The oil company with the best strategic planning says the day of reckoning is nigh:
World demand for oil and gas will outstrip supply within seven years, according to Royal Dutch Shell.
The oil multinational is predicting that conventional supplies will not keep pace with soaring population growth and the rapid pace of economic development.
Jeroen van der Veer, Shell's chief executive, said in an e-mail to the company's staff this week that output of conventional oil and gas was close to peaking. He wrote: "Shell estimates that after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand."
I am a tad surprised that Shell doesn't understand just how much global warming will overwhelm all other concerns:
The boss of the world's second-largest oil company forecast that, regardless of government policy initiatives and investment in renewables, the world would need more nuclear power and unconventional fossil fuels, such as oil sands.
"Using more energy inevitably means emitting more CO2 at a time when climate change has become a critical global issue," he wrote.
We don't "need" the climate-destroying oil sands, though Canada will probably continue developing them. Ultimately, this country -- and the world -- will have to be smart enough to ban their use (as California essentially has done with its low-carbon fuel standard), or we will not be able to save our livable climate.
Still, if Shell says conventional oil will peak within seven years, the world should listen.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
The violent twilight of oil and a strategy to expose it
Comments
View as Flat
GonzoDon Posted 6:06 am
27 Jan 2008
Cramer doesn't buy the line that the big oil producers are intentionally holding back production. And neither do I.
Yet who dares to say this to America? -- in terms of our political leadership, I mean. I don't hear McCain, or Obama, or Hillary referencing Peak Oil. Nor even supposed progressives like Edwards or Kucinich.
Which means there's gonna be a lot of PISSED people out there when this shit really does hit the fan (in 3 years? in 15?).
Woe to whoever is in public office at the time. Even though the fault lies with a 50-year trajectory of foolish investment in a petroleum-intensive US economy, and boneheads like Cheney who keep us driving directly toward the cliff, it will be those in office at that time who will suffer the wrath of the public ...
... a public who will suddently find themselves with one too many gas-guzzlers in the driveway, ten too many miles between themselves and the places they shop and work, and woefully short of practical alternatives in their communities, such as light-rail stations, bike lanes, and quick, comfortable inter-city trains.
Progressives will blame it on the oil companies. Conservatives will blame it on the environmentalists who didn't let them drill in ANWR. It is all so predictable. It will take a long time for the painful realities to sink in, I'm afraid ...
Permalink
gmobus Posted 6:27 am
27 Jan 2008
I am a tad surprised that Shell doesn't understand just how much global warming will overwhelm all other concerns...
It seems to me that what will be overwhelming for civilization is the confluence of global warming and consequent climate change effects, peak energy, population overshoot, poverty, and all the various forms of ecological degradation. They all interact with one another and are all the result of human nature under the release of natural constraints imposed on the rest of the biological world.
These interacting forces will require a true systems approach to understanding and solving (if they are indeed solvable). I'm betting there are no simple solutions. I doubt we can simply say "reduce carbon output and all will be fixed." There are those who firmly believe that setting a tax on carbon will fix both the energy problem and the CO<sub>2</sub> emissions problem. Same for cap-and-trade. I suspect it won't be that simple at all.
We can't just say stop population growth, or stop overfishing, or stop deforestation, or... The world is a whole system with various non-linearities that complicate the dynamics tremendously. No single policy pronouncement will suffice.
This is not an argument for non-action. I fully support all efforts, no matter how local, to mitigate problems. It is a call for a parallel effort in systems analysis at a global level. Nobody can say for sure that even that sort of approach will work in time to truly mitigate the problems and bring the world to a sustainable state. We have no way of knowing how much time is available to pursue this route. What I do feel confident in saying is that unless we do pursue the systems approach in earnest, the problems won't be solved.
George
http://faculty.washington.edu/gmobus/
http://www.questioneverything.typepad.com/
George Mobus,
Associate Professor, Institute of Technology,
University of Washington Tacoma,
and Professional Student for Life
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 7:49 am
27 Jan 2008
The magical wonders of carbon capture and sequestration.
Which of course will be merely a pre-tense to allow for further exploration of dirtier and dirtier oil product.
And even if they were serious about it, sequestration would hardly even be able to bring the increased emissions of "alternative petroleum" in line with conventional petroleum.
Permalink
Tasermons Partner Posted 9:36 am
27 Jan 2008
Permalink
Colin Wright Posted 3:45 pm
27 Jan 2008
Not really. The world should listen to the independent geologists who have no financial obligations to maximize shareholder value. People like Hubbert, Deffeyes and Campbell whom the world ignores.
The only reason Shell is breaking rank with the CERA/USGS/Majors (and following Total) is because of the grassroots pressure that the peak oil community has been exerting. Even Bush is more or less admitting Peak Oil. One wonders where the environmental community has been on this issue and why they were so taken off guard by Bush's ethanol inititiatives.
I am a tad surprised that Shell doesn't understand just how much global warming will overwhelm all other concerns My feeling is global warming will soon be put on the back burner (or off the stove all together) when we start falling off the plateau.
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 4:00 pm
27 Jan 2008
I wonder why they didn't bother to tell us? I don't suppose that making outragous profits for a few more years had anything to do with it. Oil certainly didn't have anything to do with Iraq war either, right? It couldn't be the main reason we have 150,000 troops occupying a hostile desert.
While this is going to make some climate change decisions easier a parade of idiots will now pronounce the wonders of biofuels and coal-to-liquids alternatives ignoring the obvious fact that we'll need to park half of our vehicles either way.
The powers that be are working to hide the truth from you. Count on it.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
JohnMashey Posted 5:10 am
28 Jan 2008
We're going to burn all the oil and gas we can get at any price anyone can afford.
In order to avoid a total economic wreck, we're going to have to go all-out on avoidance & efficiency, while reworking our infrastructure (which takes time) to use much less oil and gas. The Hirsch Report thinks that we should be starting that 20 years before Peak Oil [oops, look it up in Wikipedia and then the report is online.]
So far, economics and climate are well-aligned: actions to reduce GHGs are about the same as those to keep economy OK.
To me, the ugly conflict will be the incredible pressure to use more coal, tar sands, shale oil, coal-to-liquid ... as conventional oil&gas decrease.
-John Mashey
Permalink
lengould Posted 5:10 am
28 Jan 2008
As far as peak oil goes, I can only note that it is to be fervently hoped that oil production actually DID peak two years ago, because it's obvious that that event (has / will) have a huge economic impact in importing countries and if $100 / bbl isn't it, if the price increases due to demand exceeding production are still in the future, then I'm afraid that the US is done for.
Permalink
MarkUK Posted 5:20 am
28 Jan 2008
Next thing you know he's happily invading Iraq.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 6:53 am
28 Jan 2008
Isn't that the same as putting global warming on the backburner, or off the stove entirely?
And as Shell put it:
nations rush to secure energy resources for themselves, fearing that energy security is a zero-sum game, with clear winners and losers. The use of local coal and homegrown biofuels increases fast. Taking the path of least resistance, policymakers pay little attention to curbing energy consumption--until supplies run short. Likewise, despite much rhetoric, greenhouse gas emissions are not seriously addressed until major shocks trigger political reactions.
Their "solution" instead of this, is of course Sequestration combined with Dirtier Oil.
Both look like bad options to me.
Permalink