EnergyBulletin.net | The Mitigation of the Peaking of World Oil
Production | Energy and Peak Oil News
Published on 3 Mar 2005 by ASPO. Archived on 3 Mar 2005.
The Mitigation of the Peaking of World Oil Production
by US DoE correspondent
A recently completed study for the U.S. Department of Energy analyzed
viable technologies to mitigate oil short-ages associated with the
upcoming peaking of world oil production.1
Commercial or near-commercial options include improved vehicle fuel
efficiency, enhanced conventional oil recovery, and the production of
substitute fuels.
While research and development on other options could be important,
their commercial success is by no means assured, and none offer
near-term solutions.
Improved fuel efficiency in the world's transportation sector will be
a critical element in the long-term reduction of liquid fuel
consumption, however, the scale of effort required will inherently
take time and be very expensive. For example, the U.S. has a fleet of
over 200 million automobiles, vans, pick-ups, and SUVs.
Replacement of just half with higher efficiency models will require
at least 15 years at a cost of over two trillion dollars for the U.S.
alone.
Similar conclusions generally apply worldwide.
Commercial and near-commercial options for mitigating the decline of
conventional oil production include:
1) Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which can help moderate oil
production declines from older conventional oil fields;
2) Heavy oil/oil sands, a large resource of lower grade oils, now
produced primarily in Canada and Venezuela;
3) Coal liquefaction, an established technique for producing clean
substitute fuels from the world's abundant coal reserves; and
4) Clean substitute fuels produced from remote natural gas.
For the foreseeable future, electricity-producing technologies, e.g.,
nuclear and solar energy, cannot substitute for liquid fuels in most
transportation applications. Someday, electric cars may be practical,
but decades will be required before they achieve significant market
penetration and impact world oil consumption. And no one has yet
defined viable options for powering heavy trucks or airplanes with
electricity.
To explore how these technologies might contribute, three alternative
mitigation scenarios were analyzed: One where action is initiated
when peaking occurs, a second where action is assumed to start 10
years before peaking, and a third where action is assumed to start 20
years before peaking.
Estimates of the possible contributions of each mitigation option
were developed, based on crash program imple-mentation. Crash
programs represent the fastest possible implementation - the best
case. In practical terms, real-world action is certain to be slower.
Analysis of the simultaneous implementation of all of the options
showed that an impact of roughly 25 million barrels per day might be
possible 15 years after initiation. Because conventional oil
production decline will start at the time of peaking, crash program
mitigation inherently cannot avert massive shortages unless it is
initiated well in advance of peaking.
Specifically,
* Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before
initiating crash program mitigation leaves the world with a
significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer.
Initiating a crash program 10 years before world oil peaking would
help considerably but would still result in a worldwide liquid fuels
shortfall, starting roughly a decade after the time that oil would
have otherwise peaked.
* Initiating crash program mitigation 20 years before peaking offers
the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the
forecast period.
Without timely mitigation, world supply/demand balance will be
achieved through massive demand destruction (shortages), accompanied
by huge oil price increases, both of which would create a long period
of significant eco-nomic hardship worldwide.
Other important observations revealed by the analysis included the following:
1. The date of world oil peaking is not known with certainty,
complicating the decision-making process. A fundamental problem in
predicting oil peaking is uncertain and politically biased oil
reserves claims from many oil producing countries.
2. As recently as 2001, authoritative forecasts of abundant future
supplies of North American natural gas proved to be excessively
optimistic as evidenced by the recent tripling of natural gas prices.
Oil and natural gas geology is similar in many ways, suggesting that
optimistic oil production forecasts deserve to be viewed with
considerable skepticism.
3. In the developed nations, the economic problems associated with
world oil peaking and the resultant oil short-ages will be extremely
serious. In the developing nations, economic problems will be much
worse.
4. While greater end-use efficiency is essential in the long term,
increased efficiency alone will be neither sufficient nor timely
enough to solve the oil shortage problem in the short term. To
preserve reasonable levels of economic prosperity and growth,
production of large amounts of substitute liquid fuels will be
required. While a number of substitute fuel production technologies
are currently available for deployment, the massive construction
effort required will be extremely expensive and very time-consuming,
even on a crash program basis.
5. Government intervention will be essential, because the economic
and social impacts of oil peaking will oth-erwise be chaotic, and
crash program mitigation will need to be properly supported. How and
when governments begin to seriously address these challenges is yet
to be determined.
Oil peaking discussions should focus primarily on prudent risk
management, and secondarily on forecasting the timing of oil peaking,
which will always be inexact. Mitigation initiated earlier than
required might turn out to be premature, if peaking is slow in
coming. If peaking is imminent, failure to act aggressively will be
extremely dam-aging worldwide.
World oil peaking represents a problem like none other. The
political, economic, and social stakes are enormous. Prudent risk
management demands urgent attention and early action.
---
Reference
1 Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R.H, Wendling, R.M. Peaking of World Oil
Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management. DOE NETL.
February 2005.
10
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The text above came from someone within the US DoE, who sent it to
ASPO for publication.
The author of the report, Mr Hirsch, has a note online at
www-ferp.ucsd.edu/FPA/fpn05-14.shtml
making plain his association with fusion energy research and
providing an email to request copies.
We have done so and will provide more information as it bcomes available. -LJ
(8 March) The full report has been made available. Follow the link
from this story:
www.energybulletin.net/4638.html
(11 March) This from the ASPO website refering to the above document:
In February ASPO received interesting information from Dr. Robert L.
Hirsch to be published in our newsletter. Dr Hirsch and his
colleagues have just completed a study for the U.S. DOE on the
mitigation of world oil peaking, Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R.H, Wendling,
R.M. Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk
Management. The summary of this paper, as reporter by Dr. Hirsch, is
presented below.
The date for Peak-Oil is discussed without focus on the date itself:
" Optimistic oil production forecasts deserve to be viewed with
considerable skepticism", but the impact of Peak-Oil is described
without doubts: " World oil peaking represents a problem like none
other. The political, economic, and social stakes are enormous. "
The way US DOE has acted so far it is obvious that we cannot expect
action before the Peak-Oil date. According to the study this will
have the following impact: "Waiting until world conventional oil
production peaks before initiating crash program mitigation leaves
the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or
longer."
ASPO has now for four years tried to raise awareness of the serious
consequences that Peak-Oil has for Mankind. This report can help you
understand the problems.
Kjell Aleklett,
president of ASPO
-AF
Original article available here.
http://216.187.75.220/newsletter51.pdf
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