Peak Oil Production? Not Quite.
November 15th, 2006 | by Brian Carr |According to a recent article published on MSN.com, well respected energy think tank believes there’s plenty of time before the world reaches its oil production peak.
Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a Massachusetts based firm, believes it will be at least 24 years before the world’s oil production begins to fall and that there is enough oil left in the world to sustain current demand for at least another 120 years.
The company believes that technological advances will allow oil companies to local new productive oil fields, as well as maximize output from current fields.
This sounds like great news, especially as the world struggles to wean itself off of oil dependence while searching for reliable and renewable alternative fuel sources. However, things probably aren’t as rosy as the article makes things appear.
I think the key part of the argument is the world’s oil will be able to sustain current oil demand for the next 120 years. Unfortunately, with the industrialization and population growth in China and India, the demand for oil is only going to exponentially increase.
So, all things considered, we’re probably going to fall somewhere in between the people who claim we’re on our last drops of oil and the people who claim we’ve got a hundred or more years left.
Either way, the end isn’t going to be pretty.
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