Peak Oil Approaching
BP's Statistical Review of World Energy, published yesterday, appears to show that the world still has enough "proven" reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates. The assessment, based on officially reported figures, has once again pushed back the estimate of when the world will run dry.
However, scientists led by the London-based Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, say that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years before entering a steepening decline which will have massive consequences for the world economy and the way that we live our lives.
According to "peak oil" theory our consumption of oil will catch, then outstrip our discovery of new reserves and we will begin to deplete known reserves.
Colin Campbell, the head of the depletion centre, said: "It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone."[LINK]
The article is somewhat badly worded. Peak Oil doesn't mean we run out of oil, only that production will start to slow down due to the fact that the easiest to extract oil gets pumped out first and the oil remaining gets harder and more expensive to recover. The peak hits when the beer glass is half-empty. We won't run out of oil, but the amount that can be brought to market will begin to decline. Since there will increasingly be a constraint on the supply, if there isn't a corresponding decrease in demand, it's going to get very expensive.
The smart thing to do would be to start investing serious money in alternative energy sources about ten years ago. As it stands, the transition from cheap energy to the next phase is going to be painful.
