Community | February 15, 2011 | 41 comments

Shell report predicts peak oil now or soon, ponders ‘Depression 2.0′

source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/15/shell-report-predicts-peak-oil-now-or-soon-ponders-dep...

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WakeUpPeople
The industrial doomsday scenario put forward by peak oil theorists isn't just for far flung voices on the Internet anymore.

Peak oil is not a problem of Earth's supplies: there's plenty of oil in a variety of forms. The difficulty is in how much energy it takes to recover and process it. And if it hasn't happened already, soon the demand for energy commodities will soar past existing production capacity and crash headlong into the brick wall of declining discoveries.

The economic effects of this could be devastating to the human populations within industrialized societies, to say the least.

That's not just the line from Noam Chomsky, Michael Rupert and Dmitry Orlov: the second largest company in the world, Shell International, a major player in the energy commodities industries, is saying it too.

In a recent "Signals & Signposts" report by Shell, forecasting energy scenarios through 2050, the oil giant predicted a growing volatility in the price of oil and a coming period of "extraordinary opportunity or misery."

As the demand for oil buts up against actual production and remaining reserves, the climbing price of oil will cause the gross domestic product of all nations to decline, they predict.

In another section, Shell calls these economic effects "Depression 2.0." Though that scenario is introduced as "unlikely," the rest of the report does not paint a rosy outlook.

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41 comments // Shell report predicts peak oil now or soon, ponders ‘Depression 2.0′

  • WakeUpPeople
  • nselstad
  • PumaSportsCar
  • CapitalG
    • 0
      CapitalG  

    • Permaculture, permaculture, permaculture.

      In the old Soviet Union, 30% of state land was used for Agri-biz farming and 3% of it for private farmers - the 3% of the land worked by private farmers produced more food than the state's 30%.

      It can be done.

    • 1 year ago
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
    • 0
      COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM  

    • Of course, should we believe any oil industry facts and figures, particularly when our current subsidies to them are now threatened by the Obama budget? This press release could be a lobbying pre vote ploy. True, it's relative availability made it a preeminent energy source, but it didn't happen without lobbyists paying off Congress to suppress alternative energy development for decades. Emails and phone calls flooding into the office of the President and our congressmen might just speed up the implementation of alternative energy technology.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
  • tverdell
  • Avior
    • +2
      Avior  

    • I have to say bring it on. I am ready to see oil go the way of the dinosaurs :p Drilling for oil destroys the environment, just look at what happened in the gulf. It pollutes the air we breathe, the water we drink, and some of the chemicals are even used in food processing. The earth naturally puts these poisons way deep down inside itself to protect life on earth.

      We are an "intelligent", creative, problem solving species, we can do better. Unfortunately it's the problems we create that we usually have to solve.

    • 1 year ago
  • Dagum
    • 0
      Dagum  
    • Avior:

      Be careful what you wish for . We haven't made much of an effort to transition to alternative fuel sources so society could break down in chaos, MadMax Roadwarrior style.

    • 1 year ago
  • Avior
    • 0
      Avior  
    • Dagum:

      Who's fault would it be if it did happen that way? Wouldn't it be our own? Peak oil is coming whether we like it or not. The question is what are we going to do about it? We are painting ourselves further into a corner everyday we do nothing.

      There are alternatives to have a road warrior style outcome to this very solvable problem.

    • 1 year ago
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • since the 70's there has been a mad rush of new drilling sites to just keep up. the top oil producers in there time like baku and venezuela are tapped out. even america, top producer until the 50's, has only 2% reserves left. that leaves the saudi's and iran (the least explored and exploited oil fields) to supply the earth.

    • 1 year ago
  • Cruzankenny
    • +2
      Cruzankenny  

    • I'm all for the price of oil shooting thru the roof. Remember 4 years back when the futures market was colluding and driving the price of oil up? People started conserving and quit buying gas guzzlers. I think our demand dropped by a half percent, yet we brought Dubai to it's knees and reverberated throughout the oil industry.
      If we cut our demand for oil, the countries in the Middle East wouldn't be so important we had to meddle into their affairs and they wouldn't be so rich they could meddle into ours.

    • 1 year ago
  • Earthwalker
  • 2warsoffbooks
  • alexandrek
  • 2warsoffbooks
    • 0
      2warsoffbooks  
    • alexandrek:

      How long has this been going on?
      Back in the oil shortage of the seventies, I read a speech by a politician decrying the end of the world's oil supply and the end of civilization as he knew it. The speech was from 1932.

    • 1 year ago
  • fairandbiased
    • 0
      fairandbiased  
    • Image

    • Excellent radio interview today with Lester Brown, author of "World On The Edge". He provided statistics on wind energy for example from only 3 western states could provide the electrical requirments for the entire nation with vast reserves.
      Until the corporacrats are removed from office and replaced with scientists and climatologists, we are heading for a global disaster of biblical proportions.
      It will be a very bad day in the neighborhood.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +6
      JanforGore  

    • http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2879-soil-not-oil.html

      Soil not Oil.

      Our global oil dependence and addiction are killing agriculture and our soil and as a result polluting our planet and jeopardizing our health and future. Food riots, poverty and famine are what such a global economy have wrought rather then placing the value of life on life instead of money and is unsustainable. We are heading for a life we never imagined if we do not understand our part in this.

    • 1 year ago
  • arbil333
  • arbil333
  • arbil333
  • August_K
    • 0
      August_K  
    • arbil333:

      Costs will go up but the truth of the matter is that we are running out of oil at the rate we are using it and we use oil for more than just fuel. Amazingly we use it for all kinds of manufactured products as well....think plastic and how much we use and toss away.

      In 1950 we had a global population of 2 Billion.
      We now have a global population of 8 Billion....that's ONLY 60 years.....and as the population multiplies even faster we will use up all our natural resources quicker.
      It's not about cost per gallon at the pump....it's survival of our planet and life as we know it.

    • 1 year ago
  • Mr_Brainwash
  • August_K
    • 0
      August_K  
    • Mr_Brainwash:

      Yes!
      I just read about Mercedes Benz and their F-CELL hydrogen cars.
      They are working on getting countries in Europe to install Hydrogen filling stations.

      I love that their F-Cell cars are emission free!
      Detroit.....big oil's little brother.........they'll be the last in line to get a clue.

    • 1 year ago
  • Mr_Brainwash
    • 0
      Mr_Brainwash  
    • August_K:

      YES! another convert. I did my first college paper on hydrogen fuel cells in 2002. At the time people were calling them H-Bombs on wheels. We'll have to wait and see how Big Oil and their media manipulating cronies try to smear this technology this time.

      As it stands it looks like Mercedes (a badge well-known for high tech quality cars) is not afraid of them.

      Side Note: the first fully functional hybrid engine was made in the U.S. in the 1970's

    • 1 year ago
  • Psymoniac
  • August_K
    • 0
      August_K  
    • Psymoniac:

      Thank You! EVERYONE should watch that series of video clips.
      It will open a lot of eyes and things happening around us will make sense.......and the people really do need to know this stuff.

    • 1 year ago
  • Schnookums
    • +5
      Schnookums  
    • Image

    • Global peak oil output has never been a theory. It's just a fact. It has always been known (to those in charge) that at some point the demand for the stuff would exceed our speed at getting it out of the ground/processing it because of declining reserve quality (not, as many like to concentrate on, quantity). The only question was when.

      That appears to have functionally happened in 2005. From then on, we've been experiencing what the peak is all about. Despite surging demand after 2005 and huge financial incentives to produce more, with oil topping close to $150/bbl in 2008, the upper limit of how fast the world could get it out of the ground didn't budge. As oil rose, it put the brakes on in the rest of the economy. I would expect that process to play out again and again over the next generation or two. Oil rises during short-lived recovery periods until the expense of it slows the economy into recession. Rinse. Repeat.

      So Shell is just now admitting this publicly......it's not like they just came to this conclusion. Not that going public (finally) isn't a big deal. The 2010 World Energy Outlook was also the first time that international body went public with the facts too:

      http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2010/WEO2010_ES_English.pdf

      Well, not really. Even the WEO 2010 and Shell leave out the really bad stuff:

      http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7102

      Namely, how fast the decline happens from here. I guess time will tell who is right.......

    • 1 year ago
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • Schnookums
    • +6
      Schnookums  
    • Image
    • ThatCrazyLibertarian:

      I guess it all depends on how that huge growing light-blue "oil yet to be found" wedge works out for us.

      I've wondered to myself before if global warming wasn't at least being welcomed with open arms by the energy oligarchs so that arctic and antarctic drilling would become feasible. I don't like to think about that though, so I don't.

    • 1 year ago
  • BenjaminDover
  • SparkyJP
  • telcod
    • +5
      telcod  

    • Fuck Shell Oil. It's about the math. Simple. A few billion years to create fossil fuel and we fuck it all gone in 300 years. Maybe our ancestors in another few billion years will be using our remains to power their hummers, vehicles or otherwise.

    • 1 year ago
  • AJILIVIZION
    • +1
      AJILIVIZION  

    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2y9BbNjLAY

      Escape from Suburbia

      In 2004, the documentary The End of Suburbia publicly launched the controversial issue of peak oil. This March, in the second film in director Gregory Greene's trilogy, Escape from Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream, we discover what we're up against and how we might survive a post-carbon future. Experts reveal critical information about the economic, scientific, political and social impact of oil depletion, while community agriculture and environmental organizations, the transportation industry and the peak oil movement square off over the myths that perpetuate paranoia and the truths that challenge the status quo. Are you ready for the 21st century?
      -------------------------------------------------------
      Conspiracy theorists can worry all they want about a secret cabal of people plotting against everyone else. But unless these people are seriously trying to help communities prepare for a world without oil, they are totally wasting precious time trying to track the plans that may or may not exist. I wish this was the top subject to discuss for anyone and everyone. It will be, I just wish it would be before its a crisis.

    • 1 year ago
  • ClassicalGas
    • +2
      ClassicalGas  

    • The Oil Drum dot com has many excellent analyses on global oil production - check it out. It's an eye-opener and emphasizes the need to develop alternate energy sources immediately.

    • 3 months ago
  • Wetdog
    • +3
      Wetdog  

    • --------" As the demand for oil buts up against actual production and remaining reserves, the climbing price of oil will cause the gross domestic product of all nations to decline, they predict."--------

      Not if they do not use oil to meet their energy needs.

      There are other options.

      Brazil already provides 50% of their own transportation fuel demands with biofuels. And Brazil produces oil. So what do they do with the oil that they do not need at home?

      They sell it to the dumb schmucks who sit around with their thumb up their butts and continue to use oil. And since they already have their thumb up their butt----the only way they can pay for it is through their nose.

    • 2 years ago
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • WakeUpPeople
  • Funky
    • Funky [removed]  
    • This comment was removed as a violation of community guidelines.
  • Hulagirrrl
  • 2warsoffbooks
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