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Saturday, 10 September 2005 |
This is a modified version of a paper prepared privately for the
Australian Transport Research Forum in Adelaide, 29 September 2004. As
a result, this review still shows vestiges of its transport origins and
hence focusses on demand-side rather than supply-side countermeasures.
Bruce Robinson
Perhaps the most compelling (but still largely unrecognised) evidence
of the lack of even short-term sustainability in Australia is our very
serious dependence on rapidly declining petroleum sources. Petroleum is
currently essential for agriculture and most facets of Australia's
community life and economic systems as well as for transport. Many
people assume, wrongly, that medium and short-term supplies are
assured. There is rapidly mounting evidence from the oil industry
itself that this complacency about future oil supplies may well be very
misplaced , for example Akehurst (2002).
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Saturday, 10 September 2005 |
Australian oil production decline
Australia has been shielded from past oil shocks by our domestic oil
production from Bass Strait. Hence, as a nation we have not learnt as
much about oil conservation and transport planning as European
countries, especially the Netherlands which radically changed its
transport planning policy to reduce its oil dependence after the 1973
oil crisis.
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Saturday, 10 September 2005 |
Annual International Workshops on Oil Depletion are held in Europe by
the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, ASPO. The most
recent, and by far the largest and most prominent, was hosted in Berlin
by the German Geological Survey, BGR in May 2004. Papers and
presentations are available at www.PeakOil.net. Oil depletion experts
from the US, Europe, Russia and the Middle East gather to discuss the
growing body of evidence that world oil production will reach a peak
then decline relatively sharply within a decade or at most two.
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Saturday, 10 September 2005 |
Preparation for Probable Oil Shocks
There is a great deal that can be done to prepare for
the likelihood of future oil shocks and hence to ameliorate the effects
when (or if) they hit us. Many possible precautions will be
"no-regrets" options already justified on equity, environment, health,
social or economic grounds. Australia's existing reserves of
uncommitted natural gas coupled with local understanding of demand
management (especially in water use efficiency and TravelSmart
individualised marketing) provide an encouraging opportunity for the
nation to both forecast and to weather the coming storms better than
many other regions. It is particularly important that the issues be
tackled seriously and urgently at all levels in the community. WA
Planning and Infrastructure Minister, Alannah MacTiernan (2004) said,
in opening the "Oil: Living with Less" conference "It is also certain
that the cost of preparing too early is nowhere near the cost of not
being ready on time."
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Saturday, 10 September 2005 |
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express special appreciation to
Brian Fleay for his pioneering interest in oil depletion (eg Fleay
(1995) (1998)). This paper is derived in part from the background paper
prepared for the WA State Sustainability Strategy (Robinson, (2002)).
The efforts and encouragement of Prof Peter Newman in this area amongst
others should be recognised. Encouragement over the years from Bruce
Hobbs is also appreciated.
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Oil Depletion Overview 
