Twilight in the Desert: an interview on peak oil with Matthew Simmons

Barrons, the weekly magazine for investors published by Dow Jones (publisher of the Wall Street Journal), is a pillar of the American business elite. So when Barrons runs a lengthy article on the “twilight for oil,” take it as a strong signal that the issue has parked itself squarely in the mindset of the global investor class.

This particular article is at best tangentially about how to make yet more money from the continuing energy crisis. Rather, it’s well worth a close read because it presents the views of oil analyst Matthew Simmons, one of the most respected exponents of the thesis that we face a catastrophe of immense proportions unless we start taking our collective energy predicament seriously.

What do you say to those who say this is about the umpteenth time we’ve heard we’re running out of oil?

Most of those now most vocal that peak oil is a silly issue or decades away are the same folks who were equally as dismissive of the naysayers who warned the U.S. natural-gas supply was in decline three-to-five years ago. They were contemptuous of a handful of us pessimists that were warning in 1999 through 2002 that we had a massive natural-gas crisis on our hands because we built almost 30% of our generation capacity for electricity and all growth from here on out on gas-powered power plants thinking we had an abundant amount of natural gas. Natural gas has peaked and we are in decline. Recently there was a pretty frightening article in The Wall Street Journal that the energy leadership of New England realizes if we have a really cold winter we could have electricity blackouts this winter. That’s dangerous. If we have an electricity blackout of any intensity in the winter, we’ll then have an enormous rush to rent power generators and we’ll drain the diesel pool and have diesel shortages. It will begin the great American nightmare.

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