When you pump oil, the easy stuff comes out first, after that it gets more like tar. Most fields outside the Middle East are already past their peak. Oil discoveries peaked in the 60s and we've now used about half the worlds oil. World oil production will soon start to decline.
Up until now, higher prices have always been met by more oil pumped. This wont be able to happen for much longer, so prices will continue to rise until people find ways to use less oil. Until then there will be shortages, much higher prices and growing international tension over remaining oil stocks. We are not facing the “end of oil”; it will be around for at least another 50 years. However, we are facing the end of cheap and abundant oil, on which our society has been built.
Solutions to peak oil are also part of the solution to climate change .
This legislation provides certainty for business investors who are poised to invest significant money in infrastructure in this country. It is the sort of certainty that the National Party often demands for investors, but it is not voting for it.
The whole world is on a mission to move its transport systems off fossil fuels and on to renewable sources of energy, and we do not have a lot of time to do it, because this is driven by two things
The Greens highlight the Government's inaction on public transport and their senseless road building binge!
The National Party's new energy policy is a tribute to cronyism and makes no economic sense. It ignores our biggest energy problem, transport fuels and the rising cost of oil, and relies on ‘drill and hope’. No one with any common sense would invest in more subsidies to fossil fuels when New Zealand is so well endowed with renewable energy.
Not one of ours, it's from the good magazine, but makes the peak oil point so well - can't think of anywhere better for it to be than our peak oil page.
Chevron's Will You Join Us - Even big oil recognises that "the era of easy oil is over". Their new website highlights the rapid pace of oil consumption and invites participation in public debates on our energy future. As their vision says "We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. Or we can commit to working together, and start by asking the tough questions."
EnergyBulletin.net - A clearinghouse for current information regarding the peak in global energy supply. Publish news and research. They have an excellent Peak Oil Primer that contains links to a wide variety of useful websites.
Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC) - An independent, UK-registered educational charity working to raise international public awareness and promote better understanding of the world's oil-depletion problem. Comprehensive list of recent news.
Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) - A network of scientists, affiliated with European institutions and universities, having an interest in determining the date and impact of the peak and decline of the world's production of oil and gas.