The peak oil controversy

You can't help but have noticed that the price of oil based fuels is rising at an incredible rate. Petrol, diesel, gas, even fossil fuel based electricity is becoming prohibitively expensive, and the reason that we are constantly given is that we are using fossil fuels at such a rate that we are rapidly running out of oil globally. The concept is called peak oil, a point at which we have reached the maximum possible extraction rate for oil, after which oil becomes increasingly more difficult to extract and production rates inevitably fall, and at the same time, the cost of extraction increases and prices to the consumer go up. The concept of peak oil was developed in 1956 by M. King Hubbard to predict American peak oil between 1965 and 1975, and certainly US oil production has declined since that point. The question is, does this mean that the peak iol theory is correct? The answer is quite complex, and relies in large part on multiple partial sources of information. One of the key things to remember in all of this is that the search for oil, the monitoring of production and the analysis of oil reserves and new sources is all funded, if not directly carried out by oil companies, and if there were ever a case of vested interests being at the heart of information dissemination this is it.

So, what do we actually know about the story of peak oil? We know oil and natural gas is produced by biological processes from organic material trapped in ancient mud deposits between 50 and 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period. These deposits have fossilized over time and the decomposition of this organic material combined with heat and pressure have resulted in the formation of hydrocarbon rich fuels. What we don't know is whether this is the only way in which oil is formed. We have evidence from extra-terrestrial solar system sources, particularly on Venus and Saturns moon Titan that complex hydrocarbons can be produced abiotically, i.e. without the need for life in the form of bacteria and microbes. If it can happen on astronomical bodies without life, can it also happen on Earth without life? If so, what conditions would be required to achieve this? On Venus and Titan conditions exist that are not found anywhere on the Earths surface, with far higher pressure and temperatures, but that is not to say that these conditions don't exist below the Earths surface. In fact they do, at depths below 30000ft, deeper than current oil prospecting, but within the each of current prospecting technology. There is some evidence that there are considerable reserves of abiotic oil far deeper than existing oil reserves, and that over time, as oil is pumped out of reserves creating a low pressure pocket, these deep reserves are drawn up to replace the extracted hydrocarbons. If this was the case, the estimates of current reserves would be have to be considerably revised.

What else do we know about oil reserves? We are told that there are considerable reserves of alternative sources of oil in the form of oil sand and oil rich shale deposits, but that these are largely uneconomic at the present time because the technology to utilise them is not fully developed and there are considerable questions over the environmental impact of extraction of these types of fuel, yet research into safe extraction techniques have been ongoing since the 1970's and it is interesting to note that some of the groups protesting the extraction of these oil sources are funded by lobby groups associated with the oil industry, which seems slightly odd. Of course, this could all be misinformation, and we do have evidence from the Middle East, and particularly from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that the production of oil is not demand let from an economic point of view, but supply led, in that the price of oil is managed artificially by controlling the quantity of oil released into the supply chain. The fact that this breaches international anti-collusion and monopoly laws is a side issue, and hardly worth mentioning.

So, is peak oil real? The answer is almost certainly not, but that leaves the question, why push it as an idea? It seems a little simplistic to suggest that it is simply to keep oil prices artificially high, so perhaps there is more to this story than meets the eye? What else could be behind it? What if, just as a suggestion, the purpose of peak oil stories was to create an atmosphere of panic in society that prepared the way for the announcement of a global saviour, perhaps in the form of a new, and far cheaper energy source? One that would allow yet another expansion in lifestyle comfort at a time when people were forced into austerity? Wouldn't that saviour have an awful lot of power? Just saying....