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Page added on July 10, 2013
Stanford researchers say ‘peak oil’ concerns should ease
Fears of depleting the Earth’s supply of oil are unwarranted, according to new research, which concludes that the demand for oil – as opposed to the supply – will reach its own peak and then decline.
“Peak oil” prognosticators have painted pictures of everything from a calm development of alternatives to calamitous shortages, panic and even social collapse as the world reaches its peak of oil production – and then supplies fall.
But according to the study by researchers at Stanford University and the University of California-Santa Cruz, those scenarios assume that an increasingly wealthy world will use all of the oil pumped out of the ground.
Instead, the historical connection between economic growth and oil use is breaking down – and will continue to do so – because of limits on consumption by the wealthy, better fuel efficiency, lower priced alternative fuels and the world’s rapidly urbanizing population.
“There is an overabundance of concern about oil depletion and not enough attention focused on the substitutes for conventional oil and other possibilities for reducing our dependence on oil,” said study co-author Adam Brandt, assistant professor of energy resources engineering at Stanford’s School of Earth Sciences.
The study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, describes a variety of mechanisms that could cause society’s need for oil to begin declining by 2035. Several earlier studies have suggested that passenger land travel has already plateaued in industrialized countries and is no longer hitched to economic growth. Passenger land travel now accounts for about half of the global transportation energy demand.
Even in developing countries, economic growth has been less oil-intensive than was seen in the West during the past century. China, for example, sells 20 million electric scooters to its citizens each year as part of the government’s policy to reduce air pollution. That exceeds total U.S. passenger vehicle sales annually.
“We’ve seen explosive growth in car ownership in countries such as China,” said co-author Adam Millard-Ball, an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Department at UC-Santa Cruz. “However, those cars will be more efficient than those of the past, and travel demand will eventually saturate as it has in rich countries such as the United States.”
Lower oil dependence
Freight and air travel have shown no such break from economic growth. Rich people may not drive more beyond a certain income level, but they do fly more and buy more belongings, as do people moving out of poverty. Even in air travel and freight, though, energy efficiency has begun to improve after decades of stagnation, lowering oil dependence, according to the new study.
“A major uncertainty is whether demand to move goods around the world will eventually saturate, as we’ve seen in the case of passenger transport,” said Millard-Ball.
Price-competitive alternatives to conventional oil are another factor behind the peak in demand. Competition comes from increasing quantities of fuel from oil sands, liquid fuels from coal, natural gas, biofuels, hydrogen and electricity generated from renewable sources.
Technological advances and the high price of oil are helping most such alternatives compete on price. In 2010, the world produced 1.8 million barrels a day of biofuels, six times the amount in 2000. In Argentina, natural gas fuels 15 percent of all cars, due to policies meant to favor the domestic natural gas industry.
The researchers did not try to forecast peak demand’s impact on oil prices. But even if oil prices spend much time above the historical upper range of $140 a barrel, the peak in demand will only come sooner than they forecast.
“If prices rise above their current levels for an extended period, we’re likely to see even more efforts to improve efficiency and exploit alternatives to conventional oil,” said Millard-Ball. “That would hasten the onset of a demand-driven peak.”
Impacts of alternatives
The new research, though encouraging, does not describe a transportation future free of worry. Instead, the researchers recommend a shift in attention to the various alternatives to conventional oil.
Policymakers should not rely on oil scarcity to constrain damage to the world’s climate. The alternatives to conventional oil emit varying amounts of greenhouse gases, while large-scale production of biofuels could have a disruptive impact on food prices and on local ecosystems where the plants are grown.
“If you care about the environment, you should care about where we are getting these fuels, whether we use the oil sands or biofuels,” said Brandt. “Our study is agnostic on what mix of oil substitutes emerges, but we do know that if we don’t manage them well, there will be big consequences.”
The study forecasts global oil demand through 2100 under a variety of scenarios for economic growth, population, efficiency gains and fuel substitution. Interested parties can use the study’s model, inputting their own set of assumptions at http://pangea.stanford.edu/researchgroups/eao/research/oil-substitution-and-decline-conventional-oil.
11 Comments on "Stanford researchers say ‘peak oil’ concerns should ease"
Pops on Wed, 10th Jul 2013 9:47 pm
Isn’t this funny? Here, before actual declines in total supply even set in, the real yearly average price of oil has been higher than at any time since oil — and it’s been there for 2-1/2 years!
“Demand” is made up of 2 parts; desire and ability – ability to pay that is. Yet it’s falling “desire” these granola crunchers seem to think is falling and causing the decline in consumption, not the inability to pay.
In fact, they even go so far as to say they won’t forecast prices, just that prices have nothing to do with the drop in consumption.
Too funny, anything but limits.
We’ve been talking about this in the forums
http://peakoil.com/forums/stanford-explores-ramifications-of-demand-driven-peak-oil-t68424.html
Plantagenet on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 12:05 am
I haven’t heard of any Stanford Professors living without cars and ending air travel and refusing to use anything made of plastic. I guess everyone else is supposed to reduce their use of oil, but not the priveledged authors of this report.
dashster on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 12:32 am
Do they get paid to come to this conclusion?
Somehow I am not convinced that demand will drop even though there is “explosive growth” in cars in China because the Chinese are using fuel efficient cars.
Spec on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 12:45 am
I do know some Stanford professors with PV panels on their roofs and electric cars in their garages.
BillT on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 1:17 am
dasher, of course they were paid for this distraction propaganda. ALWAYS look for who signs the paychecks. ALWAYS.
Their ‘reserch’ is funded by big petro, you can be sure. Otherwise this would be a realstic article and not more ‘tech to the rescue’ BS.
It’s like the LEED Program in construction that is supposed to ‘save energy’ in building construction and produce ‘green’ buildings. It’s more eyewash. If energy savings was the goal, no new buildings would need to be built. There are perfectly good buildings in every town and city that could be recycled to fit the need, saving many times the energy of a new building and putting the old building back on the productive side of the ledger. But architects and corporate egos want something ‘new’ and ‘theirs’.
DC on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 6:21 am
ROFL! That is some pretty high-grade hopium those profs are shooting up with.
Lets take a look at this key line
Q/Instead, the historical connection between economic growth and oil use is breaking down – and will continue to do so – because of limits on consumption by the wealthy, better fuel efficiency, lower priced alternative fuels and the world’s rapidly urbanizing population.
Limits on consumption by the wealthy. WtF is that supposed to mean? Anyone?
Better fuel efficiency. Really? Like what, 5%? 8%? 10%? How will marginally better fuel economy in a gas burner have anything more than a cosmetic effect on PO? The only thing that will have any serious effect on PO timing or severity would be to NOT use fossil-fuels at all or as little as possible. But they don’t say that do they, they say, ‘more efficient’, which is impossible to quantify in any event. What they really means is, dont stop using fossil-fuels, just trade in your 12 mpg trash bin for one that gets, what, 20mpg, and all your PO worries go away.
lower priced alternative fuels. Now that IS funny. Most ‘alternatives’ the energy cartels are proposing are either NOT alternatives at all, and very few are genuinely cheaper. Anyone here think a gallon of hydrogen for your non-existent h2, million dollar 2.5 ton grocery fetcher will be cheaper than gaz? And ‘cheap’ depends less on the ‘free market’ and more on subsidies to the oil cartel. Frak gas is ‘cheap’ atm in the US, only because of the economic depression and massive public subsidies to frakers. Few alternatives are cheaper than gas, and the ones that are, are only so because the markets for them are niche markets.
and the world’s rapidly urbanizing population. Another head scratcher. Is this meant to imply urbanites are somehow more ‘efficent’? Again by what metric? Urban dwellers consume huge amounts of fossil fuel even when they are not aware of it. Provisioning services, garbage, water, transport, policing, medical, lighting and on and on,+ bringing food for huge cities uses staggering amounts of fossil-fuels EVEN IF the individual’s people in cities use little themselves, which sometimes is the case. That ‘hidden’ indirect fuel bill is immense for city dwellers.
Im not a tenured proffersor but if I can spot these huge failures of logic, anyone can. So why do these fellows bother? Demand will not peak because people start to realize fossil-fools are killing the planet, they will only stop ‘demanding’ them when they are either no longer Available, or B) un-affordable.
This article gets an “F”.
mike on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 7:57 am
I find articles like this bizzare
quotes like “There is an overabundance of concern about oil depletion”
where the hell does the author see these? they aren’t on the TV or in the Newspapers or coming from any of the oil companies or Governments. I only know of about 5 places in the world that talk about peak oil
1)peakoil.com
2)Archdruid
3)peak prosperity
4)Oil drum (now closed)
5)Collapsenet
Am I missing something here?
J-Gav on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 9:17 am
“Somewhere … over the rainbow” … bluebirds unload on articles like this.
Stoney on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 10:38 am
They point to a sixfold growth in biofuels 2000-2010, but don’t mention that since 2010 biofuels production has been flat, at the same time that 100$+ oil prices have been firmly established.
Harquebus on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 8:45 pm
“the high price of oil are helping most such alternatives compete on price.” Yeah but, it is tanking the economy.
shortonoil on Thu, 11th Jul 2013 10:19 pm
Any firm that uses this ridiculous model for their long range planning had better find a good bankruptcy lawyer; they going to go broke!