IEA Chief Economist Says Peak Oil Will Come in 11 Years
According to The Guardian, Fatih Birol, Chief Economist with the International Energy Agency (IEA), has candidly revealed his position that world oil demand will start outpacing supply “around 2020.”
Peak Oil — that most controversial and elusive of concepts. Everybody seems to have their own opinion. There are experts on both sides who alternately claim we have at least 30 years before we reach it and those who claim we’ve already reached it.
So, for a top-level official in an agency with the respect of the IEA to state that we’ll reach an oil supply plateau around 2020 is pretty substantial news — especially considering that his own agency has previously stated that the date was 2030.
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Here are his exact words, courtesy of The Guardian:
“In terms of non-OPEC [countries outside the big oil producers' cartel], we are expecting that in three, four years’ time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau, and start to decline. In terms of the global picture, assuming that OPEC will invest in a timely manner, global conventional oil can still continue, but we still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau as well, which is, of course, not good news from a global-oil-supply point of view.”
Not good news indeed. And sure to be quite controversial, even among his fellow coworkers. I wonder if he cleared that sentiment with HQ.
A while back, I wrote a piece about how Peter McCabe, a petroleum geologist with CSIRO in Australia, thinks that the Peak Oil concept is fundamentally flawed because it doesn’t account for the development of technologies to extract new oil from old oil fields, nor does it account for the discovery of new oil fields. Dr. McCabe thinks we have at least another 30 years before demand outstrips supply
I don’t know who’s right, but, in terms of timescales that humans care about, 11 years is a hell of a lot shorter than 30-plus years. Look, it’s not a question of “if” we hit peak oil, it’s a question of “when,” and if we’re not ready when it does come, it could spell the end of civilization as we know it.
I’m of the mindset to plan for the worst. So even if we do have 30 years, we should be planning on 10.
You can watch the whole interview by clicking on the image below.
Source: The Guardian
Image Credit: azrainman’s Flickr photostream. Used under a Creative Commons License.
I think 3-5 years is more accurate - but then again, I’m a legendary peak oil pessimist…
Independent studies conclude that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
“By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Press_Oilreport_22-10-2007.pdf
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
Wrong!!! Peak oil will never come! The world no longer believes its survival depends on zero future imported dirty fossil fuel at any price. It depends on clean domestic alternative renewables at a price benefiting all of mankind, and every other kind known and unknown, with a wonderful prosperous clean beautiful forever!
Solar Nano
Roy Mahoff
Anyone going to relocate with Clifford must bring own snacks, but Clifford has plenty of kool-aid!
It is strange to hear passengers on the Titanic arguing as to whether they will strike the iceberg at 9:00 or 9:15 and do they have enough time for another cocktail.
Holy drama Peter.
Ha! Good one, Doug!
I also enjoyed the lookie-here “Ph.D.” title that young Cliffy has chosen to include with his name.
Independent studies conclude that Peak Oil production will occur (or has occurred) between 2005 to 2010 (projected year for peak in parentheses), as follows:
* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)
* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008 to 2010)
* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst (2008)
* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)
* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)
* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)
* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell Geologist (2005)
* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)
* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)
* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)
* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)
References for these studies: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
Interesting that the peak oil believers seem to have PhD’s and the skeptics do not. Some of the skeptics do not have last names.
Of course, there are those who still do not think Nixon was a crook.
De Nile is more than a river in Egypt.
solar nano, the switch-over to and maintainance of renewables will require more energy and resources than is readily available. it’s a cornucopian sentiment to think tech will come to the rescue. tech is catigoricaly, definitavely, and inseparably non renewable resource dependant. smarter people than you and i have crunched the numbers a thousand times and get the same answers-it won’t work. look up entropy.