Peak Oil vs. Global Warming

Could we avoid the worst ravages of global warming because we run out of oil?

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Complete entry

Posted by William Jorgensen  on  03/27  at  12:57 AM

The accelerating decline in internationally available oil is now being exacerbated by the increase in oil-supplying nation's own usage increases. This will certainly bring about an earlier than expected crisis of supply in the industrialised west, irregardless of any measures taken to lower consumption there. Russia is now the world's leading exporter of oil, though they may curb exports for any number of reasons, including supply-side and political motivation while Saudi Arabia's own internal consumption is increasing by large measures.
There is also the problem of oil quality with much of the remaining stock being the heavier and harder-to-refine oil - with a shortage of these specialised refineries, and none being built, spot shortages can be expected before the peak of supply is recognised. With an economic knock-on effect from such shortages the result will be a rapid decline in all industry as a whole and a sudden sharp drop in CO2 emissions. Of course there will be crash programs, like the current unsustainable bio-fuel push, but they will not be on a scale large enough to do much more than decrease the decline by more than a few percent, if at all, while starving much of the world's population, and, decimating ecological systems already under pressure.
Long before we see the worst results of anthropomorphic climate change our collective fates will be sealed.

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