Peak Oil

All truth passes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed.
Then it is violently opposed.
Finally it is accepted as being self evident.

The oil storm is approaching. The question is how we respond.

Peak Oil Part 2

This started out as a response to discreet_chaos's comment on my previous post, but I though I should make it more obvious for others to read.



I've been moving more and more from the soft-landing camp to the doomer camp with respect to peak oil. While I am overjoyed that Chevron is pushing for discussion about peak oil, I am afraid it is too little too late.

Anyway, the quick version of peak oil is this: Over a long enough time period and a large enough area extraction rates of a nonrenewable resource approximate a bell curve, with a peak when half of the available resource has been extracted. Some of the best examples of this are whale oil production (peak in 1830's), and US48 oil production (peak in 1970). We are rapidly approaching peak crude oil production. The exact date is a major controversy. The Saudis claim it wont happen for a hundred years do to, well, magic as far as I can tell. The EIA claims it won't happen until sometime between 2016 and 2037, due to a nonsymmetric extraction curve with a 10-15% annual drop in production post peak. Several independent groups of geologist and industry bankers claim that it will happen much sooner, say 2007.

I'm siding with the 2007 dates as the people producing this prediction are working in the open and allow full access to their methods and data, whereas the EIA and the Saudis do not.

Either way, the exact date is not as important as the date when demand begins to excede production supply on a sustained basis and is eventually limited by production capabilities. The economic effects of this will bring the world to its knees.

It is almost certain that this will occur during the fourth quarter of this year.

If we had started to work on this problem 25 years ago when Carter gave his energy speech it wouldn't be a problem now. If we had started working on this 10 years ago it would have been rough but not too bad. If we had started working on this 5 years ago we could have done something to prepare. But now? I don't see any way for this not to end very badly.