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Comprehensive Projection of World Oil Exports
Prof. Goose writes, "This article is a comprehensive assessment of world oil exports, defined has the total amount of liquid hydrocarbons that are surpluses in producing countries. This assessment is made by projecting into the future fixed change rates that reflect current trends in liquids production and consumption in all countries where presently the difference between the two factors is positive. The outcome of this assessment is rather worrisome." Here is the money graph through 2020.
If anyone cares, the world is destined to run out of raw silver reserves long, long before it runs out of oil. Dozens of analysts are expecting a COMEX default on silver futures within the next couple years. It might not seem like a big deal, but just watch what happens to the price of silver when it does...
(Silver is used in tons of medical equipment. There's a lot of nanotechnology research being done to develop a good substitute, but its still years off)
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
As Sowell would say, there is not a shortage of oil - there is only a shortage of oil at today's prices.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
I agree. This is widely blown out of proportion.
First off, all of the predictions that we see in the article are from Colin Campbell. He's a geologist who represents the fringe of the "peak oil" movement, and founded the association for the study of peak oil and gas. The guy has trouble being right. In addition to being continually proven wrong about the discovery of large new oil fields (which keep turning up -- not to mention old fields unexpectedly finding new life) and the rates at which existing fields will produce, every few years he pushes back his predicted peak. First it was 1995. It's all the way back to 2007 now. Aaany day now, Colin!
Secondly, the logic that this article is based on is faulty. It fails to acknowledge the most critical factor in oil production and pricing: the price of oil influences both the demand and the rate of production of fuels (inc. alternatives). The more expensive oil gets, the slower world economic growth occurs, which drastically reduces demand. At the same time, the more expensive oil gets, vast new reserves come online. At current oil prices, Saudi Arabia doesn't have the world's largest reserves: Venezuela does. Venezuela's reserves were once dwarfed by Saudi Arabia's because they're more expensive to produce from. With high prices, a vast amount of Venezuelan oil comes online.
But it doesn't stop there. Current prices are high enough to make Canadian tar sands profitable. Shell is leading the way here, and is majorly scaling up their operations. If you count the tar sands, Canada goes up into the world leader position. But hey, why stop there? Coal liquifaction is borderline profitable at current prices. The US has hundreds of years of coal to mine; even if we start converting it to oil, it's a massive energy influx. And do we really even need to get into oil shale, methane hydrates, ethanol (esp. from cellulose), biodiesel, waste polymerization, and vehicles driven by electricity or hydrogen (which, effectively, can be powered by the grid, which means that any potential power source will work).
Yes, prices will rise. So? We've gotten a free ride on ubercheap oil for too long. At current prices, however, countless technologies are either freshly viable or near-viable for energy production -- both for producing petroleum, and for producing petroleum alternatives. If prices rise further, it makes them all the prettier for investors. This peak oil fearmongering is just silly.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
Wait a minute! Let me see if I can boil this down...
When a something is in high demand and becomes scarce it becomes more expensive. Because it is more expensive, people will seek out and develop alternative sources for the product, as well as alternative products.
Is this just crazy talk? Are you saying that we didn't go back to candles when we ran out of whale oil? But instead we developed an alternative - petroleum? Or that when since cane sugar is expensive we sweeten lots of food products with corn syrup?
Holy freshman year economics, Batman!
Someone better tell these simple proven facts to the prophets of doom. I'm sure that they'd rather have a hand in informing the public of all this, rather than exploit the public with their gloomy predictions for personal gain.
"I'm actually surprised they let it get as high as they did over the summer, but I guess there is only so much you can do against speculation."
Getting away from a petroleum economy is a process that will take years, not a few weeks. In order to use non-petroleum fuels, you need 1) production, 2) delivery infrastructure and 3) consumption structure (i.e. ethanol cars, hydrogen home water-heaters).
Because each of those three factors depend on the other two factors in order to be profitable, this change will only come about as a slow spiral of support, starting out small and slowly growing.
We are still totally dependent on petroleum. The petro companies will continue to make money on short-term volatility. We will only start to change to a non-petroleum economy when the general public percieves that it is *certain* that petroluem will only get more scarce in the future. Then, they might consider buying a flex fuel vehicle next year, provided they have seen enough E85 pumps at the gas station on their way hom from work.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso