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The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.
Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.
And? What is your personal take on this? Lie? Damn Lie? Why do you expect us to go at each other with teeth barred (like in the Global Cooling threads) over this if you won't even supply your own position?
You do know that natural gas is still being developed, and that not only is it cleaner to use as fuel but it is substantially cheaper to produce and does not really require refining like oil does. A minor infrastructure change by adding CNG compressors at convenience stores and a relative easy conversion system will get you there. If you research it you can find outlets today for CNG near you and you can get (I think) about a $6000 tax credit if you convert to full time CNG.
Further our estimated coal reserves are sufficient to last for hundreds of years, even accounting for increased energy demands.
So if we consume all the oil, fine. When the Soviets reserved (largely untapped) and the middle east drys up we still have ANWR in reserve, plus all the NG we need, and all the coal we need.
you do know that natural gas is still being developed, and that not only is it cleaner to use as fuel but it is substantially cheaper to produce and does not really require refining like oil does. A minor infrastructure change by adding cng compressors at convenience stores and a relative easy conversion system will get you there. If you research it you can find outlets today for cng near you and you can get (i think) about a $6000 tax credit if you convert to full time cng.
Further our estimated coal reserves are sufficient to last for hundreds of years, even accounting for increased energy demands.
So if we consume all the oil, fine. When the soviets reserved (largely untapped) and the middle east drys up we still have anwr in reserve, plus all the ng we need, and all the coal we need.
I think we'd be able to ratchet down oil use pretty far as we proved could be done this last year. but what we cant get by without is water, and there's a shortage of that looming too.
China certainly is letting any energy mopss grow under their feet like the US is. They are buying up and fiancing crude everywhere to meet their increasing demand in the future.
When I was a kid, experts were predicitng that by the time the worlds population reached 2 billion there would be people starving in the streets of America.
This is not news, but I appreciate you posting it.
People think they can just use up all the oil, then move on to gas, etc., as though there's no impact on the planet at all. As though it's simply a question of quantity and/or price. The planet is a living organism, people. It really isn't just a styrofoam ball--like in fourth-grade science project--that's just packed with "stuff" for humans to use. It's an organism. A biological organism, teeming with smaller organisms. We can't keep extracting the elements (that we like to call "resources") without eventually paying the ultimate price. Extract all the blood from a person and what are you left with? A corpse.
I seem to recall some alarmist talking about how we'd already passed the peak production of oil back in the 1960's. They're still at it.
Y'all do know, don't you, that just the Bakken Field in North Dakota, ALONE has enough proven reserves to meet our current needs for a 100 years? It's just not being developed rapidly because nobody wants the deal with the mess.
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