Oil Expert Predicts Apocalypse, But Few are Listening

Newhouse News Service ^ | August 20, 2005 | Alexander Lane

[minerboy]

hink high gas prices are bad?

Get a load of what ex-oilman and ex-Princeton professor Kenneth Deffeyes believes are following closely behind:

"War, famine, pestilence and death," he said. "We've got to get the warning out."

The threat? Peak oil.

The term refers to the time when the worldwide production of oil peaks and begins a rapid decline. From then on, this incredibly efficient fuel source, which still costs less than most bottled water, will be ever more scarce and ever more costly.

Highly respected sources, including the U.S. government, think that day is distant, and most mainstream economists think it won't cause much of a ruckus.

But Deffeyes thinks peak oil is coming in November, and could bring humankind to the brink.

"It's been like pulling teeth to get public awareness," he said.

So who is this well-credentialed Chicken Little?

Deffeyes grew up next to gushing oil wells. He is a former petroleum geologist himself, having worked for Shell Oil for six years after earning a doctorate from Princeton.

He is a devotee of former Shell geologist M. King Hubbert, who correctly predicted U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s. Deffeyes is also the author of "Hubbert's Peak" and "Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak," which was published last spring.

He is among a cadre of peak-oil proponents who sketch out a frightening near-term future in which the American way of life is upended as the United States, China and great nations scramble after oil fields like desperate players in a game of musical chairs.

[brownsfan]

"Oil does not come from dead dinosaurs - but it is being made all the time 100's of miles below the surface. "

You know, I've heard and read that more than once. I've heard that "experts" were shocked when expended fields began to produce again. The "experts" were also confused by fields that continued to produce well beyond estimates.

The whole idea of oil from dead dinosaurs... well, I'm not a scientist, but sure seems like it would take a LOT of dinosaurs to produce all that oil. I mean a huge number.

I also notice that no one throws around the tag fossil fuel much anymore.

[6SJ7]

Deffeyes is also the author of "Hubbert's Peak" and "Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak," which was published last spring.

Scare tactics; a favorite means of pushing a book.

[biblewonk]

Oil does not come from dead dinosaurs - but it is being made all the time 100's of miles below the surface.

No Way. Dead dinosaurs from the flood 4000 years ago.

[anonsquared]

Not a problem, every American driver can just be assigned their very own illegal immigrant to power their auto the biped way - Fred Flintstone style!

[spanalot]

PEAK OIL is a MYTH!

http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/peak_oil/peak_oil_is_a_known_fraud.htm

---

On September 26, 1995, the New York Times ran an article headlined "Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally." Penned by Malcolm W. Browne, the piece appeared on page C1.

Could it be that many of the world's oil fields are refilling themselves at nearly the same rate they are being drained by an energy hungry world? A geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts ... Dr. Jean K. Whelan ... infers that oil is moving in quite rapid spurts from great depths to reservoirs closer to the surface. Skeptics of Dr. Whelan's hypothesis ... say her explanation remains to be proved ...
Discovered in 1972, an oil reservoir some 6,000 feet beneath Eugene Island 330 [not actually an island, but a patch of sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico] is one of the world's most productive oil sources ... Eugene Island 330 is remarkable for another reason: it's estimated reserves have declined much less than experts had predicted on the basis of its production rate.

"It could be," Dr. Whelan said, "that at some sites, particularly where there is a lot of faulting in the rock, a reservoir from which oil is being pumped might be a steady-state system -- one that is replenished by deeper reserves as fast as oil is pumped out" ...

The discovery that oil seepage is continuous and extensive from many ocean vents lying above fault zones has convinced many scientists that oil is making its way up through the faults from much deeper deposits ...
A recent report from the Department of Energy Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development concluded from the Woods Hole project that "there new data and interpretations strongly suggest that the oil and gas in the Eugene Island field could be treated as a steady-state rather than a fixed resource."
The report added, "Preliminary analysis also suggest that similar phenomena may be taking place in other producing areas, including the deep-water Gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan North Slope" ...There is much evidence that deep reserves of hydrocarbon fuels replenish the shallow oil fields."

[IL Republican]

Exactly,

The free market is always right. If we really are running out of oil, it would be worth $650, not $65. It is priced high enough to encourage people to look for other sources. People will, and society will move on.

[Just mythoughts]

"No Way. Dead dinosaurs from the flood 4000 years ago."


NO the dinos were around long long before man was formed in the flesh. Genesis 1:2 before the creation of this earth age was their demise and NO time is given as to the when of it.

[HamiltonJay]

Sorry, but diesel is far more practical that gas/electric hybrids....

I am amazed that people are latching onto this dead end.

They've been making 50+ MPG diesel cars since the early/mid 90s..

Gas/electric is overpriced, overcomplicated, and a waste of resources for a passenger vehicle.

Diesel/Electric hybrids make sense for things like LOCOMOTIVES, BUSSES, SEMIS and other large heavy equipment.. but are wasteful in the passenger market.

[pissant]

Is this before or after we all starve to death because we can't feed the world's population?

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

A choice between "highly respected sources" like a Princeton professor and the U.S. Government.

I can't believe either.

[kjam22]

There is much evidence that deep reserves of hydrocarbon fuels replenish the shallow oil fields."

LOL.... this reads like these oil fields are underground storage tanks or something. The only place they find oil and gas is in sand that is surrounded by shale or whatever to trap the oil and gas. It would be crazy to argue that we can't pump it out and aren't useing it faster than it is "replenished" if that's what you really want to believe is happening.

I've been in the oil and gas industry since 1980. I don't know of a single time that a well was depleted and a few years later oil showed up in the same zone.... mysteriously... like it was being replenished. The only way we'll keep up with demand is by find oil in new zones. And that becomes more expensive all of the time as it generally requires deeper and deeper drilling, in new wells and existing wells.

[doc30]

The problem I've heard is that no one wants to make the capital investment on shale oil / tar sands / coal liquification because there is serious speculation that oil wil drop below $35/barrel which is the minimum price for production to be profitable. Right now, the Saudi's are produceing oil at $4-5 per barrel. There is a lot of difference between those two costs and no one wants to lose a bundle if prices drop. It is still possible to have $30/barrel oil and still be profitable. Only when the middle east production costs are above $35/barrel will investors put money into alternative oil sources. And that is assuming government environmental regulations will permit exploiting these resources.

[conserv13]

I don't think its being created quickly enough. We are pumping out oil at an unsustainable rate.

[Trimegistus]

It's too bad humans never learned to get energy from nuclear fission.

[kjam22]

I'm not sure I believe the $4 or $5 price on Saudi oil cost..... but maybe. Bottom line is that eventually oil will be more difficult to find there... they will have to drill deeper etc. They'll have more dry holes. And their cost (whatever it is) will go up. I don't know when that happens.... I don't think anyone really knows when.

[Nathan Zachary]

And people think Pat Robinson makes stupid statements...This alarmist is just another quack who's rantings are repeated by MSM every so often.

There is no oil shortage, peak oil is 150 years away if it even comes to that at all.

The sky is falling! the sky is falling! run! The Ice age is coming! run! Global warming is coming! Run! Peak oil! Run!
We've had peak oilalrmists ever since the first oil well was drilled.
People still believe oil is made from fossils, dead dinosaurs. This is a theory that has been around since the 1700's. There is no proof of this. There are NO organic elements in oil except as a contaminant.

580 BILLION dinosaurs would have to have died in one spot just to make the Saudi oil fields.

The human population on earth is 6-7 billion? And we consider that as overpopulated. Imagine trillions of dinosaurs dying in one spot all over the world to make "fossil fuels".

Oil is made deep deep within the earth by a process called Abiotics. This theory has been accepted as established fact by virtually the entire scientific community of the (former) Soviet Union. It is backed up by literally thousands of published studies in prestigious, peer-reviewed scientific journals.

What is there for for the fossil fuel theory? Nothing! Yet like fools, we in the west continue to believe that myth, and are fed this "peak oil" crap and oil shortage fears which drive up the price to make oil people and governments rich(er).

For all the oil that was pumped from the Saudi oil fields, they should have been empty by now. They are still full.
Why? Because oil is made deep within the earth and forms as it makes it way up closer to the surface, refilling these fields. There are other examples of this all over the world,
such as the continuously refilling oil field of Eugene Island 330 (Gulf of Mexico.

Regardless of what you believe, We have enough know reserves to last 150 years, and that includes estimated increased demand.


http://www.rense.com/general63/staline.htm

[LibLieSlayer]

WE live in America, the country GOD so loved that he bestowed the responsibility of the most power of any nation ever formed. WE will not fail because of a lack of oil. WE will develop alternative sources of oil, while we work on energy independence through many technologies.

Anyone that thinks differently, is a FOOL!

LLS

[bkepley]

Everytime I hear the word "diesel" I envision one of those volvos spewing black smoke, the rear window covered with soot.

[Nathan Zachary]

"The end is coming, the end is coming. - That's what he's screaming. Ok, back away from the hysterics for a moment. Just what exactly am I supposed to do about this?"

Enjoy yourself, waste your fair share, have a good time. kill a tree, step on bugs, etc. The end of the world is comming in November, so book your holidays early.

[rellimpank]

---nope---the "oil shale" is low grade. Twenty years ago when I was working on it for a major engineering company we were looking at $100/bbl production cost--

--there are many better options than oil shale---