Ottawa Mayor - We're Racing Against The Clock On Oil - EV World

[hatrack]

We're all in for a rough ride if global oil production dwindles as expected over the next 10 years, but the need to find alternative fuel sources creates huge business opportunities, experts say. That was the message delivered at a forum last month hosted by the city's Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC). Less than a week before U.S. President George Bush told Americans in his State of the Union address they were "addicted to oil," the 300 participants at the Crude Awakening forum were asked to consider how prepared Ottawa is to kick the habit when oil becomes too rare and expensive to fuel our economic and social structures.

The world's oil and natural gas supplies are not renewable and will eventually run out. Whether they run out with a bang or a gurgle is the subject of intense international debate, and has given rise to the concept of "Peak Oil." This refers to the point in time when world oil production crests, and then steadily and inexorably decreases. After the peak, which some analysts say has already occurred or will occur within a few years, supplies will plummet and prices will shoot up to unthinkable highs.

Organizers of the forum painted a bleak picture of city life in the aftermath of peak oil production:

"The chief effect in Ottawa of the decline of world oil production will be unemployment caused by the relentless slowing of the world economy. Many families will have no employed member. Unemployment is likely to be at least as severe as it was during the depression of the 1930s. Families on low and average salaries will be stressed by the rising real costs of transportation, food, and most goods," the audience was told. In his remarks, Mayor Bob Chiarelli said finding solutions is "a race against the clock," and admitted that "there's a lot more we can do, and we're going to accelerate that agenda as much as we can."

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http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=communique&newsid=11172&url=http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/293123325362527.php

[Sparkman]

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