Oily ploy?

Oil demand seen growing strongly

World oil demand should grow strongly over the next five years despite high prices, straining the supply chain as developing countries burn more, the International Energy Agency said yesterday. The adviser to 26 industrialized nations on energy policy forecast demand will grow at 1.8 million to 2.0 million barrels per year through 2010. "Several key non-OECD oil consumers, such as China, are in a phase of rapid energy-intensive industrialization," it said in its monthly Oil Market Report. "This should contribute to relatively robust oil product demand growth ... even if prices remain high." US light crude futures rose US7 cents yesterday to $61.37 a barrel, in part due to the IEA's demand forecast. The IEA raised its 2006 demand-increase forecast by 130,000 bpd from last month to 1.79 million bpd. Growth in 2005 was seen at 1.18 million bpd. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, followed by unseasonably warm northern hemisphere weather in late fall, slowed 2005 demand growth. But demand is expected to grow as temperatures drop.
(Toronto Star 051214)

Energy demand to skyrocket

Exxon Mobil said the world will need 60% more energy by 2030 as demand increases by an average of 1.6% a year. The fastest annual growth, 2%, will be demand for energy to generate electricity, Exxon Mobil said in a presentation posted on its website. Growth in overall demand will be fastest in developing countries, the company said. The projected increase would mean the world will need the equivalent of about 335 million barrels of oil, up from 205 million in 2000, Jaime Spellings, gm of corporate planning, said during a webcast of the presentation. Rising demand in the US, China and India has contributed to oil prices reaching a record US$70.85 a barrel Aug. 30. Energy demand will rise most rapidly, 3.2% per year, in developing Asia Pacific nations, he said. By 2030, countries including China and India will be using the equivalent of 113 million barrels of oil per day, or one-third of the global total.
(Calgary Herald 051214)

Acerbic rant to follow:

OK...need to do some math here. We're already consuming over 80 million barrels of oil per day. A 60% increase brings us up to the area of 130 million barrels of oil per day. That's a lot of freakin' oil. That's completely living with the fantasy that production rates will keep up with increasing demand (can you fathom pumping 60% more oil out of the ground every day globally?). Even if we do keep up, very conservative guesses predict Peak Oil will occur before 2030. By my guesstimates, that means that even as they're predicting incessantly increasing demand over the next 25 years, it is virtually impossible that supply will be able to keep pace - it's not like there are many (if any) more megafields to be discovered. Remember, Ghawar and Burgan are already in decline. Is a 2.5% production rate increase annually for the next 25 years reasonable? Oh, where oh where are the abiotic oil theorists when you need them?

It's common knowledge that numbers are based on what has already occurred, not what is happening right now. The IEA bases a lot of its production, storage and processing rate numbers on indicators from a couple of years ago since those are the only numbers that are 'complete'. Yet they keep spitting out these reports, citing huge increases in demand like there is no reason for concern over the current and potential future situation. Is anyone getting the big picture here? Is anyone alarmed (by doing simple deduction) that unless we start implementing some huge (and I mean HUGE) alternative energy production projects to assume some of the burden of those billions of barrels of oil a year we consume (with implications that with the scale required that it will take decades, not years, to fully implement a suitable replacement infrastructure - if so needed, of course - we can put the electricity created by breeder reactors on the grid, but hydrogen would require an entirely new infrastructure to be laid underground)? That if things remain as they are, we're going to be in a situation metaphorically like a train running full speed towards a bridge that's out with everyone partying inside, oblivious to what's about to happen, with the engineer driving the train being coerced by the insane (but oil-wealthy) conductor to go 'faster! faster!'? Insanity indeed. Non-negotiable lifestyle indeed.

Why would/How could someone deny something so heinous from being so obvious? It's called the psychology of previous investment. So many resources and so much time and energy has been used to create what we consider an immutable and 'normal' infrastructure today, and more importantly, for some people so much money has been made that it is unconscionable that the status quo could change or that the party could ever end or that power could be shifted to someone else. In that light, some people will do or say anything to give the illusion to the unwashed masses that everything's okay.