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Oil production predicted to decline within five years
ABC Rural (Australia)
A taskforce of eight British engineering, utility and transport companies is predicting the world will reach peak oil in three to five years.
That’s when oil drillers have reached the maximum they can produce and production starts to decline,
The taskforce has given three possible options – a collapse in production, a decline, or a plateauing of production once peak oil is reached.
Taskforce chairman Dr Jeremy Leggett says even the Shell Oil company agrees with the third option, although it’s less gloomy about when the plateau will be reached.
“The collapse is the worst case scenario,” he says.
“The plateau scenario, interestingly, is Shell’s view of what could happen.
“They think that we can get to 2015 and then maybe hold it on a plateau provided they’re allowed open season on unconventional oil, tar sands and all the rest of it.”
(29 October 2008)
UPDATE (Oct 29). Just added this item, which seems to be based on the interview with Jeremy Leggett (next item). -BA
UK report – peak oil will arrive much earlier than expected (audio)
Radio National Breakfast, ABC National Radio (Australia)
Now to the supply of oil, which affects us all just as much as the economic meltdown. A report from a British Industry Taskforce is due to be released tonight, which predicts a premature peak in oil production will arrive much earlier than expected. But if this task force is correct, peak oil not only poses further risk to the global economy but will have enormous repercussions on food production, energy supply, transportation — in fact most aspects of modern life.
Guests
Dr Jeremy Leggett
Founder and Executive Chairman SolarCentury and SolarAid and editor of the report ‘The Oil Crunch’, from the UK’s Industrial Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security.
(29 October 2008)
Nothing on the Web yet about the report which will be released October 29 in the UK. Several industries are representated on the taskforce, according to this interview of Dr. Leggett. He also said that Shell Oil contributed some input. -BA
Randy Udall: Peak Oil and Its Effect on Climate Change (audio and video)
Peak Moment via Global Public Media
The peak oil message is slow to gain acceptance, says energy analyst Randy Udall, because it’s at odds with our optimistic It’s-Morning-in-America mentality. Politicians “Don’t Do Depletion.” Randy describes challenges, mitigations, and exciting opportunities to create a prosperous path to a lower-energy future. In an excerpt from his presentation at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA) conference in September 2008, the co-founder of ASPO-USA points out cornucopian myths about energy that are being shattered by reality. His concern is that the peak oil crisis, while less known than the climate crisis, will impact us sooner, and is not being factored into climate policy decisions. Peak Oil may in fact help moderate the climate crisis. Episode 132.
This is the third of several Peak Moment Conversations videotaped at ASPO-USA 2008. Coming: James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, and Julian Darley, founder of Post Carbon Institute. The first was with energy investment banker Matthew Simmons on “Oil and Gas – The Next Meltdown?” The second was “Making Financial Sense of the Coming Energy Crisis” with financial consultant Jim Puplava.
(23 September 2008)
World Is `Drowning in Oil’ (Again) After Drought
Caroline Baum, Bloomberg
… The spike in crude oil earlier this year had the support of the popular theory of “peak oil.” In a 2005 book, “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,” investment banker Matthew Simmons argued that oil production by Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer, is “at or near peak sustainable volume” and likely to decline in the foreseeable future.
Just a few years before the peak-oil theory was hot, the world was “Drowning in Oil,” according to the Economist magazine’s March 6, 1999, cover story.
Oil was trading at $13.50 a barrel at the time. “We may be heading for $5,” the Economist predicted. “Consumers everywhere will rejoice at the prospect of cheap, plentiful oil for the foreseeable future.”
Oil prices took off and never looked back.
Like the world of fashion, trends in markets come and go. Oil is a limited, albeit vast, resource. At some point in the future, we probably will run out of petroleum, at least as we know it.
Man’s ingenuity is equally vast. When the time comes, given all the tax incentives that will be thrown in the direction of alternative energy, I have full confidence the world will not return to travel by horse and buggy.
(28 October 2008)
