Dr. Hirsch was commissioned by the DoE 4 years ago to do a comprehensive study on the time required to mitigate rising oil prices by e.g., coal to liquids, better fuel efficiency of the vehicles on the road and so on. His talk at the 2005 ASPO meeting in Lisbon was one of the best at that meeting.
So this guy is not a flake, he is one of the planet's few real experts on oil. On CNBC he said that he believed that in 3-5 years oil would reach $500 a barrel. This is in broad agreement with Jeffrey Brown's prediction at theoildrum.com that oil would about double in price every year. And Matt Simmons has recently given a roughly equivalent forecast.
Why will energy definitly be a problem in the next few years?
* We have accelerating declines in base production of oil. This means that we need more and more new oil every year just to keep production at the same level.
* We know how much oil is going to be available to the market over the next 7 - 10 years.
From the Mega Projects database (Volumes shown are in thousand barrels per day.)
Year 1000 BPD The bulge is now. We are probably never going to have as much new oil coming onto the market as we do this year.
It drops by almost ONE MILLION barrels next year, and the 2010 value is HALF that of 2008. Yes, there is a minor rally over the next two years, and then it's all downhill.
We WILL almost certainly see rationing by the end of 2010. Our only real hope of avoiding it is an industry-stopping recession. Gee, doesn't that sound like fun.
So, in the meantime...
* Get out of debt.
* Don't take on extra debt.
* Get used to eating from your own garden.
* Will your livlihood be at risk? Teaching? OK. Police? OK. Dairy farming? Maybe OK... Tourism? Uhmmm. Car sales? Uhmmm. Real Estate? Uhmmm.
2003 3172
2004 2747
2005 3776
2006 3855
2007 3314
2008 6912
2009 6146
2010 3770
2011 4563
2012 5111
2013 1237
2014 680
2015 672
2016 30
2017 162
2018 130
2019 50
Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy, the Reserve Bank Of Scotland issues a global stock and credit crash alert. Are they right? Probably not. But they don't issue this sort of warning just for fun. There are major challenges facing our globalised economy that are going to be playing out over the next few years.
By 2050 we may all be riding hydrogen-powered motorbikes and holidaying on the moon. Or not. But between now and then we may just miss a few meals.
I hope your school is preparing your children for "Tomorrow's World."
