Great News: Peak Oil not until 2012 according to Netherlands study
Other studies I had seen by ASPO and ODAC were pinning 2007-2008 as the Peak Oil year. It turns out we have more time to prepare, which is excellent news!
This new study by Rembrandt H.E.M. Koppelaar from
Foundation Peak Oil Netherlands is the best study I've seen and is very good news! I was thinking for a long time Peak Oil would come in just 2-3 years, but I think we have more time now.
Koppelaar from the Netherlands considers Country by Country production through enhanced recovery techniques, planned new projects which take 5-10 years to begin from discovery, depletion rates of current fields and projected depletion rates, etc. in this amazing study.
HERE IS A LINK TO THE STUDY:
http://www.peakoil.nl/images/oil_production_outlook_2005-2040.pdf
Koppelaar is grounded in facts and not scare mongering. I just hope he is right. Even if Peak isn't until 2010, it's much better than 2007!
Peak Oil awareness is happening which is a wonderful thing as well.
Republican House member Roscoe Bartlett just spoke about Peak Oil again to congress on Wednesday. Here is a link to the transcript posted at peakoil.com:
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic12521.html
More and more people are learning about the problem every day. More and more companies are doing something to make it hopefully not a big deal!
--Shell has discovered a new way to produce the oil shale from the Rockies with a more economical process that doesn't require the millions of barrels of water a day as the old methods required. Unfortunately they are 10-15 years away from making a million barrels a day, so there will still be a hard transition period.
--Many companies are looking to gassify coal for automobiles. Unfortunately this is still a long time away before it too will produce a milllion barrels a day(10 atleast) but it is good that one day it will be producing oil.
--New ways of making fuel from plants is being developed that is better than ethanol from corn.
--New vehicles are being developed that will have much better gas mileage
--There are new electric vehicles being developed that will be wonderful
--New nuclear plants are being discussed in the U.S. and should begin breaking ground soon.
--Etc. etc. etc.
Even with peak oil not coming in 2012, we'll still see hard times economically. The price of oil until 2012 will still be going up. Koppelaar's study says demand growth will be forced to not go above 2% until peak. Currently we've been growing at 3%. How do you limit people using oil? By rising the price. Also he says any supply disruptions will cause wild price swings since excess capacity has reached almost ZERO now.
I'm a lot more hopeful now that I've read this study. I hope alternatives to oil, new technologies and new more fuel efficient cars hit the market quick. I hope nuclear power plants are built. I hope ANWR is opened up very soon. I hope the U.S. finally develops real alternatives to oil.
I also hope alternatives are brought to market quick enough before too many wars are fought for this valuable resource.
My biggest fear is future wars being fought are already planned and will be the number one solution to peak oil before looking for others. Let's hope not.
See ya and I hope you learn something from reading the very well written country by country study,
Jet