Peak Oil

‘Peak oil’ a certainty, just as was ‘peak cod’

Peter Allen

the Chronicle Herald,

18July 2012

Paul Schneidereit’s July 10 column “Humans’ love affair with fossil fuels won’t end anytime soon” slammed soothsayers who supposedly predicted doom because we would run out of oil. One such soothsayer was King Hubbert, a geophysicist who worked for Shell Oil and the U.S. Geological Survey. In 1956, he predicted crude oil production in America would peak in 1970. His “peak oil” theory was debunked at the time. It remains disputed by Schneidereit in 2012, who states “peak oil” has failed to materialize and informs us the world is not running out of oil.

But crude oil production peaked in the U.S. in 1970 at 10 million barrels per day (BPD). Today, oil production in the U.S. is five million BPD. Granted, in the last four years, U.S. production has increased 10 per cent, due to the production of shale oil and an increase in Texan production, enabled by hydraulic fracturing of petroleum basins. This in an arid state that suffers from drought! Did someone ask the question there: “Do you want water or gasoline?”

Consider the other producers. Mexico peaked in 2003 at 3.5 million BPD (now, 2.5 million). Norway peaked in 2000 at 3.3 million BPD (1.7 million in 2011). The U.K. peaked in 1998 at 2.7 million BPD (one million in 2011). Venezuela peaked in 1997 at 3.3 million BPD (2.3 million in 2011). Indonesia peaked in 1980 at 1.7 million BPD (now less than one million). Production in the Emirates, Algeria, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Angola, Argentina, Egypt, Malaysia and Australia has also peaked in the last five years.

Besides the U.S., the largest producers are Russia, Saudia Arabia, Iran and Iraq. All have lower production compared to peak production in the 1970s and 1980s.

Canada has increasing production from the tarsands, while conventional oil production plummets. The tarsands production comes with very high natural gas and water consumption, required for the steam injection used to dislodge the bitumen in the tarsands.

Other countries with increasing oil production are China and Brazil (both with none to share) as well as Colombia, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Azerbaijan. Period! There are no other countries producing significant quantities of oil that have increasing rates of production.

All of the countries noted above produce 90 per cent of the world’s crude oil.

Since 2005, total production of crude oil has been steady at 74 million BPD, while the price of oil doubled from $40-$50 per barrel to $80-$100 per barrel. Holding steady for seven years, despite a doubling of oil prices over the same period, could be “peak oil.”

Not for Schneidereit. He mentions the 250 billion barrels of shale oil in Israel, as though this were a new discovery. The world reserves of shale oil are 5,000 billion barrels. Israel’s 250 billion barrels (four billion, according to the World Energy Council!) represents five per cent of shale oil deposits.

In 2008, shale oil represented only 1/100 of one per cent of total oil production. Even though we have been trying for 100 years, no one knows if we can extract even a small fraction of the oil found in shale.

Schneidereit predicts that the U.S. will surpass Russia as the largest oil producer. In 2011, Russia produced 10 million BPD, the U.S. just over five million BPD.

Perhaps Mr. Schneiderheit includes ethanol and methanol. Peak oil theory had nothing to say about fuels derived from biomass. And of course, when discussing ethanol and methanol, someone should pose the question: “Do you want food, or gasoline?”

The world is running out of affordable crude oil. In the absolute sense, we will never run out of oil. Just like the United Kingdom will never run out of coal. However, the U.K., after a 250-year love affair with King Coal, is now weaned from coal. Coal is an insignificant factor in the U.K.

Coal, crude oil, other minerals, plants and fish are all in limited supply. We should act as good stewards of these resources. We know what happens when we harvest a resource irresponsibly.

The North Atlantic cod fishery collapsed 20 years ago. At that time, pundits expounded that the cod resource was vast and we should increase the quotas for the fleets. The government did, even while the fleets were unable to catch their quota in the previous year.

Then the industry died. “Peak cod” had hit home.

Crude oil is running out. New crude oil is obtained at the expense of vast quantities of water and other valuable resources, or with an expenditure of energy that is almost equal to the yield of crude oil, or is only obtainable by bankrupting a society.

Crude oil, as a viable energy option for humans, is running out. We will have to make do with considerably less fossil fuel consumption, which is a concept we should promote, rather that spouting off about mythical infinitely large supplies of petroleum.

Schneidereit writes of how food production relies on fossil fuels. However, we do not need a vast supply of fossil fuels to produce, process and transport food. A small fraction of fossil fuel consumption is in the agricultural sector (two per cent in Nova Scotia).

It would be a travesty if the unrestrained consumption of fossil fuels nowadays leaves us exposed to jeopardized food supplies when we start scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel of crude oil.

Peter Allen is a professor of mechanical engineering at Dalhousie University.