Peak Oil may abate worst of global warming

And, that word comes from nobody less than James Hansen. Here’s the bottom line:

If conventional oil production peaks within the next few decades, it may have a large effect on future atmospheric CO2 and climate change, depending upon subsequent energy choices. Assuming that proven oil and gas reserves do not greatly exceed estimates of the Energy Information Administration, and recent trends are toward lower estimates, we show that it is feasible to keep atmospheric CO2 from exceeding about 450 ppm by 2100, provided that emissions from coal, unconventional fossil fuels, and land use are constrained. Coal-fired power plants without sequestration must be phased out before mid-century to achieve this CO2 limit.

Note that Hansen says this is with constraints on coal, and CO2 sequestration from coal-fired power plants.

There’s more discussion on how this paper (PDF of full paper available at the webpage above with the html summary) impacts Peak Oil “vs.” global warming at Open the Future, which has more analysis of what Jamais Cascio calls “King Kong vs. Godzilla.”

That includes this helpful graph of different Peak Oil scenarios Hansen projects:




Cascio ends with a few caveats about reading too much into Hanson and P.A. Karechia’s paper:

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that more than a few global warming-focused activists will see this report — despite coming from Hansen — as an attempt to reduce the urgency of the need to deal with anthrogenic carbon emissions.

What this report tells us, however, is that we can't simply focus on one crisis — no matter how large and looming — without taking into consideration the other key drivers of change. The onset of peak oil will alter how we deal with climate disruption, rendering climate strategies that don’t take peak oil into account of limited value. Similarly, the fact of global warming must shape how our economies deal with a permanent oil crunch.

Well, there are silver linings. Dick Cheney’s Big Oil greed wing of Republicanism, along with Big Oil itself and its fellow travelers like Daniel Yergin and Cambridge Energy Research Associates refuse to even admit the slightest possibility that Peak Oil could be here in 15 years, let alone right about now.

So, the White House (which doesn’t read scientific white papers anyway) won’t be using this as an excuse, beyond the excuses it already proffers) to do nothing about global warming.