The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
Now the "peak oil" theory is gaining support at the heart of the global energy establishment. "The IEA in 2005 was predicting oil supplies could rise as high as 120m barrels a day by 2030 although it was forced to reduce this gradually to 116m and then 105m last year," said the IEA source, who was unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals inside the industry. "The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.
"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.
As part of the $32 billion Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill recently signed by President Obama, lawmakers asked the EPA to re-visit hydraulic fracturing, the process where copious amounts of water and sand mixed with toxic chemical additives are furiously pumped underground to break up gas-bearing rock thousands of feet below.
The bill urges the EPA to use a portion of the money to fund a scientifically robust and peer-reviewed study of the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water, "using a credible approach that relies on the best available science."
The EPA gave hydraulic fracturing its stamp of approval in a 2004 report, but that study has been widely criticized as politically-motivated and scientifically unsound.
"The EPA gave hydraulic fracturing its stamp of approval in a 2004 report [1], but that study has been widely criticized as politically-motivated and scientifically unsound"
The request by Congress is what is poltically motivated and scientifically absurd. Hydraulic fracturing targets formations at depths generally thousands of feet below aquifers. The height of the induced fractures are measurable and there is little threat to aquifers well above the targeted intervals. People are essentially like dogs, they like to pee on things they do not understand.
That's pretty absurd. CEO's of IOC's, some US based, have been saying the same for several years. Nonetheless, what is available 10 years from now is not what is important to the market, it's what is available next year so I do not see where the panic buying would come from.
Shifting demand suggests a future of endless oil
Technology, politics and consumer behavior could keep industry pumping
Schoonebeek will not flood the world with crude. But its success presents a stiff challenge to those who argue that oil production is in irreversible decline. Consumer demand, technology, and global politics are shifting in a way that could spell a future of oil abundance, not of catastrophic dearth. As Leonardo Maugeri, a senior executive at Italian oil major ENI, puts it: "There will be enough oil for at least 100 years."
... Moderating global demand can also stretch the supply of crude. After the oil shocks of the 1970s, efficiency gains and a switch by factories to natural gas prompted a nearly 10 percent drop in global oil consumption in the early 1980s. The price spike of 2008 may lead to similar results. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, an environmental group, notes that the U.S. car fleet shrank by 4 million in 2009, thanks to scrapping and reduced sales. He expects that shrinkage to continue, reducing the U.S. fleet by 25 million cars by 2020. He also sees a cultural change occurring in which more people, especially the young, don't see owning a car as a necessity. "We are now looking at something new, a shift in the way people think about automobiles," he says. "That means less oil use."
I may be right. I may be wrong. But there is a lot of gray area in-between.
Do you think India (and China) car fleets would increase significantly to supplant the decreasing American Fleet? Sales tanked recently, but if they return to what they were in 2005, this question is rhetorical.
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Car Sales Statistics India
Automobileindia report on monthly statistics of various new and used car sales done by Indian car industry in the year 2008. www.automobileindia.com ? Cars in India ? Statistics - Cached - Similar
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India zips ahead - Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business ...
Feb 24, 2005 ... The report adds that in line with the industry's projection, India will add a million cars a year from next year and sales volumes will ... www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GB24Df05.html - Cached
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
Shifting demand suggests a future of endless oil
Technology, politics and consumer behavior could keep industry pumping
Through the recession crude oil use dropped in the US by about 5%. Not really significant when considering how fast we are depleting world resources. Yea, there is plenty of difficult to extract oil around but what they do not say is that some of it may be extractable at 80$/barrel but a lot of it is not. None of the Dutch field mentioned in this article would be extractable at 40-50$ barrel as the article suggests. I am well aware of the cost structure of oil fields in Europe, I worked in them for a long time, and developing a heavy oil with steam technology for 40-50$/barrel is not going to happen. I do not think it's going to be that lucrative at $80/barrel.
Oil is indeed endless because the cost of getting the most difficult deposts out of the ground would be well beyond what you or I could ever afford to use.
As far as car ownership in the US and youth is concerned, get real. You yourself have even argued that the people who elect to get around without a car are few and far between and I do not see that changing anywhere outside the NE US and San Francisco; it just is not practical in most US cities for anyone with a family or over a sustained period of time regardless of what a few people here who prefer to live a Spartan life have managed to do.
Last edited by Highlander on Tue Jan 12, 2010 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The thing people need to remember about oil lasting another 100 years is that it's a short time relatively in human history. Even if we reduce our consumption for transportation, factories, and heating and cooling, we will still need petroleum products for other modern uses.
When the oil starts to run out, what are we going to use for products that are made from petroleum? How will we pave our highways and roads, or roof our houses? Plastics are made from petroleum and we use them in all aspects of our lives.
Sure we can drive less and conserve, but when oil prices get higher and higher because of extraction costs, the costs of everything made from oil will continue to rise as well.
FangKC wrote:
The thing people need to remember about oil lasting another 100 years is that it's a short time relatively in human history. Even if we reduce our consumption for transportation, factories, and heating and cooling, we will still need petroleum products for other modern uses. http://iprb.org/files/Petroleum_Product ... _Lives.mht
I'd say the thing people need to remember is that if we have a 100 year supply of oil, that means we will see shortages long before the 100 years is up. Crude oil is maintaining a pretty good price right now despite a recession, which should tell us that production is still struggling to keep up with demand in spite of economic turmoil.
Yes, I've read that we should start expecting to see increasing political turmoil over diminishing oil in the next 30 years.
This is why I wish the world would wake up, and start converting to alternative power sources in a major way now. The best way to win a war is to avoid it.
FangKC wrote:
Yes, I've read that we should start expecting to see increasing political turmoil over diminishing oil in the next 30 years.
This is why I wish the world would wake up, and start converting to alternative power sources in a major way now. The best way to win a war is to avoid it.
But the Repubs said all we have to do is "Drill Baby, Drill".
KCFutbol wrote:
But the Repubs said all we have to do is "Drill Baby, Drill".
I do not believe that is what anybody ever said. Obviously, drilling extends the life of gas and oil supplies which are a much more efficient form of energy (particularly for transportation) than anything else we have at our disposal. It is clear the world has to be prepare itself for the post hydrocarbon era but not pursuing hydrocarbon exploration would be utterly foolish.
DaveKCMO wrote:
i believe it was "drill, baby, drill" followed by "all of the above".
so while we're on the topic of republicans and energy, how about the mccain flip-flop on cap-and-trade?
As someone very opposed to cap and trade (and not a republican*), why would I care about a flip-flop unless, of course, they flipped from opposing C&T to favoring it? In fact, I never care about flip flops on issues as long as they are flopping in my direction of thinking.
*I'd probobably be a republican if they dropped the ultra conservative/religious element of the party.
i don't normally make it a point to defend anything that snowbilly says, BUT she was sharing a ticket with a cap and trade supporter. she probably didn't have much of a choice but to align with the majority of mccain's views.
DaveKCMO wrote:
i don't normally make it a point to defend anything that snowbilly says, BUT she was sharing a ticket with a cap and trade supporter. she probably didn't have much of a choice but to align with the majority of mccain's views.
Snowbilly. That cracks me up!
If I may point out, Palin's statment:
"I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy," she wrote on July 14, 2009. "
Was made post election.
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
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