The "Peak Oil"� concept "” that the world's petroleum-production rate will soon reach its maximum and commence an inevitable decline, with negative economic consequences "” has been around in scientifically articulated form at least since 1998; long enough to see it confirmed in significant ways.
The rate of discovery of new oilfields has been falling since 1964. The biggest find in recent years is Tupi, in Brazilian waters, which is claimed to hold five-to-eight billion barrels of oil; but that's only enough to slake the world's thirst for 60 to 90 days. Most producing nations are past their domestic peaks and are experiencing slowing output, despite every effort to maintain flow rates.
Skeptics point out that total world oil reserves continue to grow. But this may not be a reliable indication of where we stand: Often, in nations that have seen a peak and subsequent decline in production, domestic reserves continued to rise right up to, or even past, the date of peak production. Why? Oil companies replace reserves of high-quality, cheaply-produced oil with reserves of low-quality, slow-, or expensive-to-produce oil or tar sands.
Rates of output decline in older, giant oilfields have proven to be more trustworthy indicators of long-term trends. (For instance, they've enabled successful peaking forecasts for the United States, the North Sea and other regions). For the world, the average decline rate from existing fields has been calculated by the International Energy Agency at 4.5% per year. The world needs to develop the equivalent of a Saudi Arabia's worth of oil production capacity every four years to offset such declines. This is quite a burden for the industry, which must now look for oil in ultra-deep water, in polar regions, or in politically fractured nations, since all the easy-to-find, easy-to-extract oil already has been located and much of it pumped.
So far, the record year for world crude production was 2005, and the record month was July 2008. Tellingly, the leveling-off of extraction rates between 2005 and 2008 occurred in the context of rising oil prices; indeed, in July 2008, the price spiked 50% higher than the previous inflation-adjusted record, set in the 1970s. Yet as both oil demand and prices rose, production barely budged in response.
While many commentators believe the jury is still out on Peak Oil, the list of petroleum analysts who say world oil production has already peaked, or will do so in the next five years, lengthens almost daily, and includes CEOs and other well-placed leaders within the oil industry.
The argument that oil production could theoretically continue to grow past 2015 is mainly put forward by organizations such as Cambridge Energy Research Associates and Saudi Aramco, which explain away evidence of dwindling discoveries, depleting oilfields and stagnating total production by claiming that it is demand for oil that has peaked, not supply "” a claim that hinges on the observation that oil prices are high enough to discourage potential buyers. But high prices for a commodity usually signify scarcity, so the "peak demand"� argument doesn't hold water.
Peak Oil has significant implications for our economy. In response to the 2008 price spike, the global airline industry nose-dived and auto companies suffered. Worldwide shipping slowed drastically and hasn't recovered. Demand for oil plummeted in late 2008, and so did the price "” temporarily. But today's price is again high, almost to the point of nipping economic recovery.
What should we do about Peak Oil? Start with what the U.K. Industry Task Force on Peak Oil (which included Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines) has done: Acknowledge the reality of supply limits. Then study the vulnerabilities of Canada's transport and food systems to high and volatile oil prices, and start making those systems more resilient and less oil-dependent.
But do it fast. Adaptation will take decades, and we are starting very late.
National Post
Richard Heinberg is a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and the author of five books on fossil fuel depletion.
The return of coal.
There is no need to study a damn thing related to this, all we have to do is let the market dictate when alternatives become more macro-dense than the effort to extract.
And, seeing as we have centuries of natural gas and coal, which slide into the existing infrastructure rather easily, there is nothing to study there, either.
Unless you convince yourself that talking is doing...
Wait..."a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and the author of five books on fossil fuel depletion".
That is exactly what you are doing.
Congratulations for building an industry that accomplishes nothing, and can be maintained indefinitely. Sort of the disposable razor of the 21st century, huh?
Not one penny of public money on this tripe, not one penny!
and BC's "Green Economy" is on track to be $27billion this year - based entirely on taxpayer subsidies - Jetsolver is correct.
Peak Oil, AGW and Pop Bomb are all frauds, maintained to take from the enterprising and give to the socialist elite.
Goodbye global warming. Hello peak oil.
What should we do about Peak Oil? Nothing. Development of technology and resources is a function of price. At the time, people were wringing their hands about a whale-oil shortage and nobody would be able to light their lamps. Then someone drilled a hole in Pennsylvania, then Rockefeller ruthlessly brought the price of oil from 50 dollars a barrel (2000 dollars in today's money) down to 2 dollars by the early 1900s (today's price 80! Price unchanged in a hundred years!) a barrel, and the world lit their lamps and ran everything else that could be invented to use oil.
We have oil sands now economically viable (it wan't until recently) with hundreds of years' supply, and along the way, all the uneconomic alternative energies will become economically viable, even without government subsidy. Until then, don't subsidize them.
The most inefficient way to do anything is to think we (usually meaning the government and its parasitic subsidised 'think tanks') have to Do Something. Idiotic agitator politicians, agonized about the price of gasoline going up (and down!) by a penny don't hesitate recommending that we apply onerous taxes to generate revenue to hand to bureaucrats to give grants to develop economically unviable energy resources.
Just leave it all alone, and let the people who make a living at providing energy do their jobs. They've been pretty good at it so far. All you have to do is remember back to the lineups at gas stations in the States in the 70s, or the National Energy Program/Petro Canada disaster, courtesy of Trudeau, Chretien and Strong to see what the effect of bureaucracy and Task Forces can have on the supply of energy.
The scaremongering fairy tail continues.
Peak Oil is a seriously flawed theory because of the deterministic assumptions that it is based on and the apocalyptic future it predicts.
It does not acknowledge the effect of technology or human agency on world petroleum production. And it treats corporations like they are blind mice grubbing for the last bit of bread. A CEO's job is as much about the FUTURE of the company as it is about the profits.
The Peak Oil crowd often overlaps with the AGW and 9/11 truthers and other paranoid folks who need to see the world as on the brink.
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