Peak Oil Revisited, Again
As I predicted, Peak OIl has made it to the mainstream media. In the NY Times, no less-- although a fairly short, dry, unalarming article, framed more around drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge than on global oil supplies. Here also is a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor relating to Peak Oil. I suspect we will be hearing a lot more about Peak Oil in the mainstream media.
As I opined earlier, it's not really a matter of oil running out right away-- there is a lot of oil left in the world, but rather cheap easily obtainable oil is "peaking" and that will have major effects on the global economy.
One reason to doubt that Peak Oil exists at all is to believe in the theory that oil has an abiotic origin. However, here are a couple of essays to dissuade you from that notion. The latter essay, by Richard Heinberg, is written more for laymen (such as me). While I have scientific training, I am not anything close to a geologist!
An interesting idea I was musing about today is how much petroleum has been formed since the earth was formed? A difficult calculation to be sure. Who knows how exactly much formerly living matter needs to go into a barrel of oil? But let's say that the earth has been producing large amounts of life for two trillion years. Certainly the amount of life on earth in a year should supply enough organic matter for one barrel of oil. So that is conservatively 2 trillion barrels of oil total made by the earth. But who knows how much higher it is. Since the US has produced about 150 billion barrels of oil so far, we could make a very rough assumption of about ten times more total oil that has been formed by the earth, or 1.5 trillion barrels. This article says that "the world has used up about 930 billion barrels of oil since the 1800s, and has left some 3 trillion in the ground" (so I was not too far off!). If the world uses 100 billion barrels a day, that is 30 years of oil left. Of course, the oil towards the end will be harder and harder to get and more expensive. But one can only hope that humanity has figured out a viable alternative energy solution before then. We will have to do so, or a lot of us will die, no doubt about that.
Since Mike Ruppert seems to be getting vindicated here, here is a good collection of articles about Peak Oil and 9/11 and some people defending Ruppert for a change.
It is fairly obvious why the Bush administration hasn't wanted to talk about Peak Oil, but I will be very interested to hear the first time a reporter dares ask them about it. Maybe they will never get asked, I suppose, but I have to imagine Peak Oil will soon become a major political issue. Which party will have a platform based on Peak Oil first?
Finally, just because Peak Oil is a reality doesn't mean oil companies won't exploit it as much as they can to make extra money. In fact, they probably are right now.
As I opined earlier, it's not really a matter of oil running out right away-- there is a lot of oil left in the world, but rather cheap easily obtainable oil is "peaking" and that will have major effects on the global economy.
One reason to doubt that Peak Oil exists at all is to believe in the theory that oil has an abiotic origin. However, here are a couple of essays to dissuade you from that notion. The latter essay, by Richard Heinberg, is written more for laymen (such as me). While I have scientific training, I am not anything close to a geologist!
An interesting idea I was musing about today is how much petroleum has been formed since the earth was formed? A difficult calculation to be sure. Who knows how exactly much formerly living matter needs to go into a barrel of oil? But let's say that the earth has been producing large amounts of life for two trillion years. Certainly the amount of life on earth in a year should supply enough organic matter for one barrel of oil. So that is conservatively 2 trillion barrels of oil total made by the earth. But who knows how much higher it is. Since the US has produced about 150 billion barrels of oil so far, we could make a very rough assumption of about ten times more total oil that has been formed by the earth, or 1.5 trillion barrels. This article says that "the world has used up about 930 billion barrels of oil since the 1800s, and has left some 3 trillion in the ground" (so I was not too far off!). If the world uses 100 billion barrels a day, that is 30 years of oil left. Of course, the oil towards the end will be harder and harder to get and more expensive. But one can only hope that humanity has figured out a viable alternative energy solution before then. We will have to do so, or a lot of us will die, no doubt about that.
Since Mike Ruppert seems to be getting vindicated here, here is a good collection of articles about Peak Oil and 9/11 and some people defending Ruppert for a change.
It is fairly obvious why the Bush administration hasn't wanted to talk about Peak Oil, but I will be very interested to hear the first time a reporter dares ask them about it. Maybe they will never get asked, I suppose, but I have to imagine Peak Oil will soon become a major political issue. Which party will have a platform based on Peak Oil first?
Finally, just because Peak Oil is a reality doesn't mean oil companies won't exploit it as much as they can to make extra money. In fact, they probably are right now.
posted by spooked at 9:55 PM
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