"You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe."

 Escape    Enter

"You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I"ll show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."
 

  Store and Support

 

Peak Oil refers the maximum rate of the production of oil in any area under consideration, recognizing that it is a finite natural resource, subject to depletion."

"We now find one barrel of oil for every four we consume. The general situation seems so obvious. ...How can governments be oblivious of the realities of discovery and their implications...given the critical importance of oil to our entire economy Dr. Colin Campbell, ASPO president, in his testimony to the British house of Commons

 

 What is peak oil?

Peak oil theory states: that any finite resource, (including oil), will have a beginning, middle, and an end of production, ...and at some point it will reach a level of maximum output, a peak.

Oil production typically follows a bell shaped curve when charted on a graph, with the peak of production occurring when approximately half of the oil has been extracted. With some exceptions, this holds true for a single well, a whole field, an entire region, and presumably the world. The underlying reasons are many and beyond the scope of this primer, suffice to say that oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract as a field ages past the mid-point of its life.

In the US for example, oil production grew steadily until 1970 and declined thereafter, regardless of market price or improved technologies.

In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a geologist for Shell Oil, predicted the peaking of US Oil production would occur in the late 1960's.

Although derided by most in the industry he was correct. He was the first to assert that oil discovery, and therefore production, would follow a bell shaped curve over its life. After his success in forecasting the US peak, this analysis became known as the Hubbert's Peak.

* The amount of oil discovered in the US has dropped since the late 1930s.
* 40 years later, US oil production had peaked, and has fallen ever since.

World discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s, and has declined since then. If the 40 year cycle seen in the US holds true for world oil production, that puts global peak oil production, right about now; after which oil becomes less available, and more expensive.

Today we consume around 4 times as much oil as we discover.

If we apply Hubbert's Peak to world oil production we estimate that approximately half of all oil that will be recovered, has been recovered, and oil production may reach a peak in the near future, or perhaps already has.

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Life After the Oil Crash
"Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You"

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil." More

 

Introduction to Peak Oil

Basically, once oil peaks, production will decline 2% or 3% on a yearly basis. On the other hand, demand for oil is expected to rise with 2% or 3% per year. This will result in a 4% short-come just a year after the peak and will rise to a 15% - 20% gap in 5 years. More

 

Richard Heinberg Q and A

Richard Heinberg is one of America's foremost experts on peak oil, the anticipated peak and decline of the global oil supply. Heinberg teaches courses on energy and sustainability at the New College of California, and is the author of The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies and Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World.  More

 

Peak Oil Primer and Links

What is Peak Oil?

Peak Oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production. Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, one that has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half. The rate of oil 'production,' meaning extraction and refining (currently about 84 million barrels/day), has grown in most years over the last century, but once we go through the halfway point of all reserves, production becomes ever more likely to decline, hence 'peak'. Peak Oil means not 'running out of oil', but 'running out of cheap oil'. For societies leveraged on ever increasing amounts of cheap oil, the consequences may be dire. Without significant successful cultural reform, economic and social decline seems inevitable. More

 

The Hirsch Report

The executive summary of the report warns that "as peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

 

“Peak Oil Is Not A Theory” - Congressional Hearing Explains Peak Oil - by Michael Kane with Jamey Hecht

After the hearing I asked Congressman Bartlett when he though the unsustainable nature of the “American way of life” would be brought to public debate.  Bartlett said, “My hope is that we will be able to talk about that before it is a reality… but I anticipate that we won’t do anything about it until there’s a crisis, and it’s going to be a real rough ride.” More

 

Peak Oil in a Nutshell

The end of abundant, affordable oil is in sight, and the implications are colossal. About now in our hydrocarbon phase of human history, we have pulled out of the Earth approximately half of the available petroleum (crude oil and natural gas). The other half still in the ground is harder to extract and may not - as assumed - fuel the global economy or even provide a transition to another phase. More

 

The End of Oil is Closer Than You Think

The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner. But last week, a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers asked a retired English petroleum geologist living in Ireland to tell them about the beginning of the end of the oil age. More
 

The Oil We Eat

The journalist's rule says: follow the money. This rule, however, is not really axiomatic but derivative, in that money, as even our vice president will tell you, is really a way of tracking energy. We'll follow the energy. More

 

 

National Geographic, “The End of Cheap Oil”

Scientific American, “The End of Cheap Oil”

London Guardian, “Quest for Energy is Race Against Time”

Online Discussions:
Got questions? Want to talk with like-minded people? See these links:
www.peakoil.com - online news and forum
www.peakoilaction.org - meet people on and offline
groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty3 - a group for Peak Oil beginners
groups.yahoo.com/group/EnergyResources - original peak oil focused email list
groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2 - a more solutions, self-sufficiency focused list
groups.yahoo.com/group/EnergyRoundTable - a group emphasizing discussion and politics
There are numerous local mailing lists too, many on yahoo can be found at this link:
groups.yahoo.com/search?query=peak%20oil&ss=1

Oil Awareness Meet Ups is a grass roots awareness raising network helping people meet up and discuss peak oil. Join or start a meet-up in your neighborhood.
oilawareness.meetup.com

 

 

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