Get ready for the last oil war
As you would expect, such a title had to pique my interest. But this article over at Energy Bulletin proved irresistible, despite its dense language. While I am not entirely convinced that an all-out total war for oil, centred around Iran and triggered by their nuclear ‘crisis’ is inevitable, it is hard to articulate a rebuttal to the arguments presented. Here are a few snippets:
Pre-emptive war against Iran, under the easy-to-communicate pretext of stopping Iran from developing atomic weapons capability, is surely an attractive rationale for certain US, Israeli, European and other Great Power strategists as oil prices move towards 150 USD/barrel. During economic recession, as proven in the ‘Cheap Oil interval’ of 1986-2000, surely heightens ethnic tension between Chi’ite and Sunnite communities in the GCC countries. The rising likelihood that 150-dollar oil can trigger global recession underlines this economic pre-emptive rationale for war against Iran.
Even before the overthrow of Shah Pahlavi by the Khomenei-led revolution of 1979, the country’s oil discovery/production indicators showed that Iran was heading towards that day – then a long way in the future – when it would cease to export oil. One consequence was the entirely ‘classic’ economic decision to develop civil nuclear electricity production. As amply proven by India and Pakistan, South Africa and Argentina, and most recently by North Korea, and the real basis of ‘civil’ nuclear energy in the USA, France, UK, Russia, China and Israel, so-called ‘civil’ nuclear energy enables nuclear weapons production. Civil nuclear, and military nuclear are seamless, whatever the NPT and the IAEA might like to suggest or propose.
In those two paragraphs are the crux of the issue, at least as far as the Iranian crisis goes. It was a perfectly rational economic decision for Iran to want to develop nuclear capabilities in order to offset the looming decline in the country’s ability to power itself. Such development takes decades. On the other hand, we all know that there is no actual difference between civil and military nuclear development. There is no economic justification for civilian nuclear unless a military justification is factored in. Nuclear is just too expensive and too risky, unless you weigh the economic costs of military risks, which then offset any purely ‘civilian’ nuclear economic losses. (That is why nuclear will never be a rational economic choice for New Zealand)
When the great powers of today, almost all of whom are net oil importers in possession of nuclear arsenals and rapidly deployable armed forces, line up to divide the spoils of the last pots of cheap oil, the stage is set for an unholy conflagration. I just hope the author is wrong with his assertion that such a war is inevitable.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Frog
When I read this at first I didn’t see it happening. I didn’t think that with the current Congress in place, a war could get started without a shootout between the Oval Office and the Congress and I am not talking about something trivial. I think the President knows it.
However, there’s a wildcard they can play. The Israeli’s are one bunch of p!ssed off people. They just got two guys back in coffins. Hezbollah is dancing in the streets. You want to expect, you HAVE to expect, that there’s going to be more blood spilled. I don’t think they’d like anything better than to take this home to the Iranians and any such conflict carries with it the ability to expand to include the US ships in the gulf. Then it’s self-defense and the CO of any ship in the US Navy is fully empowered to start shooting if he thinks his command is threatened.
Which is to say, it wouldn’t be the US that starts it (at least not officially), So GW gets to go where his JCS says he ought not go. The knife edge is looking extremely sharp now.
respectfully
BJ
July 20th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
this is also worth reading..b.j..
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/israel-will-attack-iran/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
July 20th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Funny thing is that the european powers have had nuclear arsenals for the past fifty odd years and haven’t managed to chuck them at anyone so why is it that we think the Islamic nations will do so? The arguments in the energy bulletin are silly and what is defined as logical has no logical base.
Nations without oil who are heavy users of it don’t have nuclear ability because they are oil users. The two forms of energy are unrelated except for the fact they are energy. So I think the man is just trying to say that when the going gets tough, oil going dry, that the big boys are going to bring out the big weapons in a mass rush to control what oil is left and is trying to veil it all in psuedo science speak. Thats absolutely stupid.
I think what is more likely going to happen is the moves will be localised and more cloak and dagger like they’ve always been. Americas already got Afganistan and Iraq and it seems likely they are going to try for Iran but the one thing that might stop them is that the price militarily is almost as much as getting the reserves under their control so they may actually back off. Add to this the fact that Iran has been stable for a long time it makes no sense to treat them like the last two countries they have gone into.
As far as I know the real culprit for rising oil prices isn’t the angle everyones talking about but the fact that its now part of the futures market. This means that we in the west are the ones driving up the prices and the people getting the profits are hiding behind a smoke screen of nationalist rivalries supposedly of a mix of religion and militancy. Same old story!
Israel won’t attack anybody ’cause if they do all their neighbours will come down on them like a tonne of bricks. It’s all bravado and posturing which is the only way that nation can survive where it is. But if they do attack Iran they’ll get dealt to and the americans will defend themselves then scarper and let nato go in to clean it up. Its all just about getting people scared so the futures market can justify the price going even higher. Again the same old story. I blame it all on the wide screen TV!
July 20th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
So would it be fair to categorize this as a Judaism versus Islam conflict? And if so is there any value in the “Christians” (America?) getting involved?
Makes you pleased to be on the underside of the world…
July 20th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
America is reducing its reliance on middle east oil because it can see this incredible complex conflict comming.
Oil is only 1 factor in the tension over Iran.
There is a very complicated political climate over the middle east, and calling it another oil war is a sure way to make it happen.
Any war is going to be a nightmare for all of us, including NZ.
July 20th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Meanwhile….
“United States Supports Saudi Arabian Civil Nuclear Program”
http://www.america.gov/st/peacesec-english/2008/May/20080516160353idyb eekcm0.3394586.html
July 20th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Artyone asks “Funny thing is that the european powers have had nuclear arsenals for the past fifty odd years and haven’t managed to chuck them at anyone so why is it that we think the Islamic nations will do so?”
Think middle eastern nations rather than Islamic nations and four differences from Europe become apparent.
1. Many of the borders between middles eastern countries follow natural barriers such as deserts or mountain ranges. This creates the perception that fallout can be contained to the target nation or will affect only a small less inhabited region of the striking nation. That was never a consideration in Europe.
2. For most of those 50 years Europe was sandwiched between to MAD superpowers. If any euro nation nuked a neighbour it would almost certainly have been nuked or invaded by one or both of the superpowers in a preprogrammed emrgency response kneejerk defensive reaction.
3. Europe had fresh memories of the devastion of the WWII firebombings to galvanise public opposition to such action aginst any neighbour except in defence against invasion from the USSR.
4. Most european wars in the last few hundred years have been nationalistic or for “leibesraum”. A nuclear war is so obviously self defeating in that context that even the dumbest grand standing politician would never advocate it.
Fixating on religious differences between the west and the middle east diverts attention from more important political, economic and social differences that drive the conflicts both within the middle east and between the middle east and the west.
July 20th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
“nuclear will never be a rational economic choice for New Zealand”
Never? That is hardly a rational statement.
We’ll be using fission reactors in our lifetimes. The price is coming down (see pebble bed reactors), reactors are smaller and safer, and the public will demand cheap energy.
It ‘aint the 50s….
tinyurl.com/2uzvg6
“General Fusion hopes to create small fusion reactors that cost around $50 million a piece and generate roughly 100 megawatts allowing for roughly 4 cent / kwh electricity. That’s about the same cost as coal.”
July 21st, 2008 at 8:48 am
BP - get your technology straight. I could see fusion reactors here in NZ, in a far distant future, but never conventional nuclear fission. Unfortunately, fusion has always been ‘just ten years away’, a bit like carbon capture and storage. I think we’ll see CCS long before fusion, which is unfortunate. Fusion is about the only tech that could potentially help us overcome the natural limits of the petri dish we call earth. (At least in the petulant, wasteful way we live now)
July 21st, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Both oil and uranium fuels share similar outcomes.
So long as we all rely on fuels that are finite/expensive/localised and/or highly sought after we will continue to have wars.
The only way out is to choose safe and renewable fuels, and learn to keep our populations and energy demands low enough to live comfortably within that energy capacity. (but will the public ever accept it…?)
July 21st, 2008 at 8:40 pm
there is always accelerator driven reactors, they make use of a significantly wider range of possible fuels, have almost zilch chances of melt-down due to the nature of their reaction and can be used to break down fission waste from other reactors and thus decrease the lifetime of nuclear waste; I beleive BJ brought them up awhile ago on the forum.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Hi
Before anyone gets excited about fusion, a point made about 40 years ago was that holding CO2 constant, human use of energy from non-solar sources can only rise about 20 fold (relative to 1968 levels) before this creates a Greenhouse Effect due to increased production of waste heat that is then trapped. This is not because the amount of waste heat is large in relation to total insolation, but because its source is not insolation and hence it rapidly creates an imbalance. This is not uncommon in dynamically stable energy cycles.
Ultimately sustainability is about the rate and scale of energy and material throughput relative to natural systems.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:01 pm
How morally blind can one be to treat the Islamic Republic of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, breaching IAEA safeguards as not being a “crisis”? I guess a state that preaches global jihad, has long actively funded, trained and supported terrorists in the Middle East and Europe (the IRA until recently), wishes the destruction of Israel on one level, and on the other level runs a authoritarian state that executes political opponents, executes rape victims for seducing the rapist and sends children into war ought to have nuclear weapons right? I mean, it’s a bit too much to expect a party full of people who rightfully protested over Mururoa nuclear tests, by a peaceful friendly ally, to protest the Iranian embassy about its pursuit of nuclear weapons isn’t it?
The world is safer with Iran not having nuclear weapons which it could deploy or allow terrorist groups to use, and would be safer still if the Islamist regime were overthrown.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 am
what about geothermal jgg? that involves taking heat locked below the earth’s surface & releasing it up top… is that enough to make a difference?
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 am
“human use of energy from non-solar sources can only rise about 20 fold (relative to 1968 levels) before this creates a Greenhouse Effect.”
What’s your reference for that claim jgg?
First, a greenhouse effect is the trapping of IR radiation by GH gases.
Second, we woulf need to produce something like 1 Watt/m2 over the whole of Earths surface to equal the enhancement that’s calculated for GHG’s, ie 1 mW/km2, ie 500,000,000 mW over Earths entire surface, which works out at around 750 kW per person.