The ever misinformed and uninterested in learning the facts David Frum has an editorial called "Don't worry about running out of oil".
He's now fallen into the 2nd fallacy that has regularly been rebutted about Oil reserves. He claims that Oil reserves have gone up since 1979. In reality, all the Opec nations decided to allocate Oil production based upon reserves. Whereby all Opec nations suddenly found about 5 times as much reserves as they had the previous years. Amazing but true! The Blums of the world would have us believe that those reserves were really discovered. But we do know the truth from publicly traded companies, like Shell, which have had to restate their oil reserves downwards.
Frum could even do *a little* bit of research and see what the USGS (Geological Survey) says about World oil reserves, say reserves per country. They currently give a 50% chance that Saudi Arabia has 70 billion barrels of oil, and only a 5% chance that Saudi has 140 billion barrels. The 50 percentile estimate for Saudi + Iran + Iraq + Kuwait is 150 billion barrels. Frum must have taken the very outside range of guidance to come up with 700 billion barrels remaining in the Persian Gulf. Would sure be nice for him to provide an actual reference rather than make up numbers.
M King Hubbert's correct 1956 prediction that US production would peak in 1970 has got to make people think that his 1971 prediction that world production would peak in 2000 has a really good chance of being close. This prediction is based upon total oil reserves of about 2 trillion barrels. Note this estimate, 2 trillion total barrels, has not changed significantly from between 1971 and 2005.
from Energy and Power, A Scientific American Book, 1971, pg 39
Then Frum goes on to the next myth, that there will simply be substitution for Oil if it ever does diminish. Let's get this right. Blum says the oil isn't diminishing. But if he's wrong, and it does diminish, then he will be right that there will be energy sources that can substitute for oil.
But just in case he's wrong once, he's actually wrong again. There simply isn't any energy source that comes close to the transportability and accessability of Oil for transport. Wind, Hydro, Solar, Coal, Nuclear just don't cut it. Oh, and Natural Gas is running low as well. Did you know that 99% of fertilizer is made from natural gas? Ouch.
The substitution argument makes the assumption that something, say solar power, will be able to be produced that can substitute for Oil. Now maybe solar will be able to substittute, and I hope it does, but we're not sure yet and there may not be nearly enough investment in solar r&d. And I have a real concern that we won't have the oil reserves to support the solar r&d.
Frum also makes a completely unfounded claim that the world is "producing" more oil, ala a supermarket with tomatoes. Tomatoes are grown, often with a a few months. Oil is not grown on any timescale that is interesting to humans.
It's a shame that people without a clue of what they speak, like Frum, can reach such a large population and convince them that there's no problem. But I guess that's the National Post's strategy. If you believe what they say, there's no problem with global warming, no problem with running out of the energy source that has provided us with our standard of living, and the biggest problem Canada has is a lack of military spending. The "la la la la" approach to problems.
What I really think is going on is FUD to enable a US imperial foreign policy. If he and others can successfully convince the world that there is no problem, then any interventions around the world couldn't possibly be for oil reasons. Surely installing democracy in Iraq is the real reason to invade Iraq if there's no oil problem. But if there is a growing shortage of oil, then perhaps an iraq invasion might be about access to oil instead of "democracy".