QuoteWarning: Oil supplies are running out fast
Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist
The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.
Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.
In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years â€" at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.
But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.
Full article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/warning-oil-supplies-are-running-out-fast-1766585.html
Thanks for posting this Lunican. I was going to yesterday but decided I would simply be painted as an "Its all about oil" kinda guy. This article makes the point that it IS "all about oil" now and for the forseeable future. Peak oil production estimates vary but it could be as soon as 2020-30 or much later. It is important to begin the weaning process... but for now... it is... all about oil. This is why it is extremely important for the United States to protect the oil reserves from those who would deny the world the supply of oil needed. Iraq threatened the worlds supply resulting in the first gulf war and Saddams continued belligerence against neighbors in the region (oil producers) was a major factor in his removal. Oil is the major reason Iran is the thorn that it is. Iran continuously threatens to close the Straights of Hormuz cutting the vast majority of oil flowing from the region.
Most people, including myself endorse and encourage the development of alternative energies but until a cost effective alternative is found... or ... the oil runs out... it is... all about oil. :)
I don't believe this bull hockey for one minute. Just another excuse to raise prices and stuff their pockets with extra money.
Heights Unknown
Call it good or bad, but Oil prices are very volatile right now and respond quickly and dramatically to any news of increased consumption or decreased production. Stockpiles have increased significantly in the past 6 months and at one point threatened to overflow storage capacity. Oil is currently testing $70 a barrel, and I think remain here through the winter. Next summer could bring an increase, but I don't think we will approach the $140+ level for some time.
More data...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
Quote from: heights unknown on August 04, 2009, 02:37:41 PM
I don't believe this bull hockey for one minute. Just another excuse to raise prices and stuff their pockets with extra money.
Heights Unknown
Peak oil supply is a real thing....it doesn't mean that we will run out anytime soon, just that they will max. out at a certain # of gallons per day....and if demand keeps increasing (see India and China), it will outpace supply, driving prices much higher.
EXACTLY! The is the very reason we should explore ALL of our very own oil deposits we can within the good ol US of A. ANWAR should be explored immediately... offshore reserves should be explore as soon as possible.
All the while developing the alternatives that will be required at some point... :)
(http://www.steelnavy.com/images/Yamato200/Yamato%20anatomy.jpg)
Imagine running out of oil and us getting into a life and death struggle (WAR) with much of the rest of the world. This is not entirely an impossible situation. Now imagine that we ration oil and gas and in the last great efforts to save ourselves only have enough oil for our sailors and pilots to fly one-way missions to the enemy targets. Horror of horrors, it has already happened once. You see there really was a reason to crash onto an American ship. The photo is the Imperial Japanese Navy Battle Ship Yamato, largest and most powerful battleship ever built. Her last mission was to try and run from the home islands to Okinawa where the American invasion was winning the day. The plan sounded insane, even the ships commanders and crew knew the folly of it. Beach the biggest ship in the world and use her massive guns to beat the Americans back. No air cover (no fuel) led to early detection. She absorbed some 40 torpedo's, rockets, 500 and 1,000 pound bombs before she finally healed over and sank. A Nation without oil would surrender within days... Without the fuel, it was REALLY over! In some form or other, what goes around comes around, we better be smart.
OCKLAWAHA
This same old subject surfaces every so often. I don't buy it.
Experts always seem to see dark clouds on the horizon. Reason.com's Ronald Bailey posted an article today about the National Academy of Science's new report "America's Energy Future: Technology and Transformation" and their 1980 report "Energy in Transition, 1985 to 2010". He notes:
"The 1980 report offered six scenarios for calculating the hypothetical total primary energy use for a country with a population of 280 million in 2010. The scenarios ranged from "very aggressive" federal policies aimed at reducing energy demand paired with quadrupled energy prices and 2 percent annual growth; to moderate with doubled energy prices and 2 or 3 percent economic growth; to essentially unchanged 1975 policies, stable or decreasing energy prices, and 2 percent growth.
So how well did the NAS foresee America's energy future back in 1980? Well, for starters, energy prices did not quadruple or even double over the past 30 years.
* According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the real price of electricity in 1975 was 9.2 cents per kilowatt hour (in 2000 dollars) and it was 9.28 cents per kilowatt hour in 2008.
* In real dollars a barrel of oil cost $48 in 1975. In 2009, the price has so far averaged $43 per barrel.
* In real dollars, a gallon of regular gasoline averaged $2.21 in 1975 and in August 2009, the EIA reported that regular gas was going for an average of $2.51 per gallon.
And the good news is that the U.S. economy grew at slightly more than 3 percent per year on average since 1985â€"not the pessimistic 2 percent rate envisioned in five of the six scenarios considered in 1980."
Whole article: http://reason.com/news/show/135213.html
Quote from: Seraphs on August 04, 2009, 09:59:34 PM
This same old subject surfaces every so often. I don't buy it.
Neither did Yamamoto, Nagumo, Suzuki, Ozawa, Honda, Yamashita, Toyoda, or Tojo(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JGRd43QLug8/RlZEpdLha_I/AAAAAAAABIc/H0VwmTwHoIc/s320/flag_japan_naval.gif)
OCKLAWAHA
Quote from: Seraphs on August 04, 2009, 09:59:34 PM
This same old subject surfaces every so often. I don't buy it.
fine..but what if you're wrong?
I'd sure like to plan for the potential future...either go find some more oil or begin transforming to more renewable energy sources.
Maybe it would be in our best interest to lower our dependence on oil. Even if it is a lie we still do not need to send so much money to foreign lands many who do not share our interests. So no more "hey a bird might fly into that wind mill" or Nuclear power is for the French or even it's my right to have a hummer that gets 6mpg. Let's put our own interests first. Let's diversify and become more efficient.
I agree 100%. Lowering our dependence on oil however will not end our dependence on it in the forseeable future. The amount of oil available for purchase will decrease as time goes on... be it from "peak oil" or increased consumption from developing countries. This country is still a leading producer of oil and we still have large reserves of untapped sources. These sources should be explored and exploited immediately.
Very true BT I am even more supportive of that position because it seems we are finally investing in other sources of energy. I would love to see us get ahead of the curve on the alternative sources and have foreign country's sending money our way for oil.
QuoteThis same old subject surfaces every so often. I don't buy it.
When I lived in the D.C. area, I built a close relationship with a boss that I had at two jobs (I gladly followed him to his new job when he left the company we were at). I'm not the only one who left their company to work under him. He was fair, good at what he did, watched out for the best interests of his employees, and above all brilliant.
He had a doctorate in geophysics. Back in the 70's when he was a young man, he taught himself how to program and then started his own company. He wrote software that allowed oil companies to find more deposits of oil. Some still use it today. He recommended the following book: Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage.
While Hubbert's work has critics, like any scientific work, I think this is worthy of a read if you have doubts about the premise of dwindling world oil supplies. His dates may have been off and he didn't take into account the exponential increase in technology that would follow in the ensuing years, he wasn't wrong about the US passing their peak oil production.
Here is a follow-up I read this morning:
QuotePeak Gov't, Not Oil
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, August 04, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Energy Policy: The chief economist of the International Energy Agency says the world is running out of oil. We've been told that for the last 150 years. The only thing we're running out of is the will to drill.
Ever since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pa., in 1859, experts have been predicting we would soon run out of oil. The latest is Dr. Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency in Paris, whose job it is to assess future energy supplies by OECD countries.
In an interview with the Independent, Dr. Birol says that based on a survey of 600 existing oil fields covering three quarters of global reserves, oil is running out faster than previously predicted, and global production is about to peak in 19 years.
"One day we will run out of oil, it is not today or tomorrow, but one day we will run out of oil and we have to leave oil before it leaves us, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day," Dr. Birol said. Gather ye switch grass while ye may.
In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicted American oil reserves would last merely a decade. In both 1939 and 1951, the Interior Department estimated oil supply at only 13 years. And in 1977, President Carter gloomily predicted that we "could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."
Consider that in 1970, experts believed the world had 612 billion barrels of proved reserves.
Over the next three decades the world pumped more than 767 billion barrels. By 2006, instead of running out of oil, world reserves had actually risen to 1.2 trillion barrels.
Was this another miracle of the loaves and fishes? No, it is the natural result of technology combined with the profit motive and innovation. Doomsayers could not anticipate wells that could drill miles beneath the ocean's surface, develop extraction techniques that would bring dead wells to life or almost literally produce oil from a stone.
The greatest impediment to oil discovery and recovery is government. Great swaths of onshore and offshore oil resources have been placed off-limits by our government. We don't even really know what we have â€" and what we know is there, we can't get at.
To its credit, IEA notes that chronic underinvestment by oil-producing countries is a problem that will create an "oil crunch" that will jeopardize any hopes of a recovery from the global recession.
But what we have is not peak oil, but peak government. Ronald Bailey has pointed out at ReasonOnline that "77% of the world's known oil reserves are in the hands of state-owned oil companies" that "do not respond to market signals and so are underinvesting in new production technologies and even in the production facilities they currently have."
There are friendlier places to find more oil, places such as Alaska, our Outer Continental Shelf and the Rocky Mountain West, if we had the political will. Our future should not be dependent on thugs like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in places like Venezuela and Iran, or on the political whims of OPEC.
Science magazine reports that the U.S. Geological Survey says the Chukchi Sea off Alaska holds more than anyone thought â€" 1.6 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, or 30% of the world's supply, and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 4% of the global conventional resources.
The Green River Formation, an oil-rich region in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, has been called the "Persia of the West." This formation has the largest known oil shale deposits in the world, holding from 1.5 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of crude.
Then there are the riches beneath ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf. Let us seek, and we shall find. We always have.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=334277169686916
The title "Oil supplies running out fast" is indeed hyperbole but the article does contain a certain amount of truth. Oil supplies in traditional and known reserves such as Saudi, Kuwait, Venezuela and indeed the U.S. are eventually going to play out. At the very same time demand is also going to increase. This is why it is very important for us to explore our "unknown" reserves and work on conservation and new energy sources. "Drill here, drill now is a slogan but the truth is we still have much untapped potential and if reducing our dependency on "foreign oil is really a priority I suggest we do just that.
Here, here! I agree. Priorities.
Drill here, Drill now is just the first step. I'm all for researching the future alternatives. Those alternatives will come via investments and research by individuals/companies with a profit motive.
If we truly are running out of oil, well, then, isn't necessity the mother of invention?
we have all been hearing this for ages. While I do agree we should direct ourselves towards more substainable resources, I don't think we need worry ourselves to the point some seem to want us to about this subject.