it's not a sudden stop, like your car running out of gas...
source: Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, 2004
a beginner's guide to the oil crisis, plus points of departure for further research
Perhaps you have heard the phrase "peak oil" before- or perhaps not. Either way, you'll be hearing it thrown about a lot before too long, because once the realization of peak oil hits, it's going to change the way we live. Why? How? This article will give you an overview of the issue. It's not a comprehensive guide, but it's a starting place for your own research.
In 1970, oil production in the U.S. peaked. What this means is that production was at its highest; after that peak, the amount we were able to extract started to fall. Today, the U.S. extracts about one-third the amount of oil that we did in 1970.
it's not a sudden stop, like your car running out of gas...
source: Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, 2004
Because we pump the easy-to-reach, high-grade "sweet" and "light" oil first, the oil that remains is increasingly hard to get to. Then, there comes a point where it's not even worth reaching, because the amount of energy that oil companies have to expend to drill for it is greater than the energy contained in the oil they're striving for. In slightly more technical terms, the "ERoEI", or Energy Return on Energy Invested, is below 1:1. This is why oil reserves don't suddenly run out- they gradually decline, as the ERoEI decreases. After the peak, oil is more expensive to produce, and what you can extract is of lesser quality.
Globally, oil production is set to peak soon-in fact, it may have done so already. That means that all the oil we're producing right now is the most we'll ever produce. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas predicts a peak in 2005; Matthew Simmons, an energy advisor for Bush, also predicts 2005; a French government report gives us until 2013; and for a variety of reasons (the unreliability of oil companies in reporting their reserves, the secrecy that shrouds government and OPEC figures) it is difficult to know for sure just when the peak will be. But sooner or later, oil production will decline, while demand for oil continues to rise. In order to understand what this gap between supply and demand means for society, and for you and your family, there are a few things we should understand about oil and its role in our economy.
Click here to download a printable pdf of the article (legal size-paper, double-sided, folds like a brochure)
resources for further learning
basics
international news
authors
Richard Heinberg is a professor of sustainable studies in California. His book, The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrialized Societies, came out in 2003.
Michael Ruppert is the author of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Ruppert's newsletter, available online at From the Wilderness, is "about the publication of documented truth and the letting go of fear through education."
All these authors can be found on the film The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, which is highly recommended.
You might have noticed that many of these links are "pessimistic" or "alarmist." I'm really not trying to be one-sided about this issue; it's just that I haven't found the other side. Even Chevron, at www.willyoujoinus.com, is issuing a wake-up call. If you have an intelligent counter-argument to any of the aforementioned articles, please tell me, and I'll post it.
