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The Hirsch report on Peak oil
There was a report prepared for and sponsored by the department of energy released a few weeks ago. I found it very interesting. Basically the authors are optimists that believe there will be a techno-fix for the problem of peak oil, at least in the short run. But they are optimists that have done their homework.
They look into three different scenarios, 1) A crash-program for peak oil is started in the face of the peak 2) A crash-program for peak oil is started 10 years before the peak 3) A crash-program for peak oil is started 20 years before the peak And when they say crash-program they mean exactly that. All the funding that is needed is provided; every political decision that is needed is made instantaneously and so on. In a following post in this thread I will post the executive summary of the report, for those interested but disinclined to download the full report (1.2 MB / 91 pages pdf). The conclusion they reach is this [ QUOTE ] Our results are congruent with the fundamentals of the problem: * Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two decades. * Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked. * Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to offer the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period. [/ QUOTE ] A commentary on the report can be read here: Considering there is a fair amount of people with real knowledge on these things that claim we are less than 5 years from the peak, I’d say it’s about time to get that crash-program started. The Hirsch report (1.2 mb pdf) Energy bulletin |
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