The former non-executive chairman of Shell UK has issued a stark warning about the world’s oil supply at a conference in Ireland this week. Lord Oxburgh expects that global oil demand will outstrip supply within twenty years as production hits plateau, and that the oil price could hit $150 in the long term. He accuses some in the industry of having their heads “almost in the sand” about oil depletion, and concludes “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”.
Read the full interview here.
Conference details here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
Must be one of these crackpot Peak Oil people that have the temerity to suggest that the world’s oil might be finite.
No hang on – former chairman of Shell …. Maybe he knows what he is talking about.
Hopefully ordering my electric scooter soon.
http://www.vectrix.com.au
Good to see the adolescent strategy of writing off the views of Big Oil because they’re so evil has been renounced!
Well done Ender!
Now we can actually discuss commissioned research on it’s merits rather than it’s origin.
Jim – “Good to see the adolescent strategy of writing off the views of Big Oil because they’re so evil has been renounced!”
You are drawing a pretty long bow here. Shell did not commission this comment by a former executive so from this, no conclusion can be drawn about commissioned ‘science’.
Ah – thought there’d be an “out” somewhere…….
Still , Ender there’s some promise of establishing those sorely missed and consistemtly applied guidelines.
Let me get this clear – it doesn’t matter what authority the writer relies on or his/her links with an Evildoer but it does matter if the opinion is part of a paper/research which they’ve been remunerated for?
Wrong Jim, anything goes as long as it supports the green position. These tarts have no shame.
What’s the problem?
When we run out of oil, we’ll burn cow poop to heat our homes and cook our food, just like the all-natural, all-organic people do in Africa.
Ask the Soil Association. They’ll tell you it’s “sustainable!”