Introductory remarks by Kjell Aleklett
In the March 1998 issue of Scientific American Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère published the classic article “The End of Cheap Oil”. That article became the starting point for the debate that has subsequently developed around a future peak of oil production. During the autumn of 2000 there were several people who inspired Colin Campbell to take a lead in the debate and who assisted in the production of the first issue of his famous newsletter that began in January 2001.
We initial few were also privileged to participate in Colin Campbell’s network that he named ASPO, The Association for the Study of Peak Oil. The expression, “Peak Oil” was coined and, in May 2002, ASPO was formally established at a meeting in Uppsala, Sweden. The rest is history.
In the October 2009 issue of Scientific American there is an article by Leonard Maugen with the title “Squeezing More Oil From The Ground”.
The journal announced that the article was in preparation already in April (see SA). At that time they wrote, “Your feedback will be considered by the writer and editors as they complete the final draft of this article, which will appear in an upcoming edition of Scientific American magazine.”
The article is now published but is not accessible on the net without a financial contribution. Leonard Maugen’s article criticizes the 1998 article that Colin and Jean wrote. Jean has now carefully analysed Maugen’s article and Colin has approved Jean’s comments. You can read Jean’s comments on ASPO’s homepage.
(Swedish)
I marsnumret 1998 av Scientific American skrev Colin Campbell och Jean Laherrère den klassiska artikeln ”The end of Cheap Oil”. Artikeln blev startpunkten till den debatt som sedan dess pågått om en framtida maximal oljeproduktion. Under hösten 2000 var det flera som inspirerat Colin Campbell att ta tag i debatten och hans berömda nyhetsbrev började i januari 2001. Vi några stycken fick förmånen att ingå i Colin Campbells nätverk som han kallade för ASPO, The Association for the Study of Peak Oil. Uttrycket Peak Oil var myntat och i maj 2002 formaliserades ASPO vid ett möte i Uppsala. Resten är historia.
I oktobernumret 2009 av Scientific American finns en artikel av Leonard Maugen med rubriken ”Squeezing More Oil from the Ground”.
Redan I april annonserade tidskriften att artikeln var på gång och man skriver: “Your feedback will be considered by the writer and editors as they complete the final draft of this article, which will appear in an upcoming edition of Scientific American magazine.”
Artikeln finns nu publicerad, men inte tillgänglig på nätet utan en finansiell insats. Den artikel som Colin och Jean skriv 1998 kritiseras och Jean har nu noggrant analyserat artikeln av Leonard Maugen och Collin har gett sitt gillande till kommentarerna. Ni kan läsa kommentarerna på ASPO:s hemsida.
Aleklett's Energy Mix 
tahoevalleylines
October 7, 2009
It seems, once rational sense determined a limit and ultimate depletion of oil supply, aggressive effort to preserve and husband remaining quantity must be uppermost.
As a retired transportation employee, with highway, rail and aviation experience, it became clear early in my career that energy efficiency was more important than convenience, over the long term. Railway seemed the commercial mode of transport to prevail as time passed, even with my country (USA) doing everything possible to remove most vestiges of railway lines except for the very primary trunk lines for long distant hauling. Reading SunTzu was a nagging jolt; it made my concerns for loss of national rail capacity reach obssesive levels.
In fact, meeting with a Chinese veteran of the Long March in 1985, a man with the SAMCO organization (Sino-American Machinery Corporation) was an insight into Chinese determination to use US consumer capital to strengthen Chinese infrastructure, with rail transport foremost. He too, was a student of Sun Tzu, and this when I hadn’t yet learned to read. These 20+ years have not been comfortable ones, watching my American homeland rail mileage shrink, as Chinese railway construction has maintained a furious pitch.
The traffic of containers going overland (called the land bridge) was ever more instrumental in preserving very lean American railway infrastructure, even while many of the factories of America melted away as manufacturing went “offshore”. This has reached the turning point, as Peaking Oil will surely do what absent/timid strategic transport planning in America could not: Re-instate the understanding of the need for railway lines, to include branch connections and inner city delivery of victuals and necessities of life.
Consolidated railways will have to be able to think again about the local connections, instead of working to eliminate them. The shrinking coal traffic and impacts of energy emergency on port-to-port container shipping shall sometime in the near future force railway executives to think like their predecessors did, in the first half of the 20th century. Smaller communities and businesses interested in small numbers, not hundreds per day, of containers will have to rely on rail haul as trucking falters with high diesel price and likely rationing. North American agriculture will need the multiplicity of railway branch lines as seen 100 years ago, and early enought to prevent/lessen famine at home and abroad.
As oil depleted, so has water, from notable American aquifers like the Ogallala in the midwest, and the Central Valley, in California. These must be recharged with engineering projects bringing water from the Columbia River/MacKenzie watershed outflows. NAWAPA is acronym for “North American Water & Power Alliance; imminent diesel shortage makes construction delays unthinkable. Readers here might consider worldwide interest in participating in these American projects, without which, undesireable ripple effects could have deleterious effects worldwide.
References that assist are “ELECTRIC WATER” by Christopher C. Swan (New Society Press, 2007) a compendium of renewable power generation and mobility in a de-centralized theme of application. Also, some railway policy points might be seen in this website (peakoil.net) Newsletter 42, article 374; Newsletter 89, article 1037, respectively. In North America, legacy and existing rail footprint can be studied in US Rail Map Atlas Volumes from spv.co.uk
Immense as the US rail matrix rebuild shall be, making it a state-by-state job, overseen by reformed Army/Guard railroad operating & maintenance battalions seem direct way to achieve orderly process. Prioritize by most significant agricultural corridors needing rail haul to replace trucking gone missing. Helpful historic background is seen in James A Van Fleet’s 1956 Rail Transport Book, from Association Of American Railroads librarian (202-639-2100).
ASPO USA meeting in Denver Oct. 11-13 “System Reset” may fear to tread, even at this late hour, on the inbred American DNA requiring a private vehicle for everyone at puberty. If nerve & skill to seek railway solutions is missing, cooler heads from abroad, readers of Mr. Aleklett’s Blog, may have to make overtures appropriate to the scope of the Peak Oil challenge.
Roy44
October 23, 2009
What happens if AYP is not met? ,