17:00 Do we run out of oil?

From What The Wiki?!

This article is a report of the Do we run out of oil?lecture.

The oilshortage becomes visible to the outer world: prices of oilproducts (for example petrol) are rising all over the world. The message starts to become more widespread, signs are showing that the general public is being prepared for a oil-shortage al over the world. For example: Chevron has started a publicity campaign. More doubts are being made on estimated oil-reserves from oil-companies (which is the main factor for the stockprices of oil-companies, see Shell as a example.)

Peak oil is moment that production-levels of oil will peak, instead of the current situation where production-levels are still increasing. The moment that peak-oil worldwide will occur is estimated between 2007 and 2037, dependent on which source is quoted. After peak-oil has occured the production-levels of oil will decrease year after year, thus increasing oil price's worldwide.

What is the core of the problem: Oil is used for everything in the society. Clothing, food (fertilizers), transport, plastics, and all kinds of other stuff is made of oil. The current society is being run on oil: economic factors (inflation, stocks, interest) can be coupled on the oilprice (=indicator of availability).

The question is: what will happen if the oilprice will be supply-driven instead of offer-driven. The current price of a oilbarrel is now $60, in november it will be expected that the oilprice will be $80 per barrel. In several countries this has allready caused troubles in all kinds of sorts (including a uproar in Jemen when the fuelprice roze 50%)

How to adapt a society for the decrease in oil-production: It will take at least 50 years to switch to a different kind of society. That time isn't left. Alternatives currently available aren't cost-effective (altough, when energy becomes more expensive, they might be). Unfortunatly, there wasn't enough time to talk about more alternatives/factors (like population growth).