Roscoe Bartlett: “several times during the past few weeks, I have stood on this floor to talk about peak oil. The chart I have here…”

“several times during the past few weeks, I have stood on this floor to talk about peak oil. The chart I have here symbolically shows what we are talking about. The blue curve here represents the amount of oil that the world produces and uses. Of course, over a period of time, the world will use as much oil as it has been producing and that has been going on now for 100 years. Currently, the increase in use rate of oil is about 2 percent. That is what this curve represents. Knowing that, we can put some time on the abscissa of this curve because a 2 percent compound growth will double in 35 years. This use curve, which goes up from here to here, has doubled in that amount of time, so that is a 35-year period. What this chart shows is that at some point in time, and the only argument is when, the world will peak in its oil production. But before the world peaks in oil production, it is noted from this curve that the demand will be exceeding for several years, it is like a decade, if this is the curve which is followed, the demand will be exceeding supply. What this has given rise to, of course, is a look for oil around the world. The second largest importer of oil in the world, which is China, has been scouring the world for oil. This chart shows the places where China has secured leases for oil.…”