Prior to this past year, the International Energy Association (IEA), which represents the developed countries outside of OPEC, took a very conservative approach to reporting on the world oil supply situation.
A few months ago, it finally woke up. Now Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, is saying that all is not fine. Although he is trying to stay cool, I can feel the anxiety in his speeches. He is talking about “10 years to Peak Oil.”
Many, many observers think we have already passed Peak Oil, including me.
This article, Proof Positive Peak Oil Is Here, talks about the factors at work.
Peak oil would be irrelevant if not for our continued and extreme thirst for it. Dr. Colin Campbell, petroleum geologist, is credited with quantifying that we find one barrel of oil for every four we consume and that the discovery of new oil reserves peaked in the 1960’s (The World Oil Supply). Published in 1995, Dr. Campbell’s work could not have anticipated the expanding consumption required to catapult the economies in developing China or India. Nor did it contemplate our current worldwide economic slowdown.
What Dr. Campbell’s work does shed light on is this: we are on an oil usage treadmill that is unsustainable. In 2008, while the world did consume .6% less oil than it did in 2007, it consumed 21% more than it did in 1995 when Dr. Campbell’s research was released (Source: BP.com historical statistic review from governmental and public sources). In light of this information, the importance of peaking worldwide oil production is difficult to overstate. Despite all the rhetoric with respect to alternative energy sources, oil literally makes the world go around and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future…. (Read the whole article here)
Yesterday the UK newspaper the Independent published an article titled Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast. It is based on an interview with Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the International Energy Association.
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Monday, 3 August 2009
“One day we will run out of oil, it is not today or tomorrow, but one day we will run out of oil and we have to leave oil before oil leaves us, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day,” Dr Birol said. “The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil, so to change from that will take a lot of time and a lot of money and we should take this issue very seriously,” he said.
“The market power of the very few oil-producing countries, mainly in the Middle East, will increase very quickly. They already have about 40 per cent share of the oil market and this will increase much more strongly in the future,” he said.
There is now a real risk of a crunch in the oil supply after next year when demand picks up because not enough is being done to build up new supplies of oil to compensate for the rapid decline in existing fields…. (Read the whole article here)
We need to move determinedly toward geothermal energy here on the Big Island. We cannot be talking about 10 years from now. World oil supplies soon will not keep up with demand, so we need to move and move fast. This is not business as usual!