Peak oil drives need for renewables.

• Author: Cote, Mike
• Position: [WORLD TRADE DAY--ENERGY] - Brief article

We're not running out of oil. It's just getting hard to get it out of the ground.

"That's always the red herring that is thrown out at us," says Steve Andrews, a Denver-based energy consultant and cofounder of the nonprofit Association for the Study of Peak Oil. "Peak oil is about the rates of production."

Andrews gave his "bad cop" speech during a World Trade Day panel talk on renewable energy.

We've probably consumed two-thirds of the world's supply of oil, he said, using an example of a six pack of beer, four cans empty, to drive home his point. But to drink those last two beers, you'd have to use a pretty skinny straw, he said.

Six of the world's 21 oil-producing countries have reached their peak and are in decline, he said. When half of them are in decline, the world's growth...