![\"Gr\u00e0fic](\"http:\/\/www.theoildrum.com\/files\/PetrobrasSlide6.jpg\")
Article aparegut a Business day el 08\/01\/2010<\/p>\nArticle aparegut a Business day el 08\/01\/2010<\/p>\n
One day, oil production will begin declining. The world\u2019s drivers and transport operators and airlines, not to mention fertiliser, plastics and pharmaceutical manufacturers, will file their usual orders \u2014 only to be met by suppliers saying: \u201cUm, sorry, we can only meet part of that order.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine the panic. Imagine the shock to markets. And imagine if that moment were to come not in 2130, or even 2030, but in 2013?<\/p>\n
The economic uncertainty would eclipse the current recession, the potential for global conflict would shoot upwards, and some predict that we\u2019d face the dark prospect of global oil apartheid, where rich countries might corner supplies \u2014 and poor countries would be left lurching, their very survival as states possibly at risk.<\/p>\n
For years, those who have raised the spectre of \u201cpeak oil\u201d have been derided as cranks and alarmists. But their ranks now include some remarkably conventional figures, and the statistics they use have the most respectable origins.<\/p>\n
Often misunderstood, \u201cpeak oil\u201d does not refer to oil running out. That won\u2019t happen for a long time. Peak oil simply refers to the time at which overall production peaks and, most likely, demand begins to outstrip supply.<\/p>\n
The world consumes 85-million barrels per day. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects demand to hit 105-million barrels per day by 2030. But it\u2019s not clear how this 20-million barrel-per-day gap will be filled.<\/p>\n
Some extremely influential figures doubt it can be: the head of Total Oil, Christophe de Margerie, doesn\u2019t see global oil production ever exceeding 89-million barrels per day.<\/p>\n
Ever since 1965, oil discoveries have been declining. While new, unconventional sources of oil, such as the Canadian tar sands, are coming online, they are costly to develop, and demand far more energy to mine, so the net energy return on investment declines.<\/p>\n
Peak oil warnings started gaining worrisome credibility when, in November 2008, the IEA sharply revised its projection for the annual rate of decline of output from existing oil fields, from 3,7% to 6,7%.<\/p>\n
The IEA describes itself as energy policy adviser to the 28 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which includes most of the Group of Eight countries, including the US.<\/p>\n
Soon after, Fatih Birol, the IEA\u2019s chief economist, told British environmental journalist George Monbiot that global conventional oil supply \u201cwill come around 2020 to a plateau as well, which is, of course, not good news from a global-oil-supply point of view\u201d.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, Birol\u2019s estimate depended, he said, on \u201ctimely\u201d investment from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).<\/p>\n
Without Opec investment, that plateau would come sooner.<\/p>\n
In 2008, several leading UK companies formed an industry task force on peak oil and energy security.<\/p>\n
The task force includes major companies such as Virgin, Yahoo , Arup, Stagecoach and Solarcentury.<\/p>\n
It released its first report in October 2008, warning that a \u201cpeak in cheap, easily available oil production is likely to hit by 2013\u201d.<\/p>\n
Simon Taylor is one of the founding directors of the London-based nongovernmental organisation, Global Witness, which reports on conflicts over natural resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you took pre-recession projected demand, say from June 2008, when the oil price was at its highest, you could see demand going up in this quite steep curve, and if you plot what\u2019s coming on stream in next five, six or seven years, less the decline rate, you end up with a collision between the supply and demand curves somewhere around 2011,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do the same exercise with another project or two added (but bear in mind some have now been cancelled), and now with demand projected from around February 2009, then the lines collide later, around 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if you project demand from this November, then the curve comes way back towards us again, somewhere around 2013. The collision point is somewhere around 2011-2014. Depending on how fast the economy recovers or not, and depending on possible moves to accelerate development of renewables, we have a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where some see enormous risk, and where many choose outright denial, more imaginative business people see not only risk, but opportunity.<\/p>\n
Will Whitehorn is president of Virgin\u2019s space business, Virgin Galactic, and is often described as Richard Branson\u2019s right-hand man. He chairs the UK industry task force.<\/p>\n
Alarming as the peak-in-2013 conclusion may sound, he believes it is in fact a cautious report: \u201cI think that we\u2019ve taken a fairly conservative view of what the issue is here and I think we have a clear window of five to seven years to really make some fundamental changes to the way we use energy in the UK in order that peak oil does not become a crunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not involved in this task force because of the implications for Virgin particularly, although obviously if you\u2019re one of the world\u2019s largest transport groups there are implications,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause we\u2019ve been believers that the possibility of peak oil is real, we\u2019ve been investing in diversifying our businesses. That\u2019s why we\u2019ve become one of the UK\u2019s largest long-distance train operators.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve also been investing in new aircraft types, which are more efficient and we\u2019re looking at issues such as carbon composites. In fact that\u2019s what our space launch system, which I\u2019ve just unveiled in America, is made from. It\u2019s significant that three of the UK\u2019s largest transport groups are in the peak-oil task force, along with a big energy distributor and supplier. We face a risk, but we\u2019re getting ready for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the point about this task force is not about the risk we face. It\u2019s about the risk the people of the country and the government faces. And the fact that they\u2019re not getting ready for it. We\u2019re trying to persuade the government that this is a true and clear and present danger. The UK is no longer as energy self-sufficient as it was.<\/p>\n
Whitehorn is clearly trying not to paint governments as blind and obdurate. \u201cI do see government starting to take oil-supply warnings seriously,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not a group that believes we\u2019re running out of oil. We\u2019re a group that believes the price of oil is going to become permanently high within a decade as cheap sources of oil cease to exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be ready for a world with permanent 100-a-barrel oil. Oil is going to become too precious just to burn in cars. Oil is the source of our fertiliser, of our pesticides and pharmaceuticals, of most of our furnishings. It is the lifeblood of civilisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, he says, \u201cthe first priority for national economies is energy saving\u2026. Efficiency should become the watchword.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nor does he wish to alienate any part of the energy sector: \u201cI believe that there is a nuclear solution, there is a solar solution, a wind solution, a tidal power solution, a hydro solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone who lobbies one of those as being better than the others is very biased. The combination of them with much better energy efficiency should see us through this period of transition from an oil-based economy to a much broader source of energy supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UK task force will release an updated report this month.<\/p>\n
But, in the meantime, are governments starting to listen?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the British government has been advised by its public servants that peak oil is not so much of an issue, because their understanding of what \u2018peak oil\u2019 means is based on the alarmism of the 1970s,\u201d says Whitehorn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is quite a lot of public servants \u2018cried wolf\u2019 about this in the past \u2026 but eventually the wolf usually does come to the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a doom-and-gloom merchant, I\u2019m for doing things. If we can build a carbon-composite spaceship that is a 1000 times more efficient than current ground-based rocketry, I think we can solve the problem of peak oil.\u201d<\/p>\n
Le Page is a freelance<\/p>\n
\u2018Some predict that we\u2019d face the prospect of global oil apartheid, where rich countries may corner supplies \u2014 and poor countries would be left lurching\u2019<\/p>\n