Murray DuffinLetter by Murray Duffin sent to Newsweek.

Congratulations! You are the first major publication to

Address the unthinkable, - the end of cheap oil.

Unfortunately, while your coverage of oil, wind, sun and

Hydrogen was accurate in what it said; it was much too complacent by what was not said. The challenge of a declining oil supply will be much more difficult than the breezy writing style would suggest, and the probability of an early decline (before 2010) much higher than you suggest.

The comments by Roger Charpentier of the USGS were

particularly misleading, typical of USGS work for decades. (They were found guilty of misleading Congress after the 1973 oil shock). Both Charpentier and Newsweek failed to mention pre-Deffeyes work done by Campbell, Laherrere, Ivanhoe, Duncan and others that represents many man years, uses different approaches, and reaches the same conclusions. “Questionable methodology” is a dog that won’t hunt, except for the USGS itself.

The USGS year 2000 report presents “potential” world oil

reserve increases for 1996 through 2025 inclusive, of nearly 1300 Gb (1.3 trillion barrels), which, added to already used plus existing known reserves gives the 3 trillion barrels you mention. 0.9 trillion of that 3 trillion are already gone.

To find the 1.3 trillion “potential” barrels in 30 years

would mean finding more than 40 Gb/yr. on average for three decades. The world experienced reserve increases of 40 Gb/yr average during the decade from 1958 through 1967, one decade only, never before, and never since. The first 6 years of the USGS 30 year projection have seen actual finds of less than 33% of their average expectation, and that included 2 unusually large finds, unlikely to be repeated. The decade from 1990 through 1999 was less than 25%. The USGS “potential” is a nonsense figure arrived at by nonsense methodology, regardless of how many man years they spent. Can anyone really believe that, with all the billions oil companies have spent on exploration since 1967, the vast USGS cache remains to be found?

If we take away 70% of the USGS projection, and the 0.9

trillion barrels already consumed the remaining world supply is a

still optimistic 1.2 trillion barrels, out of an original world

endowment of about 2.1 trillion. At present consumption rates we will get to 50% of the original endowment consumed, in only 6 years. Deffeyes’ point is that after 50% has been used, the extraction rate begins an unavoidable and irreversible decline, which even the USGS seems not to dispute.