Originally Posted by
The Duke
All I'm saying is that the U.S. peaked at about 10.5 million bbl/oil a day back in 1970 or so. Preceding this peak in production, there was also a peak in discoveries, this included ANWR, also known as the North Slope of Alaska. Right now were pumping about 5 million bbl/day here in the U.S. domestically. We can drill/pump Alaska and the OCS like a first-rate pornstar, we'll never match the 10.5 million bbl/day we saw back in '70.
I think the notion that people have here is that excess drilling will either bring prices back down, or keep current prices flat. That just won't happen. Barring a massive economic recession/depression, even w/ supplemental drilling here domestically, prices should continue to rise. I'm obviously a proponent of peak oil, so I guess I have a bit of a bias here. I do think peak oil provides the best explanation for what we're seeing right now w/ oil.
The US may have peaked but world oil production has not peaked. You keep talking about how the world will not have enough capacity when new capacity will come on line in the next few years. There are many major projects going on: Brazil, oil sands in canada, oil in kazakhstan. The world can make more oil capacity...we should certainly pursue alternative energy but capacity can and is being expanded. In 2005 there was an estimate that world oil production would increase to 107 million bbl/day by 2015. This would, unfortunately, make alternatives uneconomical.