TV news series on peak oil

WCCO-TV in Minnesota began broadcasting the first US news series that explicitly covers peak oil. The first segment has interviews with Peak Oil figures like Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Kenneth Deffeyes and Matt Simmons.

-BA (Energy Bulletin editor)

When humans first harnessed energy, it was fire, and the fuel was wood.

Industry began to develop when man found coal. And the society we know today developed when we found oil.

Economical, accessible and seemingly endless – oil. But, it is not endless, and it now appears the unthinkable is happening. We are beginning to run out of conventional oil.

The United States was once the largest exporter of oil to the rest of the world. It is now the world’s largest importer.

The world is now using more oil, globally, than we are finding.

“Exxon is saying the last year when we found more oil than we burned was 1987. So, the handwriting is on the wall that we are not finding it,” said Kenneth Deffeyes. He is the emeritus professor of geosciences at Princeton, a former Shell oil geologist, and author of two books in a growing list on the subject of peak oil.

Oil production follows a curve. In more than 150 years, it has grown to where petroleum geologists say is the halfway point – the peak.

But we demand oil in greater quantities than we can produce. And demand will continue rising with an aggressively growing population, and the burgeoning industries of China and India. When demand for oil increases as supplies decrease, the serious trouble begins.

“I come out with the strong conclusion that the oil fields we have already found contain 94 percent of all the oil we are ever going to find,” Deffeyes said.

According to a report commissioned by the Department of Energy, the peaking of conventional oil “…will cause protracted economic hardships in the United States and the world. It is a problem unlike any yet faced by a modern industrial society.”