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Institute for Defense Analyses: Review and Analysis of the Peak Oil Debate (PDF)
Brent Fisher, Institute for Defense Analyses
Executive Summary

The peak oil debate is concerned with the question of when global oil production will reach its historical maximum and enter a long inexorable decline.

“Peakists” argue that oil production capacity is determined by geology and that global capacity will peak very soon—within a few years to a decade.

“Optimists,” on the other hand, argue that economic factors overwhelm the geologic arguments and conclude that peak oil will not occur for many decades in the future.

This paper reviews arguments from both sides, focusing the discussion on three topics. First, we review the Hubbert theory, examine its assumptions, and note the criticism levied by optimists. We present the results of our own modifications to Hubbert’s theory, which attempt to account for some of the critiques of optimists. In particular, we account for the impact of economic conditions on oil production in a simple, endogenous manner. Second, we review peakist arguments that are based on declining discovery rates. Finally, we include a section that reviews peakis concerns about Saudi Arabia’s oil production in particular as described in a book by Matthew Simmons.

We conclude from these reviews that the most alarmist of the peakoil claims are likely false. Still, we see some convincing reasons to think that global production could peak within 20 years, with demand outstripping production indefinitely.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
(August 2008)
58-page study uncovered by EB contributor Rick Munroe. We will post his take on this study soon. -BA

Aleklett talk in Adelaide (podcast and slides)
Environment Institute, University of Adelaide
Peak Oil and Climate Change
transitions to a new future

On World Environment Day we were privileged to host Professor Kjell Aleklett who shared his vision for a transition to a new future in the face of dwindling fossil fuel supplies.

Professor Aleklett is cofounder and current president of ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, he organized the first ever International Workshop on Oil Depletion in May 2002 at Uppsala University.

In 2005 Professor Aleklett was asked to give testimony on Peak Oil before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality.

In 2007 he was asked to write a report for the OECD about future global oil production to serve as a background document for the first International Transport Forum in Leipzig, in May, 2008.

Listen to Professor Aleklett's podcast about Peak Oil (MP3 14.96MB).
View Professor Aleklett's PowerPoint (PDF 7.96MB) presentation.
(June 2009)

"The Global Crisis Is Really About a 140-dollar Barrel of Oil"* (Rubin interview)
Chris Arsenault, IPS News
Sitting in the restaurant of Vancouver’s posh Fairmount Waterfront Hotel, the former chief economist for one of Canada’s largest banks doesn’t seem like the typical apocalyptic peak oil theorist.

But in his new book, "Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller", Jeff Rubin argues that globalisation, fuelled by cheap oil, is finished. In the book, Rubin contends the current global recession is a result of expensive oil, rather than subprime mortgages in the U.S.

Frequently ranked as Canada’s top economist, Rubin predicts that one barrel of oil will cost 225 dollars by 2012. Other analysts consider that number outlandish; the conservative National Post newspaper, where he was frequently quoted as an economic expert before leaving his job at CIBC World Markets, accuses him of "anti-materialism" and "Big oil paranoia."

But in 2000, Rubin correctly predicted that oil would top 50 dollars per barrel by 2005. And, in 2005 he got it right again, forecasting prices would top 100 dollars per barrel in 2007.

Rubin sat down with IPS at his hotel after giving a lunch address to the Vancouver Board of Trade.

IPS: If Iraq’s security situation improves, and its cheap oil comes back online for export, could that stop your prediction of 225 dollars per barrel by 2012?

Jeff Rubin: Not even close. Nor would it stop the prediction that exports from OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries), instead of growing, are likely to fall by about one to one and a half million barrels per day over the next four or five years.

It’s not just about depletion [of OPEC oil fields], though depletion is playing a key role. It is also about the explosive growth of oil consumption in OPEC countries themselves. This is the reason why exports have not grown from OPEC in the last five years; they are in effect cannibalising their own exports.
(15 June 2009)

Oil Age still has some time to run
Andrew Main, The Australian
IF you think the running battle over climate change has been a long one, it's a pup compared with the peak oil debate.

Essentially, the question with oil is whether it's going to run out before our need to use it does.

The peak oil brigade say all the big and easy oilfields around the world have been discovered and global oil discovery has therefore peaked, while at the same time oil demand is showing no serious sign of dropping. But we won't run out soon and the final date for the Oil Age will be put back further and further as the price rises.

...It would be fair to extrapolate that Chinese per capita use and overall use is probably going to grow dramatically in the next few years and that the one statistic that passed the tipping point in 2008, non-OECD oil consumption exceeding OECD consumption for the first time, is also a harbinger of what's to come. Indian oil use last year was a bit more than a third of China's but it grew faster, at 4.8 per cent.

But the bigger question, coming back to peak oil, is are we going to run out any time soon?

The evidence is frustratingly mixed. BP says the world's "proved" oil reserves last year, 1.258 trillion barrels, were 17.7 per cent higher than at the end of 1998 and 26 per cent higher than the 998.4 billion barrels we had 20 years ago back in 1988. And by the way, the latest number does not include the recently exploited Canadian tar sands -- the supposed Saudi Arabia of North America. If included, that would put us 41 per cent above the original 1988 reserve number.

...Conclusion? We won't run out soon and the final date for the Oil Age will be put back further and further as the price rises. Don't bank on the tar sands, meanwhile, since there's another dimension: CO2 emissions. Converting tar sands to oil releases huge amounts of CO2 and there's no current technology available to stop that. Then again, there could be one out there.
(15 June 2009)
Sent in by EB contributor Stuart, who comments:

(http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200906/s2587664.htm). My money's with the oil guy, not the journo."

Energy Journal Roundup: June 2009
David Murphy, The Oil Drum
The Energy Journal Roundup is a monthly post reviewing the peer-reviewed literature published in various energy journals from around the world.
(17 June 2009)