During the last century, society squandered 500 million years of
captured sunlight on drag races, traffic jams, private jets and
overheated office buildings.
Kommentar von Rex Weyler über Peak Oil, EROI [Energy Return on Investment] und die wirtschaftliche Konjunktur, erschienen in Public Service Europe (15. März 2012).
Oil company cheerleaders proclaiming huge supplies of oil are dead wrong. Peak oil is as real as rain, and it is here now. Not 2050. Not 2020. Now. Oil production has been flat since 2005. This is not by choice. The producers cannot increase production because new fields cannot keep pace with declining production from old fields. The plateau is the top of the global depletion curve. Furthermore, this end of energy growth only accounts for volume. Energy quality and net-energy are falling like stones as environmental devastation increases. Every producing oil field on earth is in decline, unless it is brand new, and peak discoveries are well behind us. Meanwhile, the aggregate decline rate appears to be about 5 per cent per year. To maintain world production, we would need to bring a new Saudi Arabia – equivalent to three billion barrels annually - into full production every three years. There exists on earth not one single promising field that remotely approaches those requirements.
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