Matt Simmons – Energy policy: U.S. needs to show world the way

If I were preparing a briefing for the president-elect on urgent energy actions needed in the administration’s first 30 days, it would read as follows:

● Be prepared for peak oil and gas. While the data is still imperfect, there is a high risk that global use of oil and gas is now at or beyond a sustainable level. While demand for both key fossil fuels still rages ahead, new supplies are struggling to grow fast enough to offset rising production declines from old (and very old) oil and gas basins.


For two decades, the number of exploration discoveries has declined and the size of the average new discovery also shrank. For the sake of the global economy, the United States needs to assume the leading role in guiding the world’s key oil consuming nations to a rapid change in the intensity of how we now use oil and gas.

It is impossible to predict any precise timing of when peak supply will be reached, nor the duration this peak output will stay at an “undulating plateau” before then going into what could be a steep decline. Hence, the world’s leaders need to assume we have no more than three to five years to make a transition to a post-peak oil and gas world.

Houston Chronicle