Peak oil

Peak Oil: How will it affect rural communities?

Peak Oil is the term used for the time when demand for oil will exceed our capacity to produce it at an affordable price.  It will impact on all of our lives, and the only dispute is over when the impact will begin to take serious effect.  Over the past century, the amount of oil we use has steadily increased and the world now consumes about 87 million barrels of oil a day. Global oil production, on the other hand, is currently running at close to 81 million barrels per day and is predicted to fall to 39m by 2030. Conventionally produced oil is becoming harder to extract and the price will rise, affecting us all.  Will we face a greater divide between rich and poor? Will government action on use or cost of fuel be put in hand?  Or will we succeed in adjusting lifestyles by reducing food miles and the need to travel by recreating local provision of services, which is directly opposite to current approaches that increase the centralisation of services to create economies of scale? The complementarity with the themes of the Every Action Counts is obvious. 

All communities will have to adapt to these challenges. However, the impact will be far greater on rural communities. The reliance on private transport and decreasing viability of rural services is already a factor in the increasing isolation of those least able to afford to travel. For many, private transport, whether a car or taxi, is the only way of accessing doctor’s surgeries, schools, shops and post offices. 

ACRE and the Rural Community Action Network developed the 21st Century Village initiative  to build on their current work in supporting the long tradition of rural community action. Rural communities can be helped to develop a viable vision for their future by harnessing the potential of local assets - including the people themselves - to re-create local provision of services and reduce energy use, not just CO2.  Economic development can be supported by intelligent use of existing facilities, home working and provision of adequate IT. This localisation of services can generate vibrancy in rural areas, rather than watch it slowly drain away.

ACRE takes the view that behavioural change is more powerful if issues are made locally relevant and communities recognise the threat to their own lifestyle with whole communities becoming engaged in taking action.  Rather than preaching to communities about global impacts, the aim is to work with them to identify local solutions to their own future based on the challenge of peak oil. This engages those who just want to improve their local community and may not be attracted to action on climate change issues alone.

21st Century Village has shown that by stimulating dialogue amongst groups and individuals within a community, ideas and volunteers come forward to create a myriad of collective initiatives.  Examples such as “greening your village hall”, offering local recycling facilities, energy audits, vege-box pick-up points and the use of bio-fuel heating, crop up time and time again. The Rural Community Action Network has been involved in helping communities generate local projects as well as providing groups and individuals with practical guidance. Advice has been given on sustainable energy and waste action, from no/low cost measures, such as composting, rainwater harvesting and improved insulation; to capital investment measures, such as solar thermal, combined heat and power and other such low carbon systems.  We are also finding that group initiatives taking place in community buildings cascade into the daily life of individuals using or managing the hall.   

Saving energy is one of the practical issues tackled under the 21st Century Village initiative. In conjunction with Every Action Counts and National Energy Action (NEA), the Network has trained all the Village Hall Advisers employed by Rural Community Councils across the country to offer energy audits to rural community buildings. The training ensures that Village Hall Advisers fully understand all aspects of energy use in halls and can advise communities and community groups on the best way of reducing their usage. Other actions taken by the Network to support rural communities face the challenges ahead, have included, the initiation of car share schemes, hiring out of thermal imaging cameras, increasing the availability of broadband facilities and offering advice on sustainable building practices.