oil and Ireland's coping strategies: that $100 moment

Here's an article I wrote for the 'eye of the storm' op ed in the examiner. I haven't had an op ed before, so was v pleased to write it. It was all very frantic - I had a particular hour to get the article in by, which is unusual for me. And that hour was 2pm the day before the Saturday edition of the paper. It was also slightly outside of my normal remit, but I though I could perhaps start doing some news features for a change.

Don't worry foodies, there's plenty on food in it! I do regret not including the following things, however, so I'm glad to be able to include them now:

best place for info on peak oil is probably: this place! http://www.feasta.org/

John Gormley also obviously introduced the VRT changes and the lightbulb changes
and decoupling in Irish Agriculture has reduced the emissions from agriculture.

So here is the article:

It had to happen. With oil hitting and hovering around $100 dollars the whole world is now talking and thinking about oil. So how dependent are we on it, how much is there really left and what are we doing to adapting to a world with less oil?

It is thought that we are more efficient and less dependent on oil than we were in the bad old days of the 1970s. There are a number of problems with this thesis. Firstly, there is the fact that we are a far more globalised economy than we were back then. Since then, national economies have been deregulated and trade liberalised, so that now, many products are made up from a multitude of interconnected and intercontinental components. And plastic has, of course gone forth and multiplied.

Laptops, disposable containers, toys, toothbrushes, cameras, the list of personalised products goes on. But then, the functioning of many aspects of the economy is dependent too: medicines, food production and transport, are all either quite literally fuelled by or dependent upon oil.

Take food: Fertilizer production and transportation is heavily oil dependent. Prices are rising � Nitrogen (made by oil at present) is up 50%, Phospate (also a finite resource) is up 67% - and the consumer is starting to experience this.

With globalisation has come global sourcing of foods and agri-food inputs; we in Ireland have a very weak food producing infrastructure, once we start to consider foods other than meat and milk. Even these depend on winter feeds which are heavy oil users, both in production and transport.

According to the junior minister with responsibility in the area, Trevor Sargent, there are less than a dozen large scale vegetable producers left in Ireland at present.

Just-in-time deliveries by road mean that supermarkets have jettisoned their storage spaces and instead opted for storing food in refrigerated trucks on the roads. Food processing is ever-increasing too � both involve more oil.

So, seeing as we are so dependent on it, how much oil is left then? That depends upon how you measure it. For example, optimists suggest that there are bound to be reserves. According to the US based Cambridge Energy Research Associates:

�Those who believe a peak is imminent tend to consider only proven remaining reserves of conventional oil, which they currently estimate at about 1.2 trillion barrels�this is a pessimistic estimate because it excludes the enormous contribution likely from probable and possible resources, those yet to be found.�

Then go on: �the global inventory is some 4.8 trillion barrels, of which about 1.08 trillion barrels have been produced, leaving 3.72 trillion conventional and unconventional barrels, an order of magnitude that will allow productive capacity to continue to expand well into this century.�

Pessimists suggest that these reserves, should they be found, will be too difficult and costly to extract. They suggest that this may already be the case for reserves in deep water, the artic, extra heavy, oil shale and enhanced recovery oils. The crux of the matter is whether all the known reserves can be found, processed and delivered to market in time. Proponents of the Peak Oil theory, such as Feasta, suggest that we are already at the peak oil point, where accessible reserves will be smaller than what�s been extracted. They suggest that we need to make plans urgently to deal with energy decent, or powerdown.

So what is Ireland doing about it? Oil consumption per capita has risen 50% over the last 15 years, while our dependence on imported oil and gas stands at 85%. According to an Amarach consulting report from 2006, services and manufacturing will mostly be affected indirectly by peak oil in the short term, whereas residential and agricultural sectors are more vulnerable. They suggest that our mitigation strategies are vital.

The new Energy Minister, Eamon Ryan has begun to put some mitigating factors into place: these include funding for renewables research, the smart electricity metering programme for houses which will be rolled out in April, and improved north south energy co-operation. A National Energy Efficiency Action Plan is being finalised at present, which according to the Minister, �will allow us to save �1.7 billion or 3 million tonnes of oil every year.�

Minister Ryan states that �We are also committed to making energy efficiency savings of 20% by 2020. The public sector will have to make energy savings of 33% by this date.�

Building energy efficiency standards have also been introduced for all new houses by Environment Minister John Gormley.

Some parts of Ireland have taken matters into their own hands, most notably Kinsale and north Tipperary, in particular the town of Cloughjordan.

In Kinsale, students from the 2 year permaculture course in the local college along with their then teacher, Rob Hopkins, designed an energy decent plan, which has received some funding from the local council. The plan goes through all the key aspects of socio-economic and cultural life in Kinsale, and produces a road map for how to reduce energy use.

�We didn�t think it was going to be that big a deal, but the plan has been downloaded over 5000 times around the world� according to Klaus Harvey, who sits on the Steering Committee of Transition Towns Kinsale. This plan has become an intergal part of what has become the known as the transition towns movement. For Kinsale, food, education, housing, economy and livelihoods, health, tourism, transport, waste, energy and marine resources are all examined and mapped out in energy decent terms.

In north Tipperary, very ambitious plans are afoot. A 130 house ecovillage is being constructed at present, adjacent to the local village of Cloughjordan. According to Duncan Martin, of the ecovillage�s energy, waste and water subcommittee, �The houses will be well insulated and designed to make best use of the sun's heat�. There is an ecological charter which sets out the standard which the house must meet.

He goes on: �all our space heating and hot water will come from renewable sources. Additional heating will be provided by a district heating system. This will circulate hot water to every house from a central array of solar panels, backed up by two wood-chip boilers. The woodchip will come from local forestry wastes, so we will be independent of imported fossil fuels�.

And it�s not just the ecovillage itself. �The ecovillage is a partner in a European project called SERVE - Sustainable Energy for the Rural Village Environment. This is providing over �2 million in funding for the area around Cloughjordan to improve energy efficiency in existing houses and expand the use of renewable energy. This will cover such additions as more insulation, double glazing, solar panels, wood pellet boilers and better central heating controls�.

In total, along with the ecovillage itself, 900 houses in north Tipperary villages will benefit from the SERVE project.

Is it all enough? In the final analysis that depends upon whether we resist or embrace change.