Over the past year, American drivers have found themselves longing for the days when two dollars per gallon seemed expensive. Oil prices are rising at an unprecedented rate, and as a result, many are questioning whether the Earth's available oil supply has reached its peak. Are there still oceans of oil awaiting our discovery? How much pain you'll be feeling at the pump in the future depends on the answer.
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We Are Not Fully Exploiting American Resources.
- From Diana Furchtgott-Roth
By Diana Furchtgott-Roth - Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
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"Vast" denial
Given that fundamental predicament of our industrial civilization is its "overwhelming dependence on an exhaustible resource" (William Catton), it is not surprising, to those familiar with human psychology, that it is precisely those resources that are invariably described as "vast", "huge," "enormous" etc. Plainly, this is an important cultural denial mechanism. Notice that I said "cultural"; though Ms. Furchtgott's particular perspective is rather right-wing, many examples of the same denial mechanism at work can be found accross the standard political spectrum. Notice also that, in the context of the question at issue, Ms. Furchgott-Roth's argument must be taken to mean that the US region has not really reached its geological peak oil. But in fact, US lower-48 production peaked in 1970 and has been declining ever since. Even with the most advanced extraction technologies, Prudhoe Bay - largest in N Am - began its terminal rapid decline only 12 years after its first production.
- Steve Athearn July 25, 2008 11:26PM
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not the way it works
I thought that oil output tends to peak and then decline in the case of an individual field or an individual country. That ti pretty well established. The US peak was in 1970 as we now know with the benefit of hindsight. So the question for Diana Furchtgott-Roth is:
Your view that the US can increase oil output--which countries can you cite where this has happened--a peak is reached, decline occurs for many years, but then the flow reverses and rises?
We may be able to find more oil. In fact peak oil would say we will. It is just that the amount extracted each year is likely to trend lower. So the US could have VAST amounts of oil, but hat does not mean that the amounts recovered don't get a little LESS vast each year.
- E4 Capitalist
June 14, 2009 10:50AM
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