Gap Oil

It is Gap Oil not Peak Oil that is the problem. Rising demand for oil will exceed the quantity of it that can be withdrawn from the earth, resulting in a supply-demand gap. Once production does peak the gap will be enlarged from both sides, drawing down the supply side against rising demand. This I suggest should be termed “Gap Oil”. Energy efficiency and a reduction in our demand for oil is paramount and a growing dependence on what can be grown, to create a sustainable “bioeconomy”.


You heard it here first: GAP OIL. I am coining this term since I haven’t seen it used before but it succinctly sums-up the prevailing situation regarding the provision and price of oil. We hear much about peak oil, and often this is misunderstood to mean that the world will imminently run out of oil. However, this is neither the case nor the definition of peak oil. Dr Richard Pike, the CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a former oil-man, has made convincing arguments that there is more oil – about twice as much – to be recovered than the 1.2 trillion barrels worth that is generally accepted. That may well be true, but it does not impact on the rate of recovery of oil per se, which is the crux of the issue.

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