The Sept 17 US News and World Report has an article (p.82 or
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010917/misc/oil.htm) on the scarcity (or
non-scarcity) of oil - a topic that Glenn Morton has brought to our attention.
This article refers to a book that is soon to be published by Princeton U Press
(" Hubbert's Peak-The Impending World Oil Shortage" by Princeton geologist
Kenneth Duffeyes) that suggests that world oil production will peak this decade
and then begin to decline with disastrous economic consequences. This prediction
is based largely on the work of Hubbert. Glenn has referred to this prediction
in his messages.
But now the same US News article mentions that the US Geological Survey has a
much rosier outlook. Just last year the USGS doubled its estimate of remaining
world oil from 1.1 trillion barrels ( the world currently uses about 28 billion
barrels/day) to 2.3 trillion barrels. This is an estimate they call
"conservative". The USGS numbers are roughly arrived at as follows: 0.9 trillion
barrels of "proven" reserves; 0.7 trillion barrels of new oil discoveries
(mostly in the middle east but also along in the Atlantic coastal areas of
Africa and South America); 0.7 trillion barrels of additional recovery from
established oil fields due to improved technologies of extraction. According the
USGS prediction world oil production can continue to increase for another 30-40
years reaching a maximum of about 50 billion barrels/year and then declining
rapidly to less than 20 billion barrels/year by 2050. This would give the world
approximately 40 "oil aplenty" years to find alternative energy sources, vs the
less than 10 years predicted by Hubbert's curve. I am interested if anyone,
especially Glenn, has a response to these very different scenarios.
kpiers
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Sep 17 2001 - 09:55:21 EDT