Oil 1 Peak Oil 21



Download 9.54 Mb.
Page15/195
Date28.05.2018
Size9.54 Mb.
#52014
1   ...   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   ...   195

AT: New Discoveries



1. Vote aff on probability and timeframe-even if vast possible supplies exist, there’s no certainty that we’ll find them-and even if we find them it’ll take at least ten years to get them online.

Nader Elhefnawy, Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Miami, April, ‘8

(The Impending Oil Shock, Survival, Volume 50, Number 2, p. Ebsco) [Bozman]
Of course, vast unproven (and unlocated) supplies could more than compensate for such shortfalls, but again there are profound uncertainties. By definition, ‘probable’ and ‘possible’ supplies are an even less certain matter than ‘proven’ ones. Additionally, even if the world’s untapped reserves are as large as some observers claim, this is no guarantee that they will conveniently be found when needed, or even at all. It is certainly the case that newer supplies, such as the South Atlantic fields off Brazil and Angola, are being located and exploited.10 However, the rate at which new supplies are located started falling in the 1960s, and overall consumption has outpaced the rate at which oil has been discovered since the 1980s, so that today such discoveries replace only a quarter of what is used up each year.11 It should also be remembered that it takes at least ten years to get production going on an economic scale at a site after finding oil, so there is a considerable lag between discovery and production.
2. Author quals outweigh-economists ignore facts-there’s simply no more oil-statistics and trends all point to declining discoveries-all geologists conclude aff.

Robert L. Hirsch, Senior Energy Advisor at Management Information Solutions, October, ‘5

(The Inevitable Peaking of World Oil Production, the Atlantic Council Bulletin) [Bozman]
In the past, higher prices led to increased estimates of conventional oil reserves worldwide. However, this price-reserves relationship has its limits, because oil is found in discrete packages (reservoirs) as opposed to the varying concentrations characteristic of many minerals. Thus, at some price, world reserves of recoverable conventional oil will reach a maximum because of geological fundamentals. Beyond that point, insignificant additional conventional oil will be recoverable at any realistic price. This is a geological fact that is often not understood by economists, many of whom are accustomed to dealing with hard minerals, whose geology is fundamentally different. Oil companies and governments have conducted extensive exploration worldwide, but their results have been disappointing for decades. On this basis, there is little reason to expect that future oil discoveries will dramatically increase. The situation is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the difference between annual world oil reserves additions and annual consumption.8 The image is one of a world moving from a long period in which reserves additions were much greater than consumption, to an era in which annual additions are falling increasingly short of annual consumption. A related fact is that oil production is in decline in 33 of the world’s 48 largest oil-producing countries.
3. No offense-even if there are new discoveries, they’re too small and few to delay peak oil.

Colin Cambell, PhD in Geology from Oxford, former Geologist at Amoco and Texaco and Jean Laherrere, former Surveyor for Total

(French Oil Company), March, ‘98

(The End of Cheap Oil, Scientific American, Volume 278, Issue 3, p. Ebsco) [Bozman]


First, some argue, huge deposits of oil may lie undetected in far-off corners of the globe. In fact, that is very unlikely. Exploration has pushed the frontiers back so far that only extremely deep water and polar regions remain to be fully tested, and even their prospects are now reasonably well understood. Theoretical advances in geochemistry and geophysics have made it possible-to map productive and prospective fields with impressive accuracy. As a result, large tracts can be condemned as barren. Much of the deepwater realm, for example, has been shown to be absolutely nonprospective for geologic reasons What about the much touted Caspian Sea deposits? Our models project that oil production from that region will grow until around 2010. We agree with analysts at the USGS World Oil Assessment program and elsewhere who rank the total resources there as roughly equivalent to those of the North Sea--that is, perhaps 50 Gbo but certainly not several hundreds of billions as sometimes reported in the media.

AT: New Discoveries



4. Statistics show new discoveries are getting smaller and rarer-we’ve already discovered 94% of all oil on earth.

Ken Deffeyes, Professor Emeritus of Geosciences at Princeton, ‘5



(Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak, p. 47) [Bozman]



Download 9.54 Mb.

Share with your friends:
1   ...   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   ...   195



The database is protected by copyright ©ininet.org 2024
send message
    Main page
united states
discursive construction