Do you believe in Peak Oil?

The question has been around for years and as time goes by it becomes of greater importance as we look at rising gasoline prices. When will the world reach the point of “peak oil”? Peak Oil you ask? What is that? Simply said, peak oil is the point in time where we reach the maximum ability to discover, develop and produce oil throughout the world. After that point, the amount of oil that is brought to market no longer increases, but rather begins a steady decline to the zero point, or the point in which there is no longer any oil to exploit.

There are a number of points of view when it comes to peak oil, but it boils down to the following two sides. First, that we will never reach the point of peak oil as we are always discovering new sources, better technology and greater efficiency in our consumption. Though each aspect of that argument is valid, the idea that world oil is infinite is simply silly. Nothing, even the power of the sun is infinite. No matter what we do, there is always a point of diminishing returns and as the world population grows and becomes more addicted to the luxuries of life, (television, air conditioning, etc), our demand will increase as our locations in which to search declines. You could even argue that there is always more oil being produced and as we have never discovered how it is made, we can never be sure that we will ever run out. That is also true, but again if you were to run these arguments though a logic test, they would fail. They would fail for the following reasons, first the argument is that we will at some point reach our maximum of oil production and after that it will begin to fall. All things in nature, (including civilization), goes through cycles and oil production are the same. We will reach a point of where we can no longer produce ever increasing amounts, the laws of entropy would assure us of that point. Even if we drilled in every location possible for as long as possible, we would reach a maximum point of production and the decline would begin. Lastly, the argument of improvements in our efficiency of consumption are not relevant, for the whole discussion regarding peak oil is that of depleting a resource and not our use of that resource. So how fast we use our world oil is not related to how much we produce beyond the determination of rates of consumption. (read more here)

Redgage photo of the day----(komodo dragon)

Enjoy!