A Second Look at the Real Oil Problem

I must respond to the misconceptions and incomplete analysis in the recent article by M.A. Adelman ("The Real oil Problem," Spring 2004). The author claims to address "The Real oil Problem," but as I will show below, he does not.

"Running out of oil" In two paragraph headings and in several

Those who have raised concerns about the world's future oil supplies do not predict that the world is "running out of oil" in the near future. To the contrary, they claim that when the world's crude oil suppliers have extracted approximately half of the world's total recoverable reserves, the world's oil suppliers' capability to extract crude oil will reach a maximum and then begin a steady decline while the remaining half of the recoverable oil is extracted. Figure 1 illustrates this oil extraction characteristic for the United States.