[Peakoil] Expert urges response to looming oil supply problems

[Antony Barry]

Source: "Australian Transport News" <http://www.fullyloaded.com.au/ 
index.cfm?storyid=30293&cp=displaystory>

   Expert urges response to looming oil supply problems
   Monday 19 February 2007
An internationally recognised expert in energy market analysis and  
energy forecasting warns liquid fuel shortages, massive unemployment,  
high interest rates and severe recession are some of the impacts  
facing Australian supply chains and the broader community if  
governments and companies do not prepare now for the peaking and  
subsequent decline of world oil production.

Dr Roger Bezdek, an internationally recognised expert in energy  
market analysis and energy forecasting and President, Management  
Information Services, USA, has co-authored two reports for the US  
Department of Energy on the economic impacts and risk management of  
declining oil supplies and liquid fuel mitigation options.

According to Dr Bezdek, future oil shortages are expected to impact  
on virtually all aspects of the supply chain, especially  
transportation. With such an unfamiliar global situation so close,  
preparation and planning are crucial.

"In a micro sense, supply chain managers have to recognise what is  
likely to happen in the future and change their plans and methods of  
doing business accordingly. For example, shifting to more efficient  
and secure models of transportation and inventory management," says  
Dr Bezdek.

"In a macro sense, all participants in the supply chain should  
pressure their national and regional governments to recognise the  
impending liquid fuels crisis and take appropriate remedial actions."

Whilst the world is only now waking up to the problems inherent in  
climate change, and with many scientists believing remedial actions  
are long overdue, experts are now calling for early action to avoid  
the same scenario with peak oil.

Dr Bezdek asserts that one of the major challenges preventing the  
issue from being taken seriously by many decision makers and industry  
leaders is a history of repeated and erroneous predictions of oil  
peaking.

Data discrepancies in the past, owing to political biases or low  
quality of reserves data, may have given the world false assurance  
and prevented policy makers from taking recent, more robust forecasts  
seriously.

"The problem of the peaking of world conventional oil production is  
unlike any faced by modern industrial society," he says.
"Previous energy transitions, from wood to coal and from coal to oil,  
were gradual and evolutionary. The world is facing an imminent energy  
discontinuity that will be abrupt and painful."


Exactly when the crisis‚ will occur is still a hotly debated topic.  
However there is some consensus that the time needed to plan and  
implement mitigation options that would have a substantial impact is  
more than a decade before peaking occurs.

"Mitigation options on both the demand side and supply side are  
available today. But unless these are implemented, beginning soon, a  
severe liquid fuels crisis is inevitable," says Dr Bezdek.

Dr Roger H. Bezdek will expose the truth behind common myths  
associated with looming world oil problems at The Keynote Breakfast,  
Smart 2007 Conference on Thursday June 21, in Sydney.


phone : 02 6241 7659 | mailto:me at Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
mobile: 04 1242 0397 | mailto:tony.barry at alianet.alia.org.au
http://tony-barry.emu.id.au