How soon will world's oil supplies peak? By John Dillin
WASHINGTON – If world crude-oil production hits its peak and then falls within the next five to 10 years, would America be ready? The answer is, almost certainly not.
A debate unlike anything seen since the oil embargoes of the 1970s has erupted over the future of world petroleum supplies. A chorus of experts claims that the peak in production may be approaching, and that the impact of a peak and subsequent dropoff would be devastating to the world's economies. Others insist that moment is still distant.
Experts' views on future oil supplies are divided into two major groups - the optimists and the pessimists, David Greene of Oak Ridge National Laboratory said at a recent oil-supply workshop sponsored by the National Academies. On this topic, he said, "the only unbiased opinion is an uninformed opinion." Pessimists predict the world's output of conventional oil will top out within the next few years at about 100 million barrels a day (m.b.d.) and then decline - perhaps by as much as 8 percent a year. Optimists contend that there is plenty of oil, particularly in the Middle East, and output will meet worldwide demand through at least 2030.
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