Peak Oil And The Impact On Global Population

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It is said that modern humans are basically eating oil.

Oil is important for powering farm tractors. Natural gas is critical in making fertilizer. Coal is needed to generate electricity to power refrigeration to cool our food and reduce spoilage. All of this has lifted many nations out of subsistence living up into the modern living standards of today.

So what happens if the peak oil theorists are right and we eventually one year hit a maximum extraction of fossil fuel and it never recovers after that?

Is the recent unrest in the Middle East and Northern Africa and the large migrations of people into Europe a small foreshadowing of days to come?

This is a very uncomfortable concept to ponder but to be responsible citizens we need to be informed about difficult concepts and talk them out.

Peak Oil Theory

Peak oil theory is credited to M. King Hubbert and it is the expectation that the maximum global production of oil will inevitably occur. After that date the extraction of oil will decline no matter how hard we try to get it out of the ground.

The theory is based on the observation that many regions have experienced local peak oil after which they have never recovered. Global oil production is merely the sum of all local production so it must follow that a global peak will also occur.

This is true for all finite resources including natural gas, coal, metals and minerals.

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Export Land Peak Oil Effect

Peak oil theory has been further refined to include the observation that developing countries which produce and export oil also tend to increase their own domestic oil consumption year after year. Eventually their consumption equals their production and that country essentially stops exporting oil.

This oil is then effectively taken off the global market and is said to be an effect that will hasten the onset of global peak oil.

Food Production

Oil, coal and natural gas are essential to modern agriculture and the green revolution. Human population has exploded from about 1 billion people in the early 1800's to over 7 billion people today.

We use oil to run our tractors and to transport our food. We use coal to make electricity to power irrigation systems as well as to cool our food and reduce spoilage. We use natural gas to produce fertilizers to boost crop yields per hectrare (acre).

Fossil fuel and food production are inextricably linked.

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Arable Land Per Capita

I really do not mean to pick on Saudi Arabia here but it might be the clearest example of the benefits of oil for food acquisition and subsequent population growth so I will use it.

Saudi Arabia is basically a desert with an arable land per capita ratio of only 0.112 hectares per person (0.28 acres per person). The population of Saudi Arabia in 1950 was about 3 million people. It currently stands at 31 million people and growing. Currently about 22 million of the population are native with the 10 million remainder as ex-pats.

The population is expected to hit 45 million in the year 2050.

The Impact Of Peak Oil

Saudi Arabia has large oil fields and the estimated reserves are also large but apparently hard to confirm as accurate because they are held as a state secret. Sea water is pumped into the oil fields to help boost oil output and recently it is reported that the fraction of water in the pumped oil output may have increased to over 30 percent. The largest field, Ghawar, is suspected to have passed its peak and may be headed for terminal decline.

So what happens to Saudi Arabia and similar regions if the oil production drops and then stops? With no oil to supply their coffers they will be unable to buy food from abroad. With very little arable land they may be unable to feed their population.

The 10 million ex-pats of course can always leave to go back to their home countries but that will leave over 20 million people in a country that is largely desert. The pre-oil 1950 population was about 3 million so this implies that it may currently have a surplus population of 17 million people when the oil runs out.

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Non-Oil Producing Countries

Saudi Arabia has oil which means easy money for it coffers. The oil run down may be gentle and give it time to manage a 'soft-landing' (hopefully).

Other countries are not so lucky in that they must import nearly all of their oil. For instance Pakistan produces only 84,000 barrels of oil per day and South Africa produces only 2,000 barrels of oil per day. These countries have populations of 210 million people and 56 million people respectively.

The export land peak oil effect means that when peak oil starts to bite, oil producing countries will keep their own oil for themselves and not sell it on the global market.

This means that countries without any means of oil production will not be able to acquire it no matter how much money they may have.

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Closing Words

The pre-oil, pre-industrial revolution human population was about 1 billion people. We now have vastly improved knowledge and vastly improved technology compared to those days so what would be the sustainable post-oil global population?

I would imagine that it would be substantially more than 1 billion people but I sincerely doubt that the current 7.5 billion people could be maintained on just hydroelectric, wind, solar and nuclear. Algae-based fuel production may be a great benefit one day but at the moment it seems to not be ready for the big leagues. Fusion power always seems to be twenty years away so we can likely count this one out.

Is the recent unrest in the Middle East and Northern Africa and the large migrations of people into Europe a small foreshadowing of days to come?

There are a large number of counter-arguments against peak oil. I could be wrong but they don't feel correct and I think are driven by a psychological need to not face hard truths as well as hidden political agendas.

If peak oil is an incorrect theory then this is good for agriculture and avoiding population disaster but bad for the atmosphere and anthropogenic global warming as we will keep burning oil and eventually cook ourselves to death.

As I said at the start of the post, this is an uncomfortable concept to ponder. If it is true let us hope our politicians and policy makers figure things out before any biblical-level disasters manage to develop.

Thank you for reading my post.

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