A simple arithmetic
Posted June 21st, 2007 in Energy
A couple of night ago Lateline Business hosted an interesting interview with Dr Roger Bezdek on Peak Oil.
ALI MOORE: That said, there have long been predictions, haven’t there, of the imminent depletion of oil supplies. It was said it would happen in the ’70s and it didn’t. The man who came up with the peak oil theory said it would happen in 1995, and it didn’t. US Department of Energy says we won’t be there even by 2030.
What makes you right?
DR ROGER BEZDEK: You are correct, for the past 150 years there have been many false predictions of the world running out of oil or running short of oil or peaking oil. Some of the predictions have been correct, for example, King Hubbard, in 1957, predicted that US oil production would peak about 1970. It actually peaked in 1971. The problem is now that we’ve had 50, 60, 70 years of exploration of - the entire earth, the entire world, has been explored for oil. For the past 25 years the world has been consuming much more oil than it has been finding and the ratio is getting worse rather than better. For example, last year the world discovered about 6 billion barrels of oil and consumed about 28 billion. This can only go on for so long and is why I’m relatively pessimistic that we’ll see world oil peaking within about the next decade or so.
ALI MOORE: So you don’t see or believe the argument that the greater the technology, the greater the technological development, the more likely that not only will we find more, but previously impossible wells will become viable?
DR ROGER BEZDEK: There’s no doubt that technology will assist us and we’ll find more and more oil. The problem is that the world is already consuming, producing about 87 million barrels a day of oil. Projections are the world will need, by 2030, 120 million barrels a day. The new giant fields simply aren’t out there and most of the world’s oil-producing regions have already peaked - are in decline, declining at the rate of 2 or 3 or 4 per cent a year. Right there it tells you you have to discover at least 2 or 3 million barrel a day every year, just to stay even. And we can’t stay even, the world requires 2 or 3 per cent more oil per year. It’s just an unsustainable trend.
I like the way he’s framed the issue in simple terms. Here is what we found this year and what we consumed, here is what we need long term and what we currently produce. It’s a simple arithmetic I know, but revealing and and easy to digest.
technorati tags: energy, peakoil,
What others have to say…
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
For me, even if there were unlimited oil out there we still need to get away from this polluting substance that causes so much of the political angst in the world.