The Peak Oil Crisis: A Reality Check Post Carbon Institute.
For the last four or five years, we have been bombarded with a stream of stories about the “shale revolution.” Horizontal drilling and fracking, mostly in the U.S., were said to have released oceans of new oil and a virtually endless supply of natural gas. These developments have brought, or will soon bring, great benefits to the American people. Our oil imports are down as are gasoline prices. Factories utilizing the flood of natural gas will soon create many new jobs as manufacturing returns to the US. We will soon have so much oil and natural gas that we can export much energy to our friends and teach our enemies a lesson.
Now it is perfectly true that there has been a major increase in US oil and natural gas production in recent years. Oil production is up by some 4 million b/d and natural gas production is up by 5 trillion cubic feet/year since the boom began. What the stories about all this abundance fail to address, outside of vague generalizations, is just how long this upward surge is going to last and what happens then.
To fill in the gap between oil companies, their consultants, their financiers, and friendly media hype, we have only the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) to guide us on the many critical decisions ahead. Now the EIA does not have a very good track record when it comes to projecting the future. Until last winter two-thirds of America’s shale oil reserves were supposed to be buried under California which would become fabulously wealthy when we brought it to the surface. Then all of a sudden, and likely under pressure from outside observers, California’s shale oil was not there. The whole notion of oceans of oil under California was nothing but oil company hype, aided by a consultant, and a stamp of approval from the EIA.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
