The Joint Operating Environment 2010 report from the US Joint Forces Command has been getting a lot of attention from many of the climate change and peak oil blogs the last couple of days, and with good reason. It discusses, from a US security perspective, many issues and trends, including globalization, demographics, energy, food, and water. While I urge you to download and read the whole thing [PDF], here are a few snippets:
Page 24:
To meet even the conservative growth rates posited in the economics section, global energy production would need to rise by 1.3% per year. By the 2030s, demand is estimated to be nearly 50% greater than today. To meet that demand, even assuming more effective conservation measures, the world would need to add roughly the equivalent of Saudi Arabia’s current energy production every seven years.
Absent a major increase in the relative reliance on alternative energy sources (which would require vast insertions of capital, dramatic changes in technology, and altered political attitudes toward nuclear energy), oil and coal will continue to drive the energy train. By the 2030s, oil requirements could go from 86 to 118 million barrels a day (MBD). Although the use of coal may decline in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, it will more than double in developing nations. Fossil fuels will still make up 80% of the energy mix in the 2030s, with oil and gas comprising upwards of 60%. The central problem for the coming decade will not be a lack of petroleum reserves, but rather a shortage of drilling platforms, engineers and refining capacity. Even were a concerted effort begun today to repair that shortage, it would be ten years before production could catch up with expected demand. The key determinant here would be the degree of commitment the United States and others display in addressing the dangerous vulnerabilities the growing energy crisis presents.
That production bottleneck apart, the potential sources of future energy supplies nearly all present their own difficulties and vulnerabilities. None of these provide much reason for optimism. At present, the United States possesses approximately 250 million cars, while China with its immensely larger population possesses only 40 million.
Page 28:
A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India. At best, it would lead to periods of harsh economic adjustment. To what extent conservation measures, investments in alternative energy production, and efforts to expand petroleum production from tar sands and shale would mitigate such a period of adjustment is difficult to predict. One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.
Page 29:
At present, investment in oil production is only beginning to pick up, with the result that production could reach a prolonged plateau. By 2030, the world will require production of 118 MBD, but energy producers may only be producing 100 MBD unless there are major changes in current investment and drilling capacity.
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.
Page 31:
As we approach the 2030s, the world’s clean water supply will be increasingly at risk. Growing populations and increasing pollution, especially in developing nations, are likely to make water shortages more acute. Most estimates indicate nearly 3 billion (40%) of the world’s population will experience water stress or scarcity. Absent new technology, water scarcity and contamination have human and economic costs that are likely to prevent developing nations from making significant progress in economic growth and poverty reduction.
…
The unreliability of an assured supply of rainwater has forced farmers to turn more to groundwater in many areas. As a result, aquifer levels are declining at rates between one and three meters per year. The impact of such declines on agricultural production could be profound, especially since aquifers, once drained, may not refill for centuries. Glacial runoff is also an important source of water for many countries. The great rivers of Southeast Asia, for example, flow through India, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Thailand, and Burma, and are fed largely from glacial meltwaters in the Himalaya Range. Construction of dams at the headwaters of these rivers may constrict the flow of water downstream, increasing the risk of water-related population stresses, cross-border tension, migration and agricultural failures for perhaps a billion people who rely on them.
Page 32-33:
The impact of climate change, specifically global warming and its potential to cause natural disasters and other harmful phenomena such as rising sea levels, has become a concern. Scientific conclusions about the potential effects of climate change are contradictory, with some arguing that there will be more and greater storms and natural disasters: others, that there will be fewer.
Climate change is included as one of the ten trends most likely to impact the Joint Force. For example, sea ice has been shrinking dramatically in Arctic regions each summer, and in the future this could open new shipping routes across archipelagic Canada and Northern Russia that could dramatically shorten transit times between Europe and Northeast Asia. Furthermore, shrinking sea ice opens new areas for natural resource exploitation, and may raise tensions between Arctic nations over the demarcation of exclusive economic zones and between Arctic nations and maritime states over the designation of important new waterways as international straits or internal waters. As an early move in this new competition, in 2007 two Russian submersibles made an unprecedented dive 2.5 miles to the arctic sea floor, where one ship dropped a titanium capsule containing a Russian flag. Retreating ice creating access to previously unavailable natural resources is but one example of potential security challenges that did not exist in the past.
…
Global sea levels have been on the rise for the past 100 years. Some one-fifth of the world’s population as well as one-sixth of the land area of the world’s largest urban areas are located in coastal zones less than ten meters above sea level. Furthermore, populations in these coastal areas are growing faster than national averages. In places such as China and Bangladesh, this growth is twice that of the national average. Should global sea levels continue to rise at current rates, these areas will see more extensive flooding and increased saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers upon which coastal populations rely, compounding the impact of increasing shortages of fresh water. Additionally, local population pressures will increase as people move away from inundated areas and settle farther up-country.
I note that they’re still focusing their oil supply concern on the infrastructure issue. I suspect this will be one of the endless debates in the coming years–is oil near $200/barrel because we don’t have enough rigs and workers, or because we’ve hit a geologically induced peak? I don’t think it takes a great logical leap to predict that those in power, like politicians and military leaders, will focus on the former, while almost everyone else will say it’s the latter. It will be tempting to say, “We’re paying that much for oil, so who cares which side was right?” But that would be a huge mistake, since an infrastructure problem can be solved through investment, while a limit on the sustained production capacity available (at any level of investment) is a vastly different and more serious problem.
I was surprised that the report pays so little attention to the phenomenon of climate change triggering water shortages via the disappearance of glaciers. It is mentioned, as quoted above, but this one factor could potentially overwhelm almost everything else in the report. A massive number of people, from hundreds of millions to billions, depending on who’s counting, depend on water from the Himalayan Plateau, a.k.a. the Earth’s “third pole”. A major (and, essentially, permanent) decline in water from that source would tip over a lot of very big dominoes.
As I said above, the whole document is definitely worth reading.
