Opec Saving Oil And Going Green - 2559 Words

OPEC: Saving Oil Going Green Historians look back upon the beginning of the industrial age as the beginning of the coal era; future historians will surely look back at this modern day and describe it as the oil era. Between transportation, heating, and industry oil can be found in many different forms throughout the entire world. Oil is as much an economic and political tool as it is a fuel; politicians haggle with it, wars are fought over it, and the absence of it can send entire economies into a decline. With such a large dependence on oil the question is raised, what will happen when the oil, like other limited fossil fuels, is gone? How will this crisis affect the regions of the world that rely on oil and the regions that produce†¦show more content†¦This is evident even today as existing oil producers are reaching their peaks of production, or their production as plateaued and is no longer growing to match demand. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas USA ( ASPO) reports that of the 42 largest oil producers in the world, which account for 98% of all oil production in the world, about 30 have plateaued or peaked. ASPO also notes that of the 12 major OPEC nations,  ½ have peaked or plateaued. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated the average depletion rate of oil to be about 5.1% per year meaning that production of oil drops around 3.7 million barrels per day each year. The peak oil crisis is such a demanding threat because as the world’s supply of oil is peaking the demand is rising. The IEA states that given the trend of population growth the demand for oil is rising 1.6% a year. This means that the growing demand will call for 64 million additional barrels of oil per day by the year 2030, this being the equivalent of 6 new Saudi Arabias (ASPO). It becomes clear that the peak oil dilemma is pressing, but it is especially pressing for organizations like OPEC. OPEC is the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Co untries and is an international organization between oil rich nations which work to control, stabilize, and influence the price and exportation of oil. Many countries throughout the world import their oil from OPEC countries which