Hirsch report

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

The Lead Author, Robert Hirsch, published a brief summary of this report in October 2005 for the Atlantic Council.

Intro

"The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

Projections

A number of industry petroleum geologists, scientists, and economists were listed with their global peak production projection.

Conclusions

• World oil peaking is going to happen, and will likely be abrupt.
• Oil peaking will adversely affect global economies, particularly those most dependent on oil.
• Oil peaking presents a unique challenge (“it will be abrupt and revolutionary”).
• The problem is liquid fuels (growth in demand mainly from transportation sector).
• Mitigation efforts will require substantial time.
  • 20 years is required to transition without substantial impacts
  • A 10 year rush transition with moderate impacts is possible with extraordinary efforts from governments, industry, and consumers
  • Late initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences.
• Both supply and demand will require attention.
• It is a matter of risk management (mitigating action must come before the peak).
• Government intervention will be required.
• Economic upheaval is not inevitable (“given enough lead-time, the problems are soluble with existing technologies.”)
• More information is needed to more precisely determine the peak timeframe.

Three scenarios

• Waiting until world oil production peaks before taking crash program action leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for more than two decades.

• Initiating a mitigation crash program 10 years before world oil peaking helps considerably but still leaves a liquid fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked.

• Initiating a mitigation crash program 20 years before peaking appears to offer the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period.

See also

• Energy conservation
• Energy crisis
• Marion King Hubbert, and the Hubbert curve.
• Peak Oil
• Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas
• Olduvai Theory on Wikipedia

External links

• Hirsch Report
• US Govt Sponsored Peak Oil Report Draws Disturbing Conclusions 29. July 2005
• Where is the Hirsch report by Richard Heinberg
• The Hirsch report in PDF HTML version
• Audio interview: Robert Hirsch on Peak Oil Mitigation
• Atlantic Council of the United States
• Robert Hirsch bio

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