June 22, 2005
Focus: Peak Oil
With oil prices approaching $60.00 a barrel, it's no surprise that the publishing world has seen a number of high-profile books hitting the shelves that deal with the issue of "peak oil." Many of these are available (or on order) at either the University of Winnipeg Library or the Institute of Urban Studies.
Linda McQuaig's It's the Crude, Dude approaches the issue in terms of geopolitics -- particularly the power of the oil lobby -- climate change and the real reasons for the war in Iraq.
Paul Roberts, in The End of Oil takes a global look at the economics of energy and warns that if we fail to seek alternatives to oil, violence and chaos are certain.
Another dimension to this impending crisis is a shortfall in natural gas, which is widely used for heating, electricity generation and the production of fertilizers. Julian Darley's High Noon for Natural Gas discusses these and other factors, highlighting the environmental, political, and economic consequences of the end of cheap natural gas.
James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency (on order for U of W and IUS) picks up on the notion of this perilous future and explores in frightening detail what the post-oil world might look like.
For a quick introduction to some of his thoughts on what this will mean for our society -- particularly our cities -- check out The End of Suburbia, a DVD in which Kunstler is a featured speaker.
Another figure prominently featured in this DVD is Matthew Simmons, whose new book Twilight in the Desert is being described as a "bombshell" in that he's saying the oil reserves the Saudis have for so long reported -- and on which all projections are based -- are flawed. As Michael T. Klare (author of Blood and Oil) writes:
"But now, from an unexpected source, comes a devastating challenge to this powerful dogma: In a newly-released book, investment banker Matthew R. Simmons convincingly demonstrates that, far from being capable of increasing its output, Saudi Arabia is about to face the exhaustion of its giant fields and, in the relatively near future, will probably experience a sharp decline in output. "There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption," he writes in Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. "Saudi Arabian production," he adds, italicizing his claims to drive home his point, "is at or very near its peak sustainable volume . . . and it is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future."
In addition, there is little chance that Saudi Arabia will ever discover new fields that can take up the slack from those now in decline. "Saudi Arabia's exploration efforts over the last three decades were more intense than most observers have assumed," Simmons asserts. "The results of these efforts were modest at best."
If Simmons is right about Saudi Arabian oil production -- and the official dogma is wrong -- we can kiss the era of abundant petroleum goodbye forever. This is so for a simple reason: Saudi Arabia is the world's leading oil producer, and there is no other major supplier (or combination of suppliers) capable of making up for the loss in Saudi production if its output falters. This means that if the Saudi Arabia mantra proves deceptive, we will find ourselves in an entirely new world -- the "twilight age" of petroleum, as Simmons puts it. It will not be a happy place."
