Consider our technological lifestyles — driving to work in SUVs, flying abroad for a vacation and heating our homes to a comfortable 70 degrees. Now take all that away.
We are dependent on oil.
If it were taken away from us, there would be a crisis, to say the least.
Then we should research new technologies, invest in sustainable energies, campaign for conservation. By the time the wells start to go dry, we'll be ready.
"No," exclaimed Ken Deffeyes, University professor emeritus of geoscience. We won't be ready for the shortage that will begin in a few years.
A few years?
Deffeyes predicts that world oil production will peak as early as next year, and it will be down hill from there.
Deffeyes outlined his surprisingly simple method in his book "Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage," which was released in October. The book's title is a reference to geophysicist M. King Hubbert who in 1956 predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1972. The actual peak was only two years off, in 1970.
Hubbert's peak is a term used for the 100-year period during which all of the world's oil will be used. Deffeyes called it a "short bump of oil exploitation on the geologic time line" in his book.
Hubbert matched U.S. oil production to a bell-shaped curve — a cousin of the bell curve used in statistics textbooks. The curve is defined by three variables: the year of peak oil production, the amount of oil produced that year and the roundness of the curve. In updating Hubbert's method, Deffeyes used the Gaussian curve, which is precisely the curve used in statistics, with world data.
Deffeyes assumed the total world oil supply is 1.8 trillion barrels, which he took from other research. With that assumption, the Gaussian curve which best fit historical data from 1850 to 2000 peaks next year.
If the world oil supply is assumed to be 2.1 trillion instead, oil production peaks in 2009, Deffeyes wrote as a best-case scenario.
Deffeyes also used a second method: fitting parallel curves to production and reserves data, which does not require a guess of total world oil production. Deffeyes again found 2003 to be the peak year of world oil production.
Deffeyes justified his technique with two rationales.
The first: If the data fits, use it. Deffeyes presented several examples of small-scale coal and oil productions which resembled a bell curve when plotted over time.
But Deffeyes wrote in a caveat in the form of a joke. A mathematician, a statistician and a logician pass by a black sheep while traveling through Scotland. "Sheep in Scotland are black," the mathematician said. The statistician corrected him, "At least one sheep in Scotland is black." The logician chimed in, "At least one sheep in Scotland is black, on one side."
The second: The oilfields themselves match a bell curve. A small proportion of oilfields are relatively easy to develop: Those with oil seeps or tar pits near the surface. Other oilfields are much more difficult: The small and deep ones are difficult to detect. But the majority of oilfields are found with a moderate level of effort, using techniques called reflection seismic studies and subsurface mapping. Over time, what is left are only the few difficult oilfields.
"In the short run, there are only a limited number of things that we have ready to go," Deffeyes said grimly.
There is still time
Ronald Charpentier, a research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey's World Petroleum Assessment 2000 team, said there are too many factors that obscure oil production trends to make such a prediction.
Economic policy, technological improvements, conservation, shifting from oil to using natural gas and even the possibility of alien intervention all would drastically effect how long the world's oil supply will last, Charpentier said.
Charpentier also criticized Deffeyes' "short cut" application of a bell curve — in which the decline after the peak exactly mirrors the production before. Oil production hits the half way point and then "somehow magically" starts to go down: "That's really a very strong assumption."
Charpentier said, "Trying to project those [historical data] into the future with just statistics is extremely dangerous and probably not very meaningful at all."
The USGS's petroleum assessment team released its own figures in June 2000 which estimated the cumulative amount of oil produced to date as well as the amount of oil still in the ground. Rather than using statistics, the team used scientific observations, taking into account the amount of land already explored, continental drift, whether there are organic rich rock layers and traps to contain the oil, and geologic history.
Charpentier summarized the team's findings: "There's a lot of oil and natural gas out there. It's just not necessarily where you want it to be or at the price you want it to be."
The study reported 710 billion barrels of oil have been produced worldwide to date, 171 billion of which were produced in the United States.
Adding to that the estimated amount of oil remaining underground — in both discovered reserves and undiscovered locations — comes to a total of 3,021 billion barrels worldwide.
Not even a quarter of the world oil supply has been used yet, according to the study. Deffeyes' prediction asserts that when production peaks half of the supply will have been used.
Extending the current world oil demand into the future, Charpentier said the USGS's estimated amount of remaining oil would last for approximately 40 years.
Problem not averted
The immediate problem the world faces, Charpentier put forward, is not a world shortage, but "short-term problems of moving supply from one part of the world to another."
Most of Canada's oil and natural gas production is in Alberta. The amount of undiscovered natural gas there is now less than one tenth of the Canadian government's estimate of the total supply, Charpentier said. "This is a problem facing us now," he said.
He added that the pipelining companies are now concerned about whether they will be able to recover their investments in natural gas. These economic problems are not too far off.
Though Canada may be left with a shortage, Bangladesh will have a surplus, Charpentier said the USGS found. Bangladesh could export its natural gas into India, benefiting its economy.
And in the Middle East, the prospect of individual countries having even more power over the oil market is "nervous making," Deffeyes said. He said he is concerned not merely for the sake of the buyers, but over the temptation for groups to attempt to take over oil-rich countries.
Here in the United States, we are already acutely aware of our oil supply conundrum: The love-hate relationship with the oil-producing countries in the Middle East.
Last month the Senate dropped discussion on an amendment to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) — an initiative put forth by President Bush to lessen the United State's dependence on oil from the Middle East. The amendment had been in a filibuster in the Senate.
Though the amendment would not have affected more than a fraction of a percent of land in the refuge, opponents argued any development would cause irreparable harm.
Charpentier said the USGS provided research results to Washington policy makers. Luckily, the results showed that ANWR's scenic sites had the smallest potential for having oil.
But considering any development of oilfields in the United States is a moot point. "There's not so much out there, at least conventional resources, that the United States is likely to become energy independent," Charpentier said.
"The biggest percentage of [oil] has been found already," he said.
On this point Charpentier and Deffeyes agree. U.S. oil production has been on the decline since 1970.
Chemical engineering major Joel Moxley '02 said he doesn't believe the world will have a crisis so soon. "They'll always be able to pump stuff out of the ground, but the question is will they be able to do it cheaply enough to compete," he said.
Moxley will be working for ExxonMobil this summer modeling oil exploration in Venezuela. He will subsequently pursue a doctoral program in chemical engineering at MIT in energy technologies.
Usually natural gas or water must be pumped into the ground to force oil out, but when the oil is too viscous it won't move up the "straw," Moxley explained.
He will be researching the technique of pumping down an agent to make the oil less viscous.
These types of technological improvements will keep a crisis at bay, Moxley said.
Conservation, too, Moxley said plays a significant role. "Let's say that we increased our mileage standard by four miles per gallon. That would be the exact same as drilling in Alaska."
Deffeyes said the oil industry is slowly moving in the right direction. The British company BP is heading "beyond petroleum," and Shell is investing in solar and wind energy, he said.
"We just need to provide the direction," Moxley said, "and as long as we keep demanding these things, they're going to keep producing it."
A world in disbelief
Deffeyes isn't surprised that the "impending world oil shortage" isn't the number one issue today.
"Everybody's got a favorite excuse for why it's not going to happen," he said.
In his book, Deffeyes wrote that new technology to prolong the usefulness of oil is not likely to come. Significant research and investments have already been made. The ideas have been exhausted.
In addition, one cannot simply drill deeper, he wrote. Oil only exists between 7.5 and 15 thousand feet below the surface, and we have been drilling that deep for 60 years.
New sources of energy must be found — and soon.
So Deffeyes continues to raise attention to the issue.
"It's not on the agenda, and so the current struggle is to get it nudged up."
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