More Reactions to the CERA Report

Even some members of Congress are noticing the rather optimistic though constrained CERA report on the future of oil production and have some comments; despite the attempt by CERA to paint a rosy near-term picture, there is acknowledgement that we have a long-term energy problem. Roscoe Barlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM) give us their interpretation in the Energy Bulletin:

Congressmen Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM), cofounders and cochairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus, said that a new report released today by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), Why the Peak Oil Theory Falls Down: Myths, Legends, and the Future of Oil Resources, confirms the urgency for the United States government to adopt a crash program to mitigate the devastating consequences of peak oil.

Congressman Bartlett said, "The CERA report agrees that world oil production will peak and projects it will occur within 20-25 years. However, world demand is growing exponentially - faster than production so the CERA report confirms the likelihood of future shortages of liquid fuel and much higher and volatile prices. ..."

(snip)

Congressman Udall said, "CERA's report is one of the most optimistic predictions for the peak in global oil production to date, and it still underscores the need to address this problem immediately. Whether it is Peak Oil, global warming, or the fact that some of the money we send overseas to support our oil addiction comes back to us in the form of terrorism, the U.S. cannot wait any longer to develop sensible and sustainable alternatives to oil."

Keep in mind that much of the press so far has chosen to emphasize the overly optimistic interpretation of the CERA report on oil. The Oil Drum, which has been doing regular analysis of the world oil situation, has a response to the CERA report by Dave Cohen; it's one of the best essays I've seen on the subject and should be read in its entirety but here's one of the key paragraphs:

No one, including CERA, doubts that a peak in world conventional oil production will eventually occur; it is only a matter of when it will occur. ...CERA believes that the apex of production will happen circa 2040. Those putting forth the peak oil hypothesis simply disagree about the timing. Although estimates vary, most of us agree that the peak will occur sometime before 2015, a scant 9 years from now. Within that range, some think the current plateau in oil production signals that the peak is now while others put the peak elsewhere in the coming decade. If this hypothesis is correct, the world will have little time to mitigate the problem, as outlined in Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management by Robert L. Hirsch (SAIC), Roger Bezdek, (MISI) Robert Wendling, (MISI) published in February, 2005. [Note: The Hirsch report is a 90 pg. pdf file; it's clickable in Cohen's post.]

Dave Cohen's response deals only with oil production, the failure of new discoveries to keep up with production, and the Peak Oil theory itself. But it's an excellent response to the CERA report and makes clear that the time to deal with energy issues is now rather than 30 years from now.

There is actually a great deal more involved then the specifics of Peak Oil and others will be writing more on some of these issues in coming months and if Congress starts holding hearings on some of these matters, we may learn a great deal more. There are many twists and turns here. For example, a potential solution to the oil/energy problem is turning to coal, but coal is the dirtiest fuel out there and would add heavily to Global Warming. We have grown used to thirty years of a media minimizing the energy problem and minimizing the effects of pollution but fossil fuel use has been growing in recent decades, populations have been growing, and more economies, like India and China, are becoming part of the industrialized world and they need energy. The future has arrived.