The Guardian reports that data about oil production, globally, shows conclusively that the world has past Peak Oil and we are now in the post-Peak Oil era.
This is based on an Energy Watch Group report scheduled to be released Monday in London.
The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.
The analysis argues that we should expect 7% reductions in oil production per annum. Today, more than 80 million barrels per day are extracted. The Energy Group predicts a less than 40 million barrels / day production level by 2030.
The report presents a bleak view of the future unless a radically different approach is adopted. It quotes the British energy economist David Fleming as saying: “Anticipated supply shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month. For government, industry and the wider public, just muddling through is not an option any more as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a complete meltdown of society.”
Mr Schindler comes to a similar conclusion. “The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life.”
This report offers up the potential for adding to the debate and discussion, claiming to have been based on higher-quality data.
But, in any even, this is absolutely true:
Jeremy Leggett, one of Britain’s leading environmentalists and the author of Half Gone, a book about “peak oil” – defined as the moment when maximum production is reached, said that both the UK government and the energy industry were in “institutionalised denial” and that action should have been taken sooner.
Institutionalized denial … a global phenomena.