[Mb-civic] The end of oil - H.D.S. Greenway - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

The end of oil

By H.D.S. Greenway  |  September 6, 2005

SOME TIME ago National Public Radio collected the recorded voices of the 
last five or six American presidents and broadcast them, each with his 
own distinctive tone, all saying exactly the same thing: America has to 
end its dependency on foreign oil.

Today President Bush makes much the same kind of statements as his 
predecessors did, but the measures he recommends hold only a little 
promise. And today the problem is rapidly becoming not just foreign oil, 
but oil itself.

To be fair, the president is absolutely right when he says that our 
energy problems cannot be solved overnight. ''Most of the serious 
problems, such as high gasoline costs or the rising dependence on 
foreign oil have developed over decades. It's going to take years of 
focused effort to alleviate those problems."

His critics have said that the $14.5 billion energy bill is a giveaway 
of tax breaks to energy companies, including nuclear, but the world is 
going to need all the oil it can get in the next three or four decades, 
and alternatives have to be financially encouraged. The trouble comes 
when the ''focused effort" wanes, and politicians become unwilling to 
pay even a short-term price for a long-term gain.

The disappointing and weak side of Bush's approach is symbolized by the 
disinterest in both the White House and Congress in imposing better gas 
mileages in the automobile industry. The United States, the world's 
largest oil importer, consumes 20 million barrels a day, and 40 percent 
of that goes out the exhaust pipes of cars and trucks. Car 
manufacturers, however, complain to the Republicans that mandatory fuel 
efficiency might hurt their flagging businesses, and labor complains to 
Democrats that jobs might be endangered.

Experts disagree on when the world's oil will start to run out, when 
production will reach its peak and start its downward slide. But they do 
know that demand is rising extraordinarily quickly. In 2002 the world 
consumed 79 billion barrels of oil each day. In 2003 the figure had 
risen to 82.5. Last year it was 84.5 -- much of due to China's 
industrial revolution.

An ad paid for by Chevron, America's second biggest oil company, says: 
''It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll 
use the next trillion in 30." This is all the more startling when some 
experts hold that there are only about 1 trillion barrels of oil left in 
the ground. Chevron's chairman David O'Reilly says, ''Some say that in 
20 years the world will consume 40 percent more oil than it does today. 
At the same time, many of the world's oil and gas fields are maturing." 
For ''maturing" read running out, and predictions of $100 a barrel and 
more in the not too distant future are becoming common.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/06/the_end_of_oil/
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