A quiet calm has enveloped the bustling retail centers of the world. Empty shelves begin to accumulate dust, doors and windows hang open haphazardly in shopping centers and local grocers. Gas stations are curiously still, their abandon pumps lonely in the midday sun. The once thriving thoroughfares of the great cities echo only the sounds of wind, their pasts of bungled traffic and noisy engines a fading memory. Some of the populace has been lucky enough to continue their lives in small communities, working together to feed and clothe each other. Others resorted to violence, mass riots and looting devastated cities both great and small across the globe. As transportation, trade, and communication slowed and finally stopped, the world as we know it changed. A new dark age swallows mankind, the triumphs of our species crumble, and we slip backwards in time to a simpler world.
This is what many are predicting our future holds as the lifeblood of our economy dwindles and dries up for good. The majority of people have an incredibly hard time imagining such a scenario could ever occur, but there is a very real possibility this could happen according to a growing number of people.
Hopefully you’ve heard all about Peak Oil by now, but unfortunately the vast majority of people have not. Basically, Peak Oil is the point at which we have reached our maximum output levels of oil and begin to decline in supply. Some estimate this peak has yet to have occurred, but many say it has already happened. A geologist with Shell Oil Company, Dr. M King Hubert, Ph.D. predicted the U.S. would reach peak oil in the 70’s. This occurred just as he predicted it would. He similarly predicted world peak oil would occur in the year 2000. He was right before, and many believe he’s right again. (Video clip of Hubert)
Because oil follows a bell curve, we will begin to produce less and less oil. If 2005 was the peak of world oil production, then we will be producing the same amount of oil in the year 2035 as in 1980. By 2035, the population will be approximately twice its current size and rely considerably more upon the use of oil. As the demand for oil outstrips supply, prices will explode and oil will be rationed to whoever can afford it – assuming wars do not break out first over the shortage. (Life After the Oil Crash)
Here in the U.S. our lives are literally entrenched in oil; it is the lifeblood of our economy. The U.S. will not be the only country to feel the effects. This will be a worldwide catastrophe. India’s energy needs are expected to grow by 72 percent by 2025. China’s will nearly double. In 17 years the world demand for oil is likely to be greater than 50 percent of what it is today. Undoubtedly the poorest of nations will be the first to feel the effects, and already are as oil prices continue to rise and nations seek alternative fuels. (See Food Scarcity Continued: The Stats)
To get an idea of what the implications may be for a severe oil shortage, let’s refer back to the 1970 oil shock. During this time production shortfalls were just 5%, yet caused prices to nearly quadruple. California experienced a similar occurrence when natural gas experienced a production loss of less than 5%. Prices increased by 400%. Even with these relatively small shortages, prices increased dramatically causing economic havoc and fear among consumers. Peak Oil is not a temporary setback as were these two incidences. Conservative estimates expect production rate to drop by 3% per year, every year. However, the decline rate is more likely to be around 10% per year when geopolitical factors are taken into consideration. Using this figure, the total supply will drop by another 50% in the next 7 years.
In 1999, Vice President Dick Cheney said: “By some estimates, there will be an average of two-percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need an additional 50 million barrels per day.”
Many believe the Vice President’s words to be an underestimate of today’s reality. There are a growing number of people who are concerned with Peak Oil, ranging from geologists, to bankers and investors, to oil industry officials themselves. Matthew R. Simmons, the head of one of the largest investment banking firms in the world is one of them. “The best we can hope for is a ten-year plateau. This controversy is the single biggest risk for the twenty-first century.” He believes we peaked in 2005 and that decline in production will be above 5 percent per year. “Peak oil is not as complicated a topic as people think it is,” he says. It’s getting people to understand the consequence and magnitude of the Peak Oil problem that’s the challenge.
Even the energy Information Administration, a U.S. government bureau that monitors oil production is seeing the logic of the Peak Oil argument. Other proponents include famed geologist Colin Campbell, Caltech engineering professor David Rutledge, senior energy program adviser to Science Applications International Corporation Robert L. Hirsch, Maryland congressman Roscoe Bartlett, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and more.
Giving a speech to the International Regulators Offshore Safety Conference, Simmons tells the audience that the optimism endorsed by critics of Peak Oil is faith based. He cites questionable reserve reports, the very theoretical availability of Canadian tar sands, and the unproved ability of technology to save the day. He predicts oil demand could exceed 115 million barrels a day by 2020 an amount that’s simply not possible. Simmons himself is a man of oil, having made riches in the industry with is firm L. E. Simmons. It was in 1982 when oil collapsed and his company nearly shut down that Simmons realized something very big was happening. He started to analyze the data himself and came to recognize the reality of Peak Oil.
He went on to write Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy after learning that Saudi oil supply was drastically lower than what had been claimed for years.
But others have a different view, that there is plenty of oil in the ground and we’re merely upon an ‘undulating plateau’ which will leave us plenty of time to create a solution to diminishing resources. Simmons isn’t convinced. Even if the plateau theory is correct, we still only have a few decades to switch over an oil dependent world. With 80 billion barrels used every day, a transition could simply not be implemented fast enough on such a massive scale says Simmons.
While both sides disagree on how and why oil is or will eventually run out, they agree at least that it will run out and something must be done to avoid unimaginable consequences.
One must only think about the implications of a sudden and mass shortage of oil for a few minutes to get an idea of how bad things could be. Our lives are literally entrenched in oil. Without oil to fuel our tractors food production will stop. Without oil to run our trucks and railways, the movement of products will stop. From asphalt and plastic to fabrics and computer chips, virtually every product in our every day lives depends on oil. When there is no oil, how will you get to work? How will you feed your family? How will you have a job at all in an economy that has stopped in its tracks?
These are questions we must each ask ourselves, and will eventually face if the problem is not taken seriously. When the economic crash will occur is not certain, predictions range from a few years, to a few decades. It is vitally important that the world comes together to address this problem and assess the remaining time we have left. With a largely unaware populace, it is important that the people are made to understand what is happening and the implications it will have. The longer we wait, the harder it will hit.
Peak Oil will be the defining event in our history. Left un-addressed it is more than likely that life as we know it will draw to a close, yielding a dark and bleak future. There is not a question as to whether Peak Oil exists or not, only as to when it will happen if it has not already.
Read, watch, and inform yourselves and others.
