In the U.K., the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security has released a new report warning of an impending energy famine for some oil importing nations.

The report, titled “The Oil Crunch: Securing the UK’s energy future,” includes two opinions on oil-supply risk, one from Peak Oil Consulting (Chris Skrebowski) and the other from Royal Dutch Shell (Dr. Robert Faulkner). The optimistic opinion (from Royal Dutch Shell) sees global supply of oil flattening by 2015. Skrebowski’s analysis points to a peak in global oil production in the period 2011-2013.  Both agree that the age of “easy oil” is over.

The problem addressed by the task force was laid out by Matt Simmons in a recent presentation:

• Current production base will fall to 25 MM B/D by 2030.
• To keep supply flat (at ~85 mbd) we need to add equivalent of four new Saudi Arabias.
• To modestly grow 5 MM B/D, we need two more Saudi Arabias.
• None of this is remotely possible.

The report imagines three possible future scenarios:

The risk from premature peak oil can be thought of, globally, in terms of three qualitative scenarios. In a “plateau” scenario, like the one Shell foresees, global production will flatten around 2015 and remain on a plateau into the 2020s, propped up by expanding volumes of unconventional oil production because of the decline of conventional oil production. In a “descent” scenario, global production falls steadily as oilfield flows from newer projects fail to replace capacity declines from depletion in older existing fields. In a “collapse” scenario, the steady fall of the “descent” scenario is steepened appreciably by a serial collapse of production in some – possibly many – of the aged supergiant and giant fields that provide so much global production today. On balance, having reviewed the state of play in global oil production, the taskforce considers that the “descent” scenario is a highly probable global outcome. We also fear that a “collapse” scenario is possible.

While we are able to get away with denying the urgency of the climate crisis for a few more decades before reality smacks us in the face, we won’t have that luxury with the energy crisis:

The speed with which the UK would need to mobilise for a “descent” peak oil scenario, much less a “collapse” scenario, exceeds anything that has yet been considered in the climate-change policy-response arena.

The energy crisis means bye-bye to the “economy” as we’ve come to think of it over the last century. Survival will be the new challenge.

The stark implications of our addiction to fossil fuels and their impending depletion are eloquently voiced by David Hayes:

It took me a long while to admit to myself the conclusion I now draw from all this: that the civilisation we currently take for granted is coming to a stuttering end, that we are unequipped to prevent it, and that it is probably too late to prevent the worst of what climate change, peak oil and ecological destruction will throw at us. I suspect that the great challenge of the 21st century will not be building a great, “sustainable” civilisation to lead us to the stars, but coming to terms with decline, materially and existentially, as the fossil-fuelled bubble bursts and leaves us adjusting to a harsher reality.