Slippery Slope: Oil after the Global Peak (Peak Oil, Part I)

The earth consumes about 30 billion barrels of oil a year, while the world’s remaining endowment of recoverable oil stands at about one trillion barrels. If humans could continue using oil at the same rate, we would drain our endowment in 34 years.

Of course, this won’t happen, because oil production follows a bell curve: output accelerates rapidly after production begins until it peaks at about the mid-point of total reserves. After that, output declines and tapers off until it is no longer economical to extract any more (i.e. it takes a unit of energy to obtain a unit of energy).

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