World's dangerously dwindling oil supply - half of producible oil will be consumed by 2010 at current rate of oil consumption growth - Brief Article

Oil will be in even greater demand in the 21st century. That's because usage continues to grow while an approaching production peak likely will herald worldwide economic disruption, according to Craig B. Hatfield, a University of Toledo (Ohio) geologist. "In 2011, we will have consumed half of all the producible oil we have ever had if the oil consumption rate stops growing and holds constant at its current level. If the consumption rate continues to grow as it does every year, we will reach the midpoint of production during the first decade of the coming century."

What are the odds that oil usage will stop growing now? Not good, Hatfield warns. He paints a bleak picture of the world's oil production rate beginning its permanent decline within 15 years. Global oil consumption was 59,700,000 barrels per day in 1985; it rose to 69,000,000 barrels a day in 1995. The 16% increase in a decade was followed by a 2.5% rise in 1996.

The spurt in consumption in recent years was due mostly to countries experiencing rapid economic growth. "People in underdeveloped parts of the world want to increase their standard of living--that means more fuel consumption." Hatfield points out that energy use has gone up approximately 30% in Latin America, 40% in Africa, and 50% in Asia since 1985.

Supplying nations have their limitations as well. "Middle East countries, which have most of the world's oil, can compensate temporarily as oil production in the rest of the world declines, but only temporarily because the Middle East countries will also reach their peak in oil production rate sometime during the second decade of the 21st century. The decline in world oil production can't be delayed beyond that decade."

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has roughly two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. "The Middle East countries will be the last to experience the beginning of decline in the production rate," Hatfield predicts. "The rest of the world will experience that earlier. Some countries have already experienced it. The problem is many people don't realize we're going to have oil supply problems as soon as well will have them."

What will happen when OPEC hits its peak? "When the world oil production rate reaches its maximum and begins that permanent decline, that's an economic catastrophe. That's when demand exceeds supply and the world economies are disrupted." This will be a costly predicament. "When the price of oil goes up, the price of everything goes up because our economy is oil-driven. You remember what happened following the shortages of the 1970s. Those were temporary disruptions and they were very minor shortages, just a few percent by which demand exceeded supply. And the price of oil rose many fold and we had rampant inflation the world over. There was double-digit inflation in the United States. Economic growth was severely curtailed. All economies were impacted. If you could envision that being on a permanent basis--the oil production rate declining every year indefinitely in the future--then you can appreciate the magnitude of the problem."

What is being done in the face of this chilling realization? "Immediately following the shortages of the 1970s, synthetic fuel projects were initiated by the government," Hatfield notes. "There was research oriented toward the development of economically feasible fuels from oil shales, tar sands, coal lique-faction, solar energy, nuclear fusion--you name it, we started research on all of these to make them feasible in large volumes." As oil prices declined in the 1980s, though, these projects were abandoned as quickly as they were started.

"This is a long-term problem that we should be working on, but we aren't. To develop affordable sources of energy that are adequate to compensate for the coming decline of oil production requires time, gigantic capital investment, and new technology. We don't have much time."

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