News reports came through that 50 billion litres of new oil was discovered in 2010. New research technology with fracking oil reserves has been very successful. The year before in 2009 as I mentioned below in news reports their were 200 new oil fields were discovered. The truth of the matter is there is more than enough oil to go around. A new oil field discovered every 1.825 days. Oil investors who in my opinion are the scum of the world and could not care less about motorist struggling to pay for gas in their car will spin a different story to make there investments grow.

Wow. Umm, What about biofuel? Our back bone is the farming nation. Growing stuff is easy in these perfect conditions?
Presently self reliance out-fits reckon huge ammounts of energy are being wasted? Left-overs from growing food and pine crops for instance can be used to produce energy?
The Ancient Egyptians used a process called, pyrolisis, to turn biomass into gases like methane and fuels like pyrolitic fuel oil.
Even the raw biowaste products can be incinerated to produce energy to spin turbines for the production of electricity?
And what about ethanol? that stuff in your beer and powering certain race-car engines on the drag strip? This stuff can be not only found in potatoe spirit sourced vodka, but also produced from pretty much any biomass, including pine trees, milk whey, hempcrops, and so on...
Imagine trimming your hedge and trees and selling the clippings to the local energy plant, or taking away fuel in lieu of payment?
Forget about nuclear energy... we don't need that here.
Farmers in this country could corner a decent chunk of the energy market. Wouldn't have to worry too much about oil except for using it in stuff that there is no better option? That would be a cool look around the world:)
Also, when we burn fuels made from plants, it is a closed cycle. The sun produces the energy, and beams it to earth. The plants intercept the radiation and turn it into sugars etc.
We make fuels out of the cellulose, and sugars, and burn them for energy. The gases produced during combustion in your car engine are CO2 and H2O. These are absorbed by the plants when they produce the next fuel crop or source?
If we need oil we could look for it in our own back yard, there's probably heaps lying around out there, who know's...
At the moment there is no competion, no choice for the consumer. Even a blended fuel would help reduce emissions by assisting with combustion, and cutting down on the stuff pumped out of the earth.
Little ol' NZ. We could do it...

Nandor, I like the point you made about the spending on infrastructure such as tunnels and roads etc.. to support a transport system that relys on cheap fuel. Money should be spent on infrastucture such as public transport and rail that will be necessary for a low carbon future; a bit more tolerance of bikers on roads wouldn't hurt either.

Alastair, I think the bottle neck you spoke of is actually the number of new discoveries of oil as opposed to not being able to refine it.

Reading Nandor's story about peak production is so misleading. If the oil production from refineries is what is causing a bottle neck, don't you think countries like China would build another refinery without blinking an eye. Countries like China aren't likely to make things hard on themselves when it comes to raw materials like oil. That is just being stupid. Peak oil is a misleading twist of words perpetuated by oil investors and soaked up by the naive.

I would love to know if anyone has ever done a correlation between extreme weather and increased electricity in the Van Allan belts caused by the Earths core. Does anyone else see the same basic common sense observation I do? Too much power in the sky maybe equates to really bad weather and vice versa. Nasa drew a lightning bolt out of clear blue sky with a copper wire on a small rocket. One has to ask - using lightning bolts as a power source for the New Zealand nation grid maybe a good thing. Getting electricity to flow in a straight line down lazers is much the same technology as as a wireless tazer guns which are available now. I really hope there are some crazy inventor type people out there who are open to taking up this challenge. I only wish I had the money and resources to do it myself.

My believe is 90% of the stories you read about the oil prices sky rocketing or some bad news about oil is linked back to an oil investor somewhere. As they say - 'Follow the money!' For every dollars worth of oil we use at the pump it is traded over 200 times. Be real - what would you do in their shoes if you wanted your investment to rise. Stuff the person who has to drive their car. I hope one day the news media will wake up to where the source of these stories come from and begin to censure their inflammatory goals for the sake of the common person who has to drive their car.

What about power from lightning bolts?? Nasa has sent up a wire on a small rocket up into the clouds and brought down a lightning bolt. Lightning bolts have ironized feelers before they hit the ground. Why not send an ironized lazer into a mirror and up through a metal pipe into the clouds. Draw down a lightning bolt and have the power sent to a number of 20 foot containers full glass and sand layers that act as huge capacitors to store the electricity before it is feed off into the National grid when needed. There is unlimited power in the air we breath. Earth is a planet sized electric motor that creates the inner and outer Van Allen belts which are chocka full of electricity. All it takes is someone with the balls to do it.

World consumption is now around 31 billion barrels a year. Lately new discoveries are now by far meeting that that quota. Lets not become stupid with our words and create an upward bullish run on oil prices!

Perception is reality. I believe the day to day perception by financial industry is what is driving our oil prices not the actual finds of oil. Scaremongering is an art form for those playing the game of investing in oil and an arena for stupidity to rein for those who naively say the end is nigh when all it does is make oil investors richer and the common person poorer who has to drive their car. Last year the size of the OTC derivatives market (not counting stocks and bonds) was around $450 trillion dollars. The derivatives market is mainly made up of oil trading. To give you some size of perspective - the world domestic product is around $70 trillion dollars. Yet around 2.3 trillion dollars of oil is used by the world. The size of oil traded annually is around 200 times the value of all oil produced yearly or 7 times the value of all publically traded companies in the world. A 20% drop in the value of the derivatives market mainly made up of oil is around as much wealth as every public company in the world. Now the Financial Reform Act has been signed into law in the US one has to wonder what the future is for excessively bullish oil markets. High or low prices for oil will not produce more oil from the ground. Lets keep positive or we will all end up becoming too poor to drive our cars.

2009 saw over 200 new oil fields discovered 2009 has been a remarkable year for discovery of new oil fields. This is not to sweep to one side the huge finds the last 10 years. In 2009 there have been more than 200 discoveries of new oil fields from countries like Brazil, US, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana, Russia & yes Iraq. That is 1 oil field every 1.825 days for 2009. In 2000 in the Caspian Sea it is estimated 20 billion barrels of oil was found. It is also estimated New Zealand’s deep water basins hold more than 20 billion barrels of oil. The stories of new oil fields being discovered around the world are quietly unfolding at a relatively astonishing rate. The reason is the technology for finding oil is getting more sophisticated. As each year passes one has to pause to guess how many new oil fields will be discovered in the next 20 years if the rate of 200 or even 100 is kept up year after year. This is also not to be naïve about the rise of electric cars over the next 50 years systematically eating away at downstream oil markets. One has to wonder in 50 years time what the percentage mix of electric cars will be on the road versus the numbers of petrol/diesel cars on the road. Geologists however searching for oil say the Earth’s crust is very approximately 1200 miles (2000 metres) deep depending on where you are in the Earth. The circumference of the Earth is around 25,000 miles (around 40,000 km) If you do the math that is a lot of the Earth’s crust to explore! By my calculations that is around 30 million cubic miles (or around 50 million cubic kilometres) of Earth’s crust. Our Earth has had basic life forms, trees and animals growing on it for around 4.5 to 5 billion years. The truth of the matter is these billion year old vegetations areas and animal graveyards have left huge mind boggling areas under the ground which are still waiting to be found.

I wouldn`t worry too much about running out of oil . I`d worry more about the world running out of fresh water . Basically we`ve screwed the planet over the past fifty years . Now it`s our time to be screwed . Anyway , it was nice while it lasted .

Nandor, I do appreciate your response. My question, however, is this: why is Oil that much different from copper, nickel, zinc, or any other resource in the world that requires extraction and refining? Sure, high-profile events like the Gulf spill indicate that oil does have a risk of harm, but so do the other minerals we extract.

I agree that price is driving the exploration of oil toward other sources, such as sand and slate. However, I think it is necessary to say that it is also driving it toward the search for new technology: there is absolutely no way that increased price would only lead to going into the Artic etc. If goods are expensive, there is created a gap in the market to be filled by a plethora of other goods. And this is happening: the development of new technology, like electric cars /is/ happening: more over, they're happening at ever increasing rates due to consumers demanding a cheaper alternative.

You say that alternate sources of energy, like fusion et al aren't a suitable/possible alternative. First: well, sure fusion isn’t available, but there are actual alternatives, like nuclear-generated electricity. But secondly, (and more importantly), the current trends in oil prices is likely to increase the chances of fusion et al eventuating, not decrease it.

I don't think we're at a position in innovation to give up oil today, and I don't claim that we are. However, as supply decreases, the suitability of current alternatives increases, and the incentive to produce other, even better, alternatives increases also. Cynically, It’d possibly be very good to have an even more energy-intensive world: it would speed the depletion of oil, and encourage the change.

Thanks for all the interesting comment, both for and against. Although the thread would (as always) have been better without the personal abuse (Nick, Bren & Cyril).

DW, I’m not in favour of peak oil from an environmental pov. Market dynamics do make resource economics quite complex. As resources are depleted we see higher prices drive more exploration, better extraction and processing technology, more efficient per unit resource use, substitution of materials, more recycling etc.

However the dynamics of oil are different from those of eg copper. So yes we see more exploration, but for some time the reserves we have been finding each year have been much smaller than what we use. Industry is going after the harder to extract stuff, eg deep waters, so expect more events such as the Gulf spill. Price is making it more economic to go after tar sands and shale oil, but at a much reduced energy profit (energy out – energy in), plus it is more toxic to extract and produce and can we afford the carbon cost at a planetary level?

We are using oil more efficiently per unit but net use is going up, in both rich and poor countries. The only real rescue will come from substitution. Is there an energy source to replace fossil fuels? We have been hearing about miracle fuels for many decades now – fusion, hydrogen, power from sea water – but see no evidence that these things can do the job. Of course there are many sources of energy, and we will end up with a mix, but overall it will be a lower energy future.

The problem is that we have built a system that requires constant high energy inputs to maintain, instead of using our cheap energy to build low input systems. So we build big houses that need artificial heating and cooling instead of using passive solar design etc etc. A low energy future is only bad if we don’t prepare for it.

For those who say that Nandor being concerned about Peak Oil is somehow contradictory with his being a "hippy" or "environmentalist" you couldn't be more wrong. Environmentalists are seen as wimpy and sentamental, and their concern for the environment not pragmatic - this couldn't be more wrong. The fundamental problem with our economic system is its disconnect from the real physical limits of the planet - to ignore these limits and to try to grow the economy despite them is to endanger oneself; there will be consequences, Peak oil, Global Warming, and water supply problems are 3 major ones. It doesn't get more pragmatic than dealing with these honestly and it doesn't get more starry-eyed than ignoring them.

If peak oil is coming hadnt we best to forget the hairy fairy theorys of the greens especially as most of there theorys of doom and gloom have proved wrong and build as many big hydro power stations as we can before they become cost prohibative because of peak oil. then we would be able to maintain a high level of life standard using a renewable resourse. We may not have pretty rivers but whats wrong with lakes?