Has Peak Oil Been Reached? Yes!
5 Nov, 2007 06:52 pm
, whose position is that peak oil has not been reached.)
The Energy Watch Group released a report last week, stating that peak oil was reached in 2006. Scitizen speaks to Mr Jorg Schindler, the main author and Managing Director of Ludwig-B?lkow-Systemtechnik GmbH, about the report. As well, we sought the professional view of Dr Peter Jackson, Director of the CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates), whose position is that peak oil has not been reached.
Scitizen: In your report, you stated that peak oil was reached in 2006. Can you elaborate on this?
Mr Jorg Schindler: In compliance with major statistics from [official organizations], global oil production peaked in 2005/2006, depending on what aggregate of oil you are talking of...
S: How did you conduct your research?
JS: It is quite complex depending on the variety of information that we have; you have those countries that have already past peak, past production… countries who are at plateau or perhaps can still increase production… Apart from past production, we also used remaining reserves [which is controversial because of the intransparency of data] and tried to fit future estimates with remaining reserves...
S: What are the implications for our economy once peak oil is reached?
JS: The most striking result of our analysis is the rather steep decline after peak. We think that by 2030, global production will be half of what it is at peak level; I can’t see that this gap in supply can be filled by any other energy sources.
S: What about renewable energy?
JS: The potential for renewable energies is huge, but it takes time to build up these resources...
S: What recommendations or policies do you suggest, following the conclusions of your study?
JS: The first thing is to be clear about the situation we are in and that we are facing...
Read the opposing view from Dr Peter Jackson here
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