PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY Chapter 1 – Oil, the Lifeblood of a Technological Civilization By Robert Bériault

1. PEAK OIL AND THE FATE OF HUMANITY Chapter 1 – Oil, the Lifeblood of a Technological Civilization By Robert Bériault

2. Why do you say oil is so valuable for you Earthlings?

3. Why oil is so valuable: Canadians use an enormous amount of energy.

4. In fact, Canadians are the world’s biggest users of energy

5. Why oil is so valuable: Half of Canada’s energy supply comes from oil. Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/prim72.htm

6. Why oil is so valuable: The average Canadian uses an amount of energy equivalent to what 200 men would expend -- working 24 hours a day. Click here The average modern human has 200 “energy slaves” working for him or her C.J.Campbell, December 2000

7. Why oil is so valuable: 95% of transportation is fuelled by oil

8. Why oil is so valuable: Look around you…

9. Why oil is so valuable: Can you see any object here… … that has not been transported by vehicles… … fuelled by oil? Even the walls, the floor and the ceiling would not be here without transportation fuelled by oil

10. Cement plant Think of the construction industry: Cement truck fuelled by diesel (oil) Delivers materials to construction site

11. Could anything be built without transportation?

12. Think of manufacturing: A flat-bed truck fuelled by diesel (oil) Delivers materials to the factory

13. Could anything be manufactured without a reliable transportation system?

14. Factory Distributor Store Think of how items reach the store:

15. For goods to reach the retailer we depend on a complex distribution system… …that simply could not work without an ample supply of easily available oil

16. Farm Processing plant Distributor Plate Think of the food you eat:

17. Think of the food you eat: Food travels an average of 2080 km from farm to plate Food travels an average of 2080 km from farm to plate The Party’s Over, Richard Heinberg

18. How would our food get into the cities without transportation fuelled by oil?

19. Cargo plane Think of international trade Grain carrier Container ship

20. How would we ship billions of tons of goods without oil?

21. Think of how we would get to work if it weren’t for oil…

22. Park? Ski centre? Lake? Gym? Church? Lessons? Without gasoline, how would we get to…

23. Think of how public transit also depends on oil:

24. Think of services rendered by air: All of these run on oil Crop spraying Power line inspections Access to remote places Forest fire fighting

25. Think of energy hungry municipal services:

26. Think of mineral extraction: • Everything we buy depends on the mining industry, which is efficient because of cheap oil.

27. Think of labour saving machinery : All these use oil

28. Even around the home we useoil-consuming machines

29. Think of the sports that could not exist without oil

30. Tourism only exists because cheap oil is available

31. Pharmaceuticals Instrumentation Hospitals Disposable (plastic) supplies Our health care system needs oil for:

32. Without oil, how could our hospitals run their: Surgical rooms? Diagnostic laboratories? Teaching facilities? Intensive care?

33. Calgary winter Oil accounts for a large proportion of heating for houses and commercial buildings.

34. Oil is used for electrical generation in many parts of the world

35. Oil is so versatile… The petrochemical industry can refine oil into many different fuels Gas Naphtha Gasoline Kerosene Diesel Lubricants http://science.howstuffworks.com

36. And it can be made into 1000s of products including plastics, textiles, etc.

37. Modern, intensive agriculture depends on oil

38. Fertilizers and pesticides are made from natural gas and oil

39. Almost all farm machinery operates on oil

40. Because of inexpensive oil … …1 farmer can feed 100 people

41. Without agricultural chemicals and machineryhow would we meetthe world demand for food?

42. …everything depends on an ample supply of petroleum

43. Everything we do, our agriculture, our technology, the way we live, the cities we’ve built… Why oil is so valuable:

44. NONE OF THIS WOULD EXIST WITHOUT AN AMPLE SUPPLY OF CHEAP OIL Why oil is so valuable:

45. Boy! Oil enables you humans to make a lot of stuff!

46. Indeed! Lots of stuff! • Not only has oil enabled us to make a lot of stuff, but the price of stuff has been going down, down and down. • I’ll give you an example…

47. Let’s look at the cost of a refrigerator When I was a child in 1949 it cost my father 20% of his annual salary to buy the above refrigerator When I got married in 1965 it cost me 10% of my salary to purchase this much superior refrigerator Today the average person needs only spend 2 % of their salary to buy the same thing*. * Average salary: $40,000 vs. cost of fridge $800

48. The reason why consumer goods are so cheap today is that we’ve put theenergyfrom oilto work for us. If we can extract resources and build factories, automated assembly lines, and computer operated robots, it is thanks to having access to oil.

49. Oil is what feeds our economy. Growth of TSX

50. I’m not the only one who says oil’s important to the economy: The Energy Information Administration, Department of Commerce and Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S.A.: “The availability of oil, natural gas, and coal is what made the United States’ rise to a global economic superpower possible. As energy consumption escalated, so did the nation’s economic output as measured by annual gross domestic product.”