There are some things most people today know about oil.
* Global oil output is going to plummet
* Prices are going to rise forever
* The transition to alternative energy will be long and painful
* There will be more oil wars and industrial civilization may collapse
* Oil and gas will cause catastrophic climate change
The problem is that these ideas are wrong. Oil ran out first in 1885, and perhaps another five times since then. Every time, new finds, new technologies and changes in oil use confounded the pessimists.
Oil prices above $140 per barrel seem to encourage the growing belief that we are approaching peak oil and that supply cannot increase any more. But what has changed since 1998 when oil cost $10 a barrel? Just that a long period of under-investment in new energy supplies collided with rapid growth in Asia (and, easily forgotten, the USA). It takes years to turn the energy super-tanker around, to develop new oil fields, even though there is plenty in the ground.
There is a real debate over how much oil the world holds. But ideas of a vast conspiracy involving some mix of OPEC, the US government and Big Oil to exaggerate oil reserves are fantasy. Official figures are, if anything, somewhat under-stated, and, as recent massive finds in deep water offshore Brazil show, new exploration frontiers still exist. Out-dated environmental moratoria in the USA could be lifted to yield more domestic hydrocarbons. New technologies continue to wring more out of old fields. Most importantly, unconventional oil sources hold many times the volumes of conventional oil – from the famous Albertan oil sands, to fuels from natural gas, coal and plants, to cooking oil out of shales that hold trillions of barrels in the USA alone.
So there is no need to fight resource wars to secure oil. Invading oil-rich countries is vastly expensive and makes oil supplies less, not more, secure. The Middle East is a growing part of the world economy, not a nest of terrorists, desperate to cut off oil supplies in order to bankrupt themselves and invite vengeance. Propping up dictators in return for energy favours is not a valid long-term strategy either. The West, China, India and the oil exporters will gain far more from co-operating on energy, than following the mirage of energy independence.
Should we invest massively to move to a renewable energy system? Well, we already are — $100 billion in 2006 alone, and not only in the West, but in China, India, Brazil and other rising powers. Its hard to grow renewable energy any faster. Renewables are clearly a key part of powering the future, and of fighting global warming, but oil (and gas, and coal) are going to be the main sources of energy for decades to come. Capturing the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, and storing it underground, is entirely practical and should be a major part of climate change policy. renewable energy and hydrocarbons are not enemies — we need to use them both.
So the end of oil is not imminent — neither is the collapse of industrial civilization. Even if oil supplies started declining, we could fill the gap with improved efficiency and new energy sources. Its neither necessary nor desirable for us to go back to some Year Zero of pre-modern society. Oil will never run out; it will be replaced, probably decades hence, by something better. That is the best and most positive reply to fears about the end of oil.
2008 Robin M. Mills
Author Bio
Robin M. Mills is an oil industry professional with a background in both geology and economics. Currently, he is Senior Evaluation Manager for Dubai Energy. Previously, he worked for Shell. Mills is a member of the International Association for Energy Economics and Association of International Petroleum Negotiators. He holds a Master’s Degree in Geological Sciences from Cambridge University. His book, The Myth of the Oil Crisis: Overcoming the Challenges of Depletion, Geopolitics, and Global Warning, is available August 2008 from Praeger Publishers.