The reason that "Peak Oil" is really "Plateau Oil" is because our
worldwide infrastructure supports the processing of 85-90 million barrels a day and we have now approached that and have been in the flat part of this distribution curve since 2005 but no one
in America know this.
This bit of quantitative knowledge is essential. It means that
the demand for oil has been irrelevant over the last 8 years because
its physically impossible to produce more than 85 - 90 MBD with
the current world infrastructure (pipeline and refining facilities) because it has reached saturation and no one is
planning to build significant new refining facilities (because
we are running out of the product!)
In reality, plateau oil is actually good because its preventing
the world from demand scaling thus extending the usable lifetime
of the world's reserves. Under the current plateau reserves
exist to supply another 30 +/- 5 years of oil at current
consumption levels. If demand scaling were to be supported then
a) we would exhaust the remaining known oil in about 12--15 years and b) we would be putting even more carbon into the atmosphere.
From the most recent data (2002 through March 2012)
The plateau is more clear if you smooth out the data
(average in several month intervals) to remove the month-to-month
small scale fluctuations
This flattening has lead to a gap between supply
and demand that can in no way be made up fast enough
without the sudden appearance of new refining capacity.
This new refining capacity has now been added and has come ON line
over the past few months. The net results is that there is an additional
2-3 MBD now on the market since January 2010. Whooppee all that effort and expense
for a measly 3% increase in production. We truly are clueless.
To increase by 500,000 or one million barrels, do you believe today
it will bring back the price?" Attiyah asked. "I don't think so," he said,
emphasizing his view that the price of oil had become almost wholly decoupled
from supplies. (THIS IS SIGNIFICANT)
all that effort and expense
for a measly 3% increase in production. We truly are clueless.
