Let’s face it ... motor transport has peaked

EVEN Sir Richard Branson now accepts the reality of peak oil which he refers to as the “oil crunch”, saying it is “just five years away”.

He claims it can be tackled by changing car production completely to “clean fuel and electric cars” by 2015 and phasing out “oil-using cars” by 2020.

It seems everyone either denies the reality of peak oil or believes it can be tackled by totally impractical means.

Electric cars still use fossil fuel energy because renewables and nuclear simply displace fossil fuel usage, but less efficiently because it has to be transmitted via the grid (which would need to be doubled in strength), stored and discharged in batteries.

Using LPG directly in vehicles would be more sensible and efficient, but gas consumption will rise dramatically following peak oil and peak gas will occur about 10 years later. Hydrogen produced by electrolysis is simply a means of storing energy, or it has to be made from natural gas, so this is no solution either. World oil reserves are declining by about 6% per annum and underlying demand is rising at about 3%, but oil use for transport is growing at 7% per annum.

If India and China are to achieve their aim of car ownership similar to the US, world oil production would need to more than double to 200 million barrels per day — something no one claims is remotely possible. Nor would it be possible for this amount of energy to come from renewables or nuclear in the timescale.

It should be obvious motor traffic cannot continue to grow at the present rate, but no government anywhere in the world seems to understand that this exponential rise should be halted, let alone reversed. The “oil crunch” could arrive suddenly, with catastrophic consequences.

Are they all scientifically illiterate and cannot do the sums or are they in a state of denial — or do they simply fear telling the truth?

Michael Job

Glengarriff

Co Cork