UK faces oil crisis within 5 years

wombat42_2

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-I3iE3Lsm7N1HZ9kQcfq3zRENIw

Stavros_3

He's having a laugh........this bit sums the article up

Peak Oil chairman Jeremy Leggett, the executive chairman of alternative energy company Solarcentury, said it was not too late for politicians to make the decisions to protect the UK from the impact of reduced oil availability.

opinions4u

While there may be some truth to the article, much the same was being said in the 70s. And then the 80s. And then the 90s.

wombat42_2

Wel i read that the Saudis said that peak oil for them was about 5 years time.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil

Count_Dante

This clever bloke thinks oil will last a lot longer than we have been led to think:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/17/richard_pike_rcs_interview/

Ultimately, oil will run out so developing other energy sources is a good plan. But how many people smugly said that 'peak oil' was upon us a few months ago, and that the end was nigh? It wasn't.

wagdog

Count_Dante wrote: »

This clever bloke thinks oil will last a lot longer than we have been led to think:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/17/richard_pike_rcs_interview/

His probability argument is rather simplistic. Furthermore, as far as peak oil is concerned, it is the size of the tap and not the size of the tank that really matters.

But how many people smugly said that 'peak oil' was upon us a few months ago, and that the end was nigh?

Technically the peak oilers are correct. With the OPEC production cut, continuing declines in non-OPEC production, and the drying up of credit leading to the cancellation of many energy exploration/drilling projects, total world oil production may never top 87 million barrels of oil ever again. Fixing the credit crisis will not bring back the same level of consumer demand - the US and UK are up to their eyeballs in debt - and no other country is going to make the same mistakes that we made (i.e. living way beyond our means) in order to run up the deficits required to pay for such expensive oil flowing at such a high rate.

But many of the doomers who latched onto peak oil did get it completely wrong. It was not inflation but deflation that eventually got us. A shortlived commodity price bubble did contribute to the US housing bubble bursting especially in the exurbs, however the fragile nature of the over-leveraged financial system is the main player in our undoing. Some doomers have not yet given up and are predicting all the government intervention will lead to high inflation in a couple years from now given the Fed's willingness to trash the dollar to escape from a deflationary spiral.