Oil prices could double by 2022, IMF warned

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been warned by its internal research team that there could be a permanent doubling of oil prices in the coming decade with profound implications for global trade.

"This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never experienced such prices for more than a few months," the report warns.

The new IMF "working paper" come as the value of crude on world markets remains at the historically high level of $113 a barrel and just after the International Energy Agency reported that consumption would accelerate for the rest of this year in line with a wider economic recovery.

Undertaken amid mounting concerns about "peak oil", the IMF study does not presume that there is a constraint on how much oil can be taken out of the ground. It prefers to believe that extraction rates will depend on the price that will be able to be charged for the final product.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/13/oil-price-doubling-decade-imf

[MindMover]

1. "It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future." Yogi

[pwb]

2. The earth makes oil everyday.

Oil is a renewable energy, the earth never stops making oil. I like to think the opposite of what big oil and the republics say.

[truthisfreedom]

5. That's true, if you're willing to wait for it.

On the order of hundreds of millions of years.

[jwirr]

13. And of course that is why we are drilling for it in so many unsafe places.

[bhikkhu]

14. Its the rate of creation vs the rate of consumption thats the BIG problem

90 million barrels a day, and counting?

[Journeyman]

3. I'm preparing for such an eventuality. I walk 4+ miles a day. . .

[truthisfreedom]

4. Tesla stock (TSLA) is pretty cheap at the moment. They have 5000 working electric drive trains on

the road at the moment, and by the end of 2013 they should have 40,000, including 25,000 Model S sedans and 2500 Roadster Sports, plus drive trains and batteries for Toyota's electric RAV-4 and drive trains/battery packs for Mercedes, Daimler, and others.

Electric cars will get us through this. Seriously. My Tesla Roadster Sport is a dream car.

[happyslug]

16. And where is the electrical power for the cars to come from?????

https://str.llnl.gov/Sep09/simon.html
http://www.good.is/post/check-out-the-best-energy-use-chart-ever-2009-edition/
http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/chart-of-us-energy-use-reveals-herculean-effort-needed-to-ditch-oil-coal.html
http://205.254.135.24/totalenergy/data/annual/

In simple terms at the present time we use 40% of all energy to produce the electrical power we are using at present. Given that fact how can we produce more electricity to cover the 29% of energy being use in transport WHILE AT THE SAME TIME OTHER ELECTRICAL DEMAND IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE???

Sorry, something has to give, and it appears it will be the Automobile as a means go to and from work and school.

[thelordofhell]

6. Oil demand could halve by 2022

[Gman]

7. That is NOT the historic high. Furthermore

The word "might" is all you need to read. The market determines the price. For that matter, monkeys might fly out of my butt.

[Crow73]

8. Demand?

[link:http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/index.php/hydrogen-fuel-production/another-hydrogen-breakthrough-for-brookhaven-national-laboratory/|Hydrogen Breakthrough for Brookhaven National Laboratory
]

Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has some more big news this time in regard to developing platinum-free hydrogen production (similar to a fuel cell run in reverse). Another lab chemist, Kotaro Sasaki and his team (pictured above) have developed a robust electrocatalyst that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and uses no platinum in the process.

[MindMover]

9. thank you for the link.......

[Swede Atlanta]

10. We cannot base policy on what MIGHT happen in the future.......

There might be predictions such as this of a doubling of the price of oil, a steep plunge in the availability of oil, an expectation that any day we will develop truly cheap renewable energy such as in one of the posts above.

All those should inform our policy but they cannot drive or define it. We have to look at the projections in the near term, look at the recent historic impact of oil availability and price on our economy, impact of burning fossil fuels on the environment, etc. Those are the factors that should drive our policy.

All else is interesting but speculation at best.

[Politicalboi]

11. Let them

We should pay through the nose unless we figure out a better way to get around. If we are still using oil like we are today in 10 years, there is NO hope for us, and we deserve it.

[Moostache]

17. But that's part of the problem...

We WILL pay through the nose, only the payments are not going to be used for the right things!

The payments are enriching a very small cadre of humans at the expense of all future humans. What is happening now will be looked back on by surviving humans as the "Immense Folly of the 20th and 21st century". Just as we look back and wonder "how could ANYONE have believed the world was flat?", so too will those fortunate enough to survive the resource wars and famines

- (if you doubt THIS is coming, I invite you to take a hard look at the current austerity plans in the EU and US and then extrapolate them out to what these countries will proscribe to the wider world as the energy crunch comes in full force) -

wonder "how the hell could so many people allow themselves to be led by the nose by such blatant propaganda?"

The price of oil and gas should rightfully reflect ALL of the subsidies and government largesse that have made it so "affordable" in the first place. On equal footing, clean energy is already well below the real costs of the current methods. The problem is that our political system - and more importantly our media systems - that serve the corporate paymaster have their marching orders and they follow them to the letter.

There really should not be any "controversy" about basic facts, yet there is.
This in and of itself is depressing. Chemistry is a mature science. Physics is likewise. Humans have been working these principles out for at least the last 2500 years. Carbon Dioxide and Methane are extensively characterized and we KNOW how they interact with the environment and more importantly with HEAT and SUNLIGHT. This is not theoretical physics discussing the method of determining the dimensions of a multiverse or the intricacies of String Theory and the universal equation. ITS GODDAMN MATH....MORE ENERGY TRAPPED EQUALS MORE HEAT AND MORE WARMING OF EVERYTHING UNDER THE LAYER OF GAS TRAPPING THE HEAT! Math is the one thing that can be demonstrated as actually 100% true. Scientific theories will always leave room for the possibility that future discoveries may overturn current understanding, but 1+1 is ALWAYS AND FOREVER 2!

It is the existence of media outlets which give voice to the unreasonable and buffoons who in turn spout out lies and half-truths and obfuscations designed to mislead the public and generate the needed "controversy" to prop up status quo thinking and action. These manufactured "controversies" are what the oil and gas companies see as a useful hedge against the end of their business model. They are reaping record profits in the history of humanity by essentially selling off our future to fund their own present. It would be tragic if it weren't so goddamn short-sighted and stupid. These are people who have amassed fortunes that would make Pharaoh blush, yet they cannot see past the next quarterly statement and increasing the already ridiculous profits of their industry at the expense of even having a future beyond the current decade

[pscot]

12. Maybe they're thinking about this...

if you have better information please share it.

[adigal]

15. It might take something like this to get us serious about energy change

We should have been preparing for this moment since Jimmy Carter spoke to us when he was president. Instead, we have been sucking at the oil teat for 30 more years. We are a people of Today, who don't seem to believe in Tomorrow.

[Lenomsky]

18. WOW stellar prediction IMF ... How much did the pearl of wisdom cost?

Need more efficient vehicles, some renewables that are cost effective (they will be in 2022), recycle more, use less packaging, link the $ to food not un-neccessary retail therapay i.e. I think food should cost more so farmers have less need to use chemicals etc (that's another debate for another time) .. anyhoo blah blah blah .. we need to consume less and breed less but modern life will never allow that! The shame