near them, they're absolutely huge.

InclinedPlane2• 16 years ago

I can do math, so I will rule out wind installations.

Windmills are a way to reduce overall fuel consumption but they are not adequate for base power (they are too inefficient and too unpredictable).

acqq2• 16 years ago

Estimate errors are not important -- the certainty that the peak comes however is!

Try to think about it, you know how exponents of 2 work:

(...)

1024

2048

Now note that to move from point n to the point n + 1 you need to use as much as in all points from 1 to n - 1: when you're at point of 1024, to move to the point of 2048 (double) you'll need 1+2+4+8+...+512 + 1 of something.

According to

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/colombia/oila.html

the doubling time of world oil consumption is 30 years (just as little as 2.3% usage growth per year makes that!) That means that during the next 30 years the world needs as much oil as the total oil used from the beginning of the oil use to the 1980(!) Think again about that simple fact!

Now if you know that all oil in the Earth formed from the preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae, which had settled to a sea or lake bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions, you can imagine that the supply is really limited.

jacquesm7• 16 years ago

Coal can be converted to oil. At present prices this is not economical. But when the oil price goes up above the point where it is economical suddenly the 'reserves' will have to include all the coal reserves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process

That would (iirc, can't find a quick and reasonably reliable source) double the total available oil for the next 50 years or so, and then there are currently uneconomical sources such as tar sands.

So, in short, yes, it will run out and fairly soon but not as soon as you might think based on just the oil reserves.

zeteo5• 16 years ago

What is the competency of the military for assessing 1. world petroleum reserves and consumption 2. the economic consequences of an oil shortage?!

I think it's far more likely that Spiegel is misrepresenting the context of the study. The German military, in particular, has a reputation for making contingency plans for everything. It seems to me far more credible that the purpose of the study is rather "in the unlikely event that 'peak oil' is reached soon AND this leads to 'total collapse of the markets', the German Army should respond with actions A, B and C".

Discovering such a plan would then have no more significance than finding out, say, about a study of the defensive measures required if Germany is invaded by the Czech Republic.

edge17• 16 years ago

The cost of energy is important to a country because it is one of many throttling point for how aggressively a country can grow. If it becomes unaffordable, and as a result difficult to grow, it can lead to a lot of things (like unemployment and civil unrest).

As far as questioning their competency, I don't even understand what you mean. They have engineers, information, and resources... i'm sure the competent enough to put things together and draw possible conclusions. The oil/commidity trade is very very tied to governments, military embargoes, etc.

For a small idea of how politically charged oil is, one example is the pipeline between Iran and Israel - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Israel_pipeline

Oil and the price of it is incredibly important to governments.

zeteo5• 16 years ago

The army does not extract and market oil. Just because they depend on it doesn't mean they can predict worldwide reserves, rates of consumption, and economic effects of fluctuations in the oil supply. Heck, the oil companies themselves are hard pressed to do a small subset of all of these tasks.

blantonl4• 16 years ago

Do you not think that the United States (and any other country for that matter) hasn't progressed down this same path?

The competency of any military assessing world petroleum reserves and consumption is enormous! Petroleum is the achillies heel of an army. Petroleum is probably the single most valuable commodity for maintaining any army's fighting posture in this day and age. With maybe water and food being a close second.

But remember, petroleum must be continuously and logistically transported to troops fighting on the ground or in the air. You can't just locally procure a sustainable petroleum source for an army on the move.

zeteo5• 16 years ago

Yes, modern armies do depend on a good supply of petroleum. That doesn't mean they are fully staffed with geologists, economists, market analysts etc. Pretty much the entire economy is highly dependent on fossil fuels, but the competency to estimate the reserves is concentrated in a narrow field, and estimates of a whole economy's response to oil shock are mostly speculation.

mchouza• 16 years ago

One interesting study about this area, done by the JASON group for the DoD, is "Reducing DoD Fossil-Fuel Dependence, JSR-06-135":

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/fossil.pdf

jacquesm7• 16 years ago

I think the peak oil scenario is a bit more likely though than the Czech Republic invading Germany.

zeteo5• 16 years ago

The point is that it's probably a contingency plan, and its task is not to estimate the probability of the contingency, but rather what to do should it occur.

eru• 16 years ago

We got an Austrian taking over our government a few decades ago. So I wouldn't rule out some sneaky take over by the Czech.

what• 16 years ago

Reminded me of this from a while back: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1382456

Talks about peak oil in part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3y7UlHdhAU

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

Not to commit either way, but today we have this: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-coming-oil-glut-2010-9

d2viant• 16 years ago

Peak oil seems like a complete non-issue to me. As a resource, it is in such high demand that when we run out someone will step in with a replacement. There's simply too many capitalists and entrepreneurs in this world to let that void go unfilled.

The primary reason alternative fuels haven't caught on yet is because they're not cost effective. As oil becomes a rarer commodity and it's price goes up, a replacement for the fuel supply will gradually emerge as being cost effective.

Devilboy• 16 years ago

The problem is not running out of oil, the problem is that the price increases will increase the cost of living because so much depends on cheap oil.

SoftwareMaven• 16 years ago

Personally, I'd love to see the difference between this "draft" version that says things like "Germany may have to sacrifice Israel" or "We are going to have to screw Poland in favor of Russia", and the "final" version that has gone through the political correctness police. I think that would be a fascinating insight into the political process of a nation.

afterburner• 16 years ago

Hmm, the German military are perhaps even more sensitive to the possibility of an oil shortage thanks to its experience being starved for oil in WWII.

But really, every (good) military worries about this, and has researched the possibility. Hence the US military's research into battery powered humvees.

eande• 16 years ago

The leaked military information was published in German about a week ago and when reading it you find multiple references to US studies.

One of them is from the City of San Francisco who had a task force installed to look into the Peak Oil&Gas www.sfenvironment.org/downloads/library/peakoil_final_report.pdf It is pretty dark report when you read through the paper. One of the statements “events will unfold so badly that unemployment, hunger, and crime are prevalent, and the basic structure of society is unable to function”. But there are some interesting and specific recommendations like "City government could push much harder to promote small businesses” or "develop southeast waterfront" and rail projects. Although I am not sure if anything will happen. But it seems some politician and planers are looking at these scenarios.

mkramlich• 16 years ago

Keep in mind:

1. many militaries do studies like this. contingency planning. they consider it part of their overall mission of defending their country and interests

2. as the supply of cheaper oil shrinks relative to demand, price increases and then more expensive-to-deliver oil becomes marketable (like from shale/sands, or synthetics). and alternate energies become more attractive and economically feasible (solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, etc.) and people increasingly try to use less oil. all of this adds up.

3. nobody can predict the future with certainty, and the accuracy and reliability tends to go down the farther into the future one tries to evaluate

German Military Study Warns of Drastic Oil Crisis

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