Goodbye To All That Oil

Goodbye To All That Oil

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted April 4, 2005.


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Does the peak year even matter?

With oil prices soaring, economic logic says the sooner the peak's date can be nailed down, the better. Financial web sites are buzzing about it, but in a somewhat merrier key than the peak-oil sites. One research firm is even forecasting production peaks for individual oil companies, with obvious implications for stock values.

On the other hand, if we're more concerned about improving humanity's prospects in 2010 or 2037 than Wall Street's prospects at the close of trading tomorrow, then one prediction is probably as good as another. In designing an energy policy that can be sustained far into the post-petroleum future, the precise timing of the peak is of about as much practical importance as the date of the next total eclipse of the sun (on that forecast, astronomers agree: March 29, 2006).

A recent report prepared for the U.S. government by Science Applications International Corporation suggests that whatever the peak year turns out to be, 2005 is the time to get moving on energy policy. The report's lead author, Robert L. Hirsch, concluded that strong action must be taken at least 10, and preferably 20 years before we reach a world oil peak, if we are to avoid "a long period of significant economic hardship worldwide."

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In 2000, operators of Mexico's largest oilfield began injecting nitrogen gas into wells. As a result, they temporarily achieved a much higher extraction rate. But this year, the field fell prematurely into permanent decline.

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For decades, Prof. Albert Bartlett of the University of Colorado has been calling attention to the ability of conservation to extend the life of a resource. For example, assume that the nation of West Vehicula calculates that it has about 60 years worth of oil in the ground, given that it's planning to increase consumption at 4 percent per year. Bartlett's simple calculations show that the Vehiculans could stretch the lifetime of that resource to more than 300 years by holding consumption growth to zero.

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