In the center of the earth is a solid iron core floating in a surrounding liquid iron core. Magnetism is probably the result of boiling iron within the outer core. Molten iron is an excellent electrical conductor. The convection motion of the iron and its associated electrical fields generated the earth magnetic field. The outer iron core has a temperature of 5800 degrees Celsius and a pressure over more than million atmospheres. Magnetic tempests develop from surges in the liquid iron. This causes the waxing and waning of the electrical field of the earth. The magnetic tempests can last for centuries. The influence of the earth's rotation and heat propels the molten iron. As it flows it interacts with the magnetic field of the earth. This interaction generates an electric current and generates a magnetic field, which reinforces the magnetic field of the earth. During the past 10 million years, the magnetic field of the earth has reversed magnetic polarity once every 500.000 years. (Bloxam and Gubbins, 1989) At a depth of 2900 km below the surface is the transition zone from the iron core to the mantle. The zone is the most dynamic part of the Earth, directly affecting the earth's rotation and magnetic field. Variations in the core mantle region also modulate the convection in the earth's mantle, which is responsible for the movements of continents and tectonic plates. This mantle has also two different zones. The lower mantle extending to 700 kilometers below the surface consists of the silicate perovoskite, whereas the upper mantle consists of minerals like olivine, pyroxene and garnet.

The upper and lower parts of the mantle behave largely independently, but they also communicate. The upper mantle being much less viscous flows easily and more rapidly than the sluggish lower mantles. This upper mantle is overlain by the lithosphere. (Jeanloz and Lay, 1993)

The deep earth is very dynamic. Thermal energy has been left over from the time of the formation of the earth. Another source of heat is the energy released by the radioactive decay of elements like uranium. The heat travels across the earth's inner boundaries and sets into motion large convection currents. It influences the surface of the earth with broad sets of geological phenomena like mountain building, volcanism, plate tectonics, earthquakes etc. The most spectacular expression of the dynamics of the inner earth is the building of the mid-oceanic ridges around the globe with a length of more than 60.000 kilometers.

The ridge spews hot magma from the upper mantle during volcanic eruptions. The magma cools and solidifies forming new oceanic crust and ripping apart the old oceanic crust. Plates forming the East Pacific rise separately at "fast" rates from 60 to 170 millimeters per year, whereas the mid-Atlantic plates are pulled apart at slower rates of about 30 millimeters per year. More than 18 cubic kilometers of rock are produced every year. This activity has led to the drifting apart of the continents and the global distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes. Magma at ocean ridges is basaltic of nature.

The upper mantle consists of a dense green rock: peridotite. How can a mantle of another composition produce basaltic magma? As peridotic material rises from 100 kilometers below the seafloor it decompresses and partially melts. This melted part has a basaltic composition. The temperature of the rising magma is at certain places on the mid-oceanic ridges higher, thus indicating that the magma has with lower densities. The ridges are higher and with more volcanic activities than on other parts. The Azores, Iceland, Hawaii are surface expressions of these so-called hot spots.

Figure 1: Born at the thermal boundary layer, mid-Cretaceous superplumes creating erupting plateaus and seamounts.

During mid-cretaceous time some 120 million years ago, there has been an enormous outburst of volcanic material. The formation of oceanic crust doubled in five million years. As we have seen the boiling outer iron produces enormous amounts of heat. That heat percolates through the core mantle boundary. The overheated lower mantle material rises in huge plumes from nearly 3000 kilometers to the surface of the earth and triggers volcanic eruption.

The consequence of this superplume activity was that the sea level raised 250 meters, the temperature of the atmosphere increased by 10 degrees Celsius, the release of carbon dioxide led to a natural green house. An excess of organic carbon and inorganic carbonate was also deposited during mid-cretaceous. This may be the reason that 50% of the oil deposits were formed during this time. When the next super-plume will come is not known. (Bonnati, 1994; Larson, 1995).

Occasionally such upwellings happen under the continents and result in massive lava flows.

Figure 2: Outflows of volcanic flood basaltic material from different geological ages.
1. Siberian Traps 248-216 my; 2. Karoo basalts 166-206 my; 3. Parana Plateau 119-149 my; 4. Kerguelen Plateau/Broken Ridge 114-109.5 my; 5. Ontong Java/Nauru; 6. Deccan Traps 65-69 my; 7. Snake River Plain 16 my; 8. Columbia River 6-17.5 my; 9. Ethiopian Traps? (After Coffin and Eldhom 1993)

The lithosphere has also two different elements, the continental and the oceanic crust. The plates ride atop a hot pliable layer of the earth's mantle. The continental crust is continuously recycled. It is destroyed during the geothermal cycle by the convection in the mantle. The present continents are the only part of the earth's crust that is not recycled. By a number of geological processes like erosion, metamorphism and subduction, almost all ancient rocks were destroyed. The oldest rocks we have found on earth are nearly 4 billion years old.

I assembled a number of geological facts to demonstrate the youth of the continental outline (De Booy, 1968). The young nature may be the result of the apparent disappearance and drifting apart of continental crust. A study of the Mediterranean area showed that Tertiary tectogenetic structures of continental crust around the Mediterranean are abruptly cut off by the present continental outline. These structures can not be followed on the bottom of the deep sea basins which apparently are floored by an oceanic type of crust. The present morphological features such a s the Alps, Po bassin, Tyrrhenian Sea are the result of neotectonic (late Neogene-Quaternary) movements, the generating forces of which may be located in deeper parts of thy earth (De Booy, 1969). In another publication I assumed a relatively young age of the oceanic crust of the present oceans (post Paleozoic)(De Booy, 1966).

These publications were published in a period when plate tectonics was not yet in voque. More than thirty years later we know more about the different processes in these deeper parts. My assumption, that the tectonic structures were abruptly cut off and that continental crust has disappeared repeatedly during geological history, proved to be correct..

Figure 3: Viewpoint on the dynamics of the earth thirty years ago (De Booy, 1968).

Internal heat energy shapes the planet's surface by compressing, heating and breaking the lithosphere, which varies in thickness, from 100 kilometers or less below the oceans to 200 or more below the continents. The lithosphere is subdivided into dozens of plates. Tectonic plates may slide down and are subducted into the mantle. At the subduction boundary the upper plate thickens as a result of compression and from magma added by the melting of the descending plate. It may also occur that two plates collide with each other. Both processes resulted in mountain forming.

The continental crust has been formed when oceanic lithosphere sank back into the mantle at the so-called subduction zone At these sites slab of lithosphere carries wet sediments as well as basalt plunging into the mantle. At the depth of 80 kilometers heat drives water and other volatile components into the overlying mantle. These substances inducing melting in the surrounding material at reduced temperature. The magma produced reaches the surface. The subduction zones are the only places where intermediate- and deep focus earthquakes occur. Rocks in the lithosphere have loose packing of atoms. As the pressure increases the atoms reorganize in minerals with a greater density: olivine. Intermediate earthquakes occur where serpentine (olivine and water) is dehydrated as it descends into the mantle. At 400 kilometers the mineral olivine will become unstable and will transform into spinel. At 660 kilometer spinel becomes unstable and decomposes in two phases. In the subducted slab the temperature and pressure is lower, the spinel stability field will extend from 400 to 700 kilometers. This is the region where deep earthquakes are occurring. (Frohlich, 1989; Green II, 1994).

Figure 4: Subduction zones, where tectonic plates meet causes intermediate and deep focus earthquakes (after Green II, 1994).

Continental crust has been formed during different geological periods. During the Permian time (250 million years ago) the continental crust converged to create one enormous landmass called Pangea. This configuration was not unique. The formation of supercontinents appears to recur at intervals of 600 million years. Major tectonic cycles have driven these continents apart. The Himalaya Mountains reflect the current collision between India and Asia. Subduction of oceanic crust at the edge of a continent elevates the overlying crust and triggers volcanic activity. The Rocky Mountains reflect the subduction of oceanic pacific plates under western North America.

Figure 5: Tectonic plates, which are moving, to each other, away from each other or along each other.

There are two theories to explain the breaking up of these large continents like Pangea. Large continents block the escape of heat from the mantle. The heat accumulates and causes overlying supercontinent to dome upward and crack. Molten rocks from the overheated mantle rapidly fills the resultant fractures, which continually widen as pieces of the fragmented supercontinent are driven apart. A second model attributes the breaking up to effects connected with the rotation of the earth. Both models may play a role. (Murphy and Nance, 1992; Dalziel,1995; Taylor and McLennan,1996)

Gold thinks that some earthquakes are due to the sudden movements and rapid large changes of volume that gases may cause. He has assembled a great number of eyewitness accounts of earthquakes, which strongly suggest that gas eruptions are the initiating events.

The earthquake that destroyed parts of San Francisco is well documented by eyewitness accounts.

Gold gives a list of these reports. They all indicate violent gas emissions from the ground, containing hydrosulfide, and the gases were flammable.

Before the shock people felt a strong wind and heard strange noises. Hydrogen sulfide was reported in bodies of water, killing especially bottom dwelling fish. Dogs were howling during the night before the shock. In addition, streams of lightning running around the ground were seen before the shock. This was 30 hours before the shock! Months before the shock people heard large explosions resembling the discharge of heavy guns.

The town of Haicheng (China) was evacuated two hours for an earthquake. The decision was made as people saw clouds of warm air and fog developing above the known fault line, strange and nauseating smells and changes in groundwater levels.

Gold also points to the narrow relation between various metal ore deposits and hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons come toward the surface from depth of between 150 and 300 km. They therefore leach through a large amount of rock as buoyancy forces drive them up. They are capable to dissolve into solution heavy metals or metal compounds. As the metal-laden streams of hydrocarbons come to shallower places in the earth with lower pressures and temperature some of the compounds become unstable.

Bacteria may remove in some cases the hydrocarbon components and the naked metal atom remains. Zinc and lead are often found together with gold etc. The close association of gold and carbon is well recorded in the literature. Bacteria eat toxic hydrocarbons, toluene zylene and triochloroethylene. Deep underground bacteria resemble the ancient Archaebacteria.

In an article of 1992, Gold has presented a theory that microbial life is widespread at depth in the crust of the earth. This life is independent of solar energy. The energy comes from chemical sources due to fluids that migrate upward from deeper levels in the earth. He even assumes that the surface life on Earth based on solar energy may be just a strange branch of life. The deep chemical-supplied life may be very common in the universe. Life could be not based on carbon but on silicon. An element that can form molecules of some complexity and can be associated with high temperatures and pressures!

It is clear from these assumptions that Gold firmly believes in life on other planets. The candidate for the origin of all life on earth could be the deep microbial life. Evolution of life has then been in very favorable circumstances constant supply of food, no problems of temperature changes, no radiation hazards and minimal problems resulting from evaporation of water.

In 1994 there were two publications that assuming that huge water reservoirs exist at great depth in the earth. During their subduction great slabs of crust dragged water along. These water inventories may rival today's oceans; they may even have been surface oceans themselves millions of years before they descended into the infernal regions. (Corliss, 1997)

Joseph Smith found that the mineral wadleysite contains water up to 3.3 per cent. It even can hold water with temperatures of more than 1000 degrees Celsius. Smith: "If the region between 400 and 525 kilometers were, say, 60 per cent wadleysite and that phase was saturated at, say 3.3 weight per cent, that is ten oceans of water". The wadleysite is at a pressure of about 3 million pounds per square inch and at a temperature of about 3000 degrees. It is located in the top half of the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle. But they're more minerals found that contain water. It is also possible according to Smith, that the earth in this was regulating the amount of water on the surface. Water may be carried down into the upper mantle through subduction zones where plates converge. With rising convection currents the wadleysite may melt and release water vapor into the oceans as the molten rocks cools. (Bergeron, 1997)

According toCharles Prewitt (1995) the inner oceans could explain how earthquakes happen deep in the mantle. The water that is being squeezed out of minerals in the transition zone could cause the unexplained earthquakes that occur there.

These new theories are quite shocking, but the arguments Gold and others are putting forward are worth to be studied carefully. It is strange that I found not much literature in which these theories were discussed.

The first extensive mass extinction was at the end of the Ordovician, 440 million years ago, when 85 % of all animals became extinct.

It maybe the result of the glaciation of the Gondwana continent at the end of the Ordovician. It caused a lowering of the sea level, reducing ecospace on continental shelves. This, in conjunction with the cooling caused by the glaciation itself, was probably the driving factor for the Ordovician mass extinction.

The second mass extinction was at the end of the Devonian, 370 million years ago. The cause of this mass extinction at the end of Devonian time is a huge comet that hit the earth 130 miles north west of Las Vegas, ripping apart a reef on what was then the continental shelf. The evidence for the impact includes crystals of shocked quartz, sand grains shattered by the force of the impact, a rock layer rich in iridium which is an element rare on earth but common in asteroids and comets. Geologists found sphere-shaped pieces of limestone like material created when small pieces of reef were blasted skyward and melted and fell to earth.

In other countries craters have been found of the same age. In Sweden they have found the huge Siljan crater of the age of 370 million years. In China and Belgium they found microtectites of also the same age.

Far the biggest mass extinction happened at the end of the Permian time (250 million years ago). Erwin (1996) called it the mother of all mass extinctions. Up to 85% of all species in the oceans died. On land more than two thirds of reptile and amphibian families vanished. 30 % of insect orders ceased to exist. Erwin (1996) thinks that the mass extinction was a direct result of large outflows of lava flows (Siberian Traps) followed by a global warming. As a result, there was an emission of large amounts (1200 Gt) of oceanic methane hydrates. (Renne and Bassu, 1991)

In effect there were actually two times of mass extinction; one in the middle Permian and the second near the boundary of Permian and Triassic times.

Erwin thinks that the final possibility is: "that the latest Permian biota was already in decline as a result of the above scenarios and that the collision of Earth and an icy object was the final catalyst that pushed the planet to the brink of total extinction".

During the Mesozoic there were some minor mass extinctions.

Spray (1998) thinks that extraterrestrial impacts caused at the end of Triassic times (214 million years) a mass extinction. There are five craters found of the same age.

At the boundary between the Jurassic and the Cretaceous (144 million years) there was a mass extinction the cause of which is not well understood.

At the boundary of the Cretaceous (65 million years ago) we have a huge extinction with a very abrupt character. 85% of all species disappeared making it the second largest mass extinction event in geological history. Just as with all the other mass extinctions, there are a number of theories, ranging from large meteorite impact to widespread volcanism.

Alvarez and others developed the impact theory. (Alvarez et al 1980 and Smit and Hertogen, 1980). Their opponents, who are advocates of the volcanic theory, asked the impacters to show the place on earth where this impact could have taken place. Nowhere was there a sign of such a huge crater, until 1991. The crater was found on beneath the shore of the Yucatan peninsula (Chicxulub). It is buried under a 900-meter layer of sediments and has a diameter of 180 kilometer. In 1973, an oil company has drilled through this impact crater without realizing the importance. They were looking for oil and not for impact craters! It was thanks to a marvelous piece of detective work that scientists realized that the data already known by the drillings cores, could be interpreted as an impact structure in a hugh carbonate reef of the Cretaceous (Hildebrand et al., 1991). The oil geologist found an andesite (volcanic rock) at the K-T boundary. Hildebrand saw that the so-called andesite was a rock containing glass and shocked quartz grains. He thought it was the melted rock from the bottom of the crater. From wells outside the impact structure he found a breccia. Rocks above it contained Tertiary microfossils as well as reworked Cretaceous microfossils. Pieces of the melted Yucatan rock have been dated as 65 million years just like the glasses found in Haiti and Mexico. Maybe the object that struck the earth was 10 to 20 kilometers in diameter.

Thanks to careful geological fieldwork, the boundary between the Cretaceous -Tertiary is at the moment well dated. (Smit and van der Kaars , 1984, Smit, 1989, Smit 1990, 1992,1994a, 1994b).

On several places on earth complete undisturbed sections were found. In the Agost section in Southern Spain a pure clay layer of 2-mm thickness overlies the well-dated marine limestones with a fauna of Cretaceous age. On top of this fine layer is a clayey marl with marine fauna of Tertiary age.

This very thin layer is of great interest for the impact theory. It is characterized by the presence of the following features:

Microtektic-like spherules (71 sites), felsic minerals with shock lamellae (26 sites), stishovite, a mineral stable under high pressures at low temperatures, high levels of trace elements like Chromium and Iridium (102 sites).

These last two elements are of great importance, because it seems that these elements are indications for an extraterrestial impact. Iridium is rare in the earth's crust and it seems improbable that volcanism can produce such a high amount.

Recently however scientists found that the ratio of Chromium isotopes in the boundary samples of Caravaca, Spain and Stevns Klint, Denmark are really very strong indication of an extraterrestrial source (Shukolyukov and Lugmair, 1998).

The ratios 53Cr/ 52Cr of the boundary layer corresponds remarkably well with the ratios of extraterrestrial carbonaceous chondrites and are sharply different from the ratios found on earth and on the moon. The Deccan traps and sediments above and below the K-T boundary have chromium isotopes normal for earthly values.

Kyte (1998) describes a 2.5 mm fossil meteorite found in sediments retrieved from the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary in the North Pacific Ocean that may be a piece from the impact of an extraterrestrial object. The meteorite resembles a carboneous chrondrite and he believes that this meteorite has an asteroidal rather than a cometary origin.

It is still not clear whether the data favor an asteroid or cometary source.

Comets and asteroids are left over planetisimals. Most asteroids inhabit the vast belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter consisting mostly of silica, carbon and metals. Comets are at the outer edges of our solar system. They consist of gas, ice and snow (Gehrels, 1996). Some scientists believe that the solar system passed through a dense core of a giant molecular cloud. They think that it is inevitable that the Sun occasionally passes through the fringes of such a cloud as it moves through the Galaxy. The gravity of such a cloud could shake up the Sun's reservoir of comets, known as the Oort cloud.(Weismann 1998). Maybe that the Cretaceous was unique because the solar system did not pass through the outskirts but through the dense core of the Galaxy. It should give some arguments for those scientists who believe that every 26 to 30 million year's mass extinctions and impact craters seem to occur. Astronomers think that every 30 million years the Oort cloud is subjected to maximal tidal stresses for a period of a few million years because the sun passes through the plane of the Galaxy at those intervals. The effect of another cycle is not known but the solar system moves through the spiral arms of the galaxy every 50 million years. Kortenkamp and Dermott (1980) think that the earth tilts every 100.000 years, sending the planet through a sun blocking dust plane into an ice age. They determined that the shape of the earth's orbit - not its tilt - is what matters: when its orbit becomes more circular every 100.000 years the planet accumulates more dust.

According to Sepkosi and Raup there were after the great mass extinctions 8 more extinctions:

248 (60+), 213 (44), 190 (23), 160 (20), 144 (20), 120 (16), 82 (23), 66 (46), 36 (16) with spacings of 22 to 28 million years. This suggests also a cycle influenced by cosmic events.

Astrophysicists Arnon Dar, Ari Laor and Nir Shavib (Dye,1998) speculate that radiation from the collision of distant stars caused some mass extinctions. The radiation would cause mutations leading to the emergence of entirely new species on Earth. Two neutron stars, remnants of a supernova, blasting jets of high energy called cosmic rays. These cosmic rays would be so intense that they destroy the ozone layer that protects the Earth from harmful solar radiation.

Henrik Svensmark postulates that processes in space can influence earth's climate. (Scientific American January 1999, p.15) He found that during the last 11-year activity cycle of the sun the earth's cloud cover was more closely correlated with the flux of cosmic rays than with the sun's radiance. Apparently the solar magnetic field interacts with the cosmic rays: when strong, the sun's field blocks more cosmic rays, which ionize air molecules in the lower atmosphere and in this way are thought to contribute to cloud cover and other weather phenomena.

Blanchard (1997) offered a new theory for explaining the mass extinctions. He thinks that radical changes have caused the extinctions. Changes in atmospheric circulation occur within a relatively brief interval of time possibly as little as a few hundred to a few thousand years. This is far too short period for most organisms to evolve and adapt to the new environmental conditions. A full cycle of climatic changes is composed of one Wet climate cycle and of one Dry cycle. From the Late Cambrium until the end of the Cretaceous Blanchard distinguished 3 dry cycles of 80 million years and 3 wet cycles of 110 million years. The last dry cycle started at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary and will last to 15 million years from now.

Blanchard:

"Extinction driven evolution on a global scale that Darwin observed on a local scale in the Galapagos Islands : the rapid evolution and adaptive radiation that happens when a new species arrives in an isolated and impoverished ecosystem.

The volcanic theory advocates that the Deccan outflows of more than 2400 meter thick covering more than two million square kilometers and with a total volume of more than two million cubic kilometers, was the driving factor for the mass extinction at the boundary of the Cretaceous-Tertiary. This volcanism should have released enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to trigger climatic changes and alter ocean chemistry. Airborne sulfur and dust from the lava-flow could have lowered the global temperature by three to five degrees Celsius. It could also turn the ocean surface acidic killing the algae. This means that they could not anymore extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. According Courtillot (1990) there were two long periods of no reversals of the earth's magnetic field: one before the Permian-Triassic extinction 250 million years ago and the other before the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction of 65 million years ago. He suggests that there is a causal relation between the behavior of the earth's core, where the magnetic field is generated, and the mass extinctions.

(It is also possible that one or more impacts could have triggered volcanic activity).

There are paleontological arguments against the impact theory. The Dinosaurs were in decline just before the K-T boundary. The marine ecosystem started to decline according some paleontologists before the KT boundary. The shallow water fauna, specially the Inoceramus and Rudistes bivalves declines before the K-T boundary. It may be that this is due to the sea level drop and water drained back to the oceans. But all scientists from both camps agree that the decline at the KT boundary was catastrophic for a great number of species.

Whether it was due to an impact or volcanic activity. The earth was plunged in total darkness, storms, tsunamis, acid rain and global fires. At 5 places boundary clays are highly enriched with Carbon (soot) apparently coming from a single fire. The soot layer coincides with the Iridium layer (Wolbach et al. 1988). The earth atmosphere cooled, but after maybe many centuries, the reverse effect was a slow greenhouse warming. The impact was in a thick layer of limestone. Hugh amounts of carbon dioxide where, with other gases, thrown into the atmosphere. In a personal communication, Jan Smit gave me his view of the mass extinction.

The ecosystem had been weakened by extreme specialization. The diversity was maximal because the climate had not been changed up to the K-T boundary. There were no ice caps on the poles, the world climate was very equable. Every niche is filled with a species. Such a system is highly vulnerable. When the bomb fell few species could adapt themselves. Smit thinks that if the Chicxulub impact had taken place in the Pleistocene far less damage (in number of species) would have caused than at the end of the Cretaceous.

As I have shown in the chapter of thermodynamics, living highly specialized ecosystems are open, nonequilibrium, dissipative, self-organizing structures. When they arrive above a critical threshold, these systems seek new stable configurations. Those that are not able to cope with changing circumstances cease to exist.

In the Tertiary impacts are registered, but they have had no such consequences as the impact at the KT border. Two big impact craters have been found at Popgai (100-80 km diameter) and the Chesapeake (80 km diameter) both of an age of 35 million years (end Eocene period).

Removal of species provides a great opportunity for the survivors to evolve into the newly vacant niches. The one's death is the others bread (Dutch saying)

In the Pleistocene epoch, about 20.000 years ago, there was a massive extinction of large mammals and birds. Some think that glaciation was the explanation where others suggest that hunting by prehistoric man might account for the loss of large mammals.

In the Late Pleistocene, during the last 50.000 years, there were mass extinction events in many different parts of the world involving at least 200 genera. It was a very selective extinction involving mainly the megafauna. It occurred at different times on different land masses: in Africa and SE Asia 50.00 years ago, in North America 11.000 years ago, in Madagascar only 800 years ago. This excludes any global catastrophe or climatic change. In Africa massive extinction does not coincide with the arrival of humans but it coincides with the development of the early Stone Age hunting cultures. In other places on Earth the extinctions coincide with the arrival of humans. In North America 70 species, 95% of the mega fauna, disappeared about 11.000 years ago. Exactly the time when North America was colonized by humans. A good example of this extinction by hunting humans is a mammoth skeleton that has eight stone spear points between its ribs.

Is the next mass extinction already underway?

Estimates of current species loss range from 4000 to 27.000 species per year mainly due to deforestation in the tropics. (The Sunday edition of the New York Times requires 70 acres of trees! (Miller, 1989)

Extinctions of species are completely normal events in Earth's history.

David M. Raup a paleontologist at the University of Chicago estimated that between 5 billion and 50 billion species existed at one time on this planet, compared to about 40 million species today. Only about one in a thousand species is still alive: 99.9% failure. (Dye, 1998)

As I review this chapter on extinctions. One thing is very clear. The catastrophic events prevail over the gradual events in geological history. But don't forget we live in a violent universe where life and death are at the grace of catastrophes. We just have to look up in the sky and the astronomers will tell us how everything is born and die by violent cosmic catastrophes. We saw recently in our own solar system how a huge meteorite impacted on Jupiter.

To build all our heavy elements we need a blast of a supenovae.

Earlier geologists were convinced that the moon craters were volcanic. We now know they are mainly impact craters.

Just look at our own sun: a furnace of boiling masses with high temperature and flares reaching out for thousands of kilometers.

Maybe million years ago huge supernovae exploded emitting such a great amount of energy, when reaching the earth it will destroy all life on earth. We will never know what hit us. All this is worthwhile thinking of because our image of our universe was very egocentric. This image has been destroyed by our knowledge of our universe. The Earth with all life on it is only an extremely small object in the immeasurable space of the universe.

Is there a real danger that a comet or an asteroid soon will hit us? First we have to remember that objects from space incessantly bombard the Earth. Nearly 40.000 ton of comet and asteroid debris hits the Earth each year, mostly as tiny particles about 200 micrometers in diameter. It is good to realize that each day dozens of asteroids with a diameter of 50 meter are flying between the earth and the moon. What to think of the near miss which occurred on March 23 1989, when an asteroid of 400 meter in diameter weighing 50 million-ton and travelling at 74.000 kilometer per hour came within 640.000 kilometers of the earth.

This means that the Earth and the asteroid had passed the same point in space just six hours apart (Broker, 1996)!

The "commons" of Garrett Hardin

" Picture a pasture open to all. Its is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonable satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and diseases keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally however, comes the day of reckoning, that is the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. As a rational being each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he asks: "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd". This utility has one negative and one positive component.

1. The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the herdsmen receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is nearly +1.
2. The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of 1.

"Perhaps the simplest summary of this analysis of man's population is this: the commons, if justifiable at all, is justifiable only under conditions of low population density. As the human population has increased, the commons has had to be abandoned in one aspect after another. First, we abandoned the commons in food gathering, enclosing farmland and restricting pasture and hunting and fishing areas. Somewhat later, we saw that the commons as a place for waste disposal would also to be abandoned. Restrictions on disposal of domestic sewage are widely accepted in the Western world; we are still struggling to close the commons to pollution by automobiles, factories, insecticide sprayers, fertilizing operations and atomic energy installations. In a still embryonic state is our recognition of the evils of the commons in the matter of pleasure. There is almost no restriction on the propagation of sound waves in the public medium. The shopping public is assaulted with mindless music, without its consent. Our government has paid out billions of dollars to create a supersonic transport, which would disturb 50.000 people for every one person whisked from coast to coast 3 hours faster. Advertisers muddy the airways of radio and television and pollute the view of travelers. We are a long way from outlawing the commons in matters of pleasure. (…) Every new enclosure of the commons involves the infringement of somebody's personal liberty. (…)

The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize, is the necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all".

These words were written thirty years ago. How true is it today. Our commons like water and air are polluted, our forests are dwindling, natural resources like oil, are going to be depleted at an increasingly accelerating speed. Our global pasture is overgrazed and everybody wants to get his share of the commons!

"Einstein's experiment proved that the coordinates of space, time and mass cannot be simple and unchanging throughout the universe. Hardin's experiment proved that moral principles (such as equal justice, human rights, and moral obligation) could not be universal and unconditional in all social and environmental contexts (…)

When we are willing to solve the population problem and all narrowly related other world problems, we must revise our ethics, in order to survive on this planet. Our ethics today are grounded on a biological impossibility. Our earth is finite!

We will end this chapter with some remarkable statements, which will illustrate the real crisis of mankind.

"While the bulk of environmental action is being directed at putting out countless brushfires, our education system continues to churn out millions and millions of ecologically-illiterate graduates-kids who have an insatiable hunger for good jobs, big homes, fancy cars and everything that money can buy-kids who are utterly clueless about the direct effects of their consumption and environmental harm. One thinker pointed out that environmentalists are like firemen in a city where all the children are trained to be arsonist.

Jay Hanson (1997b): "FOSSILGATE" is the biggest cover-up in history.

Reviewing articles in the Scientific American from 1965 -1998 concerning population growth, scarcity of natural resources, pollution, gives us a good view of the changing attitude toward world's biggest problems.

Kingley Davis: It seems plain that the only way to stop urban crowding and to solve most of the urban problems besetting both the developed and the underdeveloped nations is to reduce the overall rate of population growth. Policies designed to do this have as yet little intelligence and power behind them.

Harrison Brown: Man's problem is to devise cycles that will conserve resources of metals and concrete and at the same time prevent their accumulation as solid waste.

1971: Expanding need for energy
Chauncey Starr: Perhaps the most fundamental question of national policy is how we should allocate our present generations of the benefit of future generations.

Roy A. Rappaport: It seems to me that the trend toward decreasing ecosystem complexity and stability, rather than threats of pollution, overpopulation and energy famine, is the ultimate ecological problem immediately confronting man. It may be the most difficult to solve, since the solution cannot easily be reconciled with the values, goals, interests and political and economic institutions prevailing in industrialized nations.

Earl Cook: What characterized the industrial societies is their enormous consumption of energy and the fact that this consumption is primarily at the expense of "capital' rather than of "income" that is, at the expense of solar energy stored in coal, oil and natural gas rather than of solar radiation, water, wind and muscle power.

Exponential curve of increasing energy consumption in kilo calories per day per person

In the beginning of mankind 2.000
Domestication of fire 4.000
Primitive agriculture with domestic animals 12.000
Low technology 1850-1870 70.000
High technology 1970 in the US 230.000

"Power corrupts". The more power we use, the more we shape our cities and mold our economic and social institutions to be dependent on the application of power and the consumption of energy.

M.King Hubbert: Unlimited resources of energy, however, do not imply an unlimited number of power plants. It is as true of power plants or automobiles as it is of biological populations that they cannot sustain any physical growth for more than a few dozens of successive doublings. Because of the impossibility, the exponential rates of industrial and population growth that have prevailed during the past century and a half must soon cease. Although the forthcoming period of stability poses no insupportable physical or biological difficulties, it can hardly fail to force a major revision of those aspects of our current social and economic thinking, that stem from the assumption that the growth rates that have characterized this temporary period can somehow be permanent.

Daniel B.Luten: Where on this rising consumption is the breaking point between gains and losses? Are we likely to find the point by encouraging growth until the consuming customer -no longer interested in more energy or unable to afford it- finally offers resistance, and growth ends?

Claude M. Summers: A major need is a kind of energy source that does not add to the earth's heat load.

(…) one must emphasize that even large improvements in efficiency can have only a modest effect in extending the life of the earth's supply of fossil and nuclear fuels. One can be reasonably confident that the present doubling rate cannot continue for another 100 years, unless invariable energy systems supply a large part of the demand, but what such systems will look like remains hidden in the future.

The human population is now about 3.6 billion. An extrapolation of present world demographic trends that lies between two extremes projections shows it leveling off at some 8.4 billions by the year 2100.

Paul Demeny: The population of the underdeveloped countries, accounting for nearly three-fourth of the human species, will continue their rapid growth for the rest of the century. Control will eventually come through development or catastrophe.

Ronald Freedman and Bernard Berelson: The article presented in this issue points out, that rapid population growth cannot last long.

Roger Revelle: The earth and technology can probably provide food for a population of 40 to 50 billion. 1976: World food problem

Sterling Wortman: The world food situation is serious, even precarious. Hundred of millions of people in scores of countries live in abject poverty, suffering from chronic malnutrition that reinforces their poverty, and are subject to calamitous famines when their precarious food supplies are reduced by drought or floods or wars.

Dadzie: All concerned must listen to the voices of the poor, who have paid the highest price for the passing order and can no longer be kept in convenient silence. The issues call for an international politics of human survival based on broad public understanding and statesmanship suffused with vision and courage.

Sassin: The entire global process of development must be seen as a race against time. The transition to sustainable energy sources- breeder reactors, direct solar power and fusion power- cannot be put off to an era when the globe will have nearly exhausted. Its one-time energy endowment.

William C.Clark: It is as a global species -pooling our knowledge, coordinating our action and sharing what the planet has to offer-that we have any prospects for managing the planet's information along pathways of sustainable development. Self-conscious, intelligent management of the earth is one of the great challenges facing humanity as it approaches the 21st century.

Jim MacNeill: There is a rapidly growing potential for conflict over global warming and sea level rise, the spread of deserts. The allocation of fresh water and other resources and other "environmental "issues. Yet, properly approached within the context of promoting sustainable economic development, these issues could force a new spirit of international cooperation as well as fresh thinking about multilateral approaches to other global issues.

William D. Ruckelshaus: Finally, in creating the consciousness of advanced sustainability, we shall have to redefine our concepts of political and economic feasibility. These concepts are, after all, simply human constructs; they were different in the past, and they will surely change in the future. But the earth is real, and we are obliged by the fact of our utter dependence on it to listen more closely than we have done to its messages.

Nathan Keyfitz: The exponential growth of population and its attendant assault on the environment is so recent that it is difficult for people to appreciate how much damage is being done.

J.W.Mauris la Rivière: Population growth, ignorance and poverty, along with poor agricultural practice, have endangered water resources. Unless appropriate steps are taken soon, severe shortages will occur.

S.H. Schneider: Global warming should be unmistakable within a decade or two. Prompt emission cuts could slow the buildup of heating trapping gases and limit this risky planet-wide experiment.

Richard A.Houghton and George M.Woodwell: Evidence suggests that production of carbon dioxide and methane from human activities has already begun to change the climate and that radical steps must be taken to halt further change.

Philip D.Jones and Tom M.L.Wigley: The longer the world waits to act, the greater will be the climate change that future generations will have to endure.

Ger R. Davis: As we learn more about the relation human beings have to their planet, we may find that rather than viewing energy as a commodity to be exploited from planet Earth, we will increasingly need to think and act in terms of energy for planet Earth. Our dependence on energy will persist, but it must do so in the context of an ecologically sound planet. This means human beings may well have to apply all their inventiveness to develop new energy technology so as to guarantee the long-term quality of their habitat.

W.Fulkerson et al: … it will be hard to wean from fossil fuels. For all their faults, they remain relatively inexpensive, widely available and readily adaptable to applications large and small, simple and complex.

Wolf Hafele: Nuclear power must play a significant role in the sustainable future. In view of worldwide population growth and its accompanying problems, I sincerely doubt that turning backward will enable us to master the future. Instead, we have to go forward.

John P. Holdren: The era of cheap and convenient sources of energy is coming to an end. A transition to more expensive but less polluting sources must now be managed.

Amulya K.N.Reddy and Jose Goldemberg: By mixing efficient end-use technologies with modest increases in generating capacity, developing countries can affordably obtain the energy they need without ruining the environment.

Carl J.Weinberg and Robert H.Williams: The most promising technologies harness the energy of the sun. Various forms of solar energy, including wind and biomass, offer environmentally benign ways to generate electricity and make fuels. Some technologies will be cost-competitive before the year 2000.

Thomas F.Homer: There are significant causal links between scarcities of renewable resources and violence. To prevent such turmoil, nations should put greater emphasis on reducing such scarcities. This means that rich and pour countries must cooperate to restrain population growth, to implement a more equitable distribution of wealth within and among their societies, and to provide sustainable development.

Partha S.Dasgupta: As forests and rivers recede, a child's labor can become more valuable to parents, a spurring viscous circle that traps families in poverty.

Literacy and employment for women is essential to smooth the transition to having fewer children.

Transportation: Huge flying -wing aircraft, magnetically levitated trains and driverless cars may carry passengers to their destination, while tiny spacecraft explore the solar system.

Dieter Zetsche (member of the managing board of Mercedes Benz AG): Within 30 years or so, innumerable automated vehicles, each constructed and finely tuned to its drivers' needs and capabilities, could be making the road safer than they are today. Clearly automotive development has not decelerated. In fact, it is just getting in gear.

R.A.Frosch: The industrial ecology of the 21st century: A clean and efficient industrial economy would mimic the natural world's ability to recycle materials and minimize waste.

Donald L. Plucknett and Donald L.Winkelmann: For our purposes, we define sustainable agriculture as does Pierre Crosson of Resources for the Future: "it is farming that meets rising demands over indefinite future and economic, environmental and other social costs consistent with rising incomes".

Herman P.Furth: Fifty years from now engineers should be able to construct the first industrial plant for fusion energy. Although far removed from immediate political realities this schedule matches the critical time scale of 50 to 100 years in which fossil-energy resources will need to be replaced.

William Hoagland: Technology will allow radiation from the sun to provide nonpolluting and cheap fuels, as well as electricity.

The Editors are convinced that " the means for an orderly transition away from crude oil appear to be nearly ready; all that is needed is the will, the time and the money"

The first article " The End of Cheap Oil" is by Colin J.Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère. " The world is not running out of oil- at least not yet. What our society does face, and soon, is the end of the abundant and cheap oil on which all industrial nations depend".

The second article " Oil Production in the 21st Century" is by Roger N. Anderson. He is very optimistic about future technological advances. They are ready to fill much of the gap between supply and demand in the first decade of next century. These major advances are 4D seismic monitoring, injection of liquid carbon dioxide, horizontal drilling, new ways to tap oil in wells that lie in deep underwater.

The third article "Liquid Fuels from Natural Gas" is by Safaa A.Fouda.

New ways are found to convert gas in a liquid form to be used in vehicles.

In this context, we will cite a reaction of a reader of the special report on the next oil crisis in Scientific American. In a letter to the editors Mr. Richard Reis, Silver Spring, Md. writes: "You must have been wearing blinders when you selected articles for the March special report, 'Preventing the Next Oil Crunch' there was absolutely no mention of the increasing harm inflicted on our planet by the extraction, production and consumption of fossil fuels". Scientific American, July 1998.

This reaction of Reis formulates exactly our critical view concerning a great number of these quotations of articles published in the Scientific American during the period 1965-1998.

Especially in the nineties the relation between the different world problems are mostly avoided.

When reading other publications of Campbell and Laherrère, we are better informed on the issue of the future oil shock.

Laherrère (1996): "New discoveries are still numerous, but they decrease so much in size that today we consume three times more than we discover. No technological breakthrough is foreseen to help". "So far as petroleum is concerned, the World is moving in the wrong direction because of poor data and erroneous presentation".

Campbell (1997): "There would be a flurry of new exploration in the hope that old solutions again come to the rescue: they won't. But gradually the realities will filter through. The Third World will be first: their oil-based energy consumption will begin to falter. The World will become a very different place with a smaller population. This transition will be difficult and for some catastrophic…."

These words give a totally different view on the future, than in their article in the Scientific American.

Our criticism is that in general journalists avoid publishing the alarming facts and their narrow relation to each other. There exists a close connection between the problems of population growth, environmental damage, scarcity of renewable and non renewable energy resources, water shortage, etc.

By reviewing these articles, we see clearly a tendency through the years. In the seventies and eighties, the articles were quite optimistic about the possibilities to find alternative energy resources to replace oil. There was also the belief that solar energy or other renewable resources would be competitive with fossil fuels near the end of this century. We now know that this has not been then case. In 1990, they thought that windpower would constitute 20 % of US electricity by 1995. The actual figure is 0.1 percentage an overestimate of 20.000 percent!

In the beginning of the nineties, they still believed in sustainable growth. In the last years, we find an optimistic hope for the new technologies developing in the 21st Century. The article of Campbell and Laherrère is an exception on this trend. However, as we have seen, the editors have softened up this article. Although they mention world problems like population growth, pollution, extinction of species, water shortage etc, they avoid a connection between all these problems. We do not find signals of the coming crisis.

P.S.In this context, it is remarkable that Maher (1997) observed the same trend. " Recent surveys show that Americans are less concerned about population growth that they were 25 years ago, and they are not connecting environmental degradation to population growth".

Maher interviewed 25 journalists in the US whose stories on local environmental problems omitted the causal role of population growth. We will cite comments of two journalists:" The press tends to be crisis-oriented and has a hard time getting a handle on issues that are big". It's not journalists who are the problem. It is the editors. They don't want us to challenge the reader with unpopular ideas." His study shows that only one news story in 10 connects the environmental problems to domestic population growth. His article ends with a remarkable quotation of Walter Lippmann in 1922:

What about 2010 AD - can you prove that something awful won't happen by then? Of course not, cost and price set the limits. The industry will never run out of oil, not in 10.000 years. Some day, it may run out of customers. Every mineral industry is a perpetual tug-of-war, between diminishing returns and increasing knowledge. From place to place, we win a few, lose a few, but overall, humanity has won big - so far; a World without OPEC would soon see lower prices. They would be stable, not rigid. Consumption would grow faster.

The West's nightmare of global energy crunch is receding as the World 's oil seekers replace reserves at a faster rate than consumers use them, British Petroleum analysts said on Tuesday. At 1995 rate of consumption, proven oil reserves will last for 43 years, according to BP's chief economist Peter Davies: "This does not mean that oil will run out in 43 years. It is certain that more oil reserves will be proven before that time. In total, the World 's proven remaining oil reserves are more adequate for foreseeable needs".

"The take home: don't worry, Exxon has you covered"

" The oil industry is bullish. The general view of the industry and of energy experts is that there is plenty of oil, and no real concern about the level of reserves at least until 2050 if not beyond".

The progress already achieved through technology is mind-boggling. The average cost per barrel finding and producing oil has dropped about 60% in real terms over the past 10 years, while proven reserves are about 60% higher than in 1985. They cite Michael C. Lynch (MIT energy researcher): "There's no evidence that mineral prices rise over time. Technology always overwhelms depletion ". Technology is the driving force in the oil industry today. Although nature gave US only so much oil, technology will pull more from the ground than people ever dreamed possible.

Flat oil prices have provided tremendous counter inflationary benefits for people and business all over the World, the big concern was "running out of oil". Now it's fairly well known that we're finding more than we're using and producing more of what we've already found. Therefore, survival is not the issue. Responsible growth is the issue.

She finds the theory of Morris Adelman of MIT very compelling (...) instead of fixed stocks of resources, there are only flows of reserve-additions. (...) The industry's objective is to maintain a volume of reserves that is equal to at least 15 years of production. According tot Adelman, replacement cost is the measure of scarcity.

Energy Information Administration (1996)

Demand is higher than projected in previous years, as developing nations grow rapidly and use more energy. Energy supplies are expected to be plentiful at stable prices. New demands for energy can be satisfied from available resources with known technologies. New exploration and production, technologies, aggressive cost-reduction programs by industry, and attractive fiscal terms to producers by governments also have contributed to the steady increase in non-OPEC production. There is reason to be optimistic that such production will continue to be vigorous as well in the next century. The US Geological Survey estimates that of the more than 450 billion barrels of undiscovered conventional crude oil would most likely be recoverable assuming current economic and technological conditions. About two third of that oil would come from non-OPEC producers. In this context, one may conclude that OPEC could potentially remain at less than a 50% share of worldwide production even in the face of strong demand for at least the first two decades of next century.

The good news is that there is no energy shortage in the near term, but growth in global fuel consumption is troubling because of the uncertain and potentially devastating climatic impact. As Kenneth Derr, CEO of Chevron points out, there is no practical, price competitive substance for gasoline and petroleum at this time.

Global oil reserves grew from 729 billion barrels in 1973 to 1009 billion barrels in 1993. In that period 464 billion barrels were produced in the World. Hence, over a period of twenty years some 753 billion barrels were added or about 38 billion barrels per year. Global reserves would be around 1050 billion barrels in 2010. Non-OPEC oil production has steadily increased from about 16.6 million barrels per day to 39.7 million barrels per day. Non-OPEC oil production may continue to rise for another decade or even more.

"Today's politics and economics of oil are clearly different from those of the 1970s and 1980s. The tension between consumers and suppliers are no longer those that threaten world peace, but those that occur between business associates. The new paradigm demands that both continue to cooperate to ensure that investment in exploration, production and refining capacities are timely. Both must also address the growing population and resource problems in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. But all in all, our energy future seems more hopeful than it has in the past 25 years".

Politicians get very excited about alternative fuels. However, there will be no alternative for oil and gas for many years to come. For the next 30 to 50 years oil will remain the foundation of energy. For the next few decades, probably up to 2050, there will be no shortage of global reserves of crude oil and natural gas.

"At current consumption rates, there is enough oil to support our planet's petroleum needs for about 45 years".

In announcing the publication of Reinventing Energy, Charles J. Dibona, President of API, said that the new book is intended to help the average American, as well as the serious policy maker and thoughtful environmentalist, make wise choices about energy and the environment.

The world is not running out of oil. While US Oil production has peaked, in part due to restrictions that have prevented oil companies from exploring in many promising areas, proved world reserves are higher now than ever before: nearly a trillion barrels. That is enough to sustain current production for at least 45 years, even if not another barrel is found. Americans do not overconsume energy.

The sun and earth provide people with abundant energy sources. Further research will likely make fossil fuels less harmful to the environment and will help renewable energy become more affordable.

Odell refutes Colin Campbell's apocalyptic view of the future of oil (Energy World, June 1996). "In contrast with Campbell's perception of near future oil supply problems related to the inadequacy of potential supplies and a year 2000 or thereabouts price leap, the reality of conventional plus non-conventional supplies prospects indicates that the industry could progress in an expansionist way for at least another 60 years to produce a mid-21st century almost three times its present size. ". Odell especially attacks the prognoses of non-conventional oil by Campbell. " Campbell's supply curve for non-conventional oil is an economic nonsense". Prospects for alternative sources of energy, initially natural gas and, subsequently, renewables are good. Odell's prognoses: 3000 billion barrels of conventional (production peak in the year 2025) and 3000 billion barrels of non-conventional oil (production peak in the year mid 21st century).

Sean O'Dell ,Chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA) (in The Economist, 1995)"I don't believe we will be out of oil in 40 years".

The US as has at least 204 billion barrels of oil. That's enough to last us 75 years. Still, though, we are using up our available oil. Over time proven reserves have been falling as oil is used up. No, sorry, that's wrong. Recent data show that the total world proven reserves from 1981 to 1993 reserves are increasing, not decreasing. New discoveries and technological advance continue to make new oil available faster than it is burned up.

Popular science Editorial (1993)

We never came close to running out of oil. Instead, the discovery of petroleum reserves continued to outstrip increases in demand, keeping prices low.

(...) between 1.4 and 2.1 trillion barrels remain to be produced World wide. This would sustain current rate of World consumption from 63 to 95 years. The fact that World oil resources are abundant should take care of concerns that we are running out of oil. The prospects for World petroleum supply growth in the next several decades are far brighter than ever before.

The original recoverable oil endowment of the earth may have been around 2,330 billion barrels. (Data from US Geological Survey). Nearly one-third of this amount already has been produced and consumed. If unimpeded oil exploration proceeded everywhere (including the United States) with the utilization of modern exploration and development technology, the remaining two-thirds of the earth's original oil could sustain world production at about its current yearly level of 22 billion barrels for perhaps 100 years.

His conclusion: "If there are only very moderate increases in world demand and long-term political stability in the Middle East coupled with very substantial foreign financial and technical participation in upstream Persian Gulf activities, a business as usual world oil supply and demand relationship could prevail into much of the 21st century".

(Our comment on this report: Strangely enough, Riva cites the study of Laherrère, indicating that the midpoint of oil depletion will be about the year 2000. Riva thinks however that this scenario may not result in oil shortage, as rising prices would clear the market and bring on additional and alternative fuels)

"Neither we, nor our grandchildren, nor their grandchildren will live to see the end of the oil era".

For the industrialized West, supply security is not a problem. There are at least three reasons why non-OPEC production is expected to increase. First, there are many fields throughout the world that are due to come on stream based on ongoing capital expenditure. Secondly many governments pursue aggressive exploration for strategic reasons, even at present low prices. Thirdly, through the application of advanced technologies they have been able to reduce the costs of exploration, development and production considerably. In 1994, the OPEC nations produced 40% of the world's production. In the year 2015, it is expected that OPEC will equal non-OPEC production and will exceed it afterwards. With 77 percent of total world reserves under their control, further increases in world demand can only be supplied by OPEC countries.

I think there is wisdom in paying attention to the future of oil, when no one seems particularly worried. In conclusion, the long-term outlook of the oil industry is reasonably certain.

At the current rate of consumption 650 years worth of oil remain for future generations.

The world is swimming in an historic glut of oil. Simply put, oil in the ground is a depreciating asset.

Global oil reserves are continuing to grew steadily worldwide and it is therefore not wise to assume a serious depletion of global reserves within the next decades. Perhaps the greatest brakes and risks in this process (red. finding new energy substitutes) will be the reluctance of the major automobile manufactures to adapt and reorganize the slowness of fuel suppliers to accept a progressive reduction in demand. Above all the slowness of leading consumer and producer governments to divert and stimulate investment in the new technology when their treasuries are highly dependent from oil and gas sales.

Who can predict the future economics of fossil-fuel extraction? Any sign that known reserves of oil, gas or coal are running out will push up their prices. But that in turn will bring on the market reserves that had previously been rejected as too expensive to exploit--oil in the deepest waters of the ocean, coal in the remotest parts of Siberia. Such "ultimate recoverable" fossil-fuel reserves, may contain over 600 years' worth of current production.

Expectations are that by 2060 there will still be sufficient oil in the crust of the earth to fuel the lamps of China and California, although most likely there will not be enough to keep your Cadillac in the fast lane. I argue that economists- to include myself - must take a back seat to geologists and certain corporate players, where consideration of the oil supply is concerned. Put another way this aspect of energy economics is becoming too important to be left to economists.

The American Petroleum Institute seems to think that there will always be enough oil, arguing that existing deposits are constantly being augmented from underground sources, as one of their spokesman put it. The curse of modern macroeconomics is its tendency to resort to algebraic overkill instead of observation and common sense. (…) The production from a deposit will turn down with about half the deposit still below the surface. Thus, the contention above that we have, for example, 50 years of oil even if we do not find more is misleading. In fact once we look at the global distribution of oil reserves we see that it is dangerously misleading, because most of these reserves are owned by countries without the slightest interest in making the fantasies of the American Petroleum Institute come true. I am afraid that too many people are prepared- even anxious- to believe that new technologies and various financial incentives will enable US to find oil salvation West of those fascinating Shetlands, beneath the Eiffel Tower or Via Flaminia, or for that on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Banks cites the chief executive of the Italian oil company ENI SpA Franco Bernabe: " For the US as a whole, the industry is spending 15% more than five years ago in upstream capital expenditure, but without seeing an increase in reserves. My forecast is that between 2000 and 2005 the world will be reaching a peak in production from our known fields and that after that output will decline. It will shift the power in the oil market back to the Gulf region, the Middle east will become a potential power keg for war.

They claim that producers of oil misled everybody. The world faces a devastating oil crisis in the early years of the new millenium, according to a new assessment of conventional oil reserves. "As oil stocks decline, prices will rise steeply making the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 look 'minor and transitory' by comparison. The warnings of environmentalists in the Seventies appear now to have been prescient. Suddenly the glass that the world had considered to be almost full has been reversed to be half empty".

Our global oil use is now so immense that ten years consumption is equal to more than three times all the remaining US Petroleum reserves, plus the unite reserves of the UK, the former Soviet Union, Canada, China , Norway and Mexico.

All problems of the world pale by comparison with the complex crisis of soil and oil and population growth. As oil diminished and global population expands, chemical food production becomes to an end. The remaining petroleum still available for agriculture must be used to facilitate the world transition to sustainable organic agriculture or chaos will reign. The ethic of soil, water, air responsible reproduction must become part of every school curriculum and developed locally community ideals.

I started reading your paper (red. Mr. Porter and Mrs. Gentile ,1996) thinking that here we would have an authoritative statement on this important subject. I began to jot down notes and comments on points of detail, but by the time I was about half- way through, the penny dropped. I realized that it was not an objective and analytical study as it appeared to be, but a "lobbying" document to deliver a predetermined message and discredit any counter arguments. The report ends with the question "Does it matter anyway?". Now the real motive is revealed. The report seeks to depict the world as floating in oil, such that those countries that actually control supply by their large endowment will be persuaded to open their doors for fear of being left out in the cold. It further seeks to discourage consuming governments from introducing conservation measures in order to ameliorate the transition to the inevitable coming fall in production.

For many purposes it does not perhaps matter particularly that the number of reserves are vague and unreliable. It does however become critically important in estimating future production and trends. Many people are misled by the huge increase in 1988. Nothing particular happened in 1988 in terms of technology or recovery. My best estimate is that the world median probability conventional oil reserves stood at just over 800 billion barrels at the end of 1996. I think that there are just less than 200 (180) billion yet to find. It is surely time to pay some serious attention to this issue.

Post Shock: But gradually, the realities will filter through. The Third World will be hit first: their oil-based energy consumption will begin to falter. A permanent doubling or more in the price of oil, followed by growing physical shortages must lead to a major economic and political discontinuity in the way the World lives. It heralds the end of rampant and mindless consumption in the more developed countries and it will bring greatest suffering to the Third World. The World will become a very different place with a smaller population.

The supply of conventional oil will be unable to keep up with demand. This conclusion contradicts the picture one gets from the oil industry reports, which boasted of 1020 billion barrels of oil in "proved" reserves at the start of 1998. Dividing that figure by the current rate of consumption of 23.6 billion barrels a year might suggest that crude oil remains plentiful and cheap for 43 years more -probably longer because official charts show reserves growing. Unfortunately, this appraisal makes three critical errors.

First, it relies on distorted estimated of reserves. A second mistake is to pretend that production will remain constant. Thirdly and most important, conventional wisdom erroneously assumes that the last bucket of oil can be pumped from the ground just as quickly as the barrels of oil gushing from well today. In fact the rate at which any well- or any country-can produce oil always rises to a maximum and then, when about half the oil is gone begins falling gradually back to zero. We conclude the decline will begin in 2010. The world is not running out of oil-at least yet. What our society does face and soon, is the end of abundant and cheap oil on which all industrial nations depend. There is nothing straightforward about the subject of reserves. It is a mess. Nothing can be accepted at face value because different definitions are used in recent years, governments have been providing unreliable information.

OPEC overtakes non-OPEC in 2006 and dominates thenceforth. World production peaks at 28.5 billion barrels in 2005, and then falls to 10.9 billion barrels in 2040- a decline of 62% in 35 years.

Three-quarters of published reserve additions since 1980 have been due to revisions in existing oil fields, not to discoveries. All addition to existing reserves have come from revision to existing fields and not new discoveries.

An analysis by Cleveland and Kaufmann (1991) indicates that the amount of oil discovered per foot of well drilled has decline exponentially from 1925 through to 1988 without interruption. Oil prices and rates of drilling hide this decline at times but these factors cannot alter the geological fact that the United States has discovered most of the fields from which it will produce economically significant quantities of oil. In summery the stagnation and eventual decline in the US standard of living that is described in Beyond Oil is not pessimism. It is here.

E.O.Wilson: "Doubling of consumption at constant time intervals can bring disaster with shocking suddenness. Even when a nonrenewable resource has been only half used, it is still only one interval away from the end". Much is known about the future availability of oil. Petroleum geologists have determined by four independent methods that the total amount of oil in the Earth, when we first started using it in 1900, was about 2000 billion barrels. In other words, it is all we ever had or will have.

Are there serious problems ahead, which are being ignored? Unfortunately, the answer to this last question is also, YES!! You are not going to want to accept this, but we are about to run out of cheap oil. (…) Given what has been presented here, wouldn't it make sense to plan and act now, as individuals and as governments, to minimize the consequences from the end of cheap oil? If we instead poke our heads into the sands of denial, the coming oil crisis will be catastrophic.

Global oil discovery rate was greatest in the early 1960s and have since diminished. The coming decline in petroleum production rate presents an ominous economic problem with potential catastrophic consequences. Serious and unflagging efforts to deal with this intractable difficulty are overdue.

Funding for energy research in the US has declined sharply since 1980 US military spends 100% more than the total energy research budget. The growth of population aggravates every resource problem, every environmental problem and most social and political problems.

The foregoing prescriptions for taking positive control over the energy transition constitute a demanding and ambitious agenda for national and international action. Little of it will happen unless there is a widespread consensus about the nature of the problem, the size of the stakes and the possibilities for action. It is hoped that the articles in this special issue of Scientific American will contribute toward that end.

Well-intentioned but irresponsible scientists who continue to discuss resources instead of reserves may be a significant cause of our government's lack of realistic energy policies.

World petroleum 1982-1991 extracted and consumed 221 billion barrels, discovered 91 billion barrels.

No major oil provinces (those producing 7 to 25 billion barrels) have been discovered since 1980. The peak global oil finding year was 1962. Since then the global discovery rate has dropped sharply in all regions. The World is finite. The 1.311 known major and giant oilfields contain 94% of the World 's known oil. The permanent global oil shortage will begin when World 's oil demand exceeds global production- i.e. about 2010 if normal oil-fields decline occurs. World oil production will thereafter continue to decline at a dwindling rate. Thus, the question is not whether but when the foreseeable permanent oil crunch will occur. Few economists can bring themselves to accept that the global oil supply is geologically finite.

He essentially confirmed the statements by Petroconsultants. He especially warned of naively believing the published figures on known reserves. There are strategic interests that make it seem advantageous to claim larger reserves than existing.

"Technology will solve all problems, say some, but accelerates depletion rather than adding significantly to the reserves. Many people rely on R/P ratio (remaining reserves end of 1995 versus annual production) saying: if the World has 45 years of reserves versus production. there is no worry for the next 45 years: as the present production will stay the same for 45 years and future discoveries will take care for the future demand increase".

This statement is wrong.

1. Future oil production forecasts to raise by 40% in the next 15 years and will continue: there

are not future discoveries to meet the additional demand.

2. The law of nature is depletion: a field cannot stay at full capacity for a long time and drop to

zero overnight. When on decline a field is depleted each year at certain ratio of its reserves,

usually from 5% to 15%.

In 40 years, only 637 billion barrels are produced with an annual production of 9.6 million barrels per day.

In 100 years, 920 billion barrels is produced with an annual production of 2 million barrels a day .In 200 years 994 billion barrels with an annual production of 0.16 million barrels per day.

There is unanimous agreement from official agencies: "No problem for supply foreseen for the next twenty years despite the world's strong increase in demand, without major price increase".

They do not want to forecast an oil shock, because they will be obliged to propose something to prevent. They prefer to wait for the shock and then to call it a natural unpredictable catastrophe. No one should be blamed.

The market does not anymore control oil prices in the long term. It is controlled since 1986 by the largest producer Saudi Arabia, where the CIA under Reagan succeeded in 1985 to convince King Fahd to lower the price of oil to damage the Soviet economy (Peter Schweizer). This strategy was confirmed by Hodel, former secretary of energy, in the AAPG conference in 1995 and there is no denial from anyone. There is an unwritten barter agreement between Saudi Arabia and the US: cheap oil against US protection at an annual cost of 50 billion dollars on the US defense budget. Instead of being paid by the US gasoline consumers doubling the real cost of imported barrels! Any long-term forecast of oil prices should be based on politics. My estimate at the end of 1996 for conventional oil in billions of barrels is : cumulative production 750-800-850, discovered reserves 700-800-1000, undiscovered 150-200-400, ultimate 1700-1800-2000.

We find much less than we consume since 1980. The world discovery pattern for oil and gas and condensate and their extrapolation shows very well that the world is near its ultimate despite the fact that there are many small fields yet to find. Some geologists (free to speak) know very well the geological potential of the world: some retired but having access at the only World file (Petroconsultants), some at University plus other few are fighting against the general consensus of abundance of cheap oil: L.F. Ivanhoe, C.J.Campbell, J.H.Laherrére, C.B.Hatfield, D.Hodel, J.J.MacKenzie.

Cheap oil is disappearing fast: 80% of the oil produced in 1995 was found before 1973, it is why oil is sold so cheap! We consume three times more than we discover. No technological breakthrough is foreseen to help. As far as the petroleum is concerned, the World is moving in the wrong direction because of poor data and erroneous presentation. Industrial countries produced the most expensive oil at maximum when the price is low, and the cheap is pro-rated! It should be the contrary, in order not to waste our heritage. Crisis may arrive within ten years (minimum time to prepare new solution) for oil in the energy domain by lack of funds and of available resources.

Unlike both industry and governments forecasts, the data in the Swiss-headquartered Petroconsultant's report bring forward the timing of the peak in world oil production by several decades from the middle of next century to as soon as 2000. Campbell and Laherrère forecasts a sharp decline in supply of cheap crude oil thereafter. US department of energy deputy assistant Dr Joseph Romm was quoted in a news report last January as saying "It's pretty clear there's going to be another oil crisis some time. I would say in the next 10 years". While the oil industry takes issue with the interpretation of Campbell and Laherrère's reports, Petroconsultants has its clients virtually all the oil majors. Its greatest asset is a 50 year-old database of all the world's oilfields. Petroconsultants, which is an authority on petroleum reserves, production and exploration, explain that the world has been pretty much fully explored for cheap oil. Ultimately, there comes a point where diminishing returns set in and they think that most of the improvements in getting higher yields have already occurred in those fields where it's easy enough to do over the past 15 years.

"Proven reserves of oil are now enough to supply the World for 43 years at current rates of production" in the Economist. Unfortunately, there are two holes in this argument. First, for political reasons the global reserves may be substantially overrated. Secondly, although reserves may equal 43 times annual production there is no basis for believing that production can be held constant for 43 years. According to Shell International " Although World reserves have risen by 65 per cent since 1970, nearly all of these giant fields were discovered before that date". If growth in World demand continues at a modest 2 percent per year, production could be declining as soon as the year 2000.

In short, unless growth in World oil demand is sharply lower than generally projected, World oil production will probably begin a long term decline soon and certainly within the next two decades.

The sudden agonizing death of the private automobile is a wall that global society will hit with full speed, pedal to the metal when a global petroleum crisis finally catches up with us. We will not accept any solutions that will soften the impact until the real shortage hits us at some time (early) in the next century. Neither capital nor labor can create energy. The shortage of more efficient energy sources in an economy will always make the remaining sources of less efficient energy more expensive and even less efficient. A society's transition from a more efficient source to a less efficient energy source will always and invariable decrease the wealth, flexibility and options available to that society. Once again humanity is going to demonstrate Voltaire's maxim: "History teaches us that history teaches us nothing."

Petroconsultants Geneva (1998)

The gap between World production and new discoveries continued to widen in 1997. Over the last past five years the recovery ratio dropped to just over 30%.

Political reserves - non-existent oil that is reported by government's agencies for political purposes. OPEC oil production quotas are based upon the oil reserve figures provided by each member country. After this quota system was implemented in 1985 a sudden leap in world oil reserves occurred: Kuwait reserves jumped 51%, Saudi Arabia shot up 50%, a 100% jump in Iraq, and Venezuela and a 200 % in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. He cited Dr Walter Youngquist: " My observation in some 70 countries over about 50 years of travel will tell me that we are clearly already over the cliff. The momentum of population growth and resource consumption is so great that a collision course with disaster inevitable. Large problems lie not very far ahead". (Personal correspondence, April 3 en and 16 April 1996 from Youngquist to Richard Reese).

Forecasting is always risky, especially where oil is concerned, but consider what a variety of experienced energy hands from every point on the political spectrum have said in the past year. Donald Hodel, who was Secretary of Energy under Ronald Reagan, has said that we are "sleepwalking into a disaster". Irwin Stelzer of the American Enterprise Institute says that the next oil shock "will make those of the 1970-s seem trivial by comparison"

Few people are focusing on the fact that over the next few years OPEC will again be the main source for most of world's oil. One consolation is that this may be the last Oil Crisis. Body bags coming back from the MidEast will finally convince us that we need to reduce our dependency on oil.

Many might think that tar sands or oil shales could save the day. This is unrealistic. Tar sand of oil shale yields expensive oil, probably no cheaper than $ 60/barrel. We face the end of cheap energy. Virtually everyone seems to be oblivious to the evidence, outside of the exploration departments of the oil companies who have a vested interest in silences. The lack of awareness means that society will be poorly prepared for the consequences. When people realize that the days of plentiful and cheap petroleum are over, there may be more oil wars. We will see an increase of terrorism, revolutions and coups. Expensive fertilizer cause smaller crops, more hunger and more vegetarians and serious population pressures and immigration restrictions.

Plate tectonics can tell us where most areas of the world have been in the past. The chemistry of oil creation is now well understood, so that vast areas of the world can be eliminated as possible areas in which oil might be found. Behind the closed doors of the international oil exploration communities there are few illusions about the oil supply. There are many reasons why few (of those outside of these closed doors) are worrying about the oil supply. Many politicians and businessmen are simply not concerned with the future, several elections or quarterly reports from now. Hubbert used to say that economist can find twice as much oil on paper as geologists can find in the ground. Many engineers feel that any technical problems can be solved and many geologists are not free to talk.

There is reason to believe that the oil industry is well aware of oil field depletion. No new supertankers have been built for 20 years. What, then, is the solution to our acute energy problem? There isn't one.

Now, this nation is asleep at the wheel. Time is short. If we want to retool our transportation systems, a World oil peak in 2010 even 2020 is next month. A peak in 2005 is a train wreck tomorrow. But few are talking about this predictable development. Even fewer planning for it. Petroleum is a gift of geology, a one-time windfall and we are spending it like there is no tomorrow. Every day the World uses 73 million barrels and finds 15 million. Consumption goes up and discoveries are down. Burning more than we earn- a sure recipe for bankruptcy.

The pessimists, or doomers, think there is one trillion barrels left and that production oil may peak by 2005. Boomers believe there is 1.8. Trillion barrels left and that the production will peak in 2020. If fifteen years is the only difference between pessimists and optimists, perhaps we ought to begin planning for a world in which oil is not as abundant as it is today. Why haven't I heard this before? Who would tell you? Exxon? Ford? Bill Clinton? The oil and gas journal publishes articles on oil depletion, but the coming crisis is not yet on the mainstream media's radar. It is astounding that, in a country like ours, which uses 25% of World's oil, no one is responsible for setting oil policy.

Only around 500 giants & gas fields were found out of around 50.000 fields =1 % and 75% of the reserves. Publishing reserves is a political act: it depends of the image desired. For OPEC, quotas depend on reserves: large increased around 1987 for the Middle East without any new discoveries from 90 % to 10% probability!

Francis de Winter (1996) .

Humanity is now under the impression that there are no foreseeable petroleum supply problems and that petroleum consumption can grow by 50% (from 60 to 90 million barrels per day) the next two decades. Few realize that this will be impossible. In the US the car speed limits have however increased again, energy R&D programs have been reduced. World wide humanity has essentially been programmed to run at full speed into a brick wall. Humanity does not seem to be slowing down and the brick wall are not getting any softer. In conclusion, it seems that most of the world has now effectively been led to believe that we are virtually swimming in petroleum, when we may instead only be swimming in virtual petroleum.

Although minerals and energy minerals are fundamental to our existence, the facts of these resources and of industry producing these materials are subject to many myths and much misinformation. Some of the distortions are deliberately made by political interests who play upon fears and hopes of the electorate, and then, in the role of defender of public interest against the oil or mining companies, seek to obtain votes by this device.

Myth: "at the current rate of consumption"

Reality: This very misleading myth is that the "current rate of consumption" does not represent the future. The rate of consumption of almost all resources, particularly energy, is increasing every year. The increase in resource consumption is caused by three factors: population growth, a demand for an increase in per capita consumption of a resource to increase living standards, and a larger number of uses found for a given resource. Demand does not grow arithmetically, but increases exponentially. Ultimately the population by its exponential growth of demand will overwhelm the available resources. The reality is that a permanent World oil crisis will occur when World oil production begins to decline early in the 21st century. Most of the present World's citizens will live to see that time. Youngquist ends with a quotation of Aldous Huxley: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

We are most fortunate to be living in a brief, bright interval of human history made possible by an inheritance from half-a-billion years of oil forming Earth processes. We rarely give thought to the greatly depleted balance in the oil account we are leaving to future generations. When checks can no longer be written against that inheritance, world economies and lifestyles will undergo great changes. Life will go on, but it will be quite different from the present. Most people living today will see the beginning of those times.

Origin of oil

Due to recent advances in organic geochemistry, we can relate most oil and gas reserves to specific source rocks. It is also possible that we can trace the specific source rocks and the period when they start to generate oil and gas. We are well aware of the climatic and physical conditions under which the oil was formed. In specific periods in geological history, the seas and lakes were full of algae growth. The organic debris fell on the bottom of the sea or lake bed and were preserved from oxidation. This alone is not enough to form an oil field. The source rocks had to be buried by younger sediments so that it become heated sufficiently to be converted to oil and gas. Sometimes with this algae material there were admixtures of other organic debris, including vegetal remains that are gas prone. Oxygen and bacteria broke down the trapped and preserved residue, molecule by molecule into substances rich in hydrogen and carbon. Increased pressure and heat from the weight of the layers above then caused a partial distillation of the organic remnants transforming them ever so slowly into crude oil and in natural gas. Most source rocks were laid down in low latitude regions.

Later in geological time, some of them were moved to higher latitudes by plate tectonic movements. Most oil is confined to the Tethys Sea, a zone between the northern and southern continents. Segments of this zone have been shifted northwards, which explains the reason why the bulk of the oil is found on the Northern Hemisphere. Once the organic material has been buried by overlying sediments, at a depth of 2000-3000 meters it could transform by chemical reactions into oil and gas. From then on the oil and gas migrated mostly upward (sometimes lateral or downward) into rocks with a certain porosity and permeability. The reservoir rocks, in which we find oil and gas, have been sealed by overlying rocks such as salt deposits. Much of the oil and gas generated during geological time has been leaked away or oxidized. In other cases, large quantities have been migrated to shallow depths around the margins of the basins, where bacteria that leave behind bitumen and heavy sticky oil have attacked the deposits. Probably only one percent of oil generated has been collected in the areas were we found it.

• In six specific stratigraphic intervals, 90% of world's discovered original reserves of oil and gas were formed.
• Three intervals were in the Paleozoic time (500-200 million years ago): Silurian (9%), Upper Devonian-Tournaisian (8%), Pennsylvanian-Lower Permian (8%).
• Two intervals in the Mesozoic time (200- 65 million years ago): Upper Jurassic (25%) and middle Cretaceous (29%).
• In Tertiary time their was 1 interval in the Oligocene en Miocene (between 35-55 million years ago) with 12.5 % of the world oil and gas reserves. (Klemme and Ulmishek, 1998).

Nowadays we have found nearly all-large oil and gas provinces. To find big fields is still possible, but it is not very likely that we will find many of them. The situations under which oil can be formed is confined to specific clusters in well defined geological trends, separated by huge areas that are entirely barren of oil. By this reason, we know that the oil reserves left on earth are very limited.

The composition of crude oil varies considerably. In the Far East it is low in sulfur whereas in the Middle East it is higher in sulfur.

Fossil fuels are now being depleted 100.000 times faster than they were being formed during geological history.

Klemme and Ulmishek are strong believers in a biogenic origin of oil, but they don't mention that other scientists are advocating the theory of nonbiological origin, especially the Russian school of geologists.

The first scientist who believed in a non-biological origin was the Russian chemist Mendeleev (famous for the periodic table of elements). Kudryatsev was in the fifties a strong advocate of the abiogenic theory. He gave many examples of substantial amounts of petroleum found in crystalline and metamorphic basements. He stressed that petroleum is present in large or small amounts but in all horizons below any petroleum accumulation, apparently totally independent of the varied conditions of formation of these horizons ("Kudryatsev's rule).

The most common is to find gas at the deepest levels, oil above and coal at the shallowest. There is diminishing hydrogen cotent as one goes from the deepest to the shallowest. It may be that the bacterial action which attacks the hydrocarbon rich first has been responsible for the progressive hydrogen depletion of upwelling hydrocarbons.

It is mainly the Russians who believe in the abiogenic theory. There were a few outside Russia, like Sir Robert Robinson who studied the chemical make-up of natural petroleum and concluded that it was too hydrogen rich to be a likely product of plant debris.

The following paragraphs are highly speculative, but I will present them anyhow. A great scientist (Niels Bohr) said once: "This theory cannot be true because it is not crazy enough".

There are a growing number of scientists who advocate the theory that fluid and gas movements in crust and mantle play a role in a number of geological mechanisms like earthquakes, volcanism.

In a report of the US National to the IUGG :

" New evidence from field, laboratory and quantitative studies has firmly established that in geologic-time scales lateral fluid migrations within sedimentary basins can occur over length scales of hundreds of km and vertically through crystalline rocks to depths greater than 6 km". (American Geophysical Union, 1995)

In a lecture Kropotkin (1985) presented some interesting arguments in favor of a non-biogenic origin of petroleum especially the studies of Boiko, Eigenson and Gold.

G.E.Boiko studied the relations of isomers in the hydrocarbon system from 322 oil samples from various fields of the world and the result of these analyses was published between 1950 and 1975. The thermodynamic calculation of the complete hydrogen composition of oil has shown that it is in equilibrium state at a temperature of 1600 to 1800 degrees Kelvin and pressures of 2 to 4x 10³ Mpa. Oil of geosyncline and platform areas does not differ significantly in the temperatures corresponding to this equilibrium composition. Boiko concluded that the synthesis of oil takes place in the upper mantle at a depth of 40 -160 kilometers. In any case it could not be synthesized within the sedimentary blanket where temperatures and pressures do not correspond to the isomeric relations characteristic of all oils.

Theories of a biologic origin are based on the presence of so-called molecular fossils, like phophyrin complexes. Chlorophyl in green plants is magnesium phophyrin. Eigenson wonders why in oil no even traces of iron and magnesium complexes have been found, but only vanadium and nickel ones.

The discovery of oil, deep in crystalline rocks of the Baltic shield is an strong argument for the abiogenic origin of oil. Gold (1997)

Gold (1992,1994,1996,1997) is a strongly believes that hydrocarbons have been formed in deeper parts of the Earth by non-biological processes. He thinks that the biological origin of some sets of molecules (hopane, pristine,phytane, steranes and certain porphyrins) found in all commercial oil are not of the biological origin of the oils themselves, but equally well or better by a contamination with microbial (bacteria) materials in all oil wells. The stability of hydrocarbon molecules against thermal dissociation is greatly increased by pressure.

Gold does not have much support in Western scientific world with his provoking ideas. This will not prevent us to mention his ideas. It is anyhow worth thinking of the possibility.

(Helium has two isotopes. Helium 4 is formed by radioactive decay of uranium and thorium, while helium-3 was present at the time the earth was formed. Its transport from deeper to lower parts of the crust is dependent on hydrocarbon gas. Helium 3 is present in volcanic rocks that are spewed up by the so-called upwellings from deep inside the earth that give rise to the islands chain of the midoceanic ridges such as the Hawaiian islands. Commercial helium is produced from oil and gas wells).

Gold has shown horizontal and vertical patterns of hydrocarbon fields. First, he points to the fact that the 2700 km long oil-rich belt in the Middle East is composed of completely different geological and topographic features. The various oil deposits are in different types of rock, in rocks of different ages and quite different cap rocks overlie them. "It cannot have been a matter of chance that this connected region has so prolific a supply of oil and gas, but resulting from totally different circumstances in different parts of the region. Very remarkable is the fact that the chemical composition of the Middle East oil is similar over the whole region".

Figure 1: The oilfields in the middle east (After Gold, 1993).

A second example is the region in South East Asia from China to New Guinea. In this arclike structure, petroleum is abundant. One end of the arc is made up of volcanic islands and the other end (Burma and China) of continental material with folded mountains. Like in the Middle East there are great ages differences and differences in any aspect of the geology, in which these oilfields exist. But they have one thing in common, namely a belt of earthquakes and volcanoes, which stretch over this entire length and which points to causes in the deeper crust or in the mantle.

The first oil shock in the beginning of the seventies:

The Oil of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is beginning to assert power over the oil industry. The relative influence of the oil companies diminished whereas the governments of the oil producing countries gained strength. The OPEC realized the value of oil as a strategic weapon.

1970: the OPEC established 55 percent as minimum tax rate.

1971: OPEC mandates " total embargo" against any company that rejects the 55 percent tax rate.

A series of nationalizations followed: Algeria nationalizes 51 percent of French oil concessions, Libya nationalizes British Petroleum concessions.

1972: Iraq nationalizes Iraq Petroleum Company concessions (owned by British, Dutch, American and French oil companies). Libya acquires a 50 percent interest in ENI (Italian) concessions.

1973: Libya nationalizes 51 percent of Occidental petroleum and 9 other concessions from nine big oil companies like Esso.

In October started the fourth Arab Israeli war (Yom Kippur). The OPEC agreed to use the oil weapon in the Arab Israeli war and recommended an oil embargo against unfriendly states.

1974: oil prices rise drastically from $ 2.83 to $10.41!

The nationalizations of oil concessions goes on. Kuwait announces 60 percent government participation in BP gulf concession. Qatar and Nigeria will follow.

1975: Venezuela started with nationalization of oil concessions.

All these drastic changes in the oil industry brought about that western oil importing countries wanted to reduce their dependence on oil from the Middle East. More reliance on coal for power generation, energy conservation, developments of the North Sea oil fields of the UK and Norway. Also a strong increase of research and development in alternative and renewable sources of energy.

1978: was the start of students protest against government of Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Uprising of Muslim fundamentalism. As result, the Shah puts Iran under military rule.

1979: was the end of the Shah. He left Iran for vacation to never come back again. Iran drops her oil production. Because of all these political events, the oil price rises from $13.03 in 1978 to $29.75/barrel.

Iran takes western hostages and cancels oil contracts with US oil companies.

1980: trouble starts between Iraq and Iran. September 23 Iraq invades Iran. This triggers off a turn in the oil prices, they go from $29.75 to an all high of $ 35.69.

1981: the Saudis flood the market with inexpensive oil forcing unprecedented price cuts by the OPEC members.

1982: starts with an oil glut that leads to a rapid decline in world oil prices. The OPEC loses control over oil prices.

1983: demand falls because of conservation, use of other fuels and recession. Heavy fighting and casualties in the Iran -Iraq war.

1984: beginning of tanker war. 44 ships were attacked by Iraqi and Iranian warplanes or damaged by mines.

1985: OPEC loses customers to cheaper North Sea oil. OPEC output hits 18 million barrels per day boosting a glut and triggering a price war.

1986: is the year of the oil price crash from $27.77 per barrel in January to $10.34 in August!

Whereas during the regime of the Shah Iran was the favorite of the US. The oily eyes of the US are now directed towards the Saudi's. They jointly have set the agenda for the world price regime by engineering this oil glut. The oil glut resulted in a way out of the global recession. This new situation has some long-term consequences. It made all research and development into alternative energy sources not economically interesting. The dependence on the cheap Middle East oil has led to accelerating depletion of oil. The oil glut may have more terrible long-term consequences than the earlier oil shocks. It made that research and development into alternative energy was cut. The end of the recession has blinded all nations to the accelerated pace of the oil drain. The gulf war brought about that the west has regained control over Middle East. With the consequence that the West, and especially the US, directly controls the guiding mechanisms of the world oil price. The so called theory market mechanisms bringing down the oil prices is a pure myth

1987: the war between Iraq and Iran escalates.

1988: July, Iran accepts a cease-fire from Iraq.

In retrospect, it is cynical that this 8-year war with millions killed on both sides was a war fought with arms supplied by a great number of countries to secure their interests in the rich oil fields in these lands. France became the major source of Iraq's high tech weaponry (to protect French oil interests in Iraq). The Soviet Union was Iraq's largest weapon supply. Israel provided arms to Iran. At least 10 nations sold arms to both of the warring sides. The US objective was not profit from arms trade but much more significant to control the oil resources in the Middle East. Since World War II, the US has succeeded to gain increasing influence on the oil resources at the expense of the British and French companies.

1989: OPEC raises its production to 19.5 million barrels per day

1990: August 2 Iraq invades Kuwait. Oil prices go up from $ 15.69 to $ 20.90/barrel.

1991: January 16 US start air attacks against military targets in Iraq. Crude oil prices drop to $16,59/barrel after having risen 3-5 dollar per barrel during the first half of January. February 28 the war ends. Iraqi soldiers ignite Kuwaiti oil fields (in total 2 billion barrels have gone up in flames)

1992: OPEC production reaches highest level in more than a decade to 25.25 million barrels daily.

1993: oil prices have fallen sharply in 1993. It has microeconomic consequences: US dependence on foreign oil will increase, more oil burned more pollution. Macroeconomic the low price has good effects: lower inflation, better business, and higher cash flows and profits margins, more investment spending. Oil prices are plunging as a result of a combination of OPEC overproduction; a great output of North Sea oil and a weak demand. Only $15 per barrel is paid on the market.

Saudi Arabia helped by the US is now the pivot of the international oil market. In reward for the protection the US has given the Saudi's during the Gulf war, the US can station a large army force in Saudi Arabia.

1994: oil prices maintain their level around $15/barrel

1995: US unilateral embargo for importing oil from Iran.

1996: US impose sanctions on non-US companies, which invest over $40 million a year in energy sector of either Iran or Libya. Following US cruise missile strikes on military facilities in southern Iraq, crude oil prices rise to $22 per barrel

1997: for the first time in four years OPEC increases its production ceiling by 10%.

1998: the oil prices plunged to $12-14/barrel. Asian and Russian crisis, downfall stock markets. Forecast: more oil production from big OPEC countries in Gulf region will result in still lower oil prices for the time being. The price is around the 10 dollars per barrel.

1999: in the town of Wassenaar oil ministers of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and Algeria and a representative of the Mexican government reached an agreement. They will reduce the production of oil to more than 2 million barrels a day. Saudi Arabia reduces even up to 500.000 barrels a day. Three countries Non-OPEC countries wish to take part in the reduction of oil production: Mexico, Oman and Norway. Russia is still studying if it will join the group. The total world oil production of 75 million barrels per day will be reduced by 2.5%. The result of this reduction is clear: the price per barrel oil went up from 10 to 15 dollars in a couple of weeks.

As we will in the next century bestrongly dependent on the fast reserves of oil in the hands of Islamic countries, it is of great importance to know about their culture and especially their belief.

Just as the Christians are divided in Catholics and Protestants, the Muslims are divided in Sunnis and Shi`ites. 95% of Iranians, 65% of the Iraqis are Shi`ites. The Saudi's are for 85% Sunnis and a minority of 14 % Shi`ites. The origin in the split lies in the question who will be the successor (Khalif) of the prophet Mohammed. There were four successors: Abu Bakr, Umar, Utman and Ali. The majority recognized the first three. This group came to be known as Sunnis , followers of the "sunna" (custom) of the Prophet as it is practiced and interpreted by the Islamic community, the Ummah. There were however dissenters (later termed "Shi`ites"), who saw Ali, Mohammed's son in law, as the only legitimate successor of Mohammed. The term Shi`ites comes from the expression "the party of Ali" (Arabic shi`a(t)`Ali). Ali was assassinated, as well as his younger son Husayn. The Shi`ites strongly opposed the worldliness of the Sunnis, the Umayyad dynasty of the Khalifs. The Shi`ites called their leaders the Iman.

The Iman (leader of prayers) is believed to be a fully spiritual guide, inheriting some of Mohammed's inspiration ("light") not just a contractual elected administrator like the Sunni Khalif. Shi`ism attracted other dissenting groups, especially of older non-Arab civilizations (Persians, Indians, etc ) that felt they had not been treated fairly by the Arab Muslims.

The cornerstone of Islamic faith is God (Allah). Islam is opposed to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, accusing it of falsifying the oneness and uniqueness of God. Mohammed refers to himself as the last of the prophets by no means higher in rank than Abraham, Solomon, Moses or Jesus. The Koran is the completion and the creation of the Holy Scriptures. (Van Doodewaard, 1995)

The key role in the oil policy in the Middle East is played at the moment by the Saudi's.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia of 20.000 persons is acting in the name of 5 million people. Seven of the 42 sons of Abdel Aziz bin Saud have leading functions (called Suderi seven): Fahd, king since 1982 2. Sultan, minister of defense and airspace, 3. Abdel-Rahman vice minister of defense, 4. Nayef, minister of internal affaires, 5. Turki, former vice-minister of defense, 6. Salman, governor of province of Riadh, 7. Ahmad, vice-,minster of internal affairs.

The people who live in the Saudi oil regions are mostly Shi`ites. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy reigned by the 75 year old King Fadh. He is a Sunni.

Short view of the history: Saudi Arabia only came into being in the 1930s, when one of the warring tribes in the Arabian Peninsula led by Ibd Saud and supported by the British finally conquered the other tribes in the area. Ibn Saud personally executed the chiefs of 18 conquered tribes and his governors executed 40.000 people and amputated limbs from another 300.000. Ibn Saud had 150 wives. In 1953 King Ibn Saud died and was succeeded by his son Crown Prince Saud. In 1964 Saud was forced to abdicate and succeeded by his brother Faisal. He was assassinated in march 1975 by his nephew and was succeeded by his half brother Prince Khalid. In 1982 he died and was succeeded by his eldest brother Prince Fahd. Since that time King Fahd has built stronger ties with Western nations, in particular the US.

In August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, King Fahd permitted US troops on his soil. The cost of the gulf war was 55 -60 billion dollars.

The King has declared that his successor needs not to be his 74-year-old half brother, rather, the best prince should be chosen.

In 1981 the gross national product was $16,010 per resident up from $2,130 in 1973. The sky was the limit. Saudis received unlimited free telephone service and free medical care. Water, electricity, gasoline and domestic airfares were subsidized. Each Saudi prince (in total 6000 princes) got a minimum allowance of $ 20.000. In 1987, King Fadh gave $300 million in spending money to his 14-year old son. The king bought big military equipment: tanks, missile fighters and even AWAC planes.

The weapons are bought with the dollars they received for their oil. They were made by the nations, which import their oil. This keeps thousands of workers at work being paid by the same dollars that were initially exchanged for oil and they can spend them on gasoline for their cars and fuel for heating their homes. This makes the circle round: we pay dollars for oil, but with these dollars, they buy our arms and with this money, we can buy oil. With this transaction, Saudi Arabia loses valuable oil from its ground to fill the gasoline tanks of the Western World. (Lisker, 1990).

From the nineties times turned. Oil prices dipped and the GNP is less than half of what it was in 1981. The kingdom real international debt is $25-30 billion in 1995. To pay the debt Saudi Arabia has to pump out more oil with low prices thereby creating more supply and therefore even lower prices. (Salameh, 1996). Saudi Arabia income per capita lowered from $19.000 in the eighties to $7000 at the present.

According to Joseph Riva (in his report for the US Congress in 1995) Saudi Arabia must play a leading role. It has to increase a capacity, but it lacks the funds. They had once 200 billion dollars, but are now down to 30 billion dollars. The Gulf war cost the Kingdom around $60 billion.

Due to the low oil price they are looking for foreign investors. Abdullah was lately in Washington to talk with captains of the oil industry.

The US faces in the future the danger that the Saudi fundamentalist movement will overthrow the Saudi ruling family. In the past, the Saudi ruling family spent billion dollars buying off potential enemies. The declining oil revenues and the growing unemployment will contribute to a destabilization of the regime.

There are three groups of people, which are a threat for King Fahd: Arabian dissidents in Lebanon; Islamic fundamentalists that cannot forgive the western influence, and the invasion of American troops onto their sacred soil during the Gulf war and the modern Moslems because they want a Western-style democracy. Jim Rogers (1995): " We, who are so dependent on imports of our oil, should be attentive to the ragged Tent of Saud, whose skirts are flapping dangerously in the first gusts of harsh desert windstorm".

In 1998, Salameh used the phrase: "The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East and North Africa is inversely proportional to the price of oil".

This sounds bizarre. When the revenues were rising in the 70s and 80s, it reduced potential risk of potential conflict, but nowadays with the low price of oil, the conflicts are increasing. It will give food to the rise of Muslim fundamentalism.

It is good to realize that when the fundamentalists will be in power of the economies of the Middle East and that they are in the position to apply their economic principles, things are going to change drastically.

The Islamic economic principles are totally different from our western economic principles:

1. prohibition of interest (usury)
2. prohibition of waste and idleness
3. sharing wealth (duty of almsgiving)
4. social justice
5. responsibility of the state for supervising and controlling the economy

Natural resources like oil and gas can be in private ownership but all members of the community must share the economic profit. They consider the natural resources as a gift of God and therefore belonging to both present and future generations. The revenues from their exploitation should be invested in other durable sources of income. The first two principles are of great importance to the oil depletion policy. They will keep more oil in the ground. There is a growing criticism of the oil policy of the western countries.

In the period 1974-1996, the combined oil exports of the seven leading oil exporters (Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the UEA) were 140 billion barrels with a value of 3.6 trillion dollars.

Military spending by OPEC countries in 1992 in US billion of petrodollars in the period 1974-1996: Algeria 26, Iran 27,4, Iraq 150, Kuwait 72, Libya 260, Saudi Arabia 490, UAE 38; Total 1100.

They could have saved 42 billion barrels when they wouldn't have spent it on weapons! A saving of 5.23 million barrels per day.

It remains to be seen if the Islam economic principles will be applied when the fundamentalists come to power.

Iran holds 9% of world's proven oil reserves. It has 14.9% of the world's gas reserves. Ninety-five per cent of its oil production comes from on- shore fields that are more than 30 years old. Now their production is declining. It has fallen 400.000 barrels per day since the last 2 years. Iran wants eagerly to expand its oil industry to mainly offshore fields, but they lack enough technology and capital.

The great potential for Iran is their big gas reserves. It could become in the next century a major exporter to Europe.

US prohibit foreign companies who invest more than $40 million to do business with Iran. The oil industry is thus prevented from bringing low-cost supplies to the western world for political reasons. The economy is stagnant and Iran suffers to pay 8 billion dollars to foreign creditors. This is half of their oil revenue. This is a heavy burden because 85-90 percent of their total income is from oil export. In 1992-93 Iran earned $16 billion in oil export revenu, in 1994 only $12 billion. They lack capital to maintain production capacity. It has a production of only 4.2 million barrels per day.

The power relation between the three most important countries of the Middle East is extremely complex. Iran and Saudi Arabia want a weakened Iraq. On the other hand, it will intensify the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, whereas a stronger Iraq would moderate this. Before 1979, Iran was US favorite ally with the Shah in power. Nowadays King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is the great "friend" and ally of the US.

The low price is catastrophically for Iran. The oil price is the result of a joint venture of Saudi Arabia and the US, who are keeping this oil price low. The Saudi's are concerned that a higher price should have an effect on the economics of the west. The Saudi has large investments in the West. It realizes that a higher oil price is only achieved by a lower oil production. In 1995, Iran signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy totaling nearly 1 billion dollar. Is this to expend their nuclear power or are they heading for nuclear weapons? The last option seems more likely because Iran has enough energy in the form of oil and gas to need the far more expensive nuclear energy. (Salameh, 1997, Schwarzbach, 1997)

The director of natural resources studies at the Cato Institute *) in the the US has a strange view on what US should do in the Persian Gulf. He thinks that oil is no reason for the US to stay in the Persian Gulf. The US have plenty of other sources to turn to in case of any Persian Gulf boycott or temporary regional supply disruption, particularly given the increasing amount of unutilized oil production capacity in non-OPEC countries.

*) The Cato Institute, a think tank founded and funded by the Kochs (the Koch family owns the largest US private oil company Koch Industries in Wichita, biggest donors to the Republican party in the last campaign)

The US energy policy 1961-1999:

In 1961, President Kennedy requested a fresh study of US natural resources. The geologist M. King Hubbert wrote the report. He cut tax benefits of the oil industry. It has not yet been proven but there are rumors that the oil industry had a hand in the assassination of the President. (Duncan, 1997)

In 1970, Scientific American published a complete number on the biosphere and energy cycles. The last sentence of a dozen of articles contains a warning to us:

" Man has it in his power technologically to maintain a high level of industrial civilization, to eliminate deprivation and hunger and to control his environment for many millenniums. His main danger is that he will not learn enough quickly enough and that he will not take adequate measures in time to forestall a situation that will be very unpleasant indeed".

In 1971 an opening article in Scientific American on energy and power:

"Man's expanding need for energy creates difficult economic, social and environmental problems. The solutions call for sensible choices of technological alternatives by the market and political process. Perhaps the most fundamental question of national policy is how we should allocate our present resources for the benefit of future generations".

In the same number of Scientific American, Dr King Hubbert ended his article:

" Unlimited resources of energy, however, do not imply an unlimited number of power plants. It is as true of power plants or automobiles as it is of biological populations that they cannot sustain any physical growth for more than a few tens of successive doublings. Because of this impossibility, the exponential rates of industrial and population growth that have prevailed during the past century and a half must soon cease. Although the forthcoming period of stability poses no insupportable physical or biological difficulties, it can hardly fail to force a major revision of those aspects of our current social and economic thinking that stem from the assumption that the growth rates that have characterized this temporary period can somehow be permanent".

Milton Katz: "It is only recently that men have begun to consider how they can reconcile human needs for energy with the finiteness of the earth. Such a reconciliation will engage all the institutions of society".

In 1973 President Nixon proposed" Project Independence 1980", which he defined as "a series of plans and goals set to insure that by the end of the decade Americans will not have to rely on any source of energy beyond our own". Estimates show that to achieve hemispheric (not domestic) self-sufficiency by 1980, means closing an energy gap of nine million barrels per day.

David Rose commented in 1974 on this energy policy." Some measures and actions now proposed are part of a continuing series that, if sensible, will bring gradual progress and improvement, but never total 'solutions'. Thirty years from now energy will still be a serious topic; only the details will change"

In October 1973, Washington strategist blamed Nixon for having lost control in the Middle East. In august 1974, he resigned.

In July 1979 President Carter pledged that the US would never import more than it did in 1977:8.5 million barrels per day. In 1995 it was 10.5 million barrels per day and in the year 2000 it will be nearly 13 million barrels per day! Fritz R. Kalhammer presented in Scientific American of December 1979 some suggestions to reduce the dependence on foreign oil supplies. He had his hope on the improvement of energy storage systems based on batteries sufficiently to make electric propulsion an attractive alternative for 10 million vehicles. Also other alternatives like nuclear and solar energy, energy storage systems, could save perhaps ten million barrels per day by the end of the century. The outcome will depend, according to Kalhammer, on how vigorously the US pursues the development of energy storage. As we know now nothing of the recommendations were taken serious.

In 1981, there were two viewpoints on energy policy. Some people assumed that the nation's oil pools were running dry and that incentives should be offered to speed development for reasons of economic health and defense. Others believed that oil is abundant and that development of alternatives offers good opportunities to replace oil and gas. There has been a decline of imports from 6.8 in 1979 to 6.2 bbd.

H.W.Menard complained about the energy policymakers:

"One of the reasons for the uncertainty in national energy policy is that markets lack the information needed to choose rational objectives. It should be recognized that without a rapid inventory of its oil and gas resources the nation risks repeating the mistake of basing policy on illusion rather than on information policy".

In 1989 C.L.Gray Jr. and J.A.Alson:

"A move to pure methanol would reduce vehicular emissions of hydrocarbons and green house gases and could lessen US dependence on foreign energy sources".

"It is time for the US to begin designing a methanol-based transportation system for the next century. By doing so the country would take a major step forward in solving its environmental problems and securing its energy destiny, and it would stake out a leading role in planning the future of global transportation".

In 1998 President Clinton is accused by the Washington strategists of having lost control over the price of oil. He has to change his bad MidEast Policy.

According to Frans Schurmann (1998):

"The kiss of death for President Clinton may not be Monica-gate but a widening perception that he has lost control over the crucial lever of global well-being-- the price of oil. In any event, Washington's strategists have always seen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as secondary to the "great game" of big power oil rivalries. In the fall of 1990 Bush scored big in that great game by putting together a big coalition Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, France, Soviet Union, Britain and at last China. Now the coalition is crumbling and many strategists blame that on Clinton's ineptness".

Natural gas has large reserves. (International Energy Outlook 1998)

Natural gas comes from plant life grown on land and not like oil from marine life. Natural gas can also be made when oil is cracked to gas by deep burial. The main component of natural gas is methane. The gas reserves are much more difficult to access than oil.

Natural gas is a good alternative for oil. There are still large reserves available. They are more geographically widespread over the world than the oil reserves. With the data of the gas reserves, we should make a distinction between "wet" and "dry"gas. The first is found as a cap over an oil well and the second is not related to oil.

It is cleaner and more available than oil. The big problem is that the deposits are far from the people

who need the natural gas. The transportation of natural gas is four times more expensive that of oil.

However, there are big projects for large pipelines: from Turkmenistan down to Afghanistan,

Pakistan and India, also a connection to India for the natural gas in South East Asia.

In Europe, consumers are now receiving natural gas from Algeria and from Russia. In Latin America, new pipelines will tie together Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil. The gas can be cooled and compressed into liquid for shipping by tanker. The conversion requires large and complex facilities. Liquid natural gas is hard to handle, therefore the demand of it is rather limited. Technology must be developed to convert natural gas to a form that remains liquid at room temperature and pressure. Maybe new technology makes it possible to convert it with lesser cost so that it can be used in vehicles?

World gas discoveries kept close pace with production, but the biggest discoveries were made between 1968 and 1977. The world consumption is now 2200 billion cubic meters (78 trillion cubic feet). Estimates are that in the year 2025 it will rise to 6400 billion cubic meters. The biggest demand will come from Asia. The big struggle between Asia and America will be to import natural gas as much as possible from the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, especially from Iran with the second largest reserves of the world.

(Data from statistics at the end of 1997, natural gas quantities in billion cubic meters. IEO, 1998)

From these data, we can deduce some facts:

1. The biggest reserves are in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East: 72.9 %
2. Production of Europe and US is 39.9% and consumption is 56.6 %, with only reserves of 7.1%
3. US are consuming more than it produces, being the second producer - after the former Soviet Union- of the world.
4. The developed countries will be in the future at the mercy for their natural gas from the Middle East and the Former Soviet Union.

The natural gas industry will become increasingly important in the near future as the oil reserves are dwindling. Global consumption has more than doubled in the past 20 years and will even rise more in the next decades. The annual growth: is 3.3 percent for natural gas as compared with 2 % percent for oil.

According to Daniel Yergin (1997), the traditional "oil business" must be redefined as the "oil and gas business". We agree fully with this statement.

Tar sands and oil shales. The exploitation of tar sands and oil shales oil are very costly and harming the environment. To give an example: experimental projects to mine oil shales in Colorado have been abandoned, leading to the expression: "Shale oil - fuel of the future - and always be". The oil sands in Canada may help a little, for a time. The problem with shale oil is that it has to be mined, crushed, heated and refined.

Hauling and dumping the spent shale burns more energy. In addition, the refining of that oil into useable product takes energy. In the seventies they discovered that it cost a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of shale oil. New technology has created better perspectives but environmental problems are still great.

Coal has a big potential to fill the gap of the oil and natural gas depletion. The world has enormous reserves of coal. The burying of plant material in swamps and peat bogs forms coal deposits. After the evolution of land plants in the Devonian, some 400 million years ago, large accumulations of coal deposits have been formed in Carboniferous-Permian times and more recently in the late Cretaceous to early Tertiary times (100-15 million years). With the burial of the plant material, we can distinguish a number of phases of transition in coal. Initially the peat, the precursor of coal, was converted in lignite (brown coal). Progressively more mature are the sub-bituminous coals to bituminous coals. At the ultimate end of the spectrum the formation of anthracite. This transition has important consequences on the physical and chemical properties. Lignite and Low rank coals are characterized by more moisture and lower carbon content and hence lower energy content. Anthracite is at the top and has a higher carbon content and lower moisture.

The estimate world coal reserves are 1.142 billion tons.

57% of the coal reserves are situated in three countries:

US 23 %, FSU 23%, China 11%. Austria, India, Germany and South Africa account for an additional 23 %.

Total world production in 1996 was 3.700 million tons of hard coal. The main producers are China, US, India, South Africa, Australia, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Germany, the UK and Indonesia.. The biggest producers China and US are not the biggest exporters, they even import coal for reasons of quality and logistics. Australia and South Africa are the biggest exporters. Importers of coal usually draw supplies from a wide range of sources. The Netherlands imports coal from over 14 countries.

Just less than 40% of world's electricity and about 70% of world's steel is based on coal.

Many countries are heavily dependent on coal for electricity: Poland 95% South Africa 93%, Austria 83%, Denmark 77%, China 75% Greece 76% Germany 53% and US 53,5%.

Coal is not only important for electricity but also for the steel and cement industry.

World consumption is projected to increase from 5.1 billion tons to 8.6 in 2020.

For 60% coal is strip mined, which is open surface mining. It leaves land unusable, because the top soil is remove and the pits left open. Acid mine drainage, in which water percolates through mine tailings and becomes acidic. Underground mining (40%) also produces acid mine drainage and in addition can result in land subsidence and underground coal fires which pollute groundwater.

The major challenges for the coal industry are the environmental regulations. The most important pollutants: sulfur dioxide, which has been linked to acid rain. US coal-fired power plants contribute 70 % of sulfur dioxide, 30% nitric oxide and 35% carbon dioxide. These facts are the reason why the US is not willing to give up the coal, because coal accounts for more than 85 percent of US fossil fuel reserves. Natural gas gives 50% less damaging carbon dioxide emissions than the burning of coal. Linda G. Stuntz, deputy undersecretary for policy at the Department of energy in 1991: "we didn't promote natural gas at the expense of coal". It is the cornerstone of energy policy.

When the burning of coal can be cleaned up from the polluting emission gases, there will be a great future for closing the gap.

(We missed in the cited publications on the future oil shortage the fact that the great amount of coal reserves in the world could be a good alternative for oil and gas in the future. On the premises however, that it can be burned more cleanly than now. But still it is a fossil fuel and thus finite, it can only postpone the real crisis for some decades!)

Natural gas hydrates. Methane trapped in marine sediments as a hydrate represents an immense carbon reservoir. Gas hydrate is a crystalline solid consisting of gas molecules, usually methane, each surrounded by a cage of water molecules.

Sediments deposited on the ocean floor produce methane when they decay. The high pressure and low temperature would trap the methane as an icy hydrate. The amount of carbon bound in gas hydrates is twice as much as found in all known fossil fuels on Earth. Methane bound in hydrates amount to 3000 times the volume of methane in the atmosphere. Gas hydrate cemented strata also act as seals for trapped free gas. These traps provide potential resources. (Dillon and Knenvolden, 1992)

There are however major setbacks for the exploitation of this form of energy. There is the danger for global warming because methane, a greenhouse gas, is 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide. One methane molecule will absorb 20 times more infrared radiation than carbon dioxide.

Most known deposits of methane hydrate lie below the seafloor in regions that slope from the continents to the deep oceans of thousands of meters under water.

The problem with the gas hydrate that it disintegrates when it comes to the surface. The drastic reduction of pressure causes it to melt and the methane fizzes away. We have no experience operating in conditions were gas hydrates are stable.

The melting of gas hydrate by geological events are registered. The melting of a hydrate layer may cause submarine landslides. A vast submarine landslide in the western Mediterranean may have triggered a climate change at the end of the last ice age. As the sea level dropped during the ice age the pressure of the ocean floor fall, making the hydrates instable. What triggered the landslide is not known. The releasing gas lubricated the slide. The result was a giant slump that spread across the sea floor. The release of a great amount of methane could have had an enormous impact on the climate. (Hecht, 1998).

Such inherent instability of these methane deposits could raise problems by exploiting it. They could cause destructive waves (tsunamis) that race across the oceans. Geologists have shown that in past geological time methane hydrates have instigated climate change due to their greenhouse effect. Kvenvolden suggest that gas hydrates were released at the end of the ice age when the global sea levels swelled more than 800 meters submerging Arctic regions where hydrate layers exit. The relatively warm water would have melted the hydrates and released tremendous amounts of methane in the atmosphere. When the rising seawater will engulf the permafrost zone of the Arctic regions, it could enhance a global warming effect at accelerating speed and unprecedented scale.

The origin of these gas hydrates are not known. There are different theories from biogenic to abiogenic origins. Paull and others think that bacteria within sediments consume rich organic material and generate methane gas. At a certain depth the low temperature and high pressure make the gas solid in frozen hydrate structure. Methane below the hydrate layer remains gaseous because the temperature is too high to support freezing.

Gold (1993) however is more in favor of the abiogenic origin of these hydrates. He thinks that it is possible that the hydrocarbons as gas and oil are derived from the mantle depth and from materials that were incorporated in the Earth at its formation. If this is true this will change the exploration for hydrocarbons spectacularly. Drilling must then go to deeper parts in the earth. This is expensive but due to the high pressures the density of the gas is hundreds times higher than it is in a shallower well. The high pressure will produce a higher flow rate. The ultimate production will be far greater than from shallower wells.

Sometimes the frozen methane gas can melt and the methane gas is explosively vented. So-called seabed pockmarks can see the traces of such explosions. In diameter these roughly conical depressions may span 350 meters or more and be up to 35 meters deep. There are suggestions that this explosive decomposition of methane hydrate creates giant bubble-plumes that might engulf ships (in the Bermuda triangle) and cause them to sink in the low density foam. Dillon (1998) rejects this theory and says that the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle is a fairy tale.

Mining ocean methane could be possible. The key problem regarding production of methane from hydrate layers is the mobilization of methane from solid hydrates.

There is one place on earth were gas hydrates are exploited, the Siberian Messoyaka gas hydrate field. The production is however very expensive.

Two scientists claim that it could be possible to manufacture gas hydrates on the sea floor from the natural gas bubbling up. They further suggest that if large volumes of gas were discovered on the abyssal plain, they could be converted in gas hydrate. By filling inflatable blimp-like bladders with gas hydrate, the substance could be towed to shallower depths where it could be decomposed into fuel and water. (Freeman 1998)

(When reviewing the articles on alternative energy resources, we were struck by the fact that the scientific press is not mentioning these enormous resources of methane at the bottom of the oceans)

Ethanol another alternative is a net energy loss - it takes 70 % more energy to produce than is obtained from the product itself.

Biomass is an illusion. If all the world's wood, grains, agricultural waste were burned as fuels it could only provide 15% of the world's energy.

Nuclear fission to produce electricity contributes 5.2% of world's total energy needs.

Relying on nuclear energy to provide in the next century for 11 billion people, with our living standard, would require 250.000 giant breeder reactors using 1 million ton of plutonium.

Thermonuclear fusion would be the solution, but it is still in an experimental stage and maybe not in time to replace oil. It will give us a far worse greenhousing effect, than we already have. It will produce also radioactive waste material.

Photosynthesis. Every year the Earth's surface receives about 10 times as much energy from sunlight as is contained in all the known reserves of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium. 15000 times the energy of our annual consumption. Photosynthesis captures less than 1 % of the available sunlight.

Mankind consumes already 40 % of all the energy produced by photosynthesis.

Thermophotovoltaics is a technology that transforms sunlight into electricity and may prove suitable for lighting remote villages or powering automobiles. This technology has that had its roots in the 1950s, but has not yet developed commercially (Coutts and Fitzgerald, 1998).

Chemical fuels. "The production of chemical fuels from sunlight offers a form of energy that can be transported and stored, overcoming the limitations of converting solar energy directly to electricity. Much is at stake here. The successful development of these processes would create an ample supply of clean energy for as long as the sun shines". These words were written by Dostrovsky in 1991, but not enough has been done to develop this form of energy.

Hydroelectric energy. Hydroelectric dams create substantial damage to local soil and vegetation systems both before and after construction. Depending on the characteristic of the river that supplies them, they can be expected to silt up perhaps as soon as a decade after construction. The electricity produced from them may be renewable for a while, but the river itself is irreversible changed. A good example is the river Volga in Russia. Before the construction of the huge artificial lakes made for the production of electricity, the Volga flowed to the Caspian Sea in 30 days, now it takes one and a half year. The cleaning effect of swift running water has diminished. The contaminated silt is laid down on the bottom of these big artificial lakes.

The dams prevent nutrients from flowing downstream, disrupt natural flooding patterns and change temperatures and currents.

Wind, waves, tides, ocean thermal energy conversion and geothermal sources are totally inadequate to fulfill the world 's needs for energy when all the oil has gone.

The big mistake about the availability of renewable energy is that the production of these sorts of energy harms the environment far more than people realize.

Fuel production from trees. When a tree dies, it decomposes and in doing so provides food for myriad of bacteria and fungi and other bacterial organisms and smaller animals, which in turn provide food for higher animals. The end result is that the minerals trace elements and a great deal of organic matter are recycled back into what is a complex ecosystem for use by the next generation of plants, organisms and animals. When timber is removed for use in the economy the recycling stops. This means that the extractive wood production is not normally renewable in the long term.

The predictions that renewables would become cost-competitive with fossil fuels have been incorrect. Fossil fuels are still almost always cheaper. Biomass, geothermal and municipal solid waste emission sometimes exceeds emission from fossil fuels. Wind towers kill birds and damage soil. Some forms of solar energy winning erode fragile desert lands and cause microclimatic changes in sensitive ecosystems. Geothermal energy uses large quantities of water. Hydropower is perceived as damaging to habitat and to some fish populations. Power productions from tide are highly costly.

Roland Hwang (1995) explains the reason why in the US government energy policy is not promoting alternative fuels. He states that the full cost of oil for transportation in the US is "subsidized". These hidden systems of oil subsidies are endangering the dependence on foreign oil supplies. It discourages private investments in new, cleaner technologies. Hidden subsidies waste taxpayer dollars by undermining government programs to promote fuel efficiency, alternative fuels and environmental protection.

In 1967, Aurelio Peccei, an Italian industrialist and Alexander King, a Scottish scientist were worried over the fact that governments were unable to solve their most serious problems. Their aim was to tackle problems and future trends at both local and global levels.

In 1968, thirty individuals from ten countries gathered at the Academia dei Lincei in Rome. This was an initiative of Dr Aurelio Peccei, to discuss world problems. (From then on called: the Club of Rome). They wanted to make a quantitative model for political and economic decision makers to take into account.

In 1970, at the invitation of the Swiss government, the Club of Rome defined a methodology and asked Jay Forrester and Dennis Meadows to create a mathematical model that could be applied to complex situations, such as the world economy, the environment and urban growth. It displayed an interaction over time of population, agricultural and industrial production and natural resources and environmental degradation. In the end of 1970 the project was discussed by a group of seventeen specialists under the direction of Dennis Meadows. In 1972, the result of their work was published in a report: The Limits to Growth. The main conclusion was:

The Dutchman Sicco Mansholt (then president of the European Commission) claimed that the report did not go far enough. The industrialized nations should strive for a zero growth economy. In 1973, a year after the publication, a sudden increase of prices and other resources took place and led to an economic recession, shattering the assumption that "The Limits of Growth" had already seriously discussed.

In the seventies and eighties the Club of Rome published a great number of reports. In 1976, it suggested that the international order should be based on a better balance between rich and poor countries. In 1978, under the supervision of Dennis Gabor a report was published under the title: " Beyond the age of waste" In 1985, the Club of Rome produced a report of Bertrand Schneider: "the Barefoot Revolution" which reconsidered the way assistance is given by the North to the South. In 1986, a report from a member of the Club of Rome, Elisabeth Mann-Borgese was published: "The Future of the Oceans". In October the Club of Rome sent a message to the presidents of the US and Russia suggesting they should work together to reduce arms sales to poorer countries. In 1988, two reports were published: "Beyond the Limits of Growth" by Eduard Pestel and "Africa Facing its Priorities" by Bertrand Schneider. In 1990, the Club of Rome spent a year re-examining the world situation. In 1991 the report "The First Global Revolution" was published.

In 1992, a research program was launched "Evolving concepts of International Cooperation for Development" in an update of the Limits of Growth:

In 1993, a report asked to look further ahead than the day-to-day concerns. In 1994, the report of Bertrand Schneider "The Scandal and the Shame" was discussed, which criticizes the waste and failures of development policies in the Third World over the last forty years.

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