On Wednesday, UKERC is launching its report on peak oil - the ‘assessment protocol’ via that link is a great lit review for the smorgasbord of energy future opinions. UKERC is, as far as I know, the first ‘mainstream’ academic body to examine the peak oil issue.

I’m attempting to incorporate energy into models of food production, though rather than directly asking about peak oil, the model will hopefully say something about what could happen, given x or y energy scenario. The aim is to (try to) keep it simple: most approaches to the problem, e.g. at the Oil Drum can feel a little like you’re being beaten to death with graphs.

Obviously, actual data is incredibly important (here’s a wonderful online energy data resource for exploring some of it), but its no replacement for knowing about the underlying mechanisms. Just so I’m not singling out the Oil Drum, here’s an OD post that does just this – asks questions about the underlying resource mechanism that may link peak oil curves to other historical exploitations like whale oil. However, other data-heavy posts are fast and loose with their underlying concepts.

Again, I don’t mean to single out the Oil Drum: despite my rather smug comment in that link, its probably the same sort of mistake I’d make if I wasn’t paying attention. My point is that data can’t replace analysis. Analysis can’t replace data either, but I fear being browbeaten more by graphs than by simple ideas. (Although I suppose some countries might not agree when asked how they feel about comparative advantage…) My hope is that simple analyses say useful things at an abstract level. Though such toy models do not get a good press, all one has to do – following my favourite ecological modelling parable - is remember not to mistake one’s bag of nails for reality, and consider how such simple models may, or may not, be useful.

To come back to the original point: if UKERC’s report finds – as the event launch suggests – the following:

A peak in conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020. Given the lead times required to both develop substitute fuels and improve energy efficiency, this risk needs to be given serious consideration.

- what does that mean? Here’s a short yahoo finance video with peak oil author Peter Maass. When asked to predict what prices will do in the future he replies:

You can ask me and you can ask a monkey, and the answer will probably be just as reliable in terms of figuring out what the future is. I can’t see it staying at this level if economies keep growing. And the question is, how far will prices go up before economies have to adjust, or can adjust.

The answer sits somewhere between these two: if prices go up, the magic fairy dust of innovation will solve all energy problems or; we’re all screwed. The range of things that might happen in between those two is as vast as one could imagine – some of them clearly having to do with people actually thinking and acting, rather than being channels for that magic fairy dust to do its Disney work. (Which is not to say I don’t believe in the connection of innovation to prices, it’s just, y’know – trust in God but tether your camel. If only that principle had been applied to the efficient markets hypothesis…)

How on earth could abstract analyses help in this situation? Well, let’s pick one example: energy return on energy invested, or EROEI – is it, or is it not, a valid or useful idea? Or is it not needed, since factor prices in yer standard economic model will do the job fine, thank you very much? Does it have any bearing on our future problems? Would a stupendously, outrageously silly model of it help in thinking about energy futures? Sadly, no simple model today! But it is a nice example I’ll attempt to come back to…