Towards the Petro-Apocalypse: more on Peak Oil

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353. Towards the Petro-Apocalypse,
The following article, roughly translated, by a former French minister appeared in a premier French newspaper. It picks up on the proposed Depletion Protocol that has been aired in these pages.

Towards the Petro-Apocalypse
by Yves Cochet
Le Monde 31.03.04
In a few years, the World’s production of conventional oil will decline, while world demand does not cease to grow. The shock resulting from this structural oil famine is inevitable, given the dependence of our economies on cheap oil and the concomitant impossibility to lessen it in the time available.

We can only hope to deaden this shock, by making sure that this imminent prospect becomes a general mobilisation of our companies, imposing drastic consequences on all sectors of the economy. The penalty for not doing so is chaos.

This anticipation is founded on the method of the American geologist King Hubbert, who had correctly predicted in 1956 that the peak of the oil production in the United States would arrive in 1970. The application of Hubbert’s reasoning to other countries gives similar predictive results to-day. All the giant oil fields, which are the only ones that count, are in decline, save in the “black triangle” of Saudi Arabia -Iraq-Iran. The peak of this oil in the Middle East should be reached around 2010, assuming the resumption of full Iraqi production, and accepting the growth of Chi-nese demand. The sectors most affected by the rise will be initially aviation and the agriculture, where the rising price of respectively kerosene and synthetic fertilisers will have a serious impact.

This situation evidently leads to general recession. It is easy to see it coming, although we close our eyes to reality, preferring to ignore, deny or underestimate its impact. But there are some voices trying to draw attention to the gravity of the position.

Michael Meacher, former Minister for the Environment of the United Kingdom (1997-2003), recently wrote in the Financial Times that in the absence of a general awakening and immediate global decisions of radical changes as regards energy, “civilisation” will face its most acute and violent upheaval of recent history.

If we want nevertheless to maintain a little humanity to the life on Earth in the years after 2010, we must, as the geologist, Colin Campbell, suggests, invite the United Nations to agree today to an agreement, based on the objectives of allowing the poor countries to still import a little oil; preventing profiteering from the oil shortage; providing incen-tives for energy saving; and stimulating renewable energies.

This necessary recognition of physical economic limits will confront the theories of classical economics and the in particular the policies of the United States, whose successive governments have never accepted any question regard-ing the viability of the “American way of life”.

All American military interventions since the first oil crisis of 1973-1974 can be attributed to the fear an inter-ruption in the supply of cheap oil. Furthermore it was the peak of American oil production in 1970, which made it possible for OPEC to take control.
http://www.peakoil.net/Newsletter/NL41/newsletter41.pdf