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Which Countries will survive best?Which countries are likely to survive the decline of oil best? Some think that developed countries will do better since they have the technology, money and organisation to cope with a societal change. On the other hand, they rely more upon oil and power, and are more distant from the pre-Industrial Age lifestyle that we will all have to return to. Working out which countries will cope best is a complicated subject but anyone can get access to statistics which will give us an idea of how well placed countries are for the future. Some matters, such as government planning and warfare, are almost impossible to predict but we can examine some of the data on various countries to see which will tilt the balance one way or another. On this page I take a sample selection of countries and examine their positions. Data from the CIA World Factbook (2006) unless otherwise indicated.  AgricultureArable LandProbably the most important single statistic is population. The greater the population, the greater the demand for food, energy, jobs, etc. But simply taking the population and dividing by the land area of the country – a simple density – gives a misleading value. Botswana, for example, has a land area of about 580,000 sq km, similar to France, but whereas in France a third of that land is arable, only 0.65% of Botswana is. Deserts and mountains are of little use for growing food. What we need to compare then is the density of arable land since this gives us an idea of what resources can be turned over to food production and maybe biofuels. (Much land which is not classed at the moment as arable could be converted but let's keep things simple.) With the decline of oil and gas for agrochemicals, and the rising costs of imported food, it will be necessary to turn much more land over to agricultural use. While ‘urban farms’ can be created from gardens and parks, it will be easier to use land that is already designated as agricultural so we need to look at the amount of land that already exists as such. This first table show selected countries and the important density per
arable land.
Several things can be seen from this table. The basic densities (population divided by land area) are the same for New Zealand and Norway at 15 people per square kilometre. But Norway’s mountainous geography and cold climate means it has much less arable land so the arable densities are 275 and 555 respectively – the difference is double. Australia, despite having large areas of outback, still has a low AD because of its low relative population. Looking at Europe, we can see the difference between France and the UK – countries with identical populations but with very different ADs. This is due to France being more than twice the size and having a greater percentage of arable land. Ireland and the Czech Republic, both considered rather 'un-industrialised' compared to France and the UK, also have good densities; the former due to its low population and the latter due to the large percentage of agricultural land. Looking at some of the countries in Asia and Africa, they have high ADs because they often suffer from either large populations, low areas of arable land (from mountains, deserts and jungles) or both. We can see that Egypt’s problem is due to the fact that only a small area around the Nile and coast is suitable for agriculture while Japan’s is a very high population in a small mountainous country. In a similar way, Bangladesh has a very large population in a very small country; it has the highest AD despite having over half of its land devoted to agriculture. Fertilisers
Fertiliser consumption figures from the F.A.O. The table above shows the amount of nitrogenous fertilisers (made from natural gas) used per square kilometer of arable land and gives an indication of how industrialised the agriculture is. We can see that, while countries like Russia and the USA use large amounts of fertilisers, the amount used per square kilometer turns out to be rather small because of the large areas of arable land available. The countries with the worst situation are those with very large populations and small areas of arable land although it is rather surprising to see countries like New Zealand and Ireland so badly placed. EnergyEnergy is another vital ingredient in a country’s survival but rather more complicated than the look at agricultural density above. There is, for instance, the energy consumed which comes in various flavours – electricity, oil, coal, etc. Then there is the country’s energy resource. Finite sources such as oil, gas, coal and uranium are obviously short term but useful for aiding the transition to the post-oil society. We also need to think of the renewable sources; how much potential energy is there available for wind, solar, tidal, etc? (We should be cautious about bioenergy since, with the decline of oil and gas, we may find agricultural land in short supply and have enough problems growing food, let alone biocrops.) Electricity UsageThe data for energy is harder to put into figures but we can examine some numbers (Per Cap. = per capita consumption)
This first table shows per capita electricity consumption – a very important figure as the higher the consumption now, the more has to be supplied eventually by renewables or the greater the reduction in usage. As we might expect, countries in Africa, South America and Asia (except Japan) have low figures while the USA is near the top. It might be more surprising to see Canada and Norway at the top but we can reasonably assume that it is the cold climate combined with abundant hydroelectric power which necessitates such high usage. This may cause problems for these countries and others like them in the future: Norway’s oil and gas will not last for ever and Canada’s tar sands reserves will be too slow-flowing and energy-intensive to replace present needs. Fossil FuelsWhat about each country's fossil fuel resource? Although these are obviously finite, they are nevertheless very important to help a country make the transition to the sustainable society. The problem comes in measuring the different types and equating them to their usefulness. We could simply convert the reserves to a common measurement (such as megajoules) and add them up but not all fuels are created equal. Canada's tar sands may be far greater than Saudi Arabia's conventional oil but any knowledgeable person would prefer the former to the latter (see Unconventional Oils). The energy from countries' coal reserves are often far greater than that from oil and gas, but coal has many more disadvantages (see Coal). Ideally we would have to weight the values of the different fuels but that is a far more complicated equation that I want to do here. If you go to the trouble of converting the values of the countries to megajoules and comparing them,you will find that Russia and the USA come out pretty equal, with China in third place with about half the energy (using conventional oil reserves.) A bit further back is India, then Australia and Saudi Arabia. The rest come out much further behind. On the other hand, about 94% of the USA's potential fossil fuel energy lies in coal whereas only 62% of Russia's does. The latter's combined oil and gas is far greater than any other country's, including Saudi Arabia. Three of the other countries mentioned (China, India and Australia) also have primarily coal-based resources (92%, 97% and 94% respectively). As we pass the peak, it is the remaining oil and gas which will be most in demand rather than coal with its high pollution and difficult extraction processes. These will bring in the money, these will trigger resource wars. However we compare the energy, it is clear that Russia and the USA have the largest sources of fossil fuels to utilise with China also well-placed. In the short term, it is Russia and Saudi Arabia's oil and gas which will be most important. The question is, though, what the countries will do with these – waste them on prolonging our present-day energy-wasteful society or use them to prepare for the future? RenewablesIdeally we should also look at the potential for renewable energy in these countries but there are no easily available statistics on the Internet. It should not be difficult to gather average sunshine hours or average wind speed per square kilometer but I have not been able to find any. Looking at the two main sources, wind and solar, climate fortunately quite often separates the two. Countries or areas in the maritime climate zone (eg. Ireland and the UK) tend to get plenty of wind but the skies are often covered with clouds. Continental zones like Germany and the Czech Republic will get less wind but more clear days. Many African countries, lacking in fossil fuels, have plenty of potential sunshine (if they can find the money to build the infrastructure to utilise it). I suspect the problem with renewables is not what is available, but whether a particular country will take the effort to make use of it. Consumption by FuelOne area of renewables that we can compare now is hydroelectricity, a source that is already well-developed (and with little hope of further expansion compared to other renewable options). We can look at the data in the BP Statistical Review for "primary energy consumption by fuel" to see which countries are already making use of hydro.
From this table, we can see that Norway comes out well on top with over two-thirds of its electricity being generated from hydroelectricity while Saudi Arabia is utterly dependent on its oil and gas reserves. If it sells them off for present-day profit without investing in renewables, it will be in big trouble when peak oil really hits. France is also very over-dependent on a a finite fuel – uranium. If much of the world turns to nuclear as oil and gas decline, France may find itself over a barrel as the cost of uranium soars. GovernmentThe one important element that we cannot examine with statistics is the form of government that a country holds. Different forms will cope better with the oil decline. One of the disadvantages of democracy is that politicians tend to be short-termed in their outlook, being primarily concerned with re-election so their concern tends to be no more than a dozen years at most. Unpopular measures that will only bring benefits twenty or thirty years ahead are rarely taken as the government will not see the effects of their work until long after they are gone. They are also quite likely to be thrown out of office very soon anyway as an opposition offering short-term benefits will usually proper at an election. Another disadvantage is that the electorate will tend to look to what benefits them rather than their descendents and vote in such a way. Democracy is very good for satisfying the immediate desires of the country, not for the future benefits. As we can see when comparing Cuba and North Korea, an authoritarian regime with a strong dictator can be both beneficial and detrimental, depending on the way the leader deems to go. The harsh conditions that result from peak oil may well bring more martial law and draconian measures, and even the most democratic countries may find it hard to hang onto their freedoms. We are already seeing centuries of hard-won rights being eroded away in countries such as the UK and USA under the spurious banner of security. What will happen when food and energy prices soar and resource wars break out? But we must not be too pessimistic. There is always the possibility of a strong, forward-thinking leader emerging, even in the least likely countries. When Mikhail Gorbachev became president of the Soviet Union in 1988, how many would have thought that the USSR would break apart within three years? Results
For the results, I created a simple scoring system (divide the range of the relevant statistics by 10 and allocate points depending on the value's position). It is not meant to be definitive by any means but can give us an idea of a country's potential. It is no surprise that Bangladesh finishes bottom with only its electricity consumption in its favour. With a huge population, a crowded country and poor energy sources, we can see why many people expect the result of peak oil decline to be enormous numbers of refugees fleeing there. Many countries,like Norway, sit somewhere in the middle with a mixture of advantages and disadvantages. The North Sea bonanza is running out and it has no coal to turn to when it has gone. Most of its electricity comes from renewable hydroelectricity which is a great benefit but electricity cannot be used to replace pesticides and fertilisers, nor can it easily substitute for the oil used in transportation. If Norway retains much of its oil and gas resource for these uses, it could be well placed for the future. If it is sells them off for present-day profit, it will find itself in as bad a situation (or worse) as many other countries. |
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