Abstract
Soaring oil prices, which surged to $147 a barrel in mid-2008, have drawn attention to the issue of supply and demand, suggesting that the present production capacity limits are being breached. It leads people to ask if we are running out of oil. The simple answer is: Yes, we started doing that when we used the first gallon.But the world is a long way from finally running out. What it does face, however, is the end of the First Half of the Age of Oil, which lasted 150 years, giving rise to extraordinary changes in the way people lived.
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Notes
- 1.
Calouste Gulbenkian, who laid the foundations for the Iraq Petroleum Company (see Yergin, 1991).
- 2.
Theories about the so-called abiotic origin of oil, as promoted by some economists, can be confidently dismissed not having contributed any material quantity to the world’s stock of known oil.
- 3.
Calculated on the basis of the energy required to lift a ton of sand to a height of 2 m.
- 4.
See an excellent book, The Upside of Down, by Thomas Homer-Dixon, which reviews this subject in depth.
- 5.
Extensive use has been made of the national summaries provided in The Rapid Growth of Human Populations 1750–2000by William Stanton (Published by Multi-Science ISBN 0-906522-21-8).
- 6.
President Bush justified the invasion of Iraq at a Press Conference in December 2006 with the words: our energy supply was at risk(BBC TV). The attack on Libya in 2011 probably also has an oil subtext.
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© 2013 Colin J. Campbell and Alexander Wöstmann
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Campbell, C.J. (2013). Introduction. In: Campbell's Atlas of Oil and Gas Depletion. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3576-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3576-1_1
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