Iraqi oil and peak oil: our true ‘flawed intelligence’

Down in mythical Mosquito County, the Sunshine Reporter emerged from retirement long enough to talk with freshman journalists over at the community college about a subject close to his heart: how the media’s failure to understand energy has helped to keep us all stupid about the big changes that are coming down.

Their conversation speaks to a few of the energy basics most Americans still refuse to understand.


…Q: That’s not a very pretty picture.

A: Grow up. We are all unindicted co-conspirators. The real secret that Cheney and the oil companies know, but dare not tell us, is that we are at or nearing the long foreseen “peak of global petroleum production.” (Ask Tony Blair. Britain’s North Sea oil production peaked in 1999. In five years, the U.K. went from an oil exporter to an oil importer. Mexico, our third-largest oil supplier, peaked four years ago. This year, it’s cutting our imports by 11 percent. Russia and Iran are also “at peak,” as is Saudi Arabia’s largest oil field: Ghawar. And, oh yes, China hit peak in 1993; the U.S. hit it in 1970.) Yet world petroleum demand continues to rise. Why do you think Cheney continued filling our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, even at yesterday’s inflated oil prices? It was smart. Look at today’s prices. Oil prices must continue rising. Speculators may be driving the oil price spikes. But the world’s thirst for oil is in a growing demand against a depleting supply. “Peak” is merely the beginning of a steep and bumpy road down that supply curve. We cannot make any intelligent decisions about our future until we face this.

The truth is that the American lifestyle is on the table. No matter whom we elect president, the economic picture does not get prettier in the coming decade. Our auto-centric lifestyle is in for painful adjustment. Why? Because, the entire sprawl-mall and suburban-commute infrastructure that we have built since the end of World War II is based on cheap petroleum. We must face some hard truths about ourselves and the world we are heading into.

Tallahassee Democrat