A boom in oil production has made a mockery of our predictions. Good news for capitalists – but a disaster for humanity
The facts have changed, now we must change too. For the past 10 years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner. We had some strong reasons for doing so: production had slowed, the price had risen sharply, depletion was widespread and appeared to be escalating. The first of the great resource crunches seemed about to strike.
Among environmentalists it was never clear, even to ourselves, whether or not we wanted it to happen. It had the potential both to shock the world into economic transformation, averting future catastrophes, and to generate catastrophes of its own, including a shift into even more damaging technologies, such as biofuels and petrol made from coal. Even so, peak oil was a powerful lever. Governments, businesses and voters who seemed impervious to the moral case for cutting the use of fossil fuels might, we hoped, respond to the economic case.
Some of us made vague predictions, others were more specific. In all cases we were wrong. In 1975 MK Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell who had correctly predicted the decline in US oil production, suggested that global supplies could peak in 1995. In 1997 the petroleum geologist Colin Campbell estimated that it would happen before 2010. In 2003 the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes said he was “99% confident” that peak oil would occur in 2004. In 2004, the Texas tycoon T Boone Pickens predicted that “never again will we pump more than 82m barrels” per day of liquid fuels. (Average daily supply in May 2012 was 91m.) In 2005 the investment banker Matthew Simmons maintained that “Saudi Arabia … cannot materially grow its oil production”. (Since then its output has risen from 9m barrels a day to 10m, and it has another 1.5m in spare capacity.)
Peak oil hasn’t happened, and it’s unlikely to happen for a very long time.
None of this should stop people from wasteful petrochemical consumption.
This beautiful resource should be consumed with wisdom.
Please define “wasteful”.
ralphcramdo provided an operational example below: “[buying] a 10 cylinder, 600 HP Dodge Viper as my everyday driver just to piss off a few greenies.”
Many people have trouble distinguishing ‘prognostication’ from ‘wishful thinking.’
My person favorite wishful thought for the future is that someday soon we will master the art of extracting useful resources from our own landfills, where tons of common and rare metals, recyclable plastics, and combustible organic materials can be found. Realistically, I realize that this would require a massive capital outlay and infrastructure development, and is unlikely to become manifest within this century.
The dirt worshippers were rubbing their hands in glee that ‘finally’ humanity would be reined in because cheap abundant energy was going away. So now they are turning their attacks on fracking and other proven technologies that WILL provide cheap abundant energy.
In the mean time the IQ of the general population has been slowly but surely degrading to the point they accept any and every pontification on “we’re all going to die” as they chase from fad to fad in a vain attempt to see themselves as relevant and “with it”. Bark, bark, baa, baa, see the sheeple herded hither and yon.
As long as I have been alive the end of oil has always been 30 years off. For the first time they are admitted that it’s further off than that. But more importantly, it has been obvious to me for the last 20 years that the greenies have been wrong about peak oil, not to mention natural gas. So if they could cling to something so obviously wrong (to the rest of us), how could anybody believe anything else they say? Why do they have any credibility with the general public?
Because people have this inner sense of doom, reason why they believe in gods and other end of the worlders.
I can’t think of a better reason to buy a 10 cylinder, 600 HP Dodge Viper as my everyday driver just to piss off a few greenies.
The future isn’t what it used to be.
Hey George Monbiot,
Glad to see you admit you were taken by the peak oil delusion.
When will you admit you were also a sucker for climate disruption/crisis/etc delusion.
Thanks
JK
We’ve had peak oil predictions much longer than Moonbat thinks. They are right about the supply being finite, they just have difficulty coming up with a number for finite.