PhysOrg.com
November 23, 2005
Oil Expert To Address Theory
That Peak Oil Has Arrived |
Princeton University emeritus professor and renowned oil
analyst Ken Deffeyes thinks that the all-time production peak for
petroleum, or "peak oil," will occur on or around this Thanksgiving.
|
The peak oil theory predicts that the world's oil production
output, like any nonrenewable resource, will eventually reach an all-time
high and afterward gradually decline. Although it will be impossible to
tell precisely when the peak occurs until it has already occurred and the
world is in a definite production decrease, many experts are already
predicting that the moment will happen in a few short
years.
Deffeyes is one of the more pessimistic of the
prognosticators. If he is correct, the global oil peak will just have
occurred when he presents his Caltech lecture on December 1. Afterward,
the commodity will become more and more scarce--and therefore more and
more expensive and hard to obtain. The end result will be massive economic
and social disruptions in a 21st-century world that has fueled itself for
decades with cheap and plentiful energy.
Deffeyes has spent a
lifetime in the oil business and the academic study of petroleum. Born in
the middle of an Oklahoma City oilfield to a pioneering petroleum
engineer, Deffeyes joined the Shell research lab in Houston after graduate
school. At Shell he was a colleague of M. King Hubbert, who was the first
person to predict that production peaks were even possible.
Hubbert's prediction that U.S. oil production would peak around
1970 was at first laughed at by industry analysts, but was later taken
quite seriously when domestic production indeed peaked in much the manner
that he had forecasted. Experts then realized that the entire planet would
eventually reach a production peak, and that the effects would be highly
disruptive.
Deffeyes joined the Princeton faculty in 1967 and
continued to be involved in the oil industry as a consultant and expert
witness. After his retirement in 1998, he published two books on the
subject, Hubbert's Peak and Beyond Oil.
His prediction that the
global oil peak will occur at Thanksgiving comes with stern warnings that
severe consequences are to be expected for transportation and agriculture.
In fact, he advises that the possibility of a "soft landing" may have
already passed.
Ken Deffeyes will discuss the evidence supporting
his theory at the Lauritsen Memorial Lecture, to take place at 8 p.m. on
Thursday, December 1, in Beckman Auditorium on the California Institute of
Technology campus.
The Lauritsen Memorial Lecture at Caltech
commemorates two former professors of physics at Caltech, Charles C. and
Thomas Lauritsen. Together, they served the Institute for more than 68
years, playing a significant role in Caltech's development and
accomplishments.
Source: Caltech |
This news is brought to you by
PhysOrg.com |
Search the archives for political-research at http://www.terazen.com/
Subscribe to the RSS feed for political-research at http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/political-research/rss
SPONSORED LINKS
YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS
|