(GRAPH ONE)World oil discoveries by decade, in billions of barrels
(Please click on image to enlarge.)
Global discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s. Since production curves must eventually mirror discovery curves, global oil production will doubtless peak at some point in the foreseeable future. When, exactly? According to many informed estimates, the peak should occur around 2010, give or take a few years.
When the global peak in oil production is reached, there will still be plenty of petroleum in the ground — as much as has been extracted up to the present, or roughly one trillion barrels. But every year from then on it will be difficult or impossible to pump as much as the year before.
When the global peak in oil production is reached, there will still be plenty of petroleum in the ground — as much as has been extracted up to the present, or roughly one trillion barrels. But every year from then on it will be difficult or impossible to pump as much as the year before.
Clearly, we will need to find substitutes for oil. But an analysis of the current energy alternatives is not reassuring. Solar and wind are renewable, but we now get less than one percent of our national energy budget from them; rapid growth will be necessary if they are to replace even a significant fraction of the energy shortfall from post-peak oil. Nuclear power is dogged by the unsolved problem of radioactive waste disposal. Hydrogen is not an energy source at all, but an energy carrier: it takes more energy to produce a given quantity of hydrogen than the hydrogen itself will yield.