[Graeme]

Piqued by peak oil

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ased on Hubbert’s model, current total oil supply of about 85 million barrels per day is projected to remain more-or-less flat out to about 2012, and then decline at a rate of about 2% per year thereafter. Meanwhile, globally demand for oil is growing annually at a rate of about 2%. And there’s the rub. While conventional oil supply growth appears flat and may soon begin to decline, demand for liquid fuels continues to grow.
This means that by 2015, we could be facing a global shortfall of some 22 million barrels per day, representing the gap between global demand and conventional oil supply. To put this in perspective, a deficit of 22 million barrels per day would be greater than the current US consumption of oil.

The question is: can production from non-conventional sources such as the Alberta tar sands or synthetic fuels using coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology be ramped up to anything even approaching a supply deficit of 22 million barrels per day by 2015?

The answer appears to be a clear no.

Rather than focusing only on what I see as futile and costly attempts to continue to grow the supply of liquid fuels, efforts must be redirected to the demand side:

efficiency (doing more with less); conservation (just doing less);
designing compact, walkable urban communities;
emphasizing public transit including electric light rail;
switching to biofuels and other renewable energy sources;
relocalising organic food production, and so on.

[Sys1]

"switching to biofuels and other renewable energy sources;"

I agree withthe whole article but the sentence above. It gives to the reader the illusion that we'll be able to do as much with those alternatives energies as we do today with oil.

[PolestaR]

Only GLOBAL efficiency and conservation methods will work. Otherwise any sector which conserves or increases it's efficiency will simply be giving it's surplus oil to other sectors.

So in short effect, unless countries start working together on this (they won't) then those 2 methods will never be used (unless of course you get a real idiot in control....)

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]Piqued by peak oil

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ased on Hubbert’s model, current total oil supply of about 85 million barrels per day is projected to remain more-or-less flat out to about 2012, and then decline at a rate of about 2% per year thereafter.

[kam30en]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hese people who speculate themselves into a tizzy over manufactured numbers just make me want to puke.