Important observations and conclusions from this study are as follows:
1. When world oil peaking will occur is not known with certainty. A fundamental
problem in predicting oil peaking is the poor quality of and possible political
biases in world oil reserves data. Some experts believe peaking may occur soon.
This study indicates that “soon” is within 20 years.
2. The problems associated with world oil production peaking will not be
temporary, and past “energy crisis” experience will provide relatively little
guidance. The challenge of oil peaking deserves immediate, serious attention, if
risks are to be fully understood and mitigation begun on a timely basis.
3. Oil peaking will create a severe liquid fuels problem for the transportation
sector, not an “energy crisis” in the usual sense that term has been used.
4. Peaking will result in dramatically higher oil prices, which will cause protracted
economic hardship in the United States and the world. However, the problems
are not insoluble. Timely, aggressive mitigation initiatives addressing both the
supply and the demand sides of the issue will be required.
5. In the developed nations, the problems will be especially serious. In the
developing nations peaking problems have the potential to be much worse.
6. Mitigation will require a minimum of a decade of intense, expensive effort,
because the scale of liquid fuels mitigation is inherently extremely large.
7. While greater end-use efficiency is essential, increased efficiency alone will
be neither sufficient nor timely enough to solve the problem. Production of large
amounts of substitute liquid fuels will be required. A number of commercial or
near-commercial substitute fuel production technologies are currently available
for deployment, so the production of vast amounts of substitute liquid fuels is
feasible with existing technology.
8. Intervention by governments will be required, because the economic and
social implications of oil peaking would otherwise be chaotic. The experiences of
the 1970s and 1980s offer important guides as to government actions that are
desirable and those that are undesirable, but the process will not be easy.
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