The END OF OIL

The END OF OIL

A quote now in the energy business: "The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil."

You must read the June, 04 issue of National Geographic. Here's what they had on the web, plus clips from sites they linked to:
. . See the file.)

You may find pages on the web that say "Oil will never run out". Guess what? They're right! But they don't go on to be honest: the fact that there will be oil forever . makes not the slightest difference from "it's all gone". If it's over 20-30$ a gallon, what practical difference does it make at the gas pump? As soon as there's a gap in supply/demand, the price skyrockets! "Peak Production" will likely be *shortly followed by the gap in supply/demand.
. . There will be enough crude for expensive high-quality plastics. But there's another barrier: when it takes a liter of oil to power the pump that raises a liter of oil out of the ground (etc), it's a zero-gain situation.
. . It may be U.S. strategy that the First World corners the market as soon & as completely as possible. China, especially, will be left to only the oil they can find within their own borders. Actually, this is not so bad for China (in the long run). They avoid the deployment of an entire infra-structure --for the manufacture & distribution of liquid fuels that will be "gone" long before that infra-structure is paid for!
. . "Miracle Replacements": We can't depend on the discovery of "Cold Fusion", for example, or some quick, safe, & easy atomic power.
. . If no "miracle" replacement is developed, the west has a strategic/political advantage. The west will have whatever oil is left, & China is hobbled by lack of energy. But that may backfire. The squeeze may result in a real "great leap forward" for them. They may be forced to do the things we should've done, for ethical reasons, 10 years ago. They'll erect wind turbines, bio-digesters, geo-thermal power-plants, etc; & more importantly, develop "nega-watts': advances in efficiency that displace the need to generate more energy. Historically, the U.S. is not wise enough to copy the proceedures that are "not invented here". So China may wind up ahead, not behind, because of the deprivation. --JKH

Oil wells in the 48 contiguous states pump less than half what they did in their peak years (1970s). North Slope of Alaska & North Sea near England are in decline. Saudi wells are starting to get water in the oil.
. . Tar sand oil is very expensive. Two tons of sand to a barrel of oil. It takes lots of hot water and it has to be trucked around.
. . 2/3 of oil is used as fuel --the rest goes to plastics, fertilizer, etc.
. . Russia passed Saudi Arabia as biggest producer in 2003.

CLIPS:

May 28, 05: Some observers of the oil industry predict that this year, maybe next —-almost certainly by the end of the decade-— the world's oil production, having grown exuberantly for more than a century, will peak and begin to decline.
. . Then it really will be all downhill. The price of oil will increase drastically. Major oil-consuming countries will experience crippling inflation, unemployment and economic instability. Princeton University geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes predicts "a permanent state of oil shortage." Oil producers will grow flush with cash. And because the price of oil ultimately affects the cost of just about everything else in the economy, inflation will rear its ugly head.
. . According to these experts, it will take a decade or more before conservation measures and new technologies can bridge the gap between supply and demand, and even then the situation will be touch and go.
. . And there are many who doubt the doomsday scenario will ever come true. Most oil industry analysts think production will continue growing for at least another 30 years. By then, substitute energy sources will be available to ease the transition into a post-petroleum age.
. . Where you stand on "peak oil", as parties to the debate call it, depends on which forces you consider dominant in controlling the oil markets. People who consider economic forces most important believe that prices are high right now mostly because of increased demand from China and other rapidly growing economies. But eventually, high prices should encourage consumers to use less and producers to pump more.
. . But Deffeyes and many other geologists counter that when it comes to oil, Mother Nature trumps Adam Smith. The way they see it, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway and other major producers are already pumping as fast as they can. The only way to increase production capacity is to discover more oil. Yet with a few exceptions, there just isn't much left out there to be discovered.
. . "The economists all think that if you show up at the cashier's cage with enough currency, God will put more oil in ground", Deffeyes said.
. . Back in 1956, a geologist named M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970. His superiors at Shell Oil were aghast. They even tried to persuade Hubbert not to speak publicly about his work. His peers, accustomed to decades of making impressive oil discoveries, were skeptical. But Hubbert was right. U.S. oil production did peak in 1970, and it has declined steadily ever since. Even impressive discoveries such as Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, with 13 billion barrels in recoverable reserves, haven't been able to reverse that trend. Even if you throw in the unexpected discovery of oil in Alaska, America's petroleum production history has proceeded almost exactly as Hubbert predicted it would.
. . A few years ago, geologists began applying Hubbert's methods to the entire world's oil production. Their analyses indicated that global oil production would peak some time during the first decade of the 21st century. Deffeyes thinks the peak will be in late 2005 or early 2006. Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons puts it at 2007 to 2009. California Institute of Technology physicist David Goodstein, whose book "The End of Oil" was published last year, predicts it will arrive before 2010.
. . The exact date doesn't really matter, said Hirsch, because he believes it's already too late. In an analysis he did for the U.S. Department of Energy in February, Hirsch concluded that it will take more than a decade for the U.S. economy to adapt to declining oil production.
. . The median lifetime of an American automobile is 17 years. That means even if the government immediately mandated a drastic increase in fuel efficiency standards, the conservation benefits wouldn't fully take effect for almost two decades.
. . About 8% of Canada's oil production comes from tar sands. Unfortunately, it costs energy to recover energy from tar sands. Most Canadian operations use natural gas to heat water for oil recovery; and like oil, natural gas has gotten dramatically more expensive in the past few years.
. . Shell, which recently announced record profits for 2004, admitted yesterday that it would miss its own targets to bring to a halt the harmful practice of burning unwanted gas in Nigeria. The company said it would not stop the process of "flaring" --that is, burning off gas produced as a by-product from oil wells-- in Nigeria until 2009, rather than by 2008, as previously promised.
. . Flaring is considered a major contributor to greenhouse gases and global warming. The World Bank estimates that more than 100bn cubic meters of gas is burned off in Nigeria annually, enough to meet Germany's needs for a whole year. Nigerian oil contains a lot of gas, which is separated during the refining process but for which there is no existing local market.
. . The company suffered a severe dent to its reputation last year after making several downgrades to the levels of its oil and gas reserves.

"I'm predicting that the smooth curve of oil production will peak on Thanksgiving 2005", said Princeton University professor emeritus Ken Deffeyes. "The uncertainty is only a few weeks in either direction", he added. Oil production "has been marching towards this point for several years as steadily as can be." Oil market impacts -—drastic shortages, price hikes—- will begin to be seen when the production peak is passed, long before the wells actually run dry.
. . Ken Deffeyes, whose book Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage came out in 2001, has his bet on Thanksgiving Day 2005, though we won't know if he's right until well after then.
. . Although there will still be plenty of oil to go around when Hubbert does peak globally, that's the point at which production can no longer meet demand and oil prices leap.
. . Simmons reckons that the correct price for oil so that demand is controlled while humankind comes up with another plan is $182 a barrel.
. . While one group of scientists predicts the peak could occur anytime between now and 2008, the current consensus is sometime between 2006 and 2016. "It's starting to look like 2007."

Oil has been too good to us. Since petroleum helped spark the industrial revolution, the global population has exploded, from less than 2 billion people in post-industrial times to more than 6 billion today, stretching the planet's natural carrying capacity. Without oil fueling machines and factories and farms, such large numbers cannot be sustained. When the oil peak hits and the shortages begin, civilization will be faced with the delicate task of determining who survives. It's hard to get any closer to trading blood for oil than that.
. . People who study the oil peak have a saying: The more you learn, the worse it gets.

See the Life After The Oil Crash site.)
. . "The situation is desperate", Bush energy advisor Matthew Simmons said in an interview with online magazine From the Wilderness in August 2003. "This is the world's biggest serious question." Asked if it was time to include peak oil in public policy debates, Simmons said, "It is past time. As I have said, the experts and politicians have no Plan B to fall back on." Is there any solution to the crisis? "I don't think there is one." Heinberg says "It would require a command-and-control economy and a WW2 level of effort."
. . Just last month, the Chinese government banned bicycles from the city to make more room for cars, the fruits of its rapidly expanding economy. India likewise is enjoying an economic boom, and the recent industrialization of both countries is putting enormous new demands on the global oil supply. The world seems inevitably drawn toward the wrong path, the one Heinberg calls "last one standing."
. . Heinberg's third path, which he dubs "waiting for the magic elixir."
. . The fourth and final option begins with the assumption that industrial civilization cannot be salvaged in anything like its present form. He calls that path merely "building lifeboats", and if it creates a sinking feeling in the pits of readers' stomachs, perhaps it's intended. In a world that continues to trade blood for oil, this may be the only avenue of escape left.

See the Metroactive site.) See The Oil Depletion Analysis Center (ODAC) site.)
. . It appears that 2003 may be the first year since the dawn of the modern oil industry to have recorded no large oil discoveries at all. Just two giant oil discoveries (over 500 million barrels) were reported in 2002 while gas discovery failed to replace annual production for the second year running.
. . With total world oil production for the year at 26.7 billion barrels, more than four barrels were produced for every new barrel found.

[put this below] OIL NEWS

June 21, 04: Farmers of the world must shift quickly to growing plants for industrial uses such as oils and plastics to replace petrochemicals as the climate warms and crude supplies run out, British scientists said. "In the next 20 to 50 years, we have to reverse our dependency on fossil fuels." "We have to get more productivity out of less land."
. . Not only is oil running out, but the world's population is predicted to grow sharply over the next half century and has to be fed. This will put huge strains on the world's economy.
. . The report noted that plants could produce plastics, fuels, oils, medicinal drugs, insulators, fibers and fabrics, many of which are currently made from crude oil. Smith said it was not just a matter of genetic manipulation of existing crops --although that too had a place-- but of making better use of plants currently grown for food.

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