Brian,,
You might want to add summary of a Department of Energy report
(see below) about peak oil to you site.

David A. Douthit
Manager
LoCan LLC

============================

The Mitigation of the Peaking of World Oil Production
Summary of an Analysis, February 8, 2005

A recently completed study for the U.S. Department of Energy analyzed 
viable technologies to mitigate oil shortages associated with the 
upcoming peaking of world oil production.1 Commercial or near-commercial 
options include improved vehicle fuel efficiency, enhanced conventional 
oil recovery, and the production of substitute fuels.
While research and development on other options could be important, 
their commercial success is by no means assured, and none offer 
near-term solutions.

Improved fuel efficiency in the world’s transportation sector will be a 
critical element in the long-term
reduction of liquid fuel consumption, however, the scale of effort 
required will inherently take time and be very expensive. For example, 
the U.S. has a fleet of over 200 million automobiles, vans, pick-ups, 
and SUVs. Replacement of just half with higher efficiency models will 
require at least 15 years at a cost of over two trillion dollars for the 
U.S. alone. Similar conclusions generally apply worldwide.

Commercial and near-commercial options for mitigating the decline of 
conventional oil production include:
1) Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which can help moderate oil production 
declines from older conventional oil
fields;
2) Heavy oil/oil sands, a large resource of lower grade oils, now 
produced primarily in Canada and
Venezuela;
3) Coal liquefaction, an established technique for producing clean 
substitute fuels from the world’s
abundant coal reserves; and
4) Clean substitute fuels produced from remote natural gas.

For the foreseeable future, electricity-producing technologies, e.g., 
nuclear and solar energy, cannot
substitute for liquid fuels in most transportation applications. 
Someday, electric cars may be practical, but decades
will be required before they achieve significant market penetration and 
impact world oil consumption. And no one
has yet defined viable options for powering heavy trucks or airplanes 
with electricity.

To explore how these technologies might contribute, three alternative 
mitigation scenarios were analyzed:
One where action is initiated when peaking occurs, a second where action 
is assumed to start 10 years before
peaking, and a third where action is assumed to start 20 years before 
peaking.
Estimates of the possible contributions of each mitigation option were 
developed, based on crash program
implementation. Crash programs represent the fastest possible 
implementation – the best case. In practical terms,
real-world action is certain to be slower.

Analysis of the simultaneous implementation of all of the options showed 
that an impact of roughly 25
million barrels per day might be possible 15 years after initiation. 
Because conventional oil production decline will
start at the time of peaking, crash program mitigation inherently cannot 
avert massive shortages unless it is initiated
well in advance of peaking. Specifically,
•Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before initiating 
crash program mitigation
leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades 
or longer.
•Initiating a crash program 10 years before world oil peaking would help 
considerably but would still
result in a worldwide liquid fuels shortfall, starting roughly a decade 
after the time that oil would have otherwise
peaked.
•Initiating crash program mitigation 20 years before peaking offers the 
possibility of avoiding a world
liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.

Without timely mitigation, world supply/demand balance will be achieved 
through massive demand
destruction (shortages), accompanied by huge oil price increases, both 
of which would create a long period of
significant economic hardship worldwide.
Other important observations revealed by the analysis included the 
following:
1. The date of world oil peaking is not known with certainty, 
complicating the decision-making process. A
fundamental problem in predicting oil peaking is uncertain and 
politically biased oil reserves claims from many oil
producing countries.

2. As recently as 2001, authoritative forecasts of abundant future 
supplies of North American natural gas
proved to be excessively optimistic as evidenced by the recent tripling 
of natural gas prices. Oil and natural gas
geology is similar in many ways, suggesting that optimistic oil 
production forecasts deserve to be viewed with
considerable skepticism.

3. In the developed nations, the economic problems associated with world 
oil peaking and the resultant oil
shortages will be extremely serious. In the developing nations, economic 
problems will be much worse.

4. While greater end-use efficiency is essential in the long term, 
increased efficiency alone will be neither
sufficient nor timely enough to solve the oil shortage problem in the 
short term. To preserve reasonable levels of
economic prosperity and growth, production of large amounts of 
substitute liquid fuels will be required. While a
number of substitute fuel production technologies are currently 
available for deployment, the massive construction
effort required will be extremely expensive and very time-consuming, 
even on a crash program basis.

5. Government intervention will be essential, because the economic and 
social impacts of oil peaking will
otherwise be chaotic, and crash program mitigation will need to be 
properly supported. How and when governments
begin to seriously address these challenges is yet to be determined.

Oil peaking discussions should focus primarily on prudent risk 
management, and secondarily on forecasting
the timing of oil peaking, which will always be inexact. Mitigation 
initiated earlier than required might turn out to
be premature, if peaking is slow in coming. If peaking is imminent, 
failure to act aggressively will be extremely
damaging worldwide.

World oil peaking represents a problem like none other. The political, 
economic, and social stakes are
enormous. Prudent risk management demands urgent attention and early action.

1 Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R.H, Wendling, R.M. Peaking of World Oil 
Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk
Management. DOE NETL. February 2005.