New US report acknowledges peak-oil threat

international | environment | other press Sunday March 20, 2005 16:18 by redjade

obtained by Aljazeera.net

Report: '...the problem of the peaking of world conventional oil production is unlike any yet faced by modern industrial society.'

It has long been denied that the US government bases any policy around the idea that global oil production may be in terminal decline.

But a new US government-sponsored report, obtained by Aljazeera.net, does exactly that.

Authored by Robert Hirsch, Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling and titled The Peaking of World Oil production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management, the report is an assessment requested by the US Department of Energy (DoE), National Energy Technology Laboratory.

It was prepared by Hirsch, who is a senior energy programme adviser at the private scientific and military company, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

They work extensively on defence and geopolitical issues for clients, including many for the US government.

- from Aljazeera.net
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5EF86883-8CDB-49B5-9A07-5759205A9DBE.htm

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Download the .PDF format file of the report at

http://www.hilltoplancers.org/stories/hirsch0502.pdf

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PEAKING OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION:
- IMPACTS, MITIGATION, & RISK MANAGEMENT

Robert L. Hirsch, SAIC, Project Leader
Roger Bezdek, MISI
Robert Wendling, MISI

February 2005

Our focus on existing commercial and near-commercial mitigation technologies illustrates that a number of technologies are currently ready for immediate and extensive implementation. Our analysis was not meant to be limiting. We believe that future research will provide additional mitigation options, some possibly superior to those we considered. Indeed, it would be appropriate to greatly accelerate public and private oil peaking mitigation research. However, the reader must recognize that doing the research required to bring new technologies to commercial readiness takes time under the best of circumstances. Thereafter, more than a decade of intense implementation will be required for world scale impact, because of the inherently large scale of world oil consumption.

In summary, the problem of the peaking of world conventional oil production is unlike any yet faced by modern industrial society. The challenges and uncertainties need to be much better understood. Technologies exist to mitigate the problem. Timely, aggressive risk management will be essential.