Oil and gas may run short by 2015, say industry experts

Humanity is approaching an unprecedented crisis when not enough oil and gas will be produced to keep industrial civilisation running, the world’s top oilmen warned last week.

The predictions from the 420 pages NPC report should send a shiver down humanity’s collective spine as a shortage of oil and gas has been predicted to cause industrial collapse, market crashes, resource wars and a rise in poverty. Some forecast that fascist regimes will rise out of the chaos.
Chris Skrebowski, editor of the Energy Institute’s Petroleum Review, said the report’s publication showed the industry “‘fessing up that it really has a problem on its hands”. Until now, he said, “companies, full of share options, have been terrified of frightening the markets” by revealing the truth.

The report says the fuel efficiency of cars should be increased “at the maximum rate possible” and there should be a crackdown on 4×4s. It calls for “aggressive energy efficiency standards for buildings, and measures to “set an effective cost for emitting carbon dioxide” to combat global warming.

Independent