Hirsch report

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The Hirsch Report is a Robert Hirsch report prepared for the US Department of Energy report is entitled Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management with the probability of global oil production peak (Engl. Peak oil is concerned). Hirsch sees the need to take timely measures to avert the global economic, social and political consequences that have been described as "high-risk" and "dramatic" that could result from reaching the maximum global oil production.

Robert Hirsch, 2006

Robert L. Hirsch , a scientist at Science Applications International Corp. in San Diego, California Project leader and lead author of the report published a summary of his findings for the Atlantic Council in October 2005.

introduction

According to Hirsch's study, reaching the peak of oil production presents the US economy with an unprecedented challenge as it moves into a new energy age. The closer the maximum subsidy gets, the more dramatically the fuel prices rise and fluctuate ( volatility ) - with unpredictable economic, social and political consequences ( very complicated, non-linear .) Unless countermeasures are taken in time, this will lead to unpredictable developments on the one can only prepare with measures of a targeted risk or emergency management. There are options on both the demand side and the supply side, but in order to be effective, these would have to be in place more than a decade before the funding peak.

In an interview for the Le Monde Blog in September 2010, Hirsch indirectly confirmed suspicions that the findings of his report seemed so inopportune to the ministry that it ordered silence about them.

Conclusions

  • The global funding peak will come
  • The maximum funding could cost the US economy dearly (Europe is not the subject of the report)
  • The global peak in oil production presents an unprecedented challenge ("which will be abrupt and disruptive")
  • It is not an energy problem, but a fuel problem that affects the transport sector above all
  • Countermeasures will take considerable time
  • Both the demand and the supply side need to be kept in mind
  • Risk management is required (countermeasures must be implemented long before the funding peak is reached)
  • Government action will be necessary
  • Economic turbulence can be avoided ("recognized in time, the problems can be solved with existing technology")
  • More information from the public is needed.

Three scenarios

  • A crash program only when the funding peak is reached will cause the world significant supply problems with fuel for more than two decades.
  • A package of measures ten years before the funding peak will enable significant aid, but here too there will be a fuel gap for about a decade.
  • A crash program twenty years before the funding peak is reached seems to open up the possibility of avoiding bottlenecks of the aforementioned type.

Quote

“The nature of the peak oil problem is similar to the killer asteroid problem. You really have to start acting right now because we're running out of time. It will take a lot of time and effort, and must be approached as an instant program to reduce the effects. If you approach the problem slowly, you are wasting time. If it hits us, the consequences will be so extreme that people will have to work together and do things, even make sacrifices, that go far beyond what most of us have seriously thought of. "

- Dr. Robert Hirsch in: "Out of Oil - American strategies and concepts for the time after petroleum", radio feature of the WDR by Paul Nellen, March 18, 2007 (from the manuscript) [5] (PDF; 184 kB)

Handling the report

In February 2005 the report was briefly online. It was taken offline and only put back online following public pressure.

A follow-up study written by Hirsch in 2007 as part of a work contract also addresses various points of criticism, for example from the industry information service CERA of the original report and the theses on which it is based.

Hirsch listed a number of estimates as to when the maximum would occur. In 2010 he updated the continuation of oil production until 2015.

time -
2006-2007 Bakhtiari
2007-2009 Simmons
After 2007 Skrebowski
Before 2009 Deffeyes
Before 2010 Goodstein
Around 2010 Campbell
After 2010 World Energy Council
2010-2020 Jean Laherrère
2015 Oxford University
2016 Energy Information Administration
After 2020 CERA
2025 or later Shell
No way OPEC

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Peaking of World Oil Production: Recent ForecastsDOE / NETL-2007/1263 (PDF; 879 kB) report for the US Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory, contract for work DE-AM26-04NT41817, February 7, 2007, Robert L Hirsch, Senior Energy Program Advisor, SAIC National Energy Technology Laboratory, preparation and analysis from www.netl.doe.gov
  2. ↑ http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf ( Memento from January 8, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) -PDF file
  3. ↑ Interview with Robert L. Hirsch. Le Monde Blogs, Sept. 16, 2010 [1]
  4. ↑ Hirsch et al .: Peaking Of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management . [2]
  5. ↑ "The people that I was dealing with said: 'No more work on peak oil, no more talk about it'", Interview with Robert L. Hirsch , Le Monde Blogs, September 16, 2010 [3]
  6. ↑ "Bush Administration Suppresses Peak Oil Study - Where is the Hirsch Report?", Counterpunch, July 30, 2005 [4]