Peak oil (Guillem Coll and Mario Georgiev Valov)

Peak oil

Why did we choose this topic and what are you going to see in it?

We choosed the topic of the peak oil because we think that is very interesting and it’s something that all the society has to think on.Lots of people are speaking that we  have to protect our enviorement that we don’t have to use so much our cars,motorcycles…..,and all this kind of things,but in the next moment you can see the same people driving a car to their home whichis near to their job for example.We also think that the society has to start to do something and not only speaking.In this project we are going to explain you what is the peak oil,why is it happening,how it affects us and can we prevent it.

What is it?

Peak oil is the point when the extraction of petroleum reaches the maximum point , after which the rate of production is expected, the extration is condemnated to enter in a terminal decline. Since 2005 global production of oil has started going down , but since 2009 the levels of straction rebounded, and in 2011 the level again has started to decrease. There is an active debate as to how to measure peak oil, and which types of liquid fuels to include.

How it affects us?

The princial affectation that the peak oil can cause in our lives is the rising price of petroleum and   consequently the price of the whole

We have to remember that the biggest part of energy comes from the fossil fuels like diesel,natural gas... and our society isn't prepared ,in this moment ,for living in a world without petroleum because the society can became very instable and the economy will be very heavy afected.

Why is it happening?

Since the disocvery of the the  petroleum the humanity started to explote it with very fast temps  without thinking of the consequences which can produce that rapid explotation.It's clear that in the years when the petroleum has been discovered,new technologies have been discovered and lots of factories started producingPeak oil is determined by the observed production rates of individual oil wells, projected reserves and the combined production rate of a field of related oil wells. In order to understand physical peak oil, the growing effort for production must be considered. Physical peak oil occurs earlier, because the overall efforts for production have increased, expanding production.

The aggregate production rate from an oil field over time usually grows until the rate peaks and then declines—sometimes rapidly—until the field is depleted. This concept is derived from the Hubbert curve, and has been shown to be applicable to the sum of a nation’s domestic production rate, and is similarly applied to the global rate of petroleum production. Peak oil is often confused with oil depletion; peak oil is the point of maximum production, while depletion refers to a period of falling reserves and supply.

M. King Hubbert created and first used the models behind peak oil in 1956 to accurately predict that United States oil production would peak between 1965 and 1971. His logistic model, now called Hubbert peak theory, and its variants have described with reasonable accuracy the peak and decline of production from oil wells, fields, regions, and countries, and has also proved useful in other limited-resource production-domains. According to the Hubbert model, the production rate of a limited resource will follow a roughly symmetrical logistic distribution curve (sometimes incorrectly compared to a bell-shaped curve) based on the limits of exploitability and market pressures.

Some observers, such as petroleum industry experts Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Matthew Simmons, predict negative global economy implications following a post-peak production decline—and oil price increase—due to the high dependence of most modern industrial transport, agricultural, and industrial systems on the low cost and high availability of oil. Predictions vary greatly as to what exactly these negative effects would be.

In 2008 oil prices reached a record high of $145/barrel. Governments sought alternatives to oil, particularly the use of ethanol and biodiesel, but that had the unintended consequence of creating higher food prices, particularly in the developing countries.

Optimistic estimations of peak production forecast the global decline will begin after 2020, and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis, without requiring major changes in the lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used. Pessimistic predictions of future oil production are that either the peak has already occurred, that oil production is on the cusp of the peak, or that it will occur shortly. The International Energy Agency (IEA) says production of conventional crude oil peaked in 2006.Throughout the first two quarters of 2008, there were signs that a global recession was being made worse by a series of record oil prices.

Can we prevent the finishing of the petroleum?

 It's very clear that the petroleum is finishing, we know that,but we don't know when it will finish.It may finish tomorrow or 1000 years later it's not something  endless.It's probably happening because of the fast extraction which we think that it wasn't necessary.So as you can read in the previous paragraph the finishing of the petroleum is something that we can’t prevent and it’s 100% sure that it will happen some day and we don’t have to think how to prevent it, we have to think about alternative sources of energy, and we also have to think how to reduce our dependence of the petroleum.Reducing our dependence can be expressed in using more public transport,recycle all the plastic,glass….waste, using as little as possible a car or a motorcycle.

Com hem dit al principi hem triat aquest tema perque creiem que es bastant important i sobre tot interesant investigar-ho i tambe creiem que cadascu de nosaltres esta afectat per l’acabament del petroli, tambe creiem que hem de trobar unes font’s d’energia  altrernatives(ja existeixen bastants que son molt efectius ,ecologis i sobre tot no s’acaben).I com que avui en dia la situacio mundial en general es bastant dura creiem que trobar una solucio de l’acabament del petroli perque pot ser que no ens afectara a nosaltres pero pot afectar als nostres fills o nets.