Oil and gas running out much faster than expected, says study
By Charles Arthur, Technology Editor 02 October 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=449053
World oil and gas supplies are heading for a "production crunch" sometime
between 2010 and 2020 when they cannot meet supply, because global reserves
are 80 per cent smaller than had been thought, new forecasts suggest.
Research presented this week at the University of Uppsala in Sweden claims
that oil supplies will peak soon after 2010, and gas supplies not long
afterwards, making the price of petrol and other fuels rocket, with
potentially disastrous economic consequences unless people have moved to
alternatives to fossil fuels.
While forecasters have always known that such a date lies ahead, they have
previously put it around 2050, and estimated that there would be time to
shift energy use over to renewables and other non- fossil sources. But
Kjell Aleklett, one of a team of geologists that prepared the report, said
earlier estimates that the world's entire reserve amounts to 18,000 billion
barrels of oil and gas - of which about 1,000 billion has been used up so
far - were "completely unrealistic". He, Anders Sivertsson and Colin
Campbell told New Scientist magazine that less than 3,500 billion barrels
of oil and gas remained in total.
