Peak Oil
“The term Peak Oil refers to the maximum rate of the production of oil in any area under consideration, recognising that it is a finite natural resource, subject to depletion.”
–Colin Campbell
Take a moment to look around and consider how dependent what’s around you is upon crude oil production..
The discovery of abundant oil in the 19th century meant the industrial revolution progressed incredibly quickly. A forty litre tank of petrol that we’d fill our cars with equals 8000 human labour hours, that’s about 4 years of a person’s labour at 40 hours a week. Oil therefore began to replace human labour as oil was dirt cheap in comparison.
The peak of oil discovery was passed in the 1960s, and the world started using more than was found in new fields in 1981. The gap between discovery and production has widened since. Many countries, including some important producers, have already passed their peak, suggesting that the global peak of production is now imminent.
Is oil a limited resource?
Yes. Oil was produced from the remains of prehistoric animals. (That’s why it’s called a “fossil” fuel.) Speci cally, most oil was produced from organisms which lived between 100 and 150 million of years ago. Since there were only so many organisms living then, only so much oil could have been produced from them. Once it’s used up, there’s no more.
Are we going to run out of oil?
Being a limited resource we will run out one day, but there is considerable difference of opinion about when.
Peak Oil – A Primer
Peak oil refers to when oil production “maxes out”— when the world is producing the most oil per day that it ever will. After that, it’s all downhill, and oil production will decline. However, “downhill” is not the same as “over and done”—peak oil is not when oil is used up, but when we start pumping less out of the ground. There will still be oil for years after that, but assuming a reduction in supply will increase cost.
Most studies of peak oil are built on the work of Dr. M. King Hubbert, a Shell geoscientist who did most of his work in the 1950s and ’60s. The Hubbert peak theory, which says that for any limited resource, production follows a more-or-less bell-shaped curve.
- Production starts at zero—nobody knows the resource is there, or what to with it
- Production climbs, as people start extracting and using the resource
- Not all of a resource is equally easy to exploit—some is located in less accessible places or costs more to dig up; the “easy” or “cheap” material is taken fi rst
The Hubbert Curve. (image: wikimedia.org) Page 2
- As the last of the easily available resource is mined, the peak or top of the bell is reached
- After that, as more difficult or expensive sources are tapped, production starts decreasing
- Eventually all of a finite resource is used up and production goes back to zero
Hubbert felt that one day, oil production would peak and then decline. In fact, according to his work, we should be peaking more-or-less now, sometime around the early 2000’s. Not everyone believes in peak oil. There are scientists and economists who think it doesn’t give enough weight to technology that will increase oil supply and reduce demand.
Since even after we peak, there will still be years and years of oil in the ground, why is peaking such a problem?
After the peak, we will have less of the cheap, easy oil on which Western civilization and our modern economy is based. For example, without cheap petrol from cheap oil, could we have suburbs? Low-density, spread-out suburban living is based on driving. If petrol prices stayed that high all the time, could people a fford to drive 40 miles each way to work, or 20 miles a day around town doing errands? Expensive petrol could result in people abandoning the suburbs and that’s just one e ffect. Whether it’s the use of oil to make asphalt or plastics, or the global interdependence of trade that requires goods to be shipped world-wide, our society is built on cheap oil. What this means for society is a sharp eduction in availability of cheap energy.
Oil production from individual wells, fields, and even countries has been seen to peak, and then decline. Hubbert predicted in 1956 that U.S. oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970—and it did. Between 1997 – 2006, oil
production in over twenty nations declined, and production at a number of oil fields have shown the sort of peak curves that Hubbert predicted. In the UK North Sea Oil production peaked in 1999 and has since fallen by nearly 50 percent. Since “world oil” is nothing more than the sum of every nation’s oil—which itself is the sum of all of a nation’s oil fields, which themselves are the sum of their individual wells—then if individual wells, fields, and nations can peak and decline, that is evidence that world oil, too, will peak and decline.
Soft Landing vs. Hard Crash
The REALLY BIG QUESTION is, “What does a peak and decline in oil production mean?” As with the debate over the whether and when of the peak, there’s no agreement on what will happen next. Depending on your assumptions about human nature, society, and technology, predictions run the gamut from:
- A Malthusian crisis in which society collapses. People go cold and hungry, until they start eating each other and burning books for warmth. Think Mad Max, but less cheerful.
- A long-lasting global recession, in which society goes on, but economic opportunity and security are limited. It’s a stable but somewhat bleak and dystopian future. Think Blade Runner.
- Nothing much—as the price of oil rises, it encourages a combination of conservation, discovery of new fields, technological advances that make unconventional oil practical, and development of new energy sources. We meet the challenge, rise to it, and master it. Think Star Trek—no warp drive or transporters yet, but a sort of forward-looking, can-do world.
The fourth option that has not been told is the realistic positive vision that’s embodied in the transition movement. It’s about using this opportunity to create the healthy, sustainable happy world that we all want and know is possible. Peak Oil and Climate Change are just two reasons why we should prepare for a low energy future.