by We’ve hit “peak oil”; now comes permanent price volatility
[Via Ars Technica]
Since 2005, the global production of oil has remained relatively flat, peaking in 2008 and declining since, even as demand for petroleum has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the price of oil as small changes in demand set off large shocks in the system.
In today’s issue of Nature, two authors (the University of Washington’s James Murray and Oxford’s David King) argue that this sort of volatility will be all we can expect from here on out—and we’re likely to face it with other fossil fuels, as well.
[More]
The thing to understand is not that there is not any oil/gas left. This is a lot but it is not easy to get out of the ground nor to distribute. Peak oil really represents the end of cheap/easy oil distribution.
There is lots of oil. As a commentor stated: We used up all the $1 a gallon oil. Also the $2 and the $3. We are just about done with the $3.50 and are headed towards $4 or $5 oil supplies. There is plenty of oil, just a higher prices.
We are left with expensive, hard to get and hard to distribute sources of fuel. The energy is there but not the methods to cheaply get it out to the world. How long before all that is left is $50 oil? And what effect will that have on our society?
We have removed most of the simple stuff. Now we are left with lots that require us to work in increasingly complex settings, such at the limits of our ability to drill in the deep ocean. The amounts of oil we can retrieve will not be in a steady supply but more and more simply punctuated by fits and starts as we move up the pricing chain.
This means that it will not be easy to keep a steady supply going. New plants needed will not come on line at the most optimum times. We’ve got some gas but the pipeline is not near. Things like that.
Somedays things will be optimal and others will be bad.
But demand keeps sucking up supply. So like a straw working on the last bit of milkshake, there will be increasing periods where really little comes up. And what does will be very expensive.
There will be big price swings as the ready availability of energy from fossil fuels varies. It will not get better because we no longer have large quantities of easily accessible oil in amounts that come close to meeting demand.
It will be a bumpy ride getting off fossil fuels but we have to do it sooner or later. Sooner would be better for us all.
