Industry Experts Ring The Alarm: We're About to Drop Off Oil's Production Peak Plateau

PLEASE READ THE SUMMARIZED INTERVIEW BELOW DR. ROBERT L. HIRSCH'S CREDENTIALS.

Dr. Robert L Hirsch casually swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

-Dr. Robert L Hirsch, author of the Hirsch Report, commissioned under the Bush Department of Energy circa 2005, Senior Energy Program Advisor, SAIC (World oil production), Senior Energy Analyst, RAND (Various energy studies), Vice President of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Vice President and Manager of Research and Technical Services for Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) (Oil and gas exploration and production), Founder and CEO of APTI, a roughly $50 million/year company now owned by BAE Systems. (Commercial & Defense Department technologies), Manager of Exxon’s synthetic fuels research laboratory, Manager of Petroleum Exploratory Research at Exxon. (Refining R & D), Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) responsible for renewables, fusion, geothermal and basic research. (Presidential Appointment), Director of fusion research at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and ERDA.

In short, Mr. Hirsch knows his shit.  If you think otherwise, YOU don't know shit.

Recent Interview About RL Hirsch's upcoming book The Impending World Energy Mess... available October 1st, 2010.

Interviewer: In the book that you are about to publish, your case is that ‘peak oil’ may happen very soon indeed. According to you, when might we be getting into trouble ? In ten years, in less than ten years ?

Hirsch: Let me begin with this : the background is the production. World oil production had been progressing and then it’s been flat, fluctuating, since the middle of 2004 : it’s been on a ‘plateau’. The economic recession led to a decline in demand, but not much.

Interviewer: The world demand is going up again. It’s back to where it was before the beginning of the crisis in 2008.

Hirsch: Correct. And the oil production fluctuates in a band of 4 or 5 %. It’s not very big. I think that the world oil production cannot go higher than that.

Interviewer: What is your hypothesis ?

Hirsch: We will stay in this band, and within 2 to 5 years, world oil production will go into decline.

Interviewer: So you have in mind the same terrible scenario which has recently been put forward by the Pentagon, the Lloyd’s and Chatham House, and by the German army.

Hirsch: Roughly, yes.

Interviewer: The Department of Energy too mentions a fluctuating, or “undulating” plateau of the oil production. Are you talking about the same thing?

Hirsch: The difference is that they say we will get to that plateau somewhere in the future. But we are already there! And if you look at the data, there’s no question we’re there.

Interviewer: A decline of world oil production within 2 to 5 years. What would happen if you’re right?

Hirsch: It’s going to be a mess, and all of a sudden it’ll be obvious.

THE WHOLE INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE HERE...

A SUMMARY OF HIRSCH'S COMING BOOK IS AVAILABLE HERE...

FOR MORE ON THE OIL PLATEAU GO HERE...