Posted on 03/25/2005 6:50:44 PM PST by neverdem
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Princeton, N.J.
PRESIDENT BUSH'S hopes for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge came one step closer to reality last week. While Congress must still pass a law to allow drilling in the refuge, the Senate voted to include oil revenues from such drilling in the budget, making eventual approval of the president's plan more likely.
Yet the debate over drilling in the Arctic refuge has been oddly beside the point. In fact, it may be distracting us from a far more important problem: a looming world oil shortage.
The environmental argument over drilling in the refuge has often been portrayed as "tree huggers" versus "dirty drillers" (although, as a matter of fact, the north coastal plain of Alaska happens to have no trees to hug). Even as we concede that this is an oversimplification, we should also ask how a successful drilling operation would affect American oil production.
The United States Geological Survey has estimated that the Arctic oil field is likely to be at least half the size of the Prudhoe Bay oil field, almost 100 miles to the west. Opening that oil field was like hitting a grand slam: Prudhoe Bay, which has already produced more than 13 billion barrels, is the biggest American oil field. (I was once at a party with a bunch of geologists from Mobil Oil when an argument broke out: who discovered Prudhoe Bay? Everybody in the room except me claimed to have done so.)
Unfortunately, you don't hit a grand slam in every at-bat. The geological survey estimates that the Arctic refuge could produce at least half as much oil as Prudhoe Bay. It is also possible, however, that the refuge could produce no oil at all - it often happens in the oil industry. At the other extreme, the upper range of the geological survey's estimate soars to 16 billion barrels. Although the geologists at the survey are widely respected, the upper ranges of their petroleum estimates for the refuge have drawn criticism, sometimes expressed as giggles, from other petroleum geologists.
Despite its size, Prudhoe Bay was not big enough to reverse the decline of American oil production. The greatest year of United States production was 1970. Prudhoe Bay started producing oil in 1977, but never enough to raise American production above the level of 1970. The Arctic refuge will probably have an even smaller effect. Every little bit helps, but even the most successful drilling project at the Arctic refuge would be only a little bit.
But if the question of whether to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the wrong one, what's the right one? In 1997 and 1998, a few petroleum geologists began examining world oil production using the methods that M. King Hubbert used in predicting in 1956 that United States oil production would peak during the early 1970's. These geologists indicated that world oil output would reach its apex in this decade - some 30 to 40 years after the peak in American oil production. Almost no one paid attention.
I used to work with Mr. Hubbert at Shell Oil, and my own independent research places the peak of world oil production late this year or early in 2006. Even a prompt and successful drilling operation in the Arctic refuge would not start pumping oil into the pipeline before 2008 or 2009.
A permanent drop in world oil production will have serious consequences. In addition to the economic blow, there will be the psychological effect of accepting that there are limits to an important energy resource. What can we do? More efficient diesel automobiles, and greater reliance on wind and nuclear power, are well-engineered solutions that are available right now. Conservation, although costly in most cases, will have the largest impact. The United States also has a 300-year supply of coal, and methods for using coal without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere are being developed.
After world oil production starts to decline, a small group of geologists could gather in my living room and all claim to have discovered the peak. "We told you so," we could say. But that isn't the point. The controversy over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a side issue. The problem we need to face is the impending world oil shortage.
Kenneth S. Deffeyes, a professor emeritus of geology at Princeton, is the author of "Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak."
Easy answer to what happens when the Oil runs out, hook up all
professors emeritus as hot air sources.
Once the oil runs out then Rush going to advise his listners to buy bigger SUVs?
Biodiesel and synthetic gas.
We burn copies of New York Slimes.
Surprisingly non-panic stricken ed from NYT about it. The clear answer, to me at least, is phasing oil out over the next 20-30 years and replacing it with nuclear and oil shale/coal.
Hopefully by then fusion will be more realistic. If not, just keep ramping up fission. Eventually, fuel cells could do the electric storage for the cars.
What Happens Once the Oil Runs Out?
Try Soylent Green?
This is pure, unadulterated pooh!
What about shale in the U.S. Rockies, and the sand in Canada? A lot of oil, just not financially viable...
I think he means the tundra.
It amazes me that liberals would rather drill near Santa Monica than someplace where there the population density is (much) less than one person per square mile.
ML/NJ
We're all just too free! Best to let our geniuses make the decisions for us. After all, their dire warnings always come true, don't they?????
Horsepower becomes more popular and people would learn to work closer to home.
That's if no alternative source was found.
Can't cut loose without that juice
Can't cut loose without that juice
If we keep on like we doing things for sure
Will not be cool - It's a fact
We just ai't got suffiecient fuel
There's only so much oil in the ground
Sooner or later there won't be none around
Alternate sources of power must be found
Cause there's only so much oil in the ground
We will never run out of energy.
"NREL's research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved (as they will be, with several research groups and companies working towards it, including ours at UNH). In the previous section, we found that to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.
Thats easy.
We uncap our wells, and start drilling and pumping our own!
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