UK Telegraph's article on peak oil
"Cheap oil is history. But why?"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2021948/Cheap-oil-is-history.-But-why.html
Excerpts:
Shortly before dawn on the morning of May 26 1908, it came gushing out of the sands of Persia in quantities that would transform not just the region’s fortunes but the entire world.
A century on, the global gushing noise is being replaced with something else. There’s plenty of the black stuff still down there, but it sounds more like someone slurping at a straw, poking around the bottom of a glass in among the ice cubes.
...
The days of easy oil are over.
You need go no further than the local petrol station to see the difference: suddenly, filling a family car costs £70. The price of crude has doubled in 11 months, rising 8 per cent just this week to $135 a barrel. Analysts predict it could reach $200 by next year.
...
The stampede in the oil market is making billions of dollars for a lucky few and leading others to wonder whether the world is finally starting to run dry. Until recently, the notion that international production was about to reach its limits - the so-called “peak oil” theory - was the preserve of cranks and crackpots.
...
If ever the oil realists needed a sign of how the world’s balance of power has shifted, it came last weekend when President George Bush returned empty-handed from a mission to Saudi Arabia.
...
One of the most respected historians of the oil age, Dan Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research, predicts an imminent “breaking point” when changes in behaviour and use of alternative energy sources start to drive down the oil price again. Put simply: “Very high oil prices will change the world.”
***
I think we are there now. Perhaps "the end of the Cheap Energy Age occurred between 2005 and 2010" will be in our generation's history books.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2021948/Cheap-oil-is-history.-But-why.html
Excerpts:
Shortly before dawn on the morning of May 26 1908, it came gushing out of the sands of Persia in quantities that would transform not just the region’s fortunes but the entire world.
A century on, the global gushing noise is being replaced with something else. There’s plenty of the black stuff still down there, but it sounds more like someone slurping at a straw, poking around the bottom of a glass in among the ice cubes.
...
The days of easy oil are over.
You need go no further than the local petrol station to see the difference: suddenly, filling a family car costs £70. The price of crude has doubled in 11 months, rising 8 per cent just this week to $135 a barrel. Analysts predict it could reach $200 by next year.
...
The stampede in the oil market is making billions of dollars for a lucky few and leading others to wonder whether the world is finally starting to run dry. Until recently, the notion that international production was about to reach its limits - the so-called “peak oil” theory - was the preserve of cranks and crackpots.
...
If ever the oil realists needed a sign of how the world’s balance of power has shifted, it came last weekend when President George Bush returned empty-handed from a mission to Saudi Arabia.
...
One of the most respected historians of the oil age, Dan Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research, predicts an imminent “breaking point” when changes in behaviour and use of alternative energy sources start to drive down the oil price again. Put simply: “Very high oil prices will change the world.”
***
I think we are there now. Perhaps "the end of the Cheap Energy Age occurred between 2005 and 2010" will be in our generation's history books.