What is Peak Oil?

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There are a host of interesting challenges facing the people of the world today. Some seem contrived, others are heralded publicly in the modern forum.

Climate change, pollution, hunger, disease – all topics that keep people awake at night, worrying over solutions to these problems.

There is however, one particularly momentous issue which affects all of us equally, but yet receives almost no attention in the mainstream media or political dialogue. This issue has the potential to affect tremendous change and social upheaval on a scale never before experienced, and yet very few people seem to be discussing it or even acknowledging it exists.

The issue I am referring to, is peak oil.

“Domestic oil production in the United States peaked in 1970 and has been in an irreversible decline since. Today the United States imports more than 70% of its oil from foreign sources, and no amount of domestic drilling will narrow this ever-widening gap.” [1]

Excerpt from: Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World by Michael Ruppert

Illustrated in almost comical terms, here below is a graphic from the blog Do the Math, demonstrating the consumption of fossil fuels from a larger period of historical reference.

Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. This concept is based on the observed production rates of individual oil wells, projected reserves and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells.

This concept was originally championed by a man named M. King Hubbert back in 1956. Using a logistical model extrapolating from knowledge about decline rates in existing oil wells at the time, Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak sometime between 1965 and 1970.

As we now know, his prediction was incredibly accurate, but at the time he was widely considered to be a crackpot. After all, in the 1950′s the United States was the largest exporter of oil in the world.

“The world will never run out of oil. Once it takes more than the sale price to extract one barrel, or it takes more energy to extract a barrel than one gets from burning it, there is no point in using it.”

Excerpt from: Confronting Collapse

OK, so the United States won’t be able to produce oil forever, no big deal we’ll just keep getting our oil from elsewhere in the world like we have been doing for decades, right? Unfortunately, the characteristics of all oil wells seem to follow the same patterns, so one can extrapolate the same peak timeline to oil wells all over the world.

This means that global oil production will eventually peak just as it has been observed in the United States and many other former oil exporting countries.

In fact, it’s possible that global oil production has already peaked. It’s difficult to determine this though because countries like those in OPEC have it in their best interest to obfuscate their production quotas and known reserves in order to protect their financial well-being.

Despite a growing popular attitude to switch to renewable sources of energy, petroleum-based products and transportion remains dominant within the global economy. Far from just being a problem to do with transportation, just about everything you use and encounter in your life is made from or utilizes oil. Heck, even cars are mostly made out of oil. According to the National Geographic, there are seven gallons of oil in every tire. [2]

Switching to a different fuel source won’t solve all of our problems. The entire world economy will need to be retooled in order to accomodate a future where oil becomes increasingly scarce and/or expensive. So, when will peak oil become a reality? It’s hard to say. Some people think it’s already upon us, while others think we have several decades to go.

One thing is for sure, this problem isn’t going away, and our leaders are not doing nearly enough to deal with it.

References:

1. US Energy Information Administration
2. Time Appenzeller, “The End of Cheap Oil”; National Geographic, June 2004

Here are some related blog posts you should also read:

• ASPO-USA Conference 2011: Peak Oil, Energy and the Economy
• Why Food Production is the Biggest Problem of Peak Oil
• Are We In the Bumpy Plateau of Oil Production?
• U.S. Oil Consumption (Infographic)
• Book Review: Confronting Collapse