Global oil depletion: a review of the evidence

By S. Sorrell, Jamie Speirs, R. Bentley, Adam R. Brandt, Richard G. Miller. 2010

373 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Within the polarised and contentious debate over future oil supply a growing number of commentators are forecasting a near term peak and subsequent decline in production. But although liquid fuels form the foundation of modern industrial economies, the growing debate on 'peak oil' has relatively little influence on energy and climate policy. With this in mind, the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) has conducted an independent, thorough and systematic review of the evidence, with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge, identifying key uncertainties and improving consensus. The study focuses upon the physical depletion of conventional oil in the period to 2030 and includes an in-depth literature review, analysis of industry databases and a detailed comparison of global supply forecasts. This Communication summarises the main findings of the UKERC study. A key conclusion is that a peak of conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/332a0a81127cabbcd9a502fa503d9710275c405e

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Citations in the corpus

On the Cusp of Global Collapse? Updated Comparison of The Limits to Growth with Historical Data (2012, background): “Sorrell et al. (2010b, 2010a) review many of these and find that independent research - ers generally expect peaking to occur within about a de cade, or to have occurred recently (e.g., Murray and King 2012); estimates of peaking made by oil industry representatives tend to be decades away.”
Energy requirements of consumption: Urban form, climatic and socio-economic factors, rebounds and their policy implications (2013, background): “Serious concerns have furthermore been raised about the global production of conventional oil peaking sometime between now and in the next 10–30 years (Aleklett et al., 2009; Sorrell et al., 2010a, 2010b; Hirsch, 2008).”
Global fossil energy markets and climate change mitigation – an analysis with REMIND (2012, background): ““Pessimists” following the Hubbert-approach assume that a given amount of fossil fuels from a single deposit is available and a set of shape parameters, like the production decline rate, determines the future depletion path, but prices have only limited influence (Sorrell et al. 2010).”
Are we approaching 'peak timber' in the tropics? (2012, neutral): “It has become common these days to speak of ‘peak oil’ (Sorrell et al., 2010) and ‘peak phosphorus’ (Cordell et al.”