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