Here's what USGS, in fact, said in October 2007. It called the above claim "a reporter's mistake" but doesn't rule out that it's true. It explained that the 25% figure came from an assessment of seven oil and gas basins that weren't precisely in the Arctic. One of them in East Siberia lies entirely south of it. Exclude it and what's left is 14%. However, because a 2000 USGS assessment didn't include undiscovered resources from all north of the Arctic basins (numbering many more than seven), the area's potential is vast but undetermined.
USGS explained that it didn't fully assess the area in 2000 because it lacked enough data at the time. However, it's now investigating all Arctic regions, using available geologic information and "a methodology adapted to a general shortage of well and seismic data." USGS concludes that the region's potential is vast, it's largely unexplored, its resources are "poorly understood," and it can only produce a "broad view" of the region's potential "because the (area's) geologic uncertainties are very high and the technical uncertainties (of) oil and gas extraction (feasibility) even higher."
Two Notable Peak Oil Proponents
There's no shortage of peak oil proponents, many are prominent figures, two among them stand out, and one is a media regular on his views, right or wrong. He's Matthew Simmons, chairman and CEO of Simmons & Company, an industry-insider, close associate of Dick Cheney and advisor and possible secret member of Cheney's Energy Task Force representing Big Oil interests. He's also a major Republican donor and author of the 2005 book "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy."
In it, Simmons is alarmist about the world's largest producing country, and he's widely heard and believed. Right or wrong, he states that Saudi oil fields are "at or very near (their) peak sustainable volume (and they'll) likely....go into decline in the very foreseeable future." In addition, there's little chance of discovering new fields to make up the difference. These views make headlines and move markets. So with oil prices around $100 a barrel and Simmons an industry insider and prominent doomsayer, consider the possibility there's something rotten in the oil patch allowing Big Oil to profit hugely.
Further confirmation comes from a February 28 Arabian Business article. In it, Simmons calls $100 oil "cheap" because "the supply is showing some very troubling signs that we might well have already peaked and started (to slow) down....Demand on the other hand shows absolutely no sign of slowing down," so oil prices could top $300 a barrel within five years." Simmons repeats this view on US television.
Geologist Colin Campbell is another peak oil proponent and author of many papers on the subject. He's just as bleak in his outlook and states it in "The Coming Oil Crisis and Oil Depletion - The Heart of the Matter," that he wrote for The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO). He's their founder, former president and currently their honorary chairman.
Campbell believes world output peaked, and in another of his papers, "Peak Oil: an Outlook on Crude Oil Depletion," stated: Peak Oil "is a turning point for Mankind, which will affect everyone....its discovery peaked in the 1960s....gas....will likely peak around 2020....non-conventional oil delays peak only a few years....we're not facing a re-run of the (1970s) Oil Shocks. They were like....tremors....we now face (an) earthquake....It is not a temporary interruption but the onset of a permanent new condition."
Campbell also wrote "Understanding Peak Oil" on APSO's web site in which he further says that debating the precise date of peak oil "misses the point." What really matters is "the long remorseless decline (that's) on the other side of it. The transition to decline threatens to be a time of great international tension. Petroleum Man will be virtually extinct this Century, and Homo sapiens faces a major challenge in adapting to his loss. Peak Oil is by all means an important subject." These type comments and more from Campbell's 2005 book "Oil Crisis" can scare anyone. They also explain today's geopolitics, the strategic importance of oil, the reason its price is so high, and why the US is waging global wars "that won't end in our lifetime."
A Peak Oil Contrarian
F. William Engdahl once accepted peak oil analysis, but no longer does. He explains why in his writing, and this section summarizes his reasoning. It's based on the Russian-Ukrainian theory that oil originated from deep carbon deposits dating as far back as the earth's formation. It's not a fossil fuel or of biological origin, and its potential may be far greater than current hydrocarbon estimates.
According to Engdahl and others sharing this view, peak oil adherents believe oil is a fossil fuel, its origin is biological, its supply finite, and it's only found in areas where it was "geologically trapped millions of years ago....in underground reservoirs (around) 4-6000 feet below the surface of the earth." At times, large amounts may also be in shallow water offshore rock formations in places like the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea or Gulf of Guinea. In any event, prevailing reasoning is that it's running out, and it's a just a matter of deciding how much is left and when it no longer will be available in amounts needed to sustain world economies. Peak oil proponents believe the time is fast approaching.
Petroleum science dates from the year 1757 when Russian scholar Mikhailo Lomonosov hypothesized that oil's origin might be biological. In the early 19th century, two scientists disagreed - German naturalist and geologist Alexander von Humboldt and French chemist and thermodynamicist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac. Together they proposed that oil is primordial matter, it erupted from deep within the earth, and it has no connection to biological material nearer the surface. Later in the century, others held similar views - most notably the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (the father of the Periodic Table of chemical elements) and French chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Mendeleev, in particular, believed that "petroleum was born in the depths of the earth (called "deep faults"), and it is only there that we must seek its origin."
Modern petroleum science dates from the end of WW II when the Cold War began and the former Soviet Union faced isolation from the West. At the time, its scientists believed the country was in trouble. It had limited reserves and was shut out of many parts of the world for supply. It thus became imperative to find new deposits inside the country.
So its scientists at the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Ukraine Academy of Sciences set out to do it. They studied oil's origin, how reserves are generated, and the most effective exploration methods to extract it.
In 1951, Nikolai Kudryavtsev proposed the first modern deep abiotic oil origins theory at the All-Union petroleum geology congress. He discounted claims about oil's biological origin and was joined by other Russian and Ukrainian geologists, including Vladimir Porfir'yev.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
There is ample information around the internet in agreement with Mr. Lendman's points. Abiotic deposits are a reality, deep drilling is happening in and by Russia, so we are living under a huge hoax by American based oil companies which is there only to stimulate high prices and profits.
Of course, we are destroying the eco-system of this planet with oil and gas. I wish we were running out of them, then we would see some real development of zero or negative carbon alternatives. And the huge "alternative" deposits of tar sands have a tremendous environmental cost what with the energy required to get them. Also, using corn for ethanol is analogous, what with the energy based fertilizers needed to grow it.
If I still had a sense of humor, I would think it amusing how grain commodity markets are being manipulated for speculators' benefits in the name of grain based energy. Much of the wheat acreage is not usable for corn. Remember the sugar crisis some 20 years ago? Why did seltzer water go up as well as Coke?
And so the same thing goes on with oil. Up goes the price, and we the people are the resource that gets sucked dry. One additional point that Mr. Lendman didn't mention. If I am not mistaken, oil reserve figures have some basis in financially viable extraction. Doesn't $100 oil result in higher reserve figures? I would appreciate some elucidation on that.
Capitalism is failing us.
Workers of the world......disperse !!
Stephen Maxam
by
Maxamov (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Thursday, March 6, 2008 at 12:43:32 PM
Stephen, this was a great article. As a futurist, I've followed the hypothesis of peak oil for about five years now. The Peakist extremists have given Peak Oil a cultist overtone by shouting that it's the end of the world as we know it. This extreme approach causes many people to reject the entire premise outright. There are some great discussions on Peak Oil at www.theoildrum.com and www.energybulletin.net by people with experience in petroleum geology and related fields that are quite enlightening. I would encourage readers to visit these sites for more information. Here are some additional bits of data that your readers might want to consider.
In spite of the fact that a small but vocal group of Russians believe in abiotic oil, abiotic oil remains an unproven theory. Although the Russians found oil in unlikely rock formations, it's not proof of abiotic oil There are biotic oil theories to explain why oil could migrate to those locations. Frankly, they are more plausible than oil forming miles underground and then migrating through many miles of non-porous rock. You can find an extensive discussion of abiotic oil at the Energy Bulletin website.
Also, among Peakists, David Yergin at CERA is considered to be a shill for the oil industry. For example, he misstates the premise of Peak Oil, as quoted in your article, as "running out of oil." Peakist claim that this is a deliberate misdirection of the reader. There will always be some oil underground. Peak Oil does not mean that the world is running out of oil. Peak Oil theory says that we will eventually reach a point where we cannot pump the oil out of the ground as fast as we are consuming it. Peak Oil is production/consumption problem, not a problem of running out of the resource itself.
Another point to consider is the overly optimistic forecasts that accompany each new oil discovery. For example, the Alberta oil sands reserves are huge, but the estimate for 2020 is for production of only 4mbd of oil. Today, the world consumes 85mbd. ANWR, the largest discovery in the US in the past 100 years, would produce only 1 mbd at maximum production. When I tell audiences this, they are amazed to discover that these highly touted discoveries are so small on a global consumption scale.
The Saudis reporting of their "reserves" should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Simply, for years they have been pumping oil out of the ground without a comparable decline in reserves or a comparable rise in new discoveries. Thus, their data is suspect.
The world is consuming 4 barrels of oil for each 1 barrel of newly discovered oil
Crude oil production peaked in 2005. In spite of prices more than doubling, production has not passed that peak. That's a very troubling sign.
Another common argument against Peak Oil is "there's a lot of undiscovered oil out there. We'll just find more." This is Pollyanna-ish for three reasons. 1) In spite of increased exploration methods, we haven't found significant (on a global consumption scale) new oil fields so far. 2) New discoveries are likely to be in locations where it will be very difficult to develop large scale production, such as the Artic, the deep oceans, and environmentally sensitive offshore areas. 3) The lag time between discovery and full-scale production is several years. Thus, in the unlikely event that the next super giant oil field is discovered tomorrow, it couldn't prevent a crisis if peak oil occurred in the next few years.
In short, peak oil shouldn't be discounted as a possible future scenario in the next few years. Again, thanks for the article. It increases awareness of peak oil, regardless of one's opinions for or against the theory.
by
Grady Cash (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Friday, March 7, 2008 at 11:10:18 AM
3 comments
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