Meanwhile, non-shale production continues to fall. A rise in oil prices would certainly revive drilling in American shale deposits. But it is doubtful that this will happen before shrinking conventional production makes it all but impossible to achieve a new all-time high in U. As for world production, in the early s Hubbert calculated that a worldwide peak might come as soon as the mids. But, he did his original calculations before the high prices and oil crises of the s led to an energy efficiency drive worldwide and resulted in the first ever sustained decline in world oil consumption and flat consumption for many years thereafter.
He later revised his view which ended up being close to that of the U. Energy Information Administration in the late s. The agency forecast a probable peak about , but offered a range of to depending on energy policies and consumption patterns. As it turned out, conventional oil, the kind that Hubbert used in his models, the kind that flows as a liquid from the ground--which I call "Beverly Hillbillies oil" after the "bubbling crude" seen in the introduction to the now long-defunct television series--this kind of oil peaked in according to the International Energy Agency, a consortium of 29 countries which provides ongoing research and information about energy supplies worldwide.
Despite all protestations to the contrary, Hubbert proved prescient once again. That world oil production continues to eke out small gains is due entirely to production from unconventional sources not included in Hubbert's models. But those sources have shown themselves to be exquisitely sensitive to price.
In the two countries best known for unconventional oil, the United States and Canada, production from U. Alarmingly, without recent growth in oil production in these two countries, worldwide oil production would have declined from to today. Now that the twin engines of growth, the United States and Canada, are in decline, we may see a fall in worldwide production soon though whether this will mark the ultimate peak will not be known until many years thereafter.
But, any peak will inevitably result from a mix of economic and geologic factors. So, the new question about oil is, "Can we afford to extract and refine the oil we have left? This is just the sort of scenario Hubbert feared if we waited too long to address the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels.
And, there is reason to believe that low oil prices today reflect an economy slowed by previously high oil prices. These high prices themselves are an indication that we are now facing ever more difficulty and effort in extracting the remaining marginal sources of oil. And, the fact that so many oil companies are now going bankrupt due to low prices tells us that high prices will have to return if we want to extract this difficult-to-get oil in great quantities again.
Hubbert died in living to see the nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Long concerned about nuclear waste and impatient for a transition, Hubbert decided that global society needed to undertake the rapid deployment of an indisputably clean source of energy, solar power.
We would use solar power not only for electricity, but also to make the liquid fuels needed for our transportation system which could be adapted to run on methanol or hydrogen. If you have a sharp drop in production and prices increase, you will get major substitutions in the demand for oil," he suggests.
The U. But what would have still greater impact is a shift to energy sources beyond oil. It's knocking at that door now, and we're starting to see tangible indicators of a switch," says Considine. Unconventional sources of oil, such as Canadian tar sands, ultra-deep-water drilling and natural gas and coal-to-liquid plants, Considine suggests, will also help offset peak oil and help meet our energy needs after the peak is hit.
Among renewable energy sources, solar power, wind power, hydropower, biomass, and geothermal could also lessen the world's need for oil and push the peak farther away. No matter what alternatives emerge, he stresses, there will be an ever-increasing global demand for resources, which will impact the American lifestyle. That's the world we're in," he notes. With the world economy shifting and gasoline prices surging, Americans may find themselves asking, "when will peak oil hit, if it hasn't already?
Tim Considine, Ph. Research Probing Question: Is peak oil a myth? August 18, By Bethany Parker. Jason Jones Unprecedented summer gasoline prices are squeezing Americans' wallets and also expanding their vocabularies, as terms like "peak oil" gain common usage. Energy Information Administration.
The risks of deepwater drilling — and all unconventional oil development — were thrown into sharp relief in , when BP's Deepwater Horizon well exploded, killing 11 people and spilling an estimated million gallons million liters of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was the largest oil spill in U.
Thus, the amount of oil that's available for refining isn't fixed, even though the overall quantity of oil on Earth is finite. Their research suggested that oil production won't simply reach a peak, followed by a precipitous decline. Instead, "global production will eventually follow an 'undulating plateau' for one or more decades before declining slowly. From their research, CERA also determined that "the global production profile will not be a simple logistic or bell curve postulated by geologist M.
King Hubbert, but it will be asymmetrical — with the slope of decline more gradual … it will be an undulating plateau that may well last for decades. Their analysis calls into question the very idea of "peak oil" as a useful model for energy forecasting or governmental policy: "The 'peak oil' theory causes confusion and can lead to inappropriate actions and turn attention away from the real issues," CERA director Peter M.
Jackson said. Whether oil production peaks or plateaus, one underlying fact drives the issue: "World production of conventional oil will reach a maximum and decline thereafter," according to a in-depth analysis co-authored by Robert L.
Hirsch and commissioned by the U. Department of Energy widely referred to as "the Hirsch report". Other scientists, such as Carroll, question whether a true peak will ever be reached, given the remarkable quantities of carbon stored in the planet's crust.
Regardless of when or how oil production begins to decline, according to the Hirsch report, its effects will be global and will be accompanied by dramatic social, political, economic and environmental upheaval. Mitigation of these effects — through conservation and development of alternative energy sources — will require advance planning and "an intense effort over decades," according to the report. Even crash [mitigation] programs will require more than a decade to yield substantial relief.
The final word on peak oil may belong to Campbell, who was among the first to foresee its arrival: "The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stone, but because bronze and iron proved to be better substitutes," he wrote in But now, oil production does reach a peak without sight of a preferred substitute. Follow Becky Oskin beckyoskin.
0コメント