The UK's Energy Research Centre recently released a study entitled "Global Oil Depletion - An assessment of the evidence for near-term peak in global oil production." (The report is available for downloading at the UKERC's website.)
The main conclusion of the British report is that there is a "significant risk" that conventional oil production will peak before 2020, and that forecasts which delay the event beyond 2030 are based on assumptions that are "at best optimistic and at worst implausible."
The IEA had in its reevaluation last year said that while conventional world oil production will peak around 2020, production of alternative fuels such as natural gas liquids and extracts from the Alberta tar sands will increase rapidly enough so that total liquid fuel production can keep growing through 2030.
It was the Deutsche Bank that last sent out a caution.
Going by conference-talk, a consensus has emerged that global convention oil production plateaued at the end of 2004 and is unlikely to ever grow very much again; that we are in brief period of balance between depletion from existing fields and production and this will last for another two to five years before world production starts to fall inexorably.
How prepared is the world today to tackle oil scarcity? How near do we need to reach before we apply the brakes?
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