| | |  | Renewable Energy | Home » » The Myth of the Oil Crisis: Overcoming the Challenges of Depletion, Geopolitics, and Global Warming | | | | | | | Description: | | With oil around $100 a barrel, drivers wince whenever they pull into the gas station and businesses watch their bottom lines shrink. Watch out, say doomsayers, it will only get worse as oil dries up. It's a plausible argument, especially considering the rate at which countries like China and India are now sucking up oil. Even more troubling, the world's largest oil fields sit in geopolitical hotspots like Iran and Iraq. Some believe their nations need to secure remaining supplies using military force, while others consider dwindling supplies a blessing that will help solve the problem of global warming. But wait—is it really the end of oil? Absolutely not, says geologist, economist, and industry-insider Robin Mills. There is no other book by an industry insider that effectively counters the peak oil theory by showing where and how oil will be found in the future. There also is no other book by an insider that lays out an environmentally and geopolitically responsible path for the petroleum industry and its customers. The Myth of the Oil Crisis, written in a lively style but with scientific rigor, is thus a uniquely useful resource for business leaders, policymakers, petroleum industry professionals, environmentalists, and anyone else who consumes oil. Best of all, it offers an abundance of one commodity now in short supply: hope for the future. | | | Product Details: | | | Average Customer Rating:
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Average Customer Review:
 ( 16 customer reviews )
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43 of 47 found the following review helpful:
 Straw ManMar 18, 2009
By AVO
The author of this book and his followers on this website have constructed a "straw man" out of the peak oil argument. In so doing, they have misrepresented the entire debate by essentially equating "peak oil" with "running out of oil." Peak oil refers to the point in time when the world reaches the maximum rate of oil production. This can happen even when a large amount of oil (both conventional and non-conventional) still remains in the ground.
For example, the peak of U.S. oil production occurred in the 1970s even though there were still large oil fields in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere in the U.S. that had not been produced or discovered. Likewise, world oil production can peak even though there is still a large amount of oil (and tar sands, oil shales, coal, natural gas, biofuels, etc) remaining. The danger is we may not be able to produce these remaining resources as rapidly or economically as conventional crude oil, in which case peak oil would occur. This, in turn, could lead to an end of economic growth as we have known it, as economic growth has always gone hand in hand with ever increasing energy consumption. I hope that does not happen. However, this book provides no comfort because it only deals with a distorted and simplistic version of the peak oil debate and fails to confront real issues.
29 of 35 found the following review helpful:
 It's the flow rate, stupidMay 30, 2009
By biologist
This books discusses in length how much oil there is left in the ground. Unfortunately, this is not very relevant. What matters is how fast we can get it out, and how much it costs. Just imagine you have a billion dollars in the bank, but your bank does not allow you to withdraw more than $1 per day. With oil, it is becoming more and more like that - the "resources" are vast, but the "bank" (nature/geology) allows only smaller and smaller withdrawals. And it takes more and more energy to get it out, because the stuff gets more and more viscuous. Used to be like water in the old days, now it's like honey. Have you ever tried to drink honey with a straw?
29 of 35 found the following review helpful:
Texas and North Sea to the RescueMay 29, 2009
By Jeffrey J. Brown
Texas and the North Sea provide excellent examples of the kind of oil production results that private oil companies--using the best available technology, with virtually no restrictions on drilling--can achieve.
Since peaking in 1972, Texas oil production has declined at about -4%/year, and since peaking in 1999, the North Sea has declined at about -4.5%/year (EIA data, crude + condensate).
In 2005, Saudi Arabia was at about the same mathematical stage of depletion at which Texas, the prior swing producer, peaked, and Saudi Arabia has shown three straight years of production below their 2005 rate, despite the highest annual oil prices in history.
In 2005, world conventional crude production was at about the same stage of depletion at which the North Sea peaked in 1999, and the world has shown, with some benefit from unconventional production, basically flat production since 2005, although in reality the world has shown a cumulative shortfall between what we would have produced at the 2005 rate and what was actually produced--despite the highest annual oil prices in history.
This pattern of flat to declining production versus rising oil prices was what we also witnessed in the early stages of the Texas and North Sea production declines.
But the primary problem we face is a long term accelerating rate of decline in net oil exports. For more information on our (Brown & Foucher) work, do a Google Search for Jeffrey Brown + Net Oil Exports.
10 of 13 found the following review helpful:
If This Is the Best Evidence Against Peak Oil...Dec 12, 2009
By F.K. Juliano
...then the world really is in trouble. In this book the author makes a pathetically weak case against an imminent peak in oil production. In order to build this edifice of straw, he uses all manner of untruths, half-truths and irrelevances that, though they may persuade the ill-informed and the hopelessly optimistic, do not begin to dent the very strong case Peak Oil proponents have made. Robin Mills rather reminds one of a slick defense attorney trying to create reasonable doubt in jurors' minds while defending someone whose guilt is patent. For instance, he claims horizontal drilling and other techniques, by increasing production in existing oil fields, will avert production decline in those fields. The fact is that, despite any number of technological advances in oil production, production in existing fields is declining at a rapid rate, around 4% yearly according to the rosiest estimates, but in reality much faster. What this means is that by 2030, the world will have to discover and develop the oil equivalent of four Saudi Arabias just to keep up current production, let alone allow for greater consumption in many parts of the world. As far as Robin Mills is concerned, however, that is not a problem because he prophesies a "breakthrough" in electrical car technology that will curtail demand for oil in any case. Those new electrical cars will then be powered by some unspecified source, whichever one "happens to be most convenient". Perhaps that will turn out to be wind from the beating of angels' wings.
In short, the author simply fails utterly in countering the hard facts and iron-clad numbers that make Peak Oil a mathematical certainty. Peak Oil could have been greatly mitigated, especially, if an earnest effort, a Manhattan Project of alternative energy, if you will, had begun a couple of decades ago. Maybe, if such a project were started today, it might still do some good. What is certain, however, is that Peak Oil cannot be wished away or buried under the mountain of b.s. that this book is.
 Learn the facts, draw your own conclusionsDec 06, 2011
By ThirstyBrooks
The Myth of the Oil Crisis has most of the strengths and weaknesses other reviewers here point out - both those who like and those who dislike it. Readers who are pros in the energy business will find Mills' book rehashes industry knowledge, but many Americans need this big step up from the "information" they get from Greenpeace and Fox News.
Peak Oil does not mean an immediate crisis End of Oil. Read this book and learn the current details about where more oil remains. There is in fact plenty of oil in the ground. We know where to find more than we ever knew about before. What should you expect at the peak?
We won't really know if this is the peak until we confirm that net discoveries are declining for years. Yes the situation in Saudi Arabia is disturbing, but there might be plenty of easy new oil in Iran ...well that's alarming, too, but for other reasons. As Mills puts it, today we say all the easy oil is gone, so we have to drill near the arctic circle or in deep water. Tomorrow they'll say all the easy oil is gone, so we have to drill under the Antarctic Ice Cap.
As supplies decline, prices will support more thorough exploration and advanced recovery techniques. Higher prices enable new technologies. Sheik Yamani pointed out the obvious - the Stone Age didn't end because people ran out of stones, and the Oil Age won't end because people run out of oil.
Mills also ignores an interesting question. Most oil moves in tankers, financed by bills of lading. A bill of lading is a paper that says a bank paid the shipper for the oil and will collect later from the refiner when it's delivered. No matter how many countries control oil in the ground, only a handful of bulge bracket banks control oil on the high seas. And they trade it for their own account. Morgan Stanley owns more oil than Exxon. They trade with Goldman Sachs, and Citibank, which Sheik Alwaleed rescued from the brink of bankruptcy. Might this market have anything to do with price volatility?
There are always more disasters and conspiracies lurking for worrisome people with a creative impulse. The Myth of the Oil Crisis will give you enough rope to make your own ideas seem convincing. But if you REALLY know, you can play against Goldman and Morgan Stanley and beat them at their own game. Good luck.
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