If you're not sick to death with arcane discussions on the French referendum, go see today's diary by
FrenchSocialist (
After the NON of France: Why the EU is not blocked and why the future is a bit brighter.
But I'd like to get back to anothe pet peeve of mine, peak oil, in the wake of the 3 great posts by Kevin Drum (from the Washington Monthly) on the topic (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3)
This graph, (from this article) shows it all.
As I've posted in previous diaries, there is a well established lag in most of the older oil provinces between the peak of discovery and the peak of production, and that lag has been consistently around 30-40 years. That's true in the US, in the North Sea, in Egypt, in Indonesia. You can see the slides in this
presentation by Colin Campbell (
warning, it's a 6MB ppt file, but it's well worth downloading), some of which I have already posted in previous diaries.
Well, we're getting pretty close to the date that corresponds to the peak discovery plus the lag. we may have won a few years in the early 80s when OPEC (and especially Saudi Arabia) voluntarily reduced its production, but we're getting to the end of that.
So, a quick summary:
- production at best increasing slightly for a few years, then stagnating for a long while
- consumption, pulled by China , India and the US, still growing at a healthy clip
- consumer country policies absolutely inexistant to focus on the real solution i.e., conservation and doing only marginal efforts for the second best option, alternative energies.
I am still betting for oil prices in the triple digits in the near future.
Take the poll and make me happy by giving me a "oui" majority...