What is peak oil ?

Landscape
Gemma Cruz Araneta

That exotic phrase-- peak oil -- was completely new to me until I heard it from historian Dr. Floro Quibuyen, a renowned Rizalist. He explained that peak oil is the year in which oil production reaches its maximum and in which half the oil in the world will have been burned; henceforth, there will be a continuous decrease in oil production.

However, Dr. Quibuyen clarified that peak oil does not mean "running out of oil, but rather a steadily decreasing supply, increasing costs and causing major changes in the way we live". He warned that without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs of the peak oil phenomenon will be unprecedented.

The shocking news is that peak oil arrived in 2006 but was announced only a year later, on 22 October 2007 by a body called the Energy Watch Group This was corroborated by the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell who ventured that by 2015, if not earlier, oil supply may very well fall behind the demand and when that occurs, the market prices of this seemingly irreplaceable source of energy and everything remotely related to it will inevitably reach astronomical proportions.

What are we to do in this country where peak oil has not even entered public discourse? No one seems to bother about the Uppsala and Kyoto Protocols ; we can surmise that only members of the academe, like Dr. Quibuyen, have bothered to study these documents. It has taken media three years, 2005-2008. to make superficial mention of this thing called peak oil.

On 2 March 2005, Dr. Quibuyen spoke about peak oil at national conference, "The Philippines between Asia and Oceania" at the Asian Center, of the University of the Philippines. Some of his colleagues teased him about being a "prophet of doom"; no one said that we must all prepare for what seems like an impending disaster.

What could the repercussions of peak oil be? According to Dr. Quibuyen, if the decline in oil production surpasses the ability of alternative technologies to replace oil, energy consumption will be severely constricted, as consumers compete for increasingly scarce oil resources. The situation may resemble past oil supply shocks, all of which had brought about significant economic changes. For example, disruptions in supply during the Arab oil embargo of 1973-74 and the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79 caused unprecedented increases in the prices of oil and petroleum products and subsequent world recessions.

Dr. Quibuyen expounded: "Ultimately, however, the consequences of a peak and permanent decline in oil production could be even more prolonged and severe than those of past oil supply shocks. Because the decline will be neither temporary nor reversible, the effects will continue to be felt until alternative transportation technologies that replace oil become available in sufficient quantities and at competitive costs."

Following the peak which according to Dr. Quibuyen had arrived two years ago, oil production is expected to decline increasingly as years go by and there had better be a corresponding increase in alternative fuels and technologies or the world will be in deep trouble. (gemma60@yahoo.com)