Word: oil
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...increase its output to even 15 million bbl. a day is remote. Even maintaining its current production rate for an indefinite period of time is hardly a certainty. The Ghawar, Abqaiq and Berri fields (which still make up about 90% of Saudi Arabia's light crude) now pump oil from water-injection wells--essentially the low-hanging fruit. Once that ends, oil production in those key fields will decline, and the declines could be steep. The two other giant fields producing lesser-quality oil are subject to this same risk. Quantifying the timing and the magnitude of the pending drop...
...bottom line: the global oil supply has probably peaked. While the world expects to consume 120 million bbl. a day two decades from now, actual supply may be half that rate. This conclusion aptly portrays the potential magnitude of the energy ditch we are now in. It is impossible to calculate the odds of this supply-demand imbalance happening, but prudent planning argues that the world should assume the bleaker scenario. Then it follows that a global plan to use oil more rationally must be urgently developed and implemented...
...near term, the global economy needs to significantly reduce its oil intensity. Because 70% of the world's oil is used as transportation fuel, that would be the place to start. We need to create new forms of transportation fuels as well as reduce the quantity of goods and people moved by cars and large trucks. If a high percentage of products now transported by large trucks were shifted to the global rail system, an efficiency savings of three- to tenfold could be realized. If those goods could be shipped over water rather than rail, even greater efficiencies would...
...also need to pull out all the stops to find new oil supplies. Actions like drilling in the controversial Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and exploring for more oil and natural gas on the outer continental shelf of North America suddenly take on a sense of urgency. They would not cure the problem but could buy time to offset shrinking supply...
None of these changes are technically difficult. Collectively they could dramatically reduce the oil intensity of developed countries' economies while serving as role models for the rapidly emerging new economies that cannot afford to use oil as wastefully as we have used...