The Peak Oil Theory Revisited
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Energy, Environment, Gas, History, Money, Oil, VideoIn March 2007, I wrote about the Peak Oil theory and posted a pretty alarming video. And now that we’re seeing record gas prices, the whispers of peak oil are surfacing once again.
So, here’s the video that outlines the theory…
Then, here’s a post from the Prometheus: The Science Policy Weblog about the topic and how we need to be mindful of who’s saying it’s coming and how’s saying it’s not…
Much like the climate change debate, on Peak Oil you have two sides with staunchly staked-out positions. Each side includes their own petroleum geologists, resource economists, energy investment bankers and multinational oil companies. Of course it is the latter we’ll listen to most closely, since they ostensibly are in the best position to know about a peak and perhaps to drive policy toward or away from it.So what are the majors saying and doing about Peak Oil? Chevron is clearly embracing the tactic of warning the public so that when the public eventually sees the light, Chevron can say, “Hey, we’ve been telling you about this for a while!”
But not so ExxonMobil. XOM is taking exactly the opposite tactic: “With abundant oil resources still available … peak production is nowhere in sight.”
This difference in opinion has interesting parallels to how these two companies have approached other environmental issues over the past few years. Chevron has been running ad campaigns touting their environmental stewardship while Exxon has been pouring money into muddying the climate change science waters. Further, many assume that XOM is well-aware of climate change risk, but has their own internal logic and reasons to muddy the debate. If so, it parallels their attitudes on Peak Oil, for while they are running NY Times op-ed ads saying “peak production is nowhere in sight,” they apparently don’t really believe that themselves.
Thankfully, although positions are staked out on Peak Oil, there does not seem to be a Left/Right, Republican/Democrat slant on the positions, which may make political action easier if/when this issue’s time has come. And that might be the best indication that this isn’t a clear “winners and losers” issue. If the Peakists are right, we’re all losers.
Indeed. But as mentioned, this is much like the argument about climate change, and we see how political affiliation can divide opinions on that.
However, what we do know is oil is not unlimited, and the sooner we start realizing that, the better…as well as who’s poo-pooing this theory and who’s saying it’s time for action.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 and is filed under Economy, Energy, Environment, Gas, History, Money, Oil, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Justin,
A fair assessment. There’s just so much to learn…
I hope you’ll stop by The Oil Drum. http://theoildrum.com
Cheers,
PG
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:13 am
Holy Cow copper, oil and wheat
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:18 am
Untwist your panties, Justin.
Earth still has a crapload of oil, it’s just that we’ve been using up the most easily extractable sources. Extracting the rest will be harder and more expensive, but there is still a crapload…more than enough for several centuries. In the meantime, as prices rise, other alternatives become even more economically viable. Sometimes pretty quickly, as we’re seeing now with ethanol and so on.
I hope you’re not thinking of becoming a member of the drain-circlers club. These folks have been around since before my time, and it’s always something. Whatever issues we have with energy aren’t going to be solved by hand-wringing. The world will adjust its behavior to come in line with whatever the costs of energy are by becoming more efficient, more frugal, more ingenious, and by re-prioritizing. That’s what humans do, usually motivated primarily by self-interest.
Think about a world where we travel less, use more efficient electronics, collect more solar energy, make fuel from grass, import less crap from far away and create more stuff close to home, communicate with friends and family routinely electronically instead of doing so in person. That’s all been happening right in front of us already, or is going to start happening soon as energy costs continue to rise.
It doesn’t sound like the end of the world, does it?