Peak Oil – Personal Perspectives

How does this affect me, my family and my friends? 
Oil is a great part of everyone's life. A great majority of products that we use are made from oil. Even if this isn't the case, there are also the objects that needs to be shipped or transported from one place to another. Furthermore, everyone of us use transportation daily, be it for school, for work or even for leisure. These days, being in a car, a train or a bus is more common than walking on the streets to reach your destination.

Are any of my friends/family employed in this industry?
Being friends, we don't normally talk about what our families' jobs are, so I would have to overlook that. But for family, my dad does shipping and has factories nationwide and also in some other countries. However, even though I do believe in the theory, I think that the time when we've actually used up all of the world's oil is coming this soon might be a little bit hard to believe. Then again, this might just be denial.

Do I threaten oil reserves by using/purchasing this resource?
I do think everyone threatens oil reserves... and I actually see it as being something that is inevitable. As I said before, we need to have our transportations. It has, at this day and age been a necessity. Of course, it's something that we can definitely live without in the short run. But if we look at it in the long run, we need to go out and get food, get batteries, go to the grocery store... it's inevitable. So in conclusion, yes I do threaten oil reserves, I'm sorry about it but I can't help it.

How will peak oil affect me?
If the world does eventually run of out oil or fuel. Then that would probably cause me to be able to use transportation less conveniently because of the voice in my head giving me guilt. Not to mention how high the cost of fuel would be at that time. And in some situation, it would also be much harder to purchase new objects seeing as said before, not only because the rise of the costs, but also because almost everything is either made out of plastic (made out of oil), or needs to be transported or shipped.

What steps could we take to reduce our consumption and conserve oil reserves? 
The rule of the 3R's definitely comes in here. If we reduce our consumption of oil reserves, that would spare, not much but that would actually spare some oil left. Reusing, we buy drinks and takeaway food that comes with plastic containers and bottles, giving it a wash would make it almost brand new. Or if you can't be bothered washing, there's always recycling. Old newspapers? Recycle. Plastic containers? Recycle. Coca-cola cans that's been sitting there for ages? Recycle... Or maybe, rinse and then recycle. If we do each of this just once it won't make a big difference. In fact, it might not even make a difference. But I do believe if we start practicing it, making it something that we do, then we will definitely be able to make a difference and prolong the time where we reach the peak of the time where our consumption of oil actually gets higher than the rate of extraction of oil

Peak Oil Questions

WHAT IS PEAK OIL?

Oil is a precious and incredibly limited resource that many even consider to be "black gold". Peak Oil is the theory that some scientists has came up with. The theory forms it's base on the point in time where oil extraction rate starts to max out and the all supplies start to decline. This basically means that, after peaking, the demand of oil would start to increase simultaneously as  supply of it will continue to decrease. 

WHERE IS THE WORLD'S OIL FOUND?

Oil is found in oil reserves in sedimentary basins all over the world and these can be classified into 4 different categories: probable, recoverable, proved and established reserves. 

1. Probable oil reserves – believed to exist with a certainty based on geological information. 
2. Recoverable reserves – both economical and non-economical oil reserves that can be produced with existing technology.
3. Proved reserves – reserves that can be economically produced with a large degree of certainty from known reservoirs using existing technology
4. Established reserves – generally defined as proved reserves with one-half probable reserves. 

However if these facts are applied geographically, the Middle East would be the region that has the largest amount of reserves, owning 55.6% (746 billion barrels) of the world's total oil resource. Second comes North America possessing 15.6% (209.9 billion barrels)

WHO IS HUBBERT AND WHAT IS HIS CURVE?

The Hubbert Curve is normally in the shape of a bell. The Hubbert Curve is a statistical theory of oil production that states the rate of extraction from a particular region. Initially, while there's minimum drilling operations, the production is limited. However, as a larger portion of land are explored, the production gradually approaches peak production. Eventually as the supply for oil depletes, the extraction rates then begins to slow down. 

The Hubbert curve portrays the life cycle of a drilling operation. The predictions presented by the Hubbert Curve shows statistical limitation and is considerably comprehensive. The shape of the curve can be altered by technological improvements or estimated proven oil reserve changes that are realized during the production process.