Sunset industry? Oil production could soon peak
Posted on 04/22/2004 6:22:48 AM PDT by Momaw Nadon
Just as certain as death and taxes is the knowledge that we shall one day be forced to learn to live without oil.
Exactly when that day will dawn nobody knows, but people in middle age today can probably expect to be here for it.
Long before it arrives we shall have had to commit ourselves to one or more of several possible energy futures.
And the momentous decisions we take in the next few years will determine whether our heirs thank or curse us for the energy choices we bequeath to them.
Sunset industry? Oil production could soon peak
Industry's lifeblood
There will always be some oil somewhere, but it may soon cost too much to extract and burn it. It may be too technically difficult, too expensive compared with other fuels, or too polluting.
An article in Scientific American in March 1998 by Dr Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere concluded: "The world is not running out of oil - at least not yet."
"What our society does face, and soon, is the end of the abundant and cheap oil on which all industrial nations depend."
They suggested there were perhaps 1,000 billion barrels of conventional oil still to be produced, though the US Geological Survey's World Petroleum Assessment 2000 put the figure at about 3,000 billion barrels.
Who holds the world's oil - and how long will it last?
Too good to burn
The world is now producing about 75 million barrels per day (bpd). Conservative (for which read pessimistic) analysts say global oil production from all possible sources, including shale, bitumen and deep-water wells, will peak at around 2015 at about 90 million bpd, allowing a fairly modest increase in consumption.
On Campbell and Laherrere's downbeat estimate, that should last about 30 years at 90 million bpd, so drastic change could be necessary soon after 2030.
And it would be drastic: 90% of the world's transport depends on oil, for a start.
Most of the chemical and plastic trappings of life which we scarcely notice - furniture, pharmaceuticals, communications - need oil as a feedstock.
The real pessimists want us to stop using oil for transport immediately and keep it for irreplaceable purposes like these.
In May 2003 the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), founded by Colin Campbell, held a workshop on oil depletion in Paris.
Changed priorities
One of the speakers was an investment banker, Matthew Simmons, a former adviser to President Bush's administration.
From The Wilderness Publications reported him as saying: "Any serious analysis now shows solid evidence that the non-FSU [former Soviet Union], non-OPEC [Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries] oil has certainly petered out and has probably peaked...
"I think basically that peaking of oil will never be accurately predicted until after the fact. But the event will occur, and my analysis is... that peaking is at hand, not years away.
"If I'm right, the unforeseen consequences are devastating... If the world's oil supply does peak, the world's issues start to look very different.
"There really aren't any good energy solutions for bridges, to buy some time, from oil and gas to the alternatives. The only alternative right now is to shrink our economies."
No cheap oil, no cheap food
Planning pays off
Aspo suggests the key date is not when the oil runs out, but when production peaks, meaning supplies decline. It believes the peak may come by about 2010.
Fundamental change may be closing on us fast. And even if the oil is there, we may do better to leave it untouched.
Many scientists are arguing for cuts in emissions of the main greenhouse gas we produce, carbon dioxide, by at least 60% by mid-century, to try to avoid runaway climate change.
That would mean burning far less oil than today, not looking for more. There are other forms of energy, and many are falling fast in price and will soon compete with oil on cost, if not for convenience.
So there is every reason to plan for the post-oil age. Does it have to be devastating? Different, yes - but our forebears lived without oil and thought themselves none the worse.
We shall have to do the same, so we might as well make the best of it. And the best might even be an improvement on today.
"Reserves that can be recovered economically in existing operating conditions."
Well, that leads to several questions on several levels ...
"Economically" today does not mean "economonically" tomorrow. As the prices go up, so does the availability of pumping oil out of deposits that are not "economically-feasible" at this time.
"Existing operating conditions": well, we're already pumping oil out of places that, just a decade ago, were not able to be accessed with that level of technology. Who knows what technology will become available next year or within the next five years.
Finally, remember, in the early 60's, that great ecologic guru Ehrlich foresaw the end of oil in the '70s along with mass starvation in America and around the world. When compared against the inflation that has occurred since the days of the 25-cents per gallon gasoline in the 60's and early 70's, gasoline and oil is not really that much more expensive .. if at all.
And you can only put the windmills where the huggers allow you to...can't mess with their pristine view of the ocean!
Oil wells in California and Texas pumped down to dry in the mid century are now full again to the shock of their owners. It's just cheaper to import oil than to do it here.
Once the core of the earth cools down another few miles, I guess that will mean fewer oil reserves, but that should be right around the time we start beaming aboard the USS Enterprise, captained by Jeanne-Luc Picard.
We shall have to do the same, so we might as well make the best of it. And the best might even be an improvement on today."
This has to rank as one of the dumbest things I've ever read on FR!
Let's all get nekkid, hug a tree and go live in a cave!
Sheesh!
There's the fallacy of your argument. That's a mighty big "if" ... one that the Luddites have been foreseeing for the last 80 years or so.
Every year, new deposits are discovered. Every year, new technology makes accessing previously unobtainable supplies possible. There's no reason to believe that the oil supply will be extinguished any time soon ...
I don't believe I'll still be in this world 1000 years from now.
No, oil did not come from dinosaurs falling in the tar pits. No one knows where it came from.
The reason oil wells which were formerly dry and now are pumping again has nothing to do with the earth's mantle or convection currents of the core.
Oil in a reserve is either gas driven or water driven, but to drive it, there must be holes in the formation for it to go through. We call that porosity. The connection from hole to hole we call permeability.
When a formation is "tight", that is, lacking permeability, the oil simply doesn't have enough transit velocity to fill the well bore so the well quits producing oil until it can replenish from the surrounding area. We call that lateral extension.
No one has the vaguest idea when the United States will run out of oil.
In our proven reserves, we have a finite volume which is based on the witch doctoring of figures supplied by reservior engineers, but we have hundreds of thousands of acres of land that has not even had a seismic truck on them.
Some of those will boost our reserves if the econazis will let us drill.
Because of the price of oil and it's expected increase, deep water drilling off the Continental Shelf is in high gear. Those wells will also boost our reserves.
The final fact to keep in mind:
We have enough natural gas reserves here in the continental United States to be energy self sufficient.
We are NOT going to run out of energy derived from fossil fuels in your lifetime or your grandchildren's lifetimes.
Burn your Greenpeace card, eat a spotted owl, chop down a tree, drown a darter snail and buy the biggest gas guzzling SUV you can afford.
Best Earth Day advice I've heard yet!
Will do!
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