November 21, 2007

More Evidence We've Entered the End of Oil

There is growing concern within the petroleum industry that we are approaching a limit to the amount of oil that can be pumped each day, and it might arrive before alternative fuels can be adopted on a large enough scale to avert severe energy shortages, the Wall Street Journal reports.

...

No one, least of all the oil industry executives quoted by the Journal or the analysts who wrote the World Energy Outlook, is saying the wells will run dry in our lifetime, or even our children's lifetimes. There's still a lot of oil left to be pumped. But there is a growing belief that several factors are converging to create a practical limit to how much we can pull from the earth each day.

In other words, after seeing worldwide production rise an average of 2.3 percent annually since 1965, we may be approaching a plateau beyond which production will not climb. According to the Journal, that ceiling could be 100 million barrels a day, and said we could hit it as early as 2012.

That isn't nearly enough, and it is entirely too soon.


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