WHAT IS PEAK OIL? In the 1950s, a petroleum geologist, M. King Hubbert, correctly predicted that U.S. oil production would peak around 1970. He illustrated it with a bell curve that shows increasingly easy to extract, cheap oil on the upside and increasingly difficult to find and extract, expensive oil after the peak, called Hubbert’s Peak. At the top of the peak it takes as much energy to obtain oil than you can derive from it. Many experts believe the world is at that point now, and others believe we are almost there. The problem is demand exceeding production, not just the amount of oil left, some of which is inextricable, or more expensive to obtain and process. Average world production is no longer on the increase. BP Statistical Review for 2003 admits the world will run out of oil in 40.6 years. The severe supply problems will come long before then though. The oil industry admits things will get severe around 2005-2012. Some geologists say we are already there. When demand becomes 10% higher than supply it will be enough to cause widespread poverty as market forces take over and put pressure on the price of crude. The approaching energy crisis won’t be like the one in the early 70s. Then, we were still on the upward curve of the world’s oil. This time it will be for the foreseeable future. High oil prices will ruin the standard of living and the economy; depletion of oil will result in hardship, as fuel costs begin to harm our basic industries. 99% of the world’s oil comes from 44 countries, at least 24 of which have peaked in production. The U.S. consumes 25% of the world’s oil, but has only around 2% of the world’s oil reserves. There are around 1,000 gigabarrels of reserves in the world. Consumption is at around 83.5 million barrels a day presently, so if consumption remains the same, we will run out of oil in 40 years. But demand is going up quickly, especially in the U.S., China and India. Peak oil in the U.S. occurred in 1970. Oil production and new discoveries have declined every year since then, with companies finding smaller and less productive fields. The U.S. was producing 10 million barrels per day in 1970 and production declined each year to 5 million per day today. Iran has peaked and Saudi Arabia may have if they have damaged their fields by overproducing them. Saudi Arabia’s production has been in decline since the end of 2004; therefore, they cannot realistically increase production. Saudi Arabia has been using methods to maintain production which tend to quicken decline and damage reservoirs (such as water injection). Overproducing can make 80% of a field’s oil unextractable. Syria and Yemen have done the same thing. Iraq has been producing less than a third of the oil they were expected to be able to, that is, when pipelines and stations are not shut down by sabotage attacks. In 1973, OPEC cut production in response to U.S. support of Israel. In 1979, Iran cut production to cause problems for the U.S. during the hostage crisis. Iran is able to blockade the Strait of Hormuz at will, disrupting exports. During the 1970 oil shortage, a decrease in production of only 5% quadrupled gas prices. Rationing and long lines were a fact of life. OIL IS USED FOR… Making pesticides, fertilizers, farming equipment and to transport food. So food prices are going to rise and food may not even be available. Modern medicine Water distribution National defense Making plastic Making solar panels and windmills Discovering, extracting and transporting uranium for nuclear energy, and building and maintaining the plants. So the problem is more than just having to pay a lot for gas to get to work. The price of fuel will affect the price of everything else, including food. Some businesses may have to lay off personnel, further hurting an already shaky economy. NO REAL SOLUTIONS Using our reserves is a very short-term solution because they are designed for emergencies and military use. Once they run out, you are still left with the basic problem of crude supply. The law of supply and demand is not going to help much because demand is going to remain high and supply is limited. Even if demand drops, other nations like China will likely take up the slack. People carpooling and driving smaller cars isn’t much of a solution because it is the sheer volume of traffic, not just the type of vehicles in use. As of 2002, 229.6 million vehicles of all types were registered in the USA. (source: USDOT, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs02/mv1.htm) We are not discovering much more oil in spite of detonations and seismic and 3D computers. While there have been a few profitable discoveries, most of the oil discoveries in the past few years have been in locations where the cost of production is very high, such as remote areas or deep in the sea. It also takes years to get a new reserve to market, so even starting today we won't see results for a long time. Prudhoe Bay Alaska is 3/4 pumped already. ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) has much less than Prudhoe Bay. It would also take years to fully exploit. Even if all the presently off-limits land were opened for drilling, it wouldn’t be enough oil to replace the decline from the old fields. The oil in the Gulf of Mexico hasn’t been enough to replace what we’re using. Politicians and economists claim there are alternatives; physicists and geologists know that workable alternatives don’t exist. This is because not only does it take a mass effort, but you need oil to implement some of them in the first place. The shortages and high prices will make it less possible to convert to other forms of energy, and it is too late to begin in time to have a FEASIBLE alternative source before prices are too high. None of the alternative sources of energy are economically feasible, because some are too expensive to begin with (hydrogen fuel cells, thermal depolymerization), others do not provide enough usable energy to offset costs (energy deficit). Still others require an infrastructure, which needs oil to even be built. Tar sands and oil shale require the energy of six barrels of oil to get 1 barrel out. Hydrogen is almost $1,000,000 for a single fuel cell that lasts only 200 hours and requires platinum to make, which there is a shortage of. Current fuel cells also require natural gas to make, and it is being depleted as well. A nuclear reactor takes 10 years to build, and oil to build and maintain. No new reactors have been commissioned since the 1970s. Space-based solar arrays won’t be available for use for decades, if then. They would require the Shuttle (which takes energy, and is having problems), as well as many billions of dollars to design, build, test, and deploy. WHY ISN’T THIS IN THE NEWS? Politicians pretend oil is not an issue because… 1. They believe their approval rating would suffer if they did what needed to be done. 2. They are involved with oil interests. Oil executives don’t want their stock prices to drop. 3. Bush wants Americans to just "go shopping," like he told us to do after 9-11, to keep the economy going. The government has known about it since 1977. Bush and Cheney are both aware of it. Cheney said in 1999 that there will be at least a 3% decline in production from existing reserves, with a 2% increase in demand each year in the future. In May 2001 GWB said "What people need to hear loud and clear is that we’re running out of energy in America." A report commissioned by Dick Cheney said the crisis requires a "reassessment of the role of energy in American foreign policy." In other words, our foreign policy decisions will be directly affected by our need for energy in the future. (Translation: we will go to war for oil if need be.) The government is trying to do something about it by going after more oil in other countries, and drilling in ANWR, but the answer isn’t as simple as putting a few lines of code into a computer like for Y2K, and if (when) the answers fail it will be much more disastrous than Y2K could have been. There is no comparison. James Woolsey, CIA Director from 1993-95, said a major component of the war on terror is oil. The U.S. Department of Energy requested an assessment of peak oil. The report officially acknowledges that peak oil is for real (source: APSO March 2005 newsletter). One of GW’s energy advisors, an energy investment banker, said the only solution to the impending energy crisis is to pray, which might stall it for 2 years, but after that it’s a certainty. In March 2005, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela said "The era of cheap oil is over." Congressman Roscoe Bartlett gave congress a presentation in March 2005. Some of it ended up on C-SPAN. The Deutch Bank, Morgan Stanley, Forbes and Warren Buffet have all stated that we’re on the brink of economic chaos because of the inevitable oil problem. It has been discussed on NPR, National Geographic and Newsweek. Business Week, Fortune, Financial Times and The Economist admit there’s a severe supply and demand problem developing. BP is the 2nd largest producer of solar panels. Saudi Arabia has been the world’s largest purchaser of solar panels. Isn't it interesting that the world's largest oil provider is investing in solar energy? George W. Bush has claimed that getting the oil is just a matter of "jawboning" OPEC. Okay, they’ve done that, OPEC decided to produce over the set limit to keep prices down. Obviously it’s not working that well, and it will make the problem worse in the long run. More people aren’t concerned because they tend to predict the future by considering what the past was like. IS IT POSSIBLE THE ENERGY CRISIS IS ALLUDED TO IN SCRIPTURE? Sheba, Dedan (Saudi Arabia), the merchants of Tarshish (UK) and her young lions are in Israel right before the Gog war. All these merchants are there to buy something. Then practically the whole world attacks Israel. The area of the Dead Sea (Valley of Siddim) used to have slimepits, a word which can be used for asphalt wells, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah formed the Dead Sea. Genesis14:10. And the vale of Siddim [was full of] slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. Traces of oil have been found already in that location. Isaiah 45:3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel. He was talking to Cyrus. Strongs 03566 Cyrus = "possess thou the furnace" The Hebrew can be translated as "I will shoot up to you deposits stored in valuable dungeon-type containers…" When Babylon is destroyed, the king will be notified by relay runners. Odd that they don’t just use a phone or drive. Could be because of an oil shortage. Jeremiah 51:31 One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end. The darkness and silence in this verse could be due to an energy shortage. Isaiah 47:5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. There’s a lot about soldiers riding horses in the last days – could be literal horses due to an energy shortage. Jeremiah 50:42 They shall hold the bow and the lance: they [are] cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, [every one] put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. Haggai 2:22 And I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother. This next one talks about boats made of bulrushes being used in the last days. Isaiah 18:2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, [saying], Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! Sources: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html http://www.energybulletin.net/ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ http://www.peakoil.org/ http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/ http://www.oilcrash.com/ http://www.oldamericancentury.org/rowan_004.htm http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/11/10_401.html