Overview: Peak oil fears drive search for alternatives at the pump

By Pat Reber Jun 26, 2006, 3:41 GMT

Washington - Scientists scrambling for better ways to fuel the world's automotive fleet are racing against an uncertain deadline - the date when the Earth runs out of easily obtained crude oil.

Experts, including some in the US government and in the oil industry, agree that as early as 2010 and as late as 2047, world oil production will have 'peaked' - or levelled off - due to physical limitations on extraction.

The downturn, however, will come at a time when world appetite is steadily increasing. Demands are expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2025, the US Department of Energy says, in line with projections from other countries and international agencies.

What to do? Within the oil industry, some scoff at such outlandish predictions, and say technology will find ways to extract the hard- to-reach reserves.

ExxonMobil Corp., riding high on extreme record profits, recently ran an ad poking fun at the debate, showing a confused cartoon figure searching through binoculars for a mountain peak shrouded in clouds.

Only 1 trillion of the Earth's estimated 3.3 trillion barrels of oil have been used since the dawn of human history, the ad reassured.

Others take the prospect more seriously, like Chevron, which used the same figures to prove the opposite: 'It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30.'

'One thing is clear: the age of easy oil is over,' wrote Chevron Chairman David O'Reilly in the ad.

From 2000 to 2005, such sobering prospects fuelled unprecedented growth in biofuels. World ethanol production doubled to nearly 40 billion litres, most of it divided between Brazil and the US. Much smaller amounts are produced in China, the EU and India.

Germany has led the world's quadrupling of biodiesel production to nearly 4 billion litres in the same five year period, contributing nearly half the amount, followed by France, the US, Italy and Austria, according to figures in a report by the US environmental lobbying group WorldWatch, produced with funds from the German government.

In fact, companies and investors like BP, Shell, DaimlerChrysler, Dupont, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla and the global investment firm Goldman Sachs are plowing significant amounts into biofuels.

BP chief executive Lord John Browne expects demand 'to rise significantly through the next decade' in answer to consumer desires for less pollution and cheaper prices, and government demands for more energy self-sufficiency.

Since 1997, oil prices have quadrupled, yet many oil companies have barely increased production, according to the global energy activist organization, Association for the Study of Peak Oil.

Of 10 top international oil companies, only BP notably increased production from 2002 to 2004, largely due to a major deal with Russia.

The statistics, the organization charges, are proof that the world's oil industry will soon reach capacity and no longer be able to boost production figures every year to keep pace with demand.

'In no other industry would a quadrupling of prices yield no increase in supply,' the group observed.

Peak production, according to another Washington-based environmental group, Earth Policy Institute, has already been reached in 15 of 23 leading oil producers, including the US in 1970, Venezuela, Britain and Norway.

Production in Saudi Arabia and Russia, which together feed nearly one-quarter of the world's 84-million-barrel-a-day consumption, remains brisk, but many experts doubt that Saudi Arabia can live up to its claim that it could easily boost production if it wanted to.

A number of governments have mandated the use of renewable plant- based fuel, such as Brazil, where 40 per cent of motor fuel is ethanol-derived from sugar cane and 70 per cent of new cars have flex-fuel capability.

Thailand and the Philippines are in the process of compelling fuel producers to mix in biofuels with petroleum supplies. China, Colombia, India, and Sweden have made major commitments to biofuels.

In the US, General Motors says it has put more than 1.9 million flex fuel cars and trucks on American roads in anticipation of coming biofuel supplies.

E85 (85 per cent ethanol) is now available at several hundred stations around the US. Some states require that 5 or 10 per cent ethanol be mixed into traditional fuel.

The pursuit of renewable, more energy-efficient alternatives has sparked a push to produce more palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia and coco diesel in the Philippines.

While environmentalists are happy at the prospect of fewer carbon emissions with biofuels, they also worry about expanding cultivation infringing on fragile ecosystems.

In the US, there's interest in a native perennial, switchgrass, which once grew wild across North American prairies and could become an ideal source of ethanol while restoring lost ecology.

In other alternative approaches to powering vehicles, the once ill-fated electric car is trying to make a comeback in North America, where two small companies are launching adapter kits to allow hybrid cars to be charged on the home electricity circuit. And hydrogen fuel cells now power hundreds of experimental cars and busses in Japan, Europe and the US.