| may 13 2007 | | Fasten your seatbelts for the final time | This generation is probably the last generation to take air travel for granted. The reason for this is peak oil. Once again air travel will become the preserve of the rich and elite and the common people will be grounded, as they were in the forties and fifties, before air travel became accessible to the masses.
Readers who are aware of Dr. Bakhtiari will have read of his work predicting the four phases of post peak oil. He characterizes the four phases as T1, T2, T3 and T4. Each phase spans roughly four years and takes us to approximately 2020. If you think of oil production as a parabolic curve then we have witnessed the exponential rise of production since the fifties that has topped, plateaued and is about to start declining at a faster and faster pace. Thinking in terms of degree of decline after peak, T1 would very small, T2 would be perceptible, T3 is remarkable and T4 is steep. So during T1, which we are now experiencing, there is debate about whether peak oil is true and prices can decline as well as rise as traders continue to play the market. T2 is like global warming, the reality becomes apparent and peak oil is accepted along with a rise in prices. T3 prices will reflect reduced supply and countries will scramble for their share of the scarce resource. Weaker countries will not be able to find the funds to purchase what they need with accompanying social disruption. I think you can imagine what a T4 world will look like. These divisions are based on a stable geo-political world. Let’s use as an example the analogy of the temperature of boiling point of water. This figure is set provided everything remains constant but if, for example, the atmospheric pressure is lowered then the water boils at a lower temperature. Therefore the four phases should be assumed as the best case scenario and any change in the status quo considered as having a negative impact on the outcome.
Flying today, particularly international flight has lost all its charm and because of governments promotion of terror it has become an over-crowded experience where people are herded through various choke points where they can be interrogated, harangued and pushed about by agents of the government. You will be scanned, x-rayed, treated as a threat. The only reason we put up with these indignities is because air travel is cheap and it is still worth the hassle to fly for business or pleasure to destinations that there is no sensible alternative way of getting to.
The decline of air travel is only one of the ways that post peak oil will impacts us. At the moment no one is taking the prospect at all seriously. By T2 I hope that the debate will be on to use what time is left to work towards those things that need to done in the next two decades to ensure the survival of our society.
Please secure your tray to the seat in front of you and return your seat to the upright position. Start walking.
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