The era of cheap oil is history, geologist warns

[Dogmudgeon]

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/business/9490629.htm

Kenneth S. Deffeyes, a Princeton University geologist, has a suggestion for Thanksgiving 2005: "Give thanks for a century of cheap and plentiful oil."

That is when he predicts global oil production will peak, making it increasingly difficult to meet the world's voracious appetite for inexpensive energy.

"The exploration game is essentially over," Deffeyes said yesterday at the American Chemical Society's national meeting at the Convention Center and nearby hotels.

"We are unable to find new oil at the rate society or chemical engineers would request," Deffeyes said to a roomful of chemists, whose industry has been pummeled by rising energy costs.

Just a small article, but the ACA might publish his remarks with a little more fanfare than ususal. The chemists 'round here might want to check it out.

--bkl

[amber dog democrat]

1. suppose we'll be fighting wars over this stuff?

This is something I have thought about for years.
We need to be moving away from fossil fuels anyway.

[Peak_Oil]

2. Yeah, it's begun.

"What surprised me was the rate of decline among the 18 countries whose production is going down," Petroleum Review editor and oil analyst Chris Skrebowski told Aljazeera.

"For fourteen out of the eighteen countries the rate of depletion is speeding up. This has confounded a long held view that decline was a slow, gradual process.

"The first country to start to decline was the USA. It could be possible that because they have such a high skill base, so many wells and such cheap capital that they were able to slow their rate of depletion. Other countries cannot," he said.

Those 18 countries in decline amount to about 25% of the world's producers. They are losing about 1.14 million bpd.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/561306AC-83F7-4FCE-A7EE-3EDD1B5C6096.htm

[amber dog democrat]

5. In an extreme scenero -

the US , now a fully embattled oil empire, will strive to sustain its GNP, standard of living, and domestic economy at the expense of weaker nations - using its military to shake them down in the process.

OR we could embark on more sensible, sustainable options.
I hate to think that squandering this resource is going to keep going on until its too late and we are faced with major major problems.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Well, I think ...

... I think we're probably doomed.

We have the intelligence to get out of our predicament, but we're so stuck on Business As Usual that I often have doubts about whether we'll survive the next century with ten million members of our species, let alone a civilization.

Petroleum is such a part of our lives that when it starts getting expensive, everything will go to hell in a big hurry. We've wasted 30 years already laughing at "tree huggers" and the Club of Rome, but the problems are the same as they were in 1975, when public awareness was last at a peak.

Oh, well. The game ain't over yet, and I still have a little hope left.

--bkl

[amber dog democrat]

4. I tend to think you are on to something.

For what its worth I was in the Dominican Republic a few years ago and was watching smoke pouring from a stack at a power generation facility. - in the hot tropical summer with all the time share tourists running their ACs at full blast, ( we were too )
as I watched the black oily plume boiling out in the best 19th C and early 20th C tradions, I was asking myself how long this plant will be able to afford ot operate.

We have corporations to thank for fostering the politial climate that further imperils us.

I think the main difference between now and 1975 is that...the population is larger.
fasten your seat belt, the next couple of decades will be very interesting.

[brokensymmetry]

6. Thanks for posting this!

I always look forward to your postings...

That being said, I'm hesitant to be optimistic. The problem isn't just that the U.S. is addicted to cheap energy - the whole world is. Modern agriculture has permitted the population to grow to 6 billion plus; and modern agriculture needs lots of oil.

So what happens when 2.5 billion people in India and China get hungry, and face a failed economy - and hence the loss of hope? I think that's the wild card; and the chance of all those people sitting around and starving quietly looks pretty close to nill.

Also, we have a model for what happens when an overall energy crises hits - that being the "little ice age" back in the 14th century. The economies of the world crashed, food production did likewise. Social unrest around the globe shuffled the deck. I think we can look back to that era and see what's coming.