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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

New Peak Oil Data




The energy watch group has released a new paper on global oil supply the conclusion of which is quite grim.

The conclusion of the paper basically says it all the end is nigh and most agencies dealing with energy are not admitting the truth.

Conclusion
The major result from this analysis is that world oil production has peaked in 2006.

Production will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower.

This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.

The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life.

Climate change will also force humankind to change energy consumption patterns by reducing significantly the burning of fossil fuels. Global warming is a very serious problem. However, the focus of this paper is on the aspects of resource depletion as
these are much less transparent to the public.

The now beginning transition period probably has its own rules which are valid only during this phase. Things might happen which we never experienced before and which we may never experience again once this transition period has ended. Our way of dealing with energy issues probably will have to change fundamentally.

The International Energy Agency, anyway until recently, denies that such a fundamental change of our energy supply is likely to happen in the near or medium term future. The message by the IEA, namely that business as usual will also be possible in future, sends a false signal to politicians, industry and consumers – not to
forget the media.


So we have supply dropping by several percent while demand is growing. There is little to no excess capacity in the system and western governments are doing nothing to prepare or brace us for the impact.

This really makes you wonder what the people at Export Development Canada have been smoking Oil prices are not going to weaken and unless the Bank of Canada torpedoes the interest rates a strong Canadian dollar is the new norm. The Gov the media continues to sing their happy tunes like Nero while modern society burns, (or is that, stops burning!)Recommend this Post

4 comments:

tdwebste said...

Canada is the US largest oil supplier by far. And Canada still has the world's lows Oil royalities even after the small 20% increase which did not effect Tar Sands Oil royalities significantly. I still wonder if the Tar Sands Oil royalities are sufficient to cover infrastucture cost, let a long provide Alberta an investment in the future after its oil is gone.

Also lets not forget that the North Sea Oil is effectly pumped out. When demand is high it is suprising how quickly supplies are used up.

Anonymous said...

I've just written my own post on the same report. What I found worrying was setting the oil report in context alongside the group's reports on uranium and coal.

Basically, declining oil production (2020-2030) will coincide with a crisis for nuclear energy around 2015-2020 (decreasing capacity and uranium shortages) and peak coal around 2030. (I'd like to see a report on gas next.)

Throw climate change into the pot, and the future looks very, very ugly.

Glenn Hubbers said...

I can't lay hands on a report right now, but general consensus from ASPO is, as I recall, that Peak Natural Gas lags Peak Oil by about 10 years. So that would mean about 2016.

That said, we have already peaked in conventional natural gas in North America, the McKenzie vally notwithstanding since it will not be brought on soon enough to make up for it or seriously delay the Peak.

And yet our current politicians don't even talk about this.

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