If the chinese and indian people will really start to consume
energy like we do the next oil crisis might even come faster than
that I think. ...yeas, but I always have the feeling, nobody is really talking
about it. It always seems to be projections based on data of
today. Does anyone know more about this? who cares...? money rules the world! Do you think significant additional oil ressources could still be
found? (e.g. off-shore oil fields in africa) I don't believe we have reached "peak oil" as of yet. What we
have reached is the end of cheap oil (in today's dollars). There
are significant reserves yet to be found in frontier areas like
the deepwater Gulf of Mexico or the sub-salt plays in Santos
Basin offshore Brasil. These new reserves will not be cheap to
access and expensive to produce. As this new oil comes to market
at higher prices, non-conventional petroleum reserves become
increasingly more economic and you start seeing reserves
increasing from such things as oil sands in Canada and shale oil
in other parts of North America (expensive to produce requiring
technology currently under development, but huge, huge reserves).
As these more expensive petroleum reserves come on line the
market will respond and alternatives will begin competing,
eventualy taking the place of traditional petroleum for most
uses. Of course, the key will be how much man will hasten the
competiveness of alternatives with research and plain 'ol trial
and error. BMW is taking a step in the right direction, in my
opinion, with direct combustion of hydrogen. It's a known
technology waiting for an infrastructure. Interesting comment Northshore3... I just looked up shale oil on
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale In the
references I found a very interessting Article on the latest
development concerning shale
oil: http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/06/oil-shale-develop
ment-imminent.html It doesn't sound too optimistic. they will run out eventually The choice is about to change. It was between dirty energy (oil)
and clean energy, it will be between clean energy and very dirty
energy. I do not worry about peak oil, I worry about the end of
light sweet crude oil. In a few years, all we will have will be
heavy and sour oil. Which means more work, more money and more
energy to get gasoline out of it. Whereas biomass to hydrogen
technology will only get cheaper... I believe petroleum is becoming too valuable to keep burning,
anyway. What are the raw alternatives for some of the materials
we produce from oil? I haven't seen any statistics on what the
future holds for plastics, chemicals, tires, etc. I am glad you mentioned China in your article. We focus too much
on developed countries, and tend to ignore the fact that China
will be the largest consumer of earth's resources very soon.