More Evidence We've Entered the End of Oil

[marmar]

from WIRED's Autopia:



More Evidence We've Entered the End of Oil
By Chuck Squatriglia November 19, 2007 | 10:30:54


There is growing concern within the petroleum industry that we are approaching a limit to the amount of oil that can be pumped each day, and it might arrive before alternative fuels can be adopted on a large enough scale to avert severe energy shortages, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The story offers what the Journal calls "a significant twist" on the theory of peak oil while underscoring the urgent call to move beyond oil that the International Energy Agency made earlier this month in its annual World Energy Outlook. Taken together, they make a convincing argument that we've entered the end of oil and must move quickly, boldly and decisively to supplant oil as our primary source of energy.

No one, least of all the oil industry executives quoted by the Journal or the analysts who wrote the World Energy Outlook, is saying the wells will run dry in our lifetime, or even our children's lifetimes. There's still a lot of oil left to be pumped. But there is a growing belief that several factors are converging to create a practical limit to how much we can pull from the earth each day.

In other words, after seeing worldwide production rise an average of 2.3 percent annually since 1965, we may be approaching a plateau beyond which production will not climb. According to the Journal, that ceiling could be 100 million barrels a day, and said we could hit it as early as 2012.

That isn't nearly enough, and it is entirely too soon. Find out why after the jump.......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/the-end-of-oil.html

[provis99]

1. we're only running out of light oil; plenty of heavy oil around

The article mentions Canada's heavy oil reserves; its proven reserves is 180 billion barrels, its predicted reserves is much higher. Heavy oil hasn't been developed until recently because the price of oil was too low to justify the expense of extraction. With the price of oil rising, heavy oil can now be massively produced. Not only Canada has gigantic reserves; so does Siberia. The oil won't run out anytime soon

So expect more global warming, this time from India and China's consumption...

[NickB79]

2. Except that Canadian oil sands are dependent on water and natural gas

They use massive amounts of water and natural gas to extract and cook the oil from the sands, and they are also approaching the limits of oil extraction there as they consume entire rivers and Canadian natural gas production plateaus.

[lvx35]

3. 100 million barrels a day.

Do the math on that, the Canada reserves have 4.8 years of oil in them, that's it. Similar with siberian reserves. Of course there may be more, but the important thing is that the END IS IN SIGHT. And as the Shah said, "this stuff is way too valuable to be burning in cars"...So as we see an increasingly unknown future as far as where the oil is going to come from, expect the prices to go through the roof LONG before anything like the actual end comes, as speculators decide that the value of a future with plastics vastly outweighs the value of burning it to haul our own asses around.

[depakid]

4. According to the production data we've probably already passed peak

Unless there's a significant spike, peak for all liquids occurred in July 2006.