Don’t forget peak oil
February 16th, 2009Robert Hirsch has an important new article at ASPO-USA titled “Peak Oil – What Do We Do Now?”
Hirsch reminds us that despite the fact that the public’s attention has been distracted by the collapse in oil prices and the global economy, the peak oil problem has not gone away. World liquid fuels production reached a plateau in mid-2004 and has fluctuated within a relatively narrow range in spite of mighty efforts to increase world production. Hirsch now thinks world liquids production might stay on the existing plateau for the next 2-5 years, but then go into a 3-5% per year decline.
Below are some graphs from the latest Oilwatch Monthly (February 2009) that illustrate Hirsch’s point.
Click to enlarge
The charts show that crude oil has been on a plateau since 2004. Even counting unconventional oil (which includes biofuels, extra heavy oil, tar sands, polar oil, and natural gas liquids), all liquids production has collapsed and is now back down to 2004 levels.
There has been relatively little in-depth thinking about how we will be able to cope when the specter of peak oil suddenly reappears. Totally remaking our cities and transportation systems to run on less and less oil will require an extremely long time. We’ve not yet even begun, so that project can’t possibly be completed by the time the crisis hits. We’d better get to work now developing carefully thought-out mitigation strategies for making the “no longer workable” function as best as possible under the trying circumstances that are now inevitable.