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Energy crisis is really, really bad: oil expert Charley Maxwell
Original: Running on Fumes
Sonia Shaw, OnEarth, National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
After half a century in the oil business, Charles Maxwell is widely referred to as the dean of energy analysts.
…SS: What are the underlying reasons [for the current energy crisis]?
CM: There are four, I think. First and foremost, there was a lot of oil that could have been discovered that wasn’t, because the national oil companies such as Saudi Aramco didn’t invest enough in exploration. Second, the big oil companies didn’t exercise much vision. When prices went up in 2000, they basically pocketed the money. Of course, if you’re an executive and you have stock options, you start to think that the whole world depends on your stock price rather than on getting more oil. And who’s to say that we should have more oil? If it means that everyone is going to work harder and longer to make possible the greater use of SUVs, is that a worthy end in the world of God?
SS: And the other two reasons?
CM: The third is political instability around the world. And the fourth is that we are now approaching the 50 percent mark of recoverable oil. Global oil production will reach a maximum rate and then it will inexorably start to go down. I predict that will be between 2015 and 2020. When that happens it will be the single biggest problem that we face.
…SS: Exxon has said there could be up to 4.8 trillion barrels of oil still recoverable. And there are other industry estimates that go as high as 7 trillion.
CM: I read that stuff and it’s good background humor, you know what I mean? But I really hope they don’t think anyone takes them seriously.
SS: So is it just a PR thing?
CM: No, I think Exxon actually believes it, which is really sad.
…SS: Does that make you an optimist?
CM: I think we’ll get through this problem by about 2020 to 2025. My worry is how we get there. We have a time when oil is winding down before anything is able to slide over and solve the problem. A lot of nuclear development is being brought along by the incipient shortage of future oil, and it’s putting people into a proliferation mode. The whole world could come under this threat, and it’s a terrible one. We could also be in deep trouble as a social system. How do we achieve fairness [in rationing scarce energy supplies] when the gridlock between rich and poor already stops us from having an energy policy in this country? We could see democracy entering its death throes.
(Winter 2007)
The debate over Hubbert’s Peak: a review (PDF)
Moujahed Al-Husseini, Gulf PetroLink
ABSTRACT
The application of various quantitative techniques and assumptions by different authors to forecast the world’s conventional crude oil production in the 21st Century results in highly inconsistent predictions. The forecasts attempt to pin- point the peak world oil production year (Hubbert’s Peak), peak production rate, and post-peak decline rate, based on estimates of the ultimate recoverable reserves (EURR). These techniques, pioneered by M.K. Hubbert in the mid-1950s, generally consider economic factors, such as the price of oil, as irrelevant in the long run. Some authors support a Low EURR World Scenario (about 2.0 trillion barrels, of which half has already been produced) and forecast Hubbert’s Peak in this decade. Other authors estimate the EURR at about 3.0 trillion barrels (Median EURR World Scenario), and this estimate is the mean EURR assessment of the United States Geological Survey and similar to assessments by several major oil and gas companies. An EURR of 3.0 trillion barrels implies Hubbert’s Peak will occur in 2020, or so, at a production rate of about 90–100 million barrels/day (compared to 85 million barrels/day in late 2005). A few authors support a High EURR World Scenario (4.0 trillion barrels or more) with Hubbert’s Peak in 2030 at a rate of 120 million barrels/day. Sensitivity analysis for Hubbert’s Curve suggest that Hubbert’s Peak moves by three years for every 200 billion barrels of error in the EURR.
(GeoArabia, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2006)
Includes good reference table of past EURR figures and predicted peak dates. From the Al-Husseini’s bio: “Moujahed Al-Husseini founded Gulf PetroLink in 1993 in Manama, Bahrain. Gulf PetroLink is a consultancy aimed at transferring technology to the Middle East petroleum industry.”
-AF
Peak Oil Theory Analyzed by CERA
Press release, CERA
Peak Oil, the widely discussed theory that world oil production will soon reach a peak and go into sharp decline, is the subject of a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). CERA finds that the remaining global oil resource base is actually 3.74 trillion barrels — three times as large as the 1.2 trillion barrels estimated by Peak Oil theory’s proponents — and that the “peak oil” argument is based on faulty analysis which could, if accepted, distort critical policy and investment decisions and cloud the debate over the energy future.
…The new report describes CERA’s liquids supply outlook as “not a view of endless abundance.” However, based on a range of potential scenarios and field-by-field analysis, CERA finds that not only will world oil production not peak before 2030, but that the idea of Peak Oil is itself “a dramatic but highly questionable image.”
Global production will eventually follow an “undulating plateau” for one or more decades before declining slowly. The global production profile will not be a simple logistic or bell curve postulated by geologist M. King Hubbert, but it will be asymmetrical — with the slope of decline more gradual and not mirroring the rapid rate of increase — and strongly skewed past the geometric peak. It will be an undulating plateau that may well last for decades.
During the plateau period in later decades, according to the CERA analysis, demand growth will likely no longer be largely met by growth in available, commercially exploitable natural oil supplies. Non-traditional or unconventional liquid fuels such as production from heavy oil sands, gas-related liquids (condensate and natural gas liquids), gas-to-liquids (GTL), and coal-to-liquids (CTL) will need to fill the gap.
(7 Dec 2006)
This press release from CERA is apparently (exactly?) the same one they released on November 14. As far as I know, nothing has changed:
- If you want to learn more, you still have to pay $1000 for their 16-page report.
- CERA has not responded to the many critiques of their position, despite many invitations to do so.
- CERA has not offered to debate or appear at any forums with their critics.
Ironically, CERA and its critics do not seem to be far apart on the facts. Both agree that a peak (aka “undulating plateau”) will occur and that it is a very serious issue. The differences seem to be in the framing. CERA lumps non-conventional sources together with conventional sources of petroleum, and posits a later date. -BA
