Has oil production peaked?

Oil is not everybody’s preferred topic of small talk. It tends to make the eyes glaze over. But the consequences of a terminal shortage are horrific and should worry us all.

It’s worth noting, for instance, what Lord Ron Oxburgh, former non-executive chairman of Shell UK, and not a man given to sensational exaggeration, said at a conference late last year. "We may be sleepwalking into a problem which is actually going to be very serious.” By the time we are fully aware, he added, it may be too late to do anything about it.

At the same event, the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (Aspo) in Cork, the former US Energy Secretary Dr James Schlesinger said oil industry executives now privately concede that the world faces an imminent oil production peak – a point at which demand will permanently overtake supply, and prices shoot up and up. 

Schlesinger, also formerly Defence Secretary and CIA Director, said it is very difficult for politicians to break this news to the people. “To have real movement, the public has to be hit over the head with a two-by-four.”

Without plentiful cheap oil, motor and air transport become unviable. Our financial system, premised on endless growth, is incapable of addressing new, shrinking economic conditions. And when you remove artificial fertilizers made from fossil fuels, the earth can support only 1bn or so people - so we seem to be heading for mass starvation.

These issues are comprehensively examined in a new documentary film, A Crude Awakening. It largely comprises straight interviews with sober economists, geologists, professors of physics and politics, and a former acting secretary general of OPEC. Between them, they grimly demolish the case for many wished-for alternatives to fossil fuels.

A physics professor at Stanford is asked, “Are my grandchildren ever going to fly in an aeroplane?” A gripping question, he replies. “And I think the answer is probably no.”

One interviewee, the startlingly depressing but all-too plausible Matthew Savinar, is asked if we face something like the challenge President Kennedy presented in the early 1960s - to get a man on the moon in ten years. “The problem we’re facing is more like colonising Pluto,” Savinar replies. “If JFK said we’re going to have a hundred thousand people living in three-bed houses on Pluto in ten years, then obviously we would not have been able to accomplish it.”

Comments

[Ralph]

s/oil/y2k/g

[Paul Newbold]

Fred, back in March 08 you said "The top oil producer in the world is Saudi Arabia but not “by far” as you state. In 2006 Saudi Arabia produced about 10.665 mbpd (IED) . Russia produced about 9.7 mbpd. Russian output has been growing rapidly."

Since then Saudi have refused (or maybe can't) increase output, despite pleading by Bush, and Russia has admitted it is now past peak and in decline.

Many stories have been published about the possibly insurmountable production bottlenecks of oil from tar sands in Canada to. Mostly to do with limits to the inputs of natural gas and water.

It is not looking good, and we need to be diverting resources to promoting renewables and increasing fuel efficiency urgently.

[Jess W Fulbright]

Here is a prime example of why we are in trouble. The United States is currently using almost 21 million barrels of oil a day. The latest "solution" to high oil prices by our government was to quit filling the strategic oil reserve. Both democratic presidential candidates supported the measure and it passed nearly unanamously.
How much additional oil is now on the market in the US today by congress taking this ingenius action? 2 million barrels? 1 million barrels? No, 7000 barrel was what we were putting into the reserve on a daily basis. Do any of the people who are posting here believe that this 7000 barrels of oil a day is going to help anything at all. I doubt it.
The point is our government will not face the tough choices if it might cost them a vote in the next election. We probably have the reserves available to stave off the looming crisis for awhile, what we do not have is the political will to develope them.

[Ray]

Gentlemen,

Your assertion that the societies of this world are going to disintegrate into some Mad Max scenario rather than open up areas currently off-limits for environmental reasons, is patently ridiculous.

You look around your humbled version of a once great empire and see no hope for the future. Britain's demise is not the manifest destiny of all great nations. You got yourselves there with your continuing affection for wealth redistribution and the belief that government and the ruling class has all the answers. The rest of us prefer to see the world for what we can make it.

We hear peak oil and see 800 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the U.S. Green river deposit. Will it be easy? No! Is it impossible? Absolutely not!

The future is reserved for those that look at problems and see possibilities. Not for feeble-minded doomsayers like The Times.

[Frank]

Malthus called for you.

He wants his theory back.

[James Kennett]

How can the Canadian gas be "stranded" (uneconomic to transport to market), but not the oil that could be produced from this gas with oil sands or shales? If the oil can be removed by pipeline, so can the gas. If by tanker, so can the gas (after liquefaction).

[Howard Grattan]

Martin Aston, you have already been ticked off by the writer of this article, over your 12mpg Range Rover. Don't knock the lithium bike idea (of John's), it may be closer than you think; well, the lithium bit anyway. And I hope you are not running down badgers in that wasteful car of yours, are you?

[Howard Grattan]

Martin Aston, you have already been ticked off by the writer of this article, over your 12mpg Range Rover. Don't knock the lithium bike idea (of John's), it may be closer than you think; well, the lithium bit anyway. And I hope you are not running down badgers in that wasteful car of yours, are you?

[Martin Aston]

Response to John:

Lithium bikes ? The very idea. I should like to know how a lithium bike and its windburned rider would fare in a collision with a badger; not well, I fear. On the other hand you hardly even feel the bump when in a Range Rover. Perhaps you should consider this next time before suggesting such impractical and downright dangerous modes of travel !

[Howard Grattan]

Response to Fred!
Thanks Fred, I am amused by your follow-ups! (on nearly everyone!) Quite informed and interesting, I must admit. I like your phrase "failure of imagination in accounting for human ingenuity and the strength of response to the price signal in a free market. Human ingenuity is essentially incalculable." I suspect that is the true answer; as every generation faces its own challenge, and must come up with the answers. The Middle Ages, for example, had to contend with the Black Death; but survived. No idea who you are; but public debate is always healthy!

[Fred]

Response to Richard Earle:

We all can point to countries or fields that have lower production but there is no mention of the many examples of production increases. Increases over the last few years are occurring, and seem to be continuing, in Algeria, Angola, Kuwait, Libya and Qatar, among OPEC countries. Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada, China, Brazil and Ecuador show significant growth among non-OPEC countries. In a baseball analogy, the declining camp points to a few batters who are off their game or at the end of their careers (let’s call these Mexico, Venezuela and the US) but doesn’t mention that the team batting average keeps going up as rookies join the club and veterans continue to produce and improve (let’s call these Russia, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Kuwait).

The top oil producer in the world is Saudi Arabia but not “by far” as you state. In 2006 Saudi Arabia produced about 10.665 mbpd (IED) . Russia produced about 9.7 mbpd. Russian output has been growing rapidly.

The amount of energy required to produce a barrel of oil from sand and shale is large but the oil produced is still net oil available to the world. Virtually all of the Canadian projects are run off of natural gas which is stranded locally. Stranded means it is not economic to connect this gas to pipelines where it can be transported and used productively. So if this waste gas is burned to produce oil, all of the oil will be net oil available to the market. There is no subtraction to the market for the energy consumed since that was not and will never be available to the market. Thus it is completely sustainable.

The collapse of Western Society due to shortages has been predicted many, many times over the last few hundred years (Malthus is a famous example, the Club of Rome a more recent example) so you are not alone in your prediction. And the case is plausible, perhaps even “calculable”. But the evidence against current predictions of collapse due to shortages of some critical element is very strong and empirical……there has, in fact, been no collapse over the last several hundred years’ of predictions.

The essential problem for the collapse advocates is that they project from current trends and have a failure of imagination in accounting for human ingenuity and the strength of response to the price signal in a free market. Human ingenuity is essentially incalculable. Of course it could be different this time, but when a school of thought has been wrong for several hundred years it is right to begin to think that it is fundamentally flawed in its logic.

[Fred]

Response to Howard Grattan:
You are the first to mention a real threat to relatively inexpensive oil: environmental concerns. Much of the US is already off limits for this reason. Canada may also place restrictions on oil sand development, the net result of which is higher prices.

[Fred]

Response to Eric:
It is interesting that several people have posted that world oil production has already peaked. This is simply wrong as new records in world oil production have been reached in each of the last 25 years.

Mexico (Cantarall) is notorious for underinvestment in its oil industry and declines due to lack of investment shouldn't be included in the debate as evidence of peak oil.

The United States has been the most intensively drilled country in the world by a very long measure and can give one an idea of the amount of oil that can be extracted as other countries get worked over. Fantastic opportunties exist in the OPEC nations once the "easy" oil is extracted. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Saudi proved reserves are around 75 years at current production rates. Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela and UAE have over 100 years supply.

We do not know the real production potential of the United States but we do know for certain that it is far higher than current production rates since virtually the entire offshore and much of the continental US is offlimits to drilling.

The point though is that areas and particular oil fields will come and go but new discoveries (Brazil) and new technologies (Canada) and combinations (the recent huge deepwater find in the Gulf of Mexico) will continue to grow world production over the next century, as it has despite near-constant predictions of peaking, over the last century.

[Richard Earle]

Yes it is true, and I am amazed that the vast majority of people seem not to be aware of oil depletion, or if they are, choose to ignore it. We are all now fully aware of and concerned about climate change, when oil depletion is probably a more pressing issue.

World oil production has just about peaked and in the not too distant future, demand for oil will exceed supply and the days of abundant cheap energy will be over.
Saudi Arabia is now by far the worlds biggest oil producer, and this is the first year that Saudi has not increased it's production.

Many people assume that we will never run out of oil, even if we are no longer discovering any major new reserves, technology will solve the problem for us, and there is lots of oil available in oil shales etc.
This is true, the oil will not run out overnight, but as demand exceeds supply, shortages will result, pushing up the price and making currently non economic oil fields economic to exploit. More oil comes to the market, but the irony is that as it becomes available, the faster we use it...and world demand for oil and energy is constantly increasing.

Incidentally on the subject of extracting oil from oil sands and shales, most people are aware of the environmental damage and the water pollution associated with this. But few are aware that it actually requires more energy input (burning gas to release the oil from the sand and shale), than you get out in terms of the volume of oil produced.
More energy put in than you get out is clearly not sustainable.

The good news is that with world oil depletion and diminishing supplies of fossil fuels, in the future less carbon dioxide will enter the atmosphere, which will hopefully help to reduce global warming and climate change.
However it may already be too late to halt global warming, because of the vast quantities of methane which is now being released by the melting tundra, (methane having 20x the global warming potential of the carbon dioxide).

The bad news for the 'western world' is that oil depletion and shortages of the limitless supplies of cheap energy that we now rely on, will probably result initially in the collapse of stock markets and western economies, followed by the collapse of modern industrialised society in the western world.

Increasing world population, currently 6.5 Bn with 9 Bn predicted by 2050, is driven by limitless supplies of cheap energy derived from oil, so with reducing supplies, these numbers and economic growth can not be sustained. However the articles prediction, that the earth can only support 1 Bn people with out oil, is probably slightly pessimistic. As most now predict that without modern mechanised agriculture (fuelled by oil), the earth can support a population nearer to 2Bn. But it is interesting to think that when I was born in 1961, world population had just turned 3Bn.

If you get chance to see the film 'A Crude Awakening' it is quite an eye opener for most people who are not aware of the oil depletion problem.
See
http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/film.html

Initiatives like 'Transition Towns', see http://www.transitiontowns.org/ are trying to raise public awareness of the problems, and are having some local successes.
Certainly if everyone in the western world becomes aware or the oil depletion problem in the very near future, and takes drastic action to change their lifestyle and massively reduce individual and national energy usage, by a factor of about 5, we might stand a chance of averting the longer term problems.
But we all know this is not going to happen in out current 'I'm alright jack' society, so in the future it will be 'every man for himself' !

Personally, I don't think the long term prognosis for the West is a good one, once oil depletion starts to bite. The mild energy and fuel price increases that we have seen recently are nothing compared with what is to come, and in the longer term, following the failure of world economic and transport systems and the break up of industrial society. There is likely to be a period of anarchy and massive population reduction through starvation, disease and 'civil unrest'. Followed longer term by the survivors returning to a pre industrial revolution style of subsistence farming, carried out be local extended family groups.... It might sound a bit far fetched, but just think through the scenario of our modern world operating with ever decreasing amounts of ever more expensive energy.

The question is will we be there to see it ?
Richard Earle

[John]

Overall from the above comments its clear most realise the gusher has gone.While new supplies are hard to find and insufficient for current or future demand.
So we return to the past for the future.
Bikes and electric bikes for local journeys (new lithium bikes do almost 40 miles on a charge).The steam train (engineered for the 21st Century) for goods and long trips.
Problem solved

[Howard Grattan]

None of these post even mention the possible impact on the earth of global warming arising from unlimited supplies of oil, even if such a thing exists. What is needed is a radical departure from current ways of using oil; cars, for example, are hugely wasteful, even if they are magnificent toys. Same applies to air-trips, when you think about it. A change of thought-pattern is needed, to eliminate both peak oil and global warming. A totally new invention, like electricity was 100+ years ago.

[Eric]

To all those who see no end in sight for ever increasing oil production ... Why has world oil production remained flat in the last 3 years? Why has the oil production of the United States, the greatest oil producer in history, peaked in 1970 and gone down almost every year since then, despite having access to the most advanced technology on the planet and more oil wells (2 million) drilled than the rest of the world combined? Why is the North Sea and Cantarell (Mexico) oil production dropping at over 5 percent a year? How can country after country go past peak and the whole of the world produce yet more oil every year?

[John-Paul Flintoff]

Martin Aston, you might do better not to buy that big car, regardless of the remaining oil reserves. It takes an awful lot of composted tea bags to offset a Range Rover.

[Ron]

Production has 'peaked' to force the price up.

[Martin Aston]

Excellent work, chaps. Depending on which submission I read I am flipping from dizzy euphoria to flatline depression.

Here I am, trying to do everything right to ensure the survival of the human race by drinking tap water and composting used tea bags, but nobody appears able to tell me what's what regarding the disposition of our most crucial natural resource !

Now I'm about to do my bit for the depressed UK car manufacturing industry by purchasing a Range Rover with a 3.6 litre V8 engine, with which I will convey my kids to school in the Central London rush hour. I will be lucky to return 12mpg on this little beauty so for god's sake sort yourselves out and let's get a consensus before I get my fingers burnt.

[Fred]

Response to Scott:

Of course everything on the planet is quite old. And except nuclear, all our energy is a natural product derived from the sun. Oil is simply stored and concentrated plant-derived solar power.
The only question as to whether we might run out of oil is when. There are hundreds of years of supply in oil sands and oil shale formations as well as decades of years supply in liquid form using current technology. No one is searching for additional oil sands or shale since hundreds of years supply is already known and many liquids areas, in OPEC countries for example, are not even being explored.

Limits-to-energy advocates have been making their case for literally hundreds of years and run afoul of human ingenuity. Dusty rock becomes coal, Black gunk becomes useful oil, dangerous ore becomes clean and safe nuclear power. Imagination fails them as they can show you calculations that prove we absolutely must run out. But, in a free market, rising prices call forth all the energy of human ingenuity to confound the projector.

[scott]

Anyone who argues that peak oil isn't happening is a fool! Yes we now have the tar sands as a "reserve", the difference is that we are stepping in and forcing the tar sands to produce oil. We have just short circuited the process that took millions of years to produce the oil under the sea.
North Sea oil took millions and millions of years to get where it is. We've ripped out more half of it in 25 years!!!(production peaked in 1999)
There is nothing else that this planet has that will replace this free energy. I mean free because after you drill the hole you have tapped into a millions of years old battery.
Every other energy source that man requires has to be generated, whether it be nuclear solar, wind etc.
This world is going to get an enormous shock. Economies crashing, people starving. The £20 jolly in a budget airline to Prague will be consigned to history. We will look back and wonder how we could have been so wasteful and stupid.

[Fred]

Further response to Martin:
Worldwide unproduced reserves grew again last year, as they have annually since 1980. For example, here is a graph from the 2007 report of the EIA. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/figure_38.html
An interesting stat is that the US reserve to production ratio has ranged between 9 and 13 years for the last 25 years. Thus we have produced our proved reserves 2 times over since 1982 and still have a similar amount of proved reserves.

Another interesting stat is the country with the largest decline in proved reserves during the period 2000-2007 is Venezuela with 16 bil barrel decline. The country with the largest increase is Canada with 174 bil barrel increase. Two other countries, Iran and Kazakhstan, show increases of 46 bil and 24 bil barrels respectively.

Also, note that very little exploration is conducted in major oil producing countries of OPEC. Current proved reserves in Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait and UAE are over 100 years' supply at current production rates. Saudi Arabia is 75 years at current production levels. Sensibly, these countries spend little or no money on exploration and proving additional reserves and instead focus on developing existing reserves and spending the money elsewhere in their government budget. Thus the most fertile areas of exploration in the world are not being explored. And yet world proved reserves keep growing.

[Fred]

Response to Pheba:
Agree with you on ethanol. That is primarily a political product rather than an energy market product.

Canada's oil sands were recently added to the world's proved oil reserves. The total amount at current technology and prices is equal to Saudi Arabia. This is discovery on a massive scale. Of course we have known it was there for 150 years, same with oil shale. It is changing technology and a higher price that has made it hugely profitable to produce.

I think your math breaks down in the face of human ingenuity because you probably do not have an input for declining cost of production or new discoveries in methods of production. Note my earlier post on oil shale. The United States has the world's largest supply, a hundred years' worth. If oil prices are sustained at the current levels so that investors can count on this price, and if oil sands and conventional oil and alternative energy do not make up the difference, this resource will be produced.

[Fred]

Response to Mark:
You are simply incorrect Sir. Worldwide oil production has increased every year since 1980. Major discoveries were made just this year in Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico (amazingly the Gulf of Mexico is still not played out after decades of intensive exploration. Why? Constantly improving technology). Western oil company investment hit a new all-time record last year and is expected to increase another 14% this year to another all-time record. The innacuracy of your premises of course casts substantial doubt on your conclusion of $1000 oil.

[Fred]

Response to Martin,
Worldwide proved reserves are at record levels in terms of years of supply. Note that it costs money to prove reserves. When you have proved 40 years' reserves, spending money to prove the 41st year is less important than spending money to produce what's been proved sooner. That is where investment tends to be directed today.

Unfortunately the Western oil
giants are pipsqueaks in the oil business so extrapolating from their reserve numbers won;t generate useful information.

[Fred]

Response to Andrew:
"Oil will never run out, but the age of 'easy' oil is almost over, and supplies from oil sands, deep ocean, etc. will *never* be able to compensate for massive and rising global demand. The logistics of getting that oil (which often requires significant energy input to extract) to market are expensive and slow."

Regarding oil sands, the logistics and extraction methods are all calculated into the extraction costs and are economically attractive currently so that hurdle in the sense of being highly attractive economically has already been overcome. The long lag periods from the point when a project becomes feasible to actual production is absolutely true. And the fact I mentioned earlier that the oil price keeps collapsing due to oversupply despite the reporters and some scientists claiming we are running out makes these investment decisions very tough gambles. Oil investment after the last 2 price collapses in 1999 and 2002 plummented. Now investment has surged to absolutely massive and unprecedented levels and supply is going to come online steadily going forward. Supply will continue to enter the market even after the price collapses since these projects are so massive and long term that once they are begun they will be completed. This is why oil prices collapse so thoroughly when they hit the wall.

The energy input for oil sands is almost completely supplied by local supplies of stranded natural gas, local natural gas that cannot eceomically be transported to any markets for any other use. Thus the energy input has no impact on energy markets.

Please note that today's "easy" oil was yesterday's hard oil which is why it is being produced today and not yesterday. Technology has made the oil easy. Look at heavy oil and oil sands and deepwater drilling as examples. In Rockefeller's day if it didn't almost flow out oof the ground on its own it was too hard. The future will repeat the past yet again.

Response to Andrew:
"Oil will never run out, but the age of 'easy' oil is almost over, and supplies from oil sands, deep ocean, etc. will *never* be able to compensate for massive and rising global demand. The logistics of getting that oil (which often requires significant energy input to extract) to market are expensive and slow."

Regarding oil sands, the logistics and extraction methods are all calculated into the extraction costs and are economically attractive currently so that hurdle in the sense of being highly attractive economically has already been overcome. The long lag periods from the point when a project becomes feasible to actual production is absolutely true. And the fact I mentioned earlier that the oil price keeps collapsing due to oversupply despite the reporters and some scientists claiming we are running out makes these investment decisions very tough gambles. Oil investment after the last 2 price collapses in 1999 and 2002 plummented. Now investment has surged to absolutely massive and unprecedented levels and supply is going to come online steadily going forward. Supply will continue to enter the market even after the price collapses since these projects are so massive and long term that once they are begun they will be completed. This is why oil prices collapse so thoroughly when they hit the wall.

The energy input for oil sands is almost completely supplied by local supplies of stranded natural gas, local natural gas that cannot eceomically be transported to any markets for any other use. Thus the energy input has no impact on energy markets.

Please note that today's "easy" oil was yesterday's hard oil which is why it is being produced today and not yesterday. Technology has made the oil easy. Look at heavy oil and oil sands and deepwater drilling as examples. In Rockefeller's day if it didn't almost flow out oof the ground on its own it was too hard. The future will repeat the past yet again.

[paul newbold]

I see oil shale and tar sands being cited as potential replacements for liquid oil. But the research I've done indicates severe production bottlenecks of liquid fuel from these due to the availability of the huge quantities of natural gas and water needed to get oil from them. At max output we may only get 6 million barrels per day from that source; far less than the 86 mbpd that humanity uses.
It will be a useful stopgap on the way to a nuclear and renewables future that's all - if we're smart enough to get that far.

[Pheba]

To all of the cornucopians who posted on this site, I only have to say:, bless your little hearts. If I tied you up and pummeled you with a feather tickertape you just would not get this. We do not worship Jesus, Allah, Buddha, in this country. We worship the market and technology. The market can not alleviate this mess. The technofix will not save us.
The market or technology can not overcome the basics of thermodynamics. The market and technology can not exist in denial of exponential mathematics.
Arctic drilling will not help us..Please study the full mathematic impact of arctic drilling.. The USGS resource assessment is available on the net.
Learn the reality of the math. Ask certain questions, and find answers. How many barrels of oil does the U.S. use every day? How many barrels are used globally?
How many barrels will ANWR produce at peak production? How long will peak ANWR production last? When will peak production occur?
You say certain areas are discovering billions of Barrels. Discovery peaked globally a very long time ago. The discovery curve mimics the production curve with about a 30 year time gap.
Now that you know how much oil is used in a day. Do the math and figure out how long 6 10, 16 etc. billion barrel discoveries will last.
We need to find a new Iran every year to keep up with current growth in oil consumption. Study growth curves and the realization will smack you in the face. China and India are doomed, and by default so are we.
I am not saying I am a genius. Actually I am not very smart. But, I have worked very hard to learn the math, and the science.
Entropy can not be denied. Find out what EROEI means. Once the understanding sinks in and the math clarifies the situation you will realize that no alternatives to petroleum based fuels will save us.
There is not a single discovery, technofix, or market manipulation that is going to stop this mess.
What we need, and we need it now, is massive global conservation of resources.
With the global powers lining up to grab the remaining resources, that is very unlikely to happen.
Brace yourself. it is going to be a bumpy ride.
Oh, my hubby and I are cattle ranchers. We can no longer afford to raise beef cattle because of the mess created by ethanol. Ethanol is a mathematic, economic, ecologic social, disaster.
Pheba

[Mark Shapiro]

One has to distinguish carefully between the peak in total oil production and the peak in oil production PER CAPITA.

Total oil production worldwide continues to increase at a roughly linear rate, and probably will continue to increase for many years to come. However, the world's population has been increasing at an exponential rate for many decades. The peak in oil production PER CAPITA actually was reached in the 1980's.

That did not matter all that much while the demand for oil in third world countries was low. However, in recent years demand for oil in the developing countries has exploded. And, it is likely that new demand will continue to outstrip new oil production.

[Martin]

There is an easy way to evaluate how close we are to peak oil: Look at the reserve replacement rates of the world's major oil companies. None of the major international companies can maintain the reserves on their books, without buying up the smaller companies. National Oil companies are harder to quantify, but the biggest ones are hardly replacing reserves at all.

Peak oil production may not be here just yet, but peak unproduced reserve levels peaked some time ago, and you cannot produce what you don't have.

[Mark]

Oil production has already peaked. In November 2005 we were producing more oil per day than we have at any time since then. Only increased use of gas and biofuel has masked this turning point - pushing gas and food prices up in the process. Even President Bush recently admitted that he no longer believes Saudi Arabia can increase its production. Meanwhile important oilfields such as Cantarell and the North Sea are in steep decline. Oil majors are now cutting exploration and increasing dividends, they know the game is up, there is no more oil to find. IT IS OVER - There has not been a single important usable discovery in over ten years. If you find this impossible to believe talk to a geologist. There is no substitute that could be scaled up to replace oil at anything less than $1,000 per barrel. Read Matt Simmon's 'Twilight in the Desert'.

[Andrew MacPherson]

Oil will never run out, but the age of 'easy' oil is almost over, and supplies from oil sands, deep ocean, etc. will *never* be able to compensate for massive and rising global demand. The logistics of getting that oil (which often requires significant energy input to extract) to market are expensive and slow.

Once you can grasp that, you realise that peak oil supply is a significant threat to what -- for a few short decades -- has become the way of life to aspire to on this planet.

I'm hoping nuclear fusion will gallop to our rescue, but so far -- sadly -- that's looking very unlikely. So I see no harm in taking this subject very seriously indeed.

There's a sign on the roadside of human history and it reads 'no service station for a very long time indeed'. The question we have to ask ourselves is what's left in the tank *before* we go any further. There are 6 billion passengers in the car, and the loaves & fishes trick probably won't work this time.

[kenny livitt]

I am not convinced of the global warming panic that seems to be only a taxation vehicle for countless governments. But common sense tells me that sooner or not much later we will run out of oil. We must stop going for economic growth and learn to live with less, conserving world supplies untill we can switch to a sustained well managed bio fuel market which does not deplete the world of food. Manufacturing products to last and not just recycled. Glass bottles returned and reused are much cheaper for the eviroment than one trip recycling. One of the comments asks if it costs £1000.00 to fill up, would you? Answer is no, but the rich would and will.

[Fred]

Supply and demand will equalize as long as the price can float. Large amounts of new supply can be recovered at today's prices. The Canadian oil sands are a case in point. Not feasible at $25, and with technology available iin the 1990's, hugely attractive at $70 with far better and cheaper technology in the 21st century.

The estimated supply of oil in oil shale is measured in the hundreds of years and the United States has the world's largest deposits. The major impediment to development of this resource is, surprisingly, fear that the price of oil will drop, as the economics work well at current price levels. Oil investors have longer memories than oil consumers and remember that the last price collapse after we were told we are running out of oil left oil prices under $10 per barrel during 1999 and under $20 per barrel in 2002.

Please note that oil peaking in the US is heavily affected by environmental issues, though the result is the same. Vast potential reserves are offlimits to even exploratory drilling in: the continental US, offshore on virtually the entire East and West coasts, and in Alaska. Environmentally caused restrictions in supply have been a large factor in higher prices.

Echoing the first comment in this string, the first articles about peaking oil supply were written in the 1920's and have come along every few years when the price spikes. Go back to the archives and you will find plenty of articles, reporters and scientists proving that we are running out.Yet they always underestimate human ingenuity and scientific progress.

In the 1980's proved reserves were only around 30 years supply at projected production rates. Guess what, almost 30 years later proven reserves are now around 40 years supply at current prices and production technology. US Government Agencies estimated oil would run out in less than 15 years in 1914, 1939 and 1951. In 1977 Jimmy Carter said we may well use up the world's oil in a couple of decades.

[J.R. Bailey]

Hello,

We don't know how much oil is available, because we've BARELY scratched the surfaces of the oceans' floors!
Both the Arctic and Antarctic should have VAST oil deposits and if GW continues its natural course (and it IS natural, not man-made), couple those deposits with new finds across the globe on the floors of our oceans, and we'll have plenty of oil for CENTURIES.
This Chicken Little Doom and Gloom is yet another way for OPEC to jack prices up, for Oil Conglomerates to rake in more billions off scamming us.
Schlesinger was a hack while in office and now he's expanded his Con Artistry to the Environmental Field.
Do you like gold? Gold has been mined for THOUSANDS of years, yet according to geologists, we've only discovered 5% of the gold deposits on (under) the Earth.

So remind me again, when new species of fish are found EVERY YEAR, and we've only just BEGUN to map the ocean's floors, how any rational person without an axe to grind, could conclude that the oil of the world is almost gone?

Same type of persons within the Eco-Fascist Movements, which declared that we'd be out of oil by the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Well, were here and there's still oil, gas at the pump, and tankers shipping the stuff to market.

Mind you though, this same E-F Lot also proclaimed 35 years ago, that the greatest coming Environmental Doom to humanity, was the Coming Ice Age!!!!

The same voices that are today, proclaiming the Coming Desert Age.

Can you connect the dots?

Cheers from Wyoming

[kris]

Peak nuclear fuel production is also hit. It takes a lot of petrol to drive all those heavy vehicles to gather ore and refine it, and the sources become more low grade. The cheap nuclear fuel had now is from the decommissioning of cold war weapons. Forget nuclear replacing any oil.

[Raoul Duke Jnr.]

Why don't we get cracking on renewable energy self-sufficiency while our scientists can still drive to the lab?

[Jim Peden]

This is a very interesting corroboration of the predictions of a March 1998 article in Scientific American by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherre. In this piece these geologists estimated a production peak around 2010.

An edited version can be found at http://www.dhushara.com/book/diversit/extra/oil/oil2.htm
or by searching for "the end of cheap oil" in Google.

[BundyGil]

Peak oil plays into the hands of the oil companies with enormous profits on a dwindling resource. My opinion is that peak oil is a long way off yet. It will come, but in around 20-30 years, mainly due to the extra usage of emerging countries such as China and India boosting consumption in a big way.
New oil fields coming online and old ones that now are economically viable ensure the party will go on for a few more years.
Oil companies and oil producing countries, of course, will work to keep the price and their profits up.

[Mike Donald]

" the startlingly depressing but all-too plausible Matthew Savinar, "

Thank's for that link. I'll be forwarding it to some my colleagues.

[John-Paul Flintoff]

The director of A Crude Awakening, Basil Gelpke, is a TV news reporter by background who assures me that as a journalist he comes across a lot of “good stories” and is not easily impressed. “Also, I’m not really a Green person. I’m rather conservative and I like our way of life.” But after reading about Peak Oil in a paper from an Australian hedge fund, he felt compelled to find out more. After all, he has two children. “I felt there was a terrible threat out there. I went through the usual stages of being depressed by it and nobody wanting to listen to me.”

But he’s made the film, which has won awards at film festivals and is going on general release. People will listen now, surely?

[Desmond Taylor]

One more time children let me explain how the real world works. When people say that oil will run out in 15 years, that means known sources that we can recover with EXISTING techniques. Brazil has just ' discovered ' Billions more reserves for example. In the US we cannot drill anywhere but the Gulf of Mexico.!!!. There are ommense tar sands near Canada which Canada is exploiting. Are these people saying that there is no oil anywhere in the world. Remember the bet in the 80's about how we were all going to starve by the year 2000. ? All these peop[le neeed to join the Flat Earth Society.

[Bill]

Nicholas Newman,

Don't be fatuous. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it will never happen.

No one knows _exactly_ how much oil is readily, but everyone knows that it is a finite amount.

[Nick]

Demand can only be satisfied to the extent of supply. This shortall in supply will drive higher prices. This will to some extent curb demand if there is demand elasticity, but oil is an essential need and so will not decrease enough to find an equalibrium. In normal economics, produces cotten on to the increase in demand and consequently increase supply. For oil thoug, much of the infractructure is decades old and production can only be increased at a limited rate. Of course, what many economists fail to factor in is that more oil cannot be "produced". It can only be extracted since it was produced millions of years ago. Supply is therefore finite and as we reach the half way mark the oil becomes more difficult to extract (read, slower and more expensive). The issue for our economies is not just the end of oil, but the end of cheap oil. Will you still drive your car 50 miles to work if it costs $1,000 to fill the tank?

[Rob]

How can "demand ... permanently overtake supply". Surely demand and supply are basically equal and the only variable is price?

[jj]

Every time someone unintelligent tries to connect the dots on a complex subject, the water gets mudied, and reality gets lost.

[Myles Brooker]

Peak oil is real, and it's this simple: if it wasn't, the US would still be a net exporter of oil instead of importing nearly 2/3 of its needs at great cost from unstable regimes overseas. Also we've managed to squeeze out production at faster and faster rates due to technology, giving the panacea of seemingly finding more oil while only accelerating the depletion. Even if global oil production can continue to creep higher which is the best that can be said for it the last couple years, supply will be overtaken by demand as China, India, and other growth nations suck out too much of it. Who will be in a position to bid up the price and take what's left? Not here in the US. We're done for.

[Ken Ott]

You can bet your car that peak production is "for real" this time unless we start drilling the Arctic -- which is just asking for more trouble and more problems long-term.

In any case, I read Mabro's article and he says nothing about production continuing to increase. Oil production has already peaked in the US (1970) and many other countries. Inevitably, the world will peak. The only question is when, and everyone in a position to know says the peak was 2005-06.

Touche.

[Prophet]

Whilst that may be true, the fact remains there is not an endless supply of fossil fuels. Demand will at some point overtake supply.

[Jim Golightly]

The case for new nuclear generation is now urgent but is it as urgent as winning the next election? Politicians must realize that if everyone dies history becomes pretty pointless their legacy will not be read!

A bill to allow connection to the grid with cheap equipment and no onerous charges would be an enormous help to microgeneration - along similar lines to the abolition of single source modems in communications years ago (what a terrific difference that made)

[Nicholas Newman]

Every few years we have stories in the press that oil production is due to peak. Yet every time a particular deadline is reached, production continues to increase. see Robert Mabro http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sant0084/mideast/index.html#anchor1