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End of the Petroleum Age?
Michael Klare, Foreign Policy In Focus
At the hastily convened global oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 28, top officials of producing and consuming nations from around the world attempted to find a combination of solutions that would somehow extricate us from the current crisis over sky-high energy prices. These proposals ranged from increased output by major producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to restrictions on the activities of international oil speculators.
But all were based on the premise that the crisis can be resolved through the right mix of actions, thus restoring an environment of cheap and abundant oil – a premise that is fundamentally flawed. More and more, the evidence suggests that this is not just a temporary crisis. It is the beginning of the end of the Petroleum Age.
How do we know that the Petroleum Age is drawing to a close? Two key indicators tell us that this is so. First, many of the giant fields that have satisfied our massive thirst over so many years are experiencing diminished output. Second, although the major oil producers are spending more money each year to discover new reserves, they are finding less and less oil. Either of these factors by itself is cause for significant worry; the combination is deadly.
… At this point, we cannot be absolute certain of the dominant energy source of the post-petroleum era. Will it be the Solar Age or the Biofuels Age or the Hydrogen Age? But we do know that it will revolve around some constellation of renewable, climate-friendly, domestically-produced supplies. From now on, America’s top priority in the energy field must be to explore all potential components of this new energy future and move swiftly to develop those with the greatest promise.
Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, the author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books, 2008), and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). Klare’s previous book, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum has been made into a documentary movie – to order and view a trailer, visit www.bloodandoilmovie.com
(26 June 2008)
Former President Bush energy adviser says oil is running out
Robin Pagnamenta, London Times
The era of globalisation is over and rocketing energy prices mean the world is poised for the re-emergence of regional economies based on locally produced goods and services, according to a former energy adviser to President Bush and the pioneer of the “peak oil” theory.
Matt Simmons, chief executive of Simmons & Company, a Houston energy consultancy, said that global oil production had peaked in 2005 and was set for a steep decline from present levels of about 85 million barrels per day. “By 2015, I think we would be lucky to be producing 60 million barrels and we should worry about producing only 40 million,” he told The Times.
His controversial views, rejected by many mainstream experts, suggest that some of the world’s biggest oilfields, particularly in Kuwait and those of Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading producer, are in decline.
(30 June 2008)
Interview with Simmons at Economic Times (India): Crude today is dirt cheap: Matthew Simmons.
End of cheap oil: Growing prices, demand raise uncomfortable questions
Morgan Josey Glover, News-Record (Greensboro, North Carolina)
High fuel costs in the Triad caused a discount airline to fail, school buses to drain county coffers and companies to switch to four-day work weeks.
All this before the average price of unleaded gasoline hit $4 a gallon.
So what would Guilford County residents experience if fuel hit $8 a gallon? Or $10?
Picture more bicycles on Greensboro’s Battleground Avenue than cars. A dearth – for once – of “Made in China” wares on store shelves. Weeds and “For Sale” signs in desolate subdivisions.
The world’s thirst for oil might soon outstrip its capacity to produce it – if it hasn’t already – and the consequences could be devastating.
A growing number of energy experts, investors and concerned citizens worry about the country’s lack of preparation for “peak oil,” the point at which the amount of petroleum that is economically feasible to extract and refine goes into decline. Peak oil does not mean running out of oil. It signifies the end of the cheap-fuel era.
“I don’t think there is the commitment to make the transition in time for there not to be maximum economic hardship,” said Luddy Hayden, a Greensboro resident who worked in the oil industry for more than 30 years. “I’m afraid that we are going to hit a bump that people will look back upon as the most difficult economic time we’ve had.”
(29 June 2008)
Peak Scam
Reza Fiyouzat, Dissident Voice
There are many problems, of the conceptual and political kind, with the explanations by the proponents of the idea that the current oil prices and the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan are the direct results of having reached a peak in the worldwide oil production. In what follows, I will list five fundamental shortcomings of Peak Oil explanations.
1. Racist Thinking
Here is a challenge for all American environmentalists: Find any utterance made by any environmentalist in the U.S. that falls to the left of the following quote from an article by the certified right-winger, Charles Krauthammer: “Forbidding drilling [in the Arctic refuge] does not prevent despoliation. It merely exports it. The crude oil we’re not getting from the Arctic we import instead from places like the Niger Delta, where millions live and where the resulting pollution and oil spillages poison the lives of many of the world’s most abysmally poor” (emphasis added).
… 2. Warning sign is all they are; panic is all they breed
In a global social system run by imperialistic capitalism, the key factor is profitability, and nothing else. For those who wish to maximize their profits, panic may be induced regarding the slower rates of discoveries of easy oil; not ‘peak’ oil.
Peak Oil hysteria – and it is hysteria, since it comes with no realistically thought out solution plans – in this context, only feeds the ideological ruling paradigms, which translate the supposed shortages into a need for more severe wars of possession for natural resources.
(27 June 2008)
BA:
The argument in the essay seems unclear and based on a hazy understanding of peak oil.
Before Mr. Fiyouzat stakes his reputation attacking peak oil, he might want to do some more research. There’s a wealth of material out there from many different sources.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to rely solely on William Engdahl for information. Engdahl was a proponent of peak oil theory until a year or two ago, when he became convinced of the abiotic origin of petroleum. I think it’s fair to say that Engdahl’s views are not widely shared.
Peak oil is a broad movement. It would be more convincing to criticize specific statements by specific writers. Attacking the theory of peak oil as a whole, is rather like attacking the “theory” of gravity.
