Bartlett, Udall Respond to CERA Report

Representatives Roscoe Bartlett and Tom Udall were quick to respond to the CERA report on the future supply of oil. (see immediately preceding post)  The cofounders and cochairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, said that a new report released today by CERA confirms the urgency for the United States government to adopt a crash program to mitigate the devastating consequences of peak oil.

Congressman Bartlett said that, "The CERA report agrees that world oil production will peak and projects it will occur within 20-25 years. However, world demand is growing exponentially - faster than production so the CERA report confirms the likelihood of future shortages of liquid fuel and much higher and volatile prices. A major flaw in the CERA report is its reliance upon questionable assessments of global reserves by the USGS. USGS estimates of future world reserves equate a 50 percent probability with a 50th percentile or mean. That is a bizarre and totally inaccurate use of statistics. It almost doubles the amount of projected reserves compared to the 95 percent probable estimate. Actual discoveries are tracking the 95 percent probable trend. That means world oil production will peak much sooner than CERA projects in this report."

Read the entire press release here.

Somewhat the opposite reaction that I might have expected, I guess these congressmen are smarter than I gave them credit for.  As I said, who cares what the theory is, oil will get more expensive as conventional oil resources are depleted and we are forced to find alternate supplies. I think that CERA's assessment of reserves is probably incorrect for the short term, but there projections may be more accurate in the long term as we have to use more of our harder to use reserves.  This is reflected in Canada's adding some oil sands reserves to its official reserves and Venezuela and China considering adding more of its heavy oil to reserves.

Comments

[Alex]

How does Bartlett make out that demand is rising faster than production? Does he think it's all coming out of the stockpile?

Methinks he confuses production and reserve growth/discoveries..but then, whaddaya expect from a man who claimed the UN Convention on Cultural Property in War was an attempt to seize the Grand Canyon?

[alzack]

No matter what...the fuel or any fuel future will be in the hands of politician....mmmmm maybe not the scientists/engineers....what do you think?

[mtburr]

The Congressmen focused on the most important implication of CERA's report -- that alternative energy sources are urgently needed, irrespective of when oil production might peak.

CERA's report illustrates a noteworthy departure from Daniel Yergin's thinking in The Prize. In that book, Yergin largely dismissed oil's opponents as knee-jerk environmentalists. Now CERA increasingly recognizes what has become obvious to the rest of us -- oil warfare is damaging our economy and our national security, and the only way to reduce oil warfare is to migrate toward a secure and sustainable energy economy.

I wish Yergin would update The Prize in the context of 9/11 and the Iraq War. But until he does, at least CERA is acknowledging the external costs of the petroleum economy.

[Matt]

It seems that our creator's gift to us would be a world in which these resources run out before we've seriously tipped the balance of the planet's climate by burning them.

We seem to lack the ability as a human race to be bothered with doing anything other than just blindly burning up and using up what has been given to us.

Remember.. we are but one of billions of planets out there in the universe. In all likelyhood there are others that get to our point in development. But when we listen for radio signals to indicate life somewhere.. all we get is pure silence in all directions.

Can "intelligent" life survive?

The jury is still out.

[RammsteinRocks]

Peak oil is a SCAM.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html

[stew]

If oil approaches its limit (and is significantly expensive) then nuclear energy will have to be embraced. Nuclear energy is the future, the Dutch have realized that and given up on its quaint windmills.

[Paul Dietz]

Peak oil is a SCAM.

The abiogenic theory of oil (and Wired magazine in general) is a joke.

[Cyrus]

I've heard estimates that an affordable 30-mile range plug-in hybrid would reduce the transportation sector's use of petroleum by something like 80%. Given that transportation is by far the largest use of petroleum, what would the development of such a vehicle do to the price and production levels of oil? And if production fell, but the price fell into the $30's, would peak oil advocates say they were right all along?

[amazingdrx]

I think an 80% reduction in oil use, or more from improved hybrids that use fuel cell backup generation,would only drop oil prices if the whole world went that way.

The increase in the number of vehicles in developing nations that are of the older ICE version will keep demand up, and OPEC and the multinational oil companies will restrict production to keep prices up also.

Corporate monopolists merely change estimates of reserves and capital spent on exploration to manipulate prices, OPEC actually uses production quotas.

Oil is so far from any kind of free market that there is no sense in even discussing peak oil. Peak oil is a trading pump and dump scam. Global climate disaster and oil war are the proper measures to apply to oil availability.