Oil and the Writing on the Wall

… Think of the global energy picture as an ever-changing kaleidoscope. Take a photograph of that kaleidoscope at any moment and cut it up into complicated pieces to make a jigsaw puzzle. A day or a week later, the puzzle will look very different.

In other words, the global energy crisis is complicated. There is no single magic bullet or cure-all to solve it. Investing scores of billions of dollars in wind, solar, hydro and biomass energy isn’t going to do it either.

Some patented solutions, like corn ethanol, are little more than a scam. Every oil engineer or chemist worth their salt has been warning for years that the energy yield to be extracted from corn ethanol was vastly less than the energy and financial subsidies that went into making it. But no politician in either major American political party wanted to hear.

That leaves the problems of struggling with existing energy supplies as they are in the real world today.

Middle East Times