Standing Stone Installation – kewego
How did standing stones get there? This group of people most without any previous experience moved a stone to its new home and showed that it can be done.

Droping it into the hole was a bit more problematic but it got there in the end!

Ragged Hedge Fair, August 2008,
Home Farm, Cirencester, UK

Keywords: standin stone cirencester ragged hedge fair

Video from barewitness

According to a global oil supply report presented by the Energy Watch Group at the Foreign Press Association in London on 22nd October 2007, world oil production peaked in 2006. Production will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.

 ”The most alarming finding is the steep decline of the oil supply after peak”, warns Jörg Schindler (pictured right) from the Energy Watch Group. This result, together with the timing of the peak, is obviously in sharp contrast to the projections by the International Energy Agency (IEA). “Since crude oil is the most important energy carrier at a global scale and since all kinds of transport rely heavily on oil, the future oil availability is of paramount importance as it entails completely different actions by politics, business and individuals.”, says Schindler.

This cautious energy outlook corresponds with statements made by former US Defense Secretary and CIA Director, James Schlesinger, who said at ASPO oil summit in Cork in September 2007: “The battle is over, the oil peakists have won. Current US energy policy and the administration’s oil strategy in Iraq and Iran are deluded.”

Renewable Energy Blocked

However, until recently the International Energy Agency denied that a fundamental change of energy supply is likely to happen in the near or medium term future. Hans-Josef Fell MP, a prominent member of the German Parliament, is clear: “The message by the IEA, namely that business as usual will also be possible in future, sends a diffusing signal to the markets and blocks investments in already available renewable energy technologies.

Remaining world oil reserves are estimated to be 1,255 Gb (Giga barrel) according to the industry database HIS (2006). For the Energy Watch Group (EWG), however, there are sound reasons to modify these figures for some regions and key countries, leading to a corresponding EWG estimate of 854 Gb. This oil supply outlook does not rely primarily on reserve data which in the past have frequently turned out to be unreliable. Hence the EWG analysis is based primarily on production data which can be observed more easily and which are more reliable.

Peak Oil Is Now

“The oil boom is over and will not return. All of us must get used to a different lifestyle.”, said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the largest global oil producer. For quite some time, a hot debate has been going on regarding peak oil. Institutions close to the energy industry, like CERA, are engaging in a campaign trying to debunk peak oil as a “theory”. However, the EWG report shows that peak oil is real. The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by a sharp decline of fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of daily life. Climate change will also force mankind to change energy consumption patterns by significantly reducing the burning of fossil fuels.

Anticipated supply shortages could easily lead to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month. For government, industry and the wider public just muddling through is not an option anymore as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a meltdown of society.

Culture Of Denial

“My experience of debating the peak oil issue with the oil industry, and trying to alert Whitehall to it, is that there is a culture of institutionalised denial in government and the energy industry. As the evidence of an early peak in production unfolds, this becomes increasingly impossible to understand”, says Jeremy Leggett, the Solarcentury CEO and former member of the British Government’s Renewables Advisory Board.

The full report can be downloaded here: Crude Oil - The Supply Outlook

Charles Hendry MP for Wealden joined a debate in Forest Row on 24th September 2007 about Peak Oil and how the community should respond. Highlighting the energy crunch that we face was journalist and environmental campaigner Mike Grenville.

Speaking at a Transition Forest Row event, Charles Hendry MP for Wealden and Shadow Energy Minister said that while “the effect of climate change was apparent” and that “we should move to a carbon free world,” he remained a skeptic regarding Peak Oil.

Grenville highlighted how dependent society has become on fossil fuels. From our clothes, to medicines, heating, transport and most importantly our food, we have become utterly addicted to oil to power our society. By adding the equivalent of the population of China every 10 years to the world, worldwide demand increases every day.

The question is what happens when the ability to extract, refine and deliver oil is overtaken by demand. Conventional thinking is that this is decades away and that when it happens there will be an undulating plateau as societies adjust. However many analysts believe that when this happens the bubble that says we can have as much cheap energy as we want will burst leading to severe social and economic disruption. Indeed Grenville pointed out that this is already happening. With oil currently at an all time high of over $80 a barrel, a growing list of countries have already reached peak oil – the price where it has become too expensive for many purposes. These are countries that don’t often make headline news in the UK but include Myanmar, Nepal, Ghana, Nigeria, Argentina.

Peak Everything

In fact resource constraints are not just about oil – gas, water, soil, trees, fish, phosphate, and others are all in crisis.

Among the reasons Hendry gave for his Peak Oil skepticism was that technical progress means that more oil is extractable from oil fields. Through technology developments oil can be discovered and extracted at great depths of water and rock. He also said that “Talking to BP, they are finding new oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Tough Oil

While one would expect an industry to develop its technology over time, the fact that it is having to spend very large sums to look for and extract oil in remote places is another indication that the days of easy oil are coming to an end.

However while there have been a lot of claims of large finds of oil, many have not fulfilled their initial promise.

While Hendry and Grenville disagreed on the urgency of the oil constraints, they did both agree we should be taking action now to reduce carbon emissions.

Carbon Tax

Among Hendry’s suggestions were putting a ‘tax’ on carbon, so that all forms of renewables become more attractive to investors; requiring microgeneration facilities to be part of new developments.

Local Food

He also said that “people should be encouraged to buy local produce and to recognise that we all need to change the way we live our lives – but by doing so, we will actually be eating more healthily and not just in a more environmentally-friendly way.”

In Our Hands

“If Forest Row can’t make a Transition Town no where can! You have local produce – don’t need to fly it in. Need to eat seasonally – why do the green beans from Tescos still look good after three weeks when others don’t? We need to ask more questions about food and recognise the quality of local food.

“The future” Hendry said “is in our hands and not the oil companies.”