The end of oil

Today, few serious analysts deny the reality of Hubbert’s “peak oil” theory. It’s not an especially difficult concept to grasp intuitively, after all. Oil is a non-renewable resource. It was produced by geological processes over very long periods of time millions of years ago. Once we’ve used it up, it’s gone forever.

The debate around global peak oil is no longer about if it will happen, but when. The optimists claim that it lies decades in the future, while the pessimists assert that it has already happened. In recent years, however, a growing number of commentators have converged on the conclusion that it will be reached earlier rather than later and that the world is not ready for the consequences.

Production in many of the world’s oil fields is already in decline, while consumption rates continue to increase. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released its projections for global oil demand in 2010: an all-time record high of 86.6 million barrels per day. Discoveries of new petroleum reserves peaked in the 1960s and since 1981 the world has consumed more oil annually than has been discovered. Most experts agree that pretty much all of the cheaply and easily extractable oil has already been found, but according to the IEA’s chief economist, Dr Fatih Birol, we need to find the equivalent of four new Saudi Arabias by 2030.

News24