Friday, August 08, 2003

Global oil crisis - Hubbert peak: "Capitalism has developed, and our population has grown from one to six billion by drawing down a massive natural gift of energy in the form of cheap crude oil. It's half gone. Since the mid 1990s Petroleum geologists have known that global oil production would peak in the first decade of the 21st century and decline forever thereafter. "

"Colin Campbell predicted the impending production peak to the British House of Commons in 1999. "Discovery (of new oil reserves) peaked in the 1960s. We now find one barrel for every four we consume… No one can dispute that you have to find oil before you can produce it. The curve of discovery clearly has eventually to control the curve of production that follows it after a time lag."

"According to Walter Yongquist, "The most significant trend in the US oil industry has been the decline in the amount of energy recovered compared to energy expended. In 1916, the rate was 28 to 1, a very handsome energy return. Today the rate is 2 to 1, and dropping." By 2005, it will cost a barrel of oil energy to extract a barrel in the USA, and American domestic oil production will no longer be profitable."

No comments: