Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Peak oil supply: a matter of when, not if
For all these reasons, it is important for all who use or trade oil to know or
try to guess how much of the black stuff is left. Obviously, oil will decline
and run out one day: just like gas and coal, it was formed in the distant
geological past and its supply is finite. The issue is when. (It is worth
noting here that oil companies often take issue with statements about
oil running out: they prefer to frame the issue in terms of the point at
which it becomes “uneconomic” to access “difficult oil”.) The level of oil
output could be maintained, perhaps even for a long time, by turning to
unconventional oil - the particularly sticky or viscous oil found in the oil
sands of Canada, shale rock in the US Rockies and in the Orinoco belt of
Venezuela. The cost of extracting this unconventional oil is high - and it's
not just a financial one. The difficulty of access means more despoliation
of the landscape, and the carbon footprint of the extra processing required
is a significant environmental minus, to say the least. And the day the
world becomes dependent on unconventional oil to meet any increase in
demand will be the start of a sustained price rise.
The International Energy Agency tells us that, in the 150 years since the
modern oil industry began in 1859 in Pennsylvania, the world has prob-
ably used around 1.1 trillion (thousand billion) barrels of conventional
oil. This would tell us how much is left, if we knew what the world's total
endowment of oil was in the first place. But of course we don't. And it is
important to realize that the volume of remaining, reasonably recoverable
reserves of oil may be essentially unknowable. It will depend on levels of
investment and prices, technological developments and, as ever, climate
change. Increases in the frequency and ferocity of hurricanes, for instance,
would make it harder to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.
On the other hand, global warming will open the Arctic ocean to more
exploration for oil and gas. That the response to an unprecedented climat-
ic change wrought by man-made global warming is to exploit it - in a way
that will precipitate further climatic change wrought by man-made global
warming - is not exactly a cause for celebration among environmental-
ists. There is already some onshore production along the coastal rim of
the Arctic ocean in Alaska and Siberia, and we are beginning to witness
offshore exploration off Greenland: it has put eight areas along its west
coast out to tender, which were won by major international companies
alongside Greenland's own national oil company.
