Shyam Visweswaran wrote: [ on 02:48 AM 2/16/2007 ]
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7203633
>
> Not a very good article, but not entirely
> incorrect,
> either.
>
Agree. Howard Kunstler is a rabble rouser and a
doomsayer.
There's a new report [1] out that essentially
says the same things that Kunstler has been
saying [2]. From the Guardian article [3] that talks about this report:
World oil production has already peaked and will
fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a
report which also warns that extreme shortages
of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.
The German-based Energy Watch Group will release
its study in London today saying that global oil
production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than
most experts had expected. The report, which
predicts that production will now fall by 7% a
year, comes after oil prices set new records
almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.
"The world soon will not be able to produce all
the oil it needs as demand is rising while
supply is falling. This is a huge problem for
the world economy," said Hans-Josef Fell, EWG's
founder and the German MP behind the country's
successful support system for renewable energy.
The report's author, Joerg Schindler, said its
most alarming finding was the steep decline in
oil production after its peak, which he says is now behind us.
The results are in contrast to projections from
the International Energy Agency, which says
there is little reason to worry about oil supplies at the moment.
However, the EWG study relies more on actual oil
production data which, it says, are more
reliable than estimates of reserves still in the
ground. The group says official industry
estimates put global reserves at about 1.255
gigabarrels - equivalent to 42 years' supply at
current consumption rates. But it thinks the
figure is only about two thirds of that.
Global oil production is currently about 81m
barrels a day - EWG expects that to fall to 39m
by 2030. It also predicts significant falls in
gas, coal and uranium production as those energy sources are used up.
Britain's oil production peaked in 1999 and has
already dropped by half to about 1.6 million barrels a day.
The report presents a bleak view of the future
unless a radically different approach is
adopted. It quotes the British energy economist
David Fleming as saying: "Anticipated supply
shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes
of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month.
For government, industry and the wider public,
just muddling through is not an option any more
as this situation could spin out of control and
turn into a complete meltdown of society."
Mr Schindler comes to a similar conclusion. "The
world is at the beginning of a structural change
of its economic system. This change will be
triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and
will influence almost all aspects of our daily life."
[1]
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Oilreport_10-2007.pdf
[2] http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/
[3] http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2196436,00.html
--
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
