From The Independent:
Lord Oxburgh, the former chairman of Shell, has issued a stark warning that the price of oil could hit $150 per barrel, with oil production peaking within the next 20 years.
He accused the industry of having its head "in the sand" about the depletion of supplies, and warned: "We may be sleepwalking into a problem which is actually going to be very serious and it may be too late to do anything about it by the time we are fully aware."
Sounds like more peak oil doom and gloom, right? But if you read further, Oxburgh really sounds more like an economist than a peak oil nut.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday ahead of his address to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil in Ireland this week, Lord Oxburgh, one of the most respected names in the energy industry, said a rapid increase in the price of oil was inevitable as demand continued to outstrip supply. He said: "We can probably go on extracting oil from the ground for a very long time, but it is going to get very expensive indeed.
"And once you see oil prices in excess of $100 or $150 a barrel, the alternatives simply become more attractive on price grounds if on no others."
And that's the whole point. Talk, warnings, billboards, public service announcements, political pandering, celebrity endorsements, panic, etc...are all well and good, but prices will drive behavior.
"But at present there is a relatively poor business case for making significantly greater investment in these new areas."
And until a good business case can be made--that is, when the alternatives are thought to be profitable--significant investment won't--and shouldn't--occur.
Commenting on whether "peak oil" – the point when global oil production goes into terminal decline – was likely to be reached in the near future, he said: "In a way it scarcely matters; what really matters is the gap between production and demand. I don't know whether there is going to be a peak in world oil production, whether it's going to plateau and then slowly come down.
"It could well plateau within the next 20 years, and I guess I would be surprised if it hadn't."
As would I, but we will only know in hindsight. Not to be repetitive, but--Peak Oil is not a problem, No Oil is.
