Mitigating a long-term shortfall of world oil production

Robert L. Hirsch, SAIC, Project leader; Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling, MISI

peak in world oil production would subject the world to its first-ever sustained discontinuity in energy – a commodity essential to the functioning of the world economy. A number of knowledgeable experts forecast that peaking of conventional oil production will occur sometime within the next 20 years. Given today’s oil demand levels and usage patterns, such a forced disruption would have severe negative impacts on the economies of all oil-importing nations, perhaps the exporting ones as well. Viable mitigation options exist, but the timing of their implementation will be critical.

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