Warning

 

Close

Confirm Action

Are you sure you wish to do this?

Confirm Cancel
BCM
User Panel

Site Notices
Posted: 4/18/2007 12:16:16 PM EST
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,266764,00.html



Study: 'Peak Oil' Will Be Reached by 2018

Wednesday, April 18, 2007
By Melinda Wenner

Global oil production will peak sometime between next year and 2018 and then decline, according to a controversial new model developed by a Swedish physicist.

Since 1956, when American geophysicist M. King Hubbert correctly predicted that U.S. oil reserves would hit a peak within 20 years, experts have debated when the same might occur globally.

Some oil companies and consultancy firms such as Cambridge Energy Research Associates speculate that oil will peak sometime after 2020, but a number of oil geologists and executives predict it will happen much sooner.

And once production starts declining, there could be major supply problems, analysts say, especially when it comes to transportation — cars, aircraft, trains and boats are today without a ready alternative to petroleum-based liquid fuels.

Reaction to the latest prediction is as polarized as the debate has been on this issue for decades.

New approach

Previous oil-peak models have used a "top-down" approach to estimate future production based on three factors — past rates of total production, estimates of how much oil is left and a steady decline rate.

The new model, developed by Fredrik Robelius, a physicist and petroleum engineer at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, uses a "bottom-up" approach based on field-by-field analyses of the 333 giant oil fields in use today. These together account for more than 60 percent of today's oil production.

He pooled the contributions from all the smaller fields together, treating them as an additional giant field.

Robelius built his model, which serves as his doctoral dissertation, after analyzing the fields' past production rates and their ultimate recoverable reserves.

Then he predicted how production will decline after peaking by incorporating rates of drop-off observed at other fields, ranging from 6 percent in a best-case scenario to 16 percent in a worst-case scenario.

Finally, he combined his results with estimated forecasts for new field developments from sources such as the deep ocean and oil sands in Canada, but he says that these are unlikely to offset the upcoming declines from the giant fields — and there is little chance that new giant fields will be discovered in the future.

Caltech physicist David Goodstein agrees.

"Oil geologists have gone to the ends of the Earth to search out big fields, and it's very unlikely that another big one will be found," Goodstein told LiveScience, adding that Robelius' methodology appears to be sound. "Even if another huge one is found, it would only put off the peak by a year or so."

Although there are other potential sources of oil, they are not only smaller but also frequently have low production rates because of geological constraints, said Robelius.

In Canada's oil sands, for instance, the oil is so heavy that it must be heated up before it starts to flow, he said, and this is a slow and expensive process.

Perceptual problem

Others disagree. Not much can be said about additional oil resources because we haven't really started looking for them yet, said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research, an energy consultancy firm in Massachusetts.

Lynch thinks that the oil peak lies farther into the future, partially because there's likely to be a lot of oil in as-yet undiscovered smaller fields.

"You don't go looking for them until you run out of the giant fields," Lynch said in a telephone interview.

Robelius, and others like him, he said, suffer from a "perceptual problem — 'if I don't see it, it must not be there.'"

And new technologies could help solve extraction problems, said Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit public policy think tank in Washington, D.C.

"New technologies have turned fields that once seemed to be dormant into steady supplies of oil," said Kazman, who is also of the belief that the oil peak is not necessarily right around the corner.

Just because giant oil fields have been important for oil production in the past, he said, "does not mean that they're going to stay important in the future."

Robelius says that these kinds of approaches rely on resources and technologies that haven't yet been developed or even discovered, which isn't practical.

People assume that new resources will be able to produce oil quickly, he said, "without having any evidence whatsoever that that's the case."


Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:17:32 PM EST
[#1]
Oh teh noes!!!1!
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:18:02 PM EST
[#2]
Dupe
AGNTSA
troll
IBTL
Ban Him!
Tarp!
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:19:28 PM EST
[#3]
And every time they scream "Peak oil" new reserves are found.


GLOBAL WARMING! PEAK AMMO! blah blah blah blah fucking blah.
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:19:40 PM EST
[#4]

Quoted:
Dupe
AGNTSA
IBPO  In Before Peak Oil
troll
IBTL
Ban Him!
Tarp!



Fixed.
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:31:16 PM EST
[#5]
So in 2018 will they move it to 2036 or abandon the theory altogether?
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:34:13 PM EST
[#6]

Quoted:
So in 2018 will they move it to 2036 or abandon the theory altogether?


Oh  no, they move the bar much more often than that, in 2008 they will move it to 2020, and so on.  
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:35:24 PM EST
[#7]

Quoted:
So in 2018 will they move it to 2036 or abandon the theory altogether?


Nope, they'll just move the date again.  Socialists have a hard time understanding that markets never remain static.
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:35:36 PM EST
[#8]
Now we know, we can find new reserves and new methods of extracting.
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 12:37:21 PM EST
[#9]
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 5:27:12 PM EST
[#10]
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 5:28:40 PM EST
[#11]
here we go again!!1
Link Posted: 4/18/2007 5:39:44 PM EST
[#12]
dude, don't feed the peak oil trolls


and stay safe in IRQ
Close Join Our Mail List to Stay Up To Date! Win a FREE Membership!

Sign up for the ARFCOM weekly newsletter and be entered to win a free ARFCOM membership. One new winner* is announced every week!

You will receive an email every Friday morning featuring the latest chatter from the hottest topics, breaking news surrounding legislation, as well as exclusive deals only available to ARFCOM email subscribers.


By signing up you agree to our User Agreement. *Must have a registered ARFCOM account to win.
Top Top