An article in Tuesday’s Times Hearld-Record by Christine Young marks that “Gas tops $4 a gallon at pumps in Orange [County].”
“Peak Oil” doesn’t have the same universal recognition as “global warming,” but that is likely to change as the oil prices keep climbing. What is peak oil? Technically, it is “the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline.” Many experts believe we have already reached, or are on the cusp of reaching, the point of global peak oil.
What’s that mean?
Peak oil is the point at which oil starts becoming scarce, and demand only goes up, and supply only goes down.
What’s the problem with Peak Oil?
The bonanza of cheap oil has fueled our modern life, from your cheap manufactured goods from China and Asia, your supermarket produce from Mexico, California, and Europe to South American beef. It came here thanks to petroleum-guzzling cargo ships, planes and tractor-trailers, and finally your personal automobile or SUV. But petroleum also most likely fertilized the land that produce grew in, as well as the industrial farm machinery to harvest it, and was required to create the plastics encasing your food. Cheap oil has fueled our commuter lifestyles and auto-dependent retail shopping.
Here’s an interview with a peak oil expert, Matthew R. Simmons, from a video commenting on a 2007 US Government Accounting Office report on Peak Oil which highlights that there is an “increasing risk of disruption to oil supplies” and yet there are “No coordinated plans by government.”
Matthew Simmons: I know most of the people pretty well now, I didn’t five years ago, that are at the forefront of the Peak Oil discussion, and I don’t think there is a single one of them that have a political agenda. I know I certainly don’t. I also think that having spent 40 years understanding the mechanics of the oil business and following very closely from throughout our entire firm all the oil supply going on, all the natural gas supply that’s going on, knowing the relationship between oil, coal, and natural gas, fossil fuel era is basically waning as far as meeting the unbelievable, insatiable demand, and we don’t have any solutions. The best new oil basin we will ever find is called Conservation.
In another interview, Simmons suggests that current prices of oil are actually cheap, and that peak oil is happening now.
For more on the history of peak oil, a good review is available here by Professor Richard Heinberg. Two additional resource sites are PeakOil.com and Life After the Oil Crash.
What’s being done regionally, and what should be done, to address the challenges of Peak Oil?
City of Newburgh
The city’s Sustainable Master Plan does not explicitly mention peak oil and does not independently treat it as an imminent crisis, but the Plan does have foresight in addressing peak oil issues such as transportation and encouraging a localized food production through municipal gardens and other measures. (See pages 74-75 and pages 96-99 of the draft).
Town of Newburgh
The Town’s Comprehensive Plan does not address peak oil or any of the issues that peak oil will affect, such as transportation, shopping patterns, zoning, and food production.
The Town should seriously rethink the plans of the Marketplace Mall. In addition to the many criticisms lodged by Save Open Space Newburgh, NY, this project is banking on a continuation of cheap oil, assuming that retail patterns will remain the same when this is likely far from the case. As oil becomes more expensive globalization will be affected; those cheap goods from China won’t be so cheap anymore, when you add all the oil surcharges to the transportation and manufacturing. Consumers are likely to be more thrifty, as well, as personal pocketbooks are hit by the crisis of rising costs of living and dwindling resources. Big Box retail may have a limited lifespan.
Orange County
From a quick search this evening, only one report regarding agriculture was found on the Department of Planning’s “Plans, Papers, and Technical Documents”.
Orange County is facing a challenge with what to do with Camp LaGuardia. Perhaps the county legislators should consider how the peak oil future will play into whatever plan they ultimately accept and ensure that the plan will have the most beneficial impact for the residents of Orange County. Perhaps this is an opportunity for a renewed commitment to localized agriculture.
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