The Oil Drum

Preliminary data regarding oil production through December 2007 is now available from the US Energy Information Administration, so it is a good time to put together an updated summary of where we are now with respect to peak oil. The major themes of this presentation are

3. Use the presentation for a group, using the PowerPoint format.

This post includes some ideas of Matt Mushalik, plus some of my analysis. Matt is a retired civil engineer and regional planner from Sydney, Australia.

If a person looks at published oil reserves, it is easy to get the idea that there are huge amounts of oil left to be extracted. One would think that there is no way that peak oil should be a concern. Once we look at the situation a more closely, we discover that published oil reserves really aren't all that helpful in telling us about future production. In fact, the evidence suggests that oil shortages may not be many years away.

1. How much oil reserves are shown in published reports?

Cork, so the Deputy Lord Mayor told us, is the port that the Titanic sailed from. It is also the place that took delivery of 57 Steinways for its new school of music, and so it was appropriate that we were entertained with song and dance this evening. It should have been a celebration.

As Dr. James Schlesinger, the first Secretary of Energy, said in his Opening Address, the battle is over, Peak Oil is now accepted as inevitable, and the debate only becomes as to when. We have “won” and need to learn to take Yes! as an answer. He spoke mainly of three things – the arrival of the Peak and the recognition that is starting to grow, and to mean that we are no longer lone voices crying in the Wilderness. Trade and government publications are already acceding with back-door concessions that we are facing a moment of truth. He paid tribute to Colin Campbell’s dictum that “before you produce it, you have to develop it”, and reminded us of the gap in matching discoveries as the old fields die out. Having been there, he told of the oil industry laughing when President Carter discussed renewable energy back in 1979. Back then “conservation was not the American way, production was the American way.” But now, to sustain production we need to find 4 or 5 fields the size of all those in Saudi Arabia. It is not going to happen, but before we celebrate, remember that there are political and technical realities. And, as the day wore on, the mercilessness of the numbers began to be apparent.