Emergencia energética: estancada la producción de petróleo

Iré poniendo aquí noticias sobre el pico de producción petrolera. No se consigue extraer petróleo a más ritmo del alcanzado en mayo de 2005. Es decir, desde casi hace tres años está estancada la producción petrolera. Según la experiencia en campos petrolíferos, no mucho más tarde de estancarse comienza un rápido declive en la producción.

Si el pico se confirma, estamos en una situación de emergencia energética, de dimensiones de catástrofe histórica para la humanidad.

La producción de petróleo hizo máximo en mayo 2005, desde entonces no se ha conseguido incrementar la producción y puede comenzar a declinar en cualquier momento, si es que no está declinando ya. Al gas natural no le falta mucho. Las predicciones de la Agencia Internacional de la Energía y de otros organismos han errado.

Que estamos ante unas probabilidades muy altas de encontrarnos con una de las mayores catástrofes de la humanidad, que el máximo de producción petrolera ha ocurrido ya o está a punto de ocurrir, lo reconocen actualmente desde el presidente de General Motors, quien ha girado la estrategia de su compañía por ello y que acaba afirmar públicamente hace dos semanas que el paso a los coches eléctricos es inevitable, hasta el presidente de la petrolera Shell. Hasta George Bush acaba de admitirlo. El pico petrolero no se puede calificar ya de teoría sino de un hecho desde mayo de 2005. Si no garantizamos con urgencia nuestra independencia energética nos desintegraremos como sociedad.

Si hay algo imprescindible en este mundo es la energía y nos quedamos sin ella a corto plazo.

Hoy voy a poner una entrevista con Dr James Schlesinger, ex Secretario de Energía de EEUU, ex Secretario de Defensa de US y ex director de la CIA, septiembre de 2007

Les copio una entrevista a Dr James Schlesinger ex Secretario de Energía de EEUU, ex Secretario de Defensa de US y ex director de la CIA, septiembre de 2007.

Antes traduzco unas frases:

"argumentos intelectuales sobre [a favor] el pico petrolero han sido ganados"

"ahora todos somos piquistas" (convencidos del máximo de extracción de petróleo)

"los jecutivos de la industria petrolera aceptan en privado que el mundo encara un inminente tope en la producción petrolera"

"en la próxima década o dos encaramos el momento de la verdad"

"no vamos a ser capaces de producir más combustibles líquidos o petróleo en el futuro próximo"

Resumen de la entrevista:

Former US Energy Secretary Dr James Schlesinger today claimed that the intellectual arguments over peak oil had been won, and that in effect "all we are all peakists now".In the keynote speech at the first day of an oil depletion conference hosted by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil in Cork, Schlesinger said that the oil industry executives now privately concede that the world faces an imminent oil production peak, and argued that a recent report by the US oil industry grouping the National Petroleum Council constituted "a backdoor admission that in the next decade or two we face a moment of truth". In a wide-ranging interview with Lastoilshock.com, Dr Schlesinger - who was also Defence Secretary and CIA Director - explains why he thinks "the battle is over, the peakists have won", and discusses the delusions of US energy policy, Iraq, Iran and $100 oil.Hear the interview with Dr James Schlesinger.BA: Excerpts from the interview:David Strahan: ...You said today in your speech that conceptually the battle is over, the peakists have won. That's an astoundingly bold claim. I was astonished. What did you mean by that?James Schlesinger: If you speak to people in the industry, they will concede that "whatever my company may say publicly, we understand that we are facing a decline in our own production and that world-wide we are not going to be be able to produce more fuel liquids or crude oil in the near future."And if you look at pronouncements by governments, including the Energy Information Administration in the United States, the National Petroleum Council (NPC) what they show is that by the early 2020s we are going to have peaked out in terms of conventional oil productions. And that is an immense change from what we have seen before in the attitude of the industry.DS: But it's not what we're hearing publicly, is it? From the executives, from governments, from environmentalists? All seem to be in denial or ignoring this issue, don't they?JS: Well "denial" may be too strong. "Ignoring" is probably right. One does not want to be the bearer of bad tidings. Cassandra has never been an appropriate role model for politicians. You do not ask the public to make sacrifices. If you concede that indeed the peak is coming, that we ought be making adustments, the adjustments will be costly and the public will bear the cost, which means that other things being equal, a decline in the standard of living. That is not the way to successful re-election.... I was recently at a conference in New Mexico, sitting next to one of the recent CEOs of a major oil company. In response to a question from the audience, he said: "Of course I'm a peakist. It's just a matter of when it is coming." ... Once one is retired as a CEO, one is freer ... to say I am a peakist. And what you hear privately from almost all people - is we're coming to it....the American public has been coached into believing that we can have energy independence, which is not obtainable as long as we have the internal combustion engine, and at the same time as we get energy independence, we can lower the price of energy. These are simply unattainable, but they are regularly promised....There is not going to be a turnaround [in U.S. energy policy] until you have public support and the public has got to be frightened by a serious crisis which persuades them that indeed the wolf is at the door.... I think that many of these politicians will ultimately find that the public blames them for [their] failure to warn them. Of course in a sense the public is responsible because it's the present public attitudes to which politicans play up - tell them what they want to hear. But when the view of the world changes, what the public wanted to hear some time ago is no longer what they want to hear in the future.[Asked about Greenspan's assertion that Iraq was about oil]The reality is that concern about the supply of oil is always a consideration because the Middle East contains so much of the oil... What some people are suggesting is that the invastion was to get control of Iraq's oil supply. No, we were determined to leave it up to free market pressures. And To the extent that they thought the United States was reaching for control, it is plumb wrong.... I want to state quite clearly, that war is not the way to increase production near-term.... We should be helping oil prices rise, particularly for gasoline.... We are going to face a great difficulty in the near future. Whether or not it is defined as a crisis depends on how you define crisis. But there is difficulty, great difficulty ahead.(17 September 2007)James R. Schlesinger has been chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Director of Central Intelligence for six months under President Nixon, Secretary of Defense (1973-1975), and the first Secretary of Energy under President Carter.http://www.energybulletin.net/34868.html

Grabación de entrevista, en inglés:
http://www.davidstrahan.com/audio/lastoilshock.com-james-schlesinger-17.9.07.mp3
Otras fuentes de información:
http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php
http://www.theoildrum.com/