DenverPost: Paul Roberts: U.S. faces a reality check over oil

"Gasoline at $2 a gallon may be just a pleasant memory in a few years as energy prices continue to surge, warns author Paul Roberts.
"There's still plenty of oil, but it's getting harder to find and it's not going to be the cheap oil we're accustomed to," said Roberts, author of "The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World," which hit bookstores last month.
Roberts, along with other analysts and energy producers, will address supply, demand and pricing issues during events in Colorado this month.
U.S. crude oil consumption is currently 20 million barrels a day, which is roughly one-quarter of the world's daily production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. .
At an IPAA conference this week in Colorado Springs, one conference session is titled, "Is the U.S. Running Out of Oil?"
The answer is "yes," said Roberts, who is based in Leavenworth, Wash. "Oil depletion is arguably the most serious crisis ever to face industrial society."
Roberts estimated that global oil production will peak within 30 years and then decline. Roberts said non-OPEC production - preferred by the U.S. because it is more politically secure - could peak by 2015. Meanwhile, the booming economies of China and India - and other industrialized countries - are competing with U.S. demand.
North America has large reserves of oil sands and oil shale, which are sources of petroleum that require special technologies for recovery. Suncor, a Canadian oil company that owns a refinery in Commerce City, claims that by 2010 it will produce 500,000 barrels a day from oil sands. That would be equal to about one-third of the average daily imports from Saudi Arabia.
Conventional oil fields in the U.S., however, are becoming harder to exploit.
Drilling for natural gas is at a three-year high nationally, but U.S. production has been flat over the past several years.
"We are working harder and harder just to keep production levels constant," said Joseph Blount, chairman of the Washington-based Natural Gas Supply Association. "There is little short-term relief ahead for customers." "