From: David Knight
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:
16 November 2010 10:54
To:
Steve Brine; Jim Kirkpatrick;
Chris Holloway; [log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask];
Wendy
Barnaby; Frank Barnaby; Bob Douthwaite; Xiao
Hu-Wen;
[log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask];
Andrew Davis; Page A.;
Whitmarsh R.B.; 'Brian Shorter'; Claire
Jones; 'David Knight'; Dennis Garrison;
'Don Wooler'; Jessica Lloyd; Wright L.A.;
'Michael Farmer'; 'Michael Wilks';
Woodman N.D.; 'R Primer'; Robert Hutchison;
'Robin Speed'; 'Thomas Rushby';
'Tom Dicks'
Subject:
Peak Oil
Dear
All,
The
International Energy Agency, the Paris-based
organization that provides energy
analysis to 28 industrialized nations has
changed its mind. In line with many
other analysts, they now agree that peak oil
has already happened!
The
agency concludes in its latest annual
report, released in November, that
production of conventional crude oil
probably peaked for good in 2006 at about 70
million barrels a day.
Production from currently producing oil fields
will drop sharply in coming
decades, the report suggests.
At
the same time strong demand
growth
from China, now the world’s largest
energy user, and elsewhere
will require liquid energy supplies not just
to hold steady, but to climb by
more than 20 percent.
According to Nobuo
Tanaka, the IEA’s
exec director, it is far from certain that
tar sands and increased
production of natural gas liquids can
compensate for decreasing crude
production. At the IEA reports press launch
Tanaka said , “Recent events have
cast a veil of uncertainty over our energy
future …We need
to use energy more efficiently and
we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels by
adopting technologies that leave
a much smaller carbon footprint”.
IEA
forecasts that oil prices should continue
to
climb in coming decades, reaching $135 a
barrel by 2035, a price level that
some economists believe contributed to the
global economic collapse of 2008.
Some
experts found the report’s projections
troubling.
“It’s
a perfect storm headed our way — a steady rise
in global demand for oil
crashing up against an increasingly limited
supply of economically recoverable
oil,” William Chameides, professor of
environmental science at Duke University,
wrote on
his
blog.
Your
comments on how to respond would be welcomed,
All
the best,
David
