An old prophet about oil.

Today I ran into this in my collection of AAPG journals. It says pretty
much what we face in the next 50 years unless we solve the fusion
problem

WORLD'S ENERGY ECONOMY
The earth is a virtually closed material system composed of the 92
naturally occurring chemical elements, all but a minute radioactive
fraction of which obey the laws of classical chemistry. Into and out of
this system there occur a continuous flux and degradation of energy.. As
a consequence, the materials of the earth's surface undergo either
continuous or intermittent circulation. The principal energy influxes
into the earth's surface environment are three: solar energy 174,000
trillion thermal watts; geothermal energy, 32 trillion; and tidal energy
3 trillion. The outfluxes are low-temperature radiation into outer
space.
During more than 3 billion' years of geologic history, a minute fraction
of the materials of the earth's surface has been aggregated into the
dynamical system of living organisms. By the process of photosynthesis,
a small fraction of the incident solar radiation is captured by the
green leaves of plants and is stored chemically in the organic molecules
of carbohydrates and other more complex chemical compounds. This is the
source of the physiological energy requirements for the entire plant and
animal kingdoms. The rates of decay and of oxidation of organic
materials are almost equal to their rate of formation, but a small
fraction becomes buried in peat bogs or other oxygen-deficient
environments of incomplete decay. Such accumulations during past
geologic time have become buried under thick accumulations of
sedimentary strata and have become transformed into the earth's present
supply of fossil fuels.
By about 2 million years ago the ancestors of the present human species
began to walk upright and to use stone tools. From that time to the
present, this species has distinguished itself from all others in its
cumulative inventiveness in means of capturing ever-larger quantities of
the energy of its environment. A great increase in the consumption of
energy per capita was not possible, however, until the exploitation of
the large stores of energy of the fossil fuels was begun about 9
centuries ago. The rise of the world's present technological society,
with its concurrent ecological disturbances, including that of the human
species, has been an inexorable consequence.
The length of time during which this has occurred is deceptive unless
account is also taken of the exponential growth in the rates of
consumption. During the 9 centuries since the beginning of coal mining,
approximately 142 billion metric tons had been mined by the end of 1972.
Of this, one half has been produced since about 1940. Eighty percent of
the world's initial coal supply will be consumed within the next 2-3
centuries, and the middle 80 percent of the world's oil during the
65-year period from about 1967 to 2032.
As to the future, the fossil fuels are short-lived; nuclear power is
potentially large but also hazardous; water power is large but
inadequate; and geothermal and tidal power are inadequate. On the other
hand, the largest source of energy available to the earth is that of
solar radiation. Because the earth itself cannot tolerate more than a
few tens of doublings of any biological or technological activity-and
most of these have occurred already-it is now becoming evident that the
present episode of exponential industrial growth can be only a
transitory epoch of about 3 centuries duration in the totality of human
history. It represents a brief transitional period between two very much
longer periods, each characterized by rates of change so slow as to be
regarded essentially as a period of nongrowth. Although the forthcoming
period poses no insuperable physical or biological difficulties, it can
hardly fail to force a major revision in those aspects of our current
economic and social thinking which are based on the premise that the
growth rates which have characterized this temporary period can somehow
be sustained indefinitely." M. King Hubbert, "World's Energy Economy"
Bulletin of the Amer. Assoc. of Petrol. Geologists, Sept. 1973, p. 1843
Received on Sun Oct 31 21:32:22 2004