Oil reserves and peak oil

"In my previous article, "Things Just Got Worse," from on Jan. 25, 2006, I wrote about a recent report in the authoritative industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. The substance of the PIW report was that internal Kuwaiti records reveal that the nation's oil reserves are far below the officially stated amount of about 99 billion barrels."

"The PIW report claimed that Kuwait's remaining oil reserves total about 48 billion barrels, or 51 billion fewer barrels than previously advertised. These Kuwaiti reserves include about 24 billion barrels of "proven" reserves, which are known to a high degree of engineering certainty to be in the ground. And the remaining 24 billion barrels of Kuwaiti oil reserves are in the category of "unproven," meaning that they await further drilling and actual estimation under standard engineering practices."

As I stated in an earlier post, I've been pretty negligent in paying any attention to the Peak Oil issue. Well I've since read a little, and think this article points out just how hard it is for even the experts to know just what's in store for the future.

The article starts off discussing the discrepancy between a recent report by Kuwait on its' reserves, and outside estimates, then goes on to describe the difficulties everyone has in estimating what's still in the ground. I kind've thought it was all a guessing game, and all I've found confirms it. Did I learn anything? Not really. The fact that much of the worlds oil production is state owned (or "owning" a state, like ours), and is thus subject to politics when it comes to "official" reserve estimates, really goes without saying.

I think at this point, while there's still time, we should really start pushing for alternatives. At one time the world ran primarily on wood and coal, and then oil came along to replace much of it as the worlds energy source. We were lucky in our transition from coal to oil, we didn't run out of coal, and are still mining and using it, to a degree. But what if we'd run out first before discovering oil? What if we don't develop and put into wide use, a new source of energy, before we run out of oil?

Pay no attention to the nonsense promises of our President about finding new sources, or his blaming us for being "addicted" to oil. He intends to change nothing. We've experienced "problems" with oil for over 30 years, begining with the first so-called "oil crisis" of the early 70s. Since then we've been given nothing but lip-service in regards to alternatives. It's been 30 years. I say again, 30 years we've had to develop alternatives, and what's happened? Nothing. Government promises to promote research, then cuts funding. Oil companies succeed in reaping more profits. Auto manufacturers succeed in loosening regulations designed to force them to produce better milage and emissions.

Haven't you noticed that immediately after every "oil crisis" (and we've had several), we get aggressive advertising to buy even bigger vehicles (vans, pickup trucks, now SUVs. All of which by coincidence aren't as tightly regulated on safety and emissons as regular cars) that eat more gas than before, which creates more profits for the auto companies, oil companies, and governments through taxes at the pump. What incentive do any of them have, to change the status quo? The incentive must come from us. We must insist on a change, or nothing will happen. And you know that's true. We can't use alternatives to oil unless we're given some to use. Look how much technology has changed the world in the last 30 years alone, but we're supposed to believe we can't come up with a viable fuel alternative....yet!!

I still haven't looked too deeply into the Peak Oil controversy, but what I've seen so far, is no real revelation. Nothing's going on that hasn't been, for years. Nothing I can say is new. What I can do, spend some time pointing out the consequences of allowing our leaders in government and industry to continue to play their power games with us as the pawns.