Balancing On Oil’s Peak

As the realities of dwindling oil supplies become clear, we must find a way to reduce our dependence on Middle East despots and destructive oil extraction.

Syriana, a film depicting the seedy world of global oil politics, opened Friday in theaters nationwide. It is Hollywood fare — at times a bit oversimplified — but comes at an important time. Americans today are questioning our nation’s energy security as never before. Most understand that without rapid and radical changes, our continued dependence on fossil fuels will undermine our national security, do grave and irreversible harm to the environment, and generate new and higher costs to be paid by working Americans. Yet reducing our dependence on oil is also increasingly understood as a geological imperative.
A House energy subcommittee on Tuesday held its first hearing on the “peaking” of oil production, a reference to “a term used in oil geology to define the critical point at which reservoirs Time, National Geographic, Washington Monthly, and Rolling Stone — have also examined the issue. Though many questions about peak oil theory remain, it is clear that the costs of inaction are high, and that the status quo is not sustainable.

The end of oil?

No, we’re not literally running out of oil — about a trillion barrels remain beneath the earth. “Rather, the theory of peak oil derives from a simpler but less widely understood question: How fast can the stuff be pumped out of the ground?” In other words, the concern is with “capacity” — “the amount of oil that can be pumped to the surface on a daily basis.” Currently, the world consumes about 84 million barrels per day (bpd). “If the world’s oil suppliers can continue to increase this production rate as demand grows, the global economy is in good shape. If they can’t, we’re in trouble no matter how many barrels of crude oil are lying under the ground.”

AlterNet