The Peak Oil Crisis: Have the Troubles Begun?

In recent years, numerous books have been written about life after world oil production peaks. Most depict radical change, as oil-powered transportation, suburban living, and large-scale food production and distribution wither. The truth is nobody really has a good idea about what is going to happen. The world has never been to peak oil before. There are many complicating factors — rates of oil depletion and production, the state of the world’s economy, and the gap between rich and poor nations to name a few. Making a meaningful projection of what life will be like five, ten, or 20 years from now is, as usual, fraught with uncertainties.

The one thing everybody agrees on is that all sorts of “bad” things are bound to happen as we transition from plentiful oil to scarcity. For the sake of a better term, let’s call these bad things “the troubles.”
For each of us the troubles will begin differently. If you had spent the last 30 years building Fords and your factory closed recently, you know just when the troubles began. If you are one of the tens of millions in the underdeveloped world that are already suffering from power outages and planned power cuts (euphemistically termed “load-shedding”), then you too have already experienced the first of the troubles. For most of us in the developed world however, nothing much has happened, as yet, that unambiguously marks the beginning of troubled times.

For the last two years, we have seen gasoline prices spike to over $3 a gallon, but these were caused by transitory events and gasoline soon settled to what has become “acceptable levels.” We are now approaching a national average of $3 a gallon again, only this time it is happening in April with only the normal level price-inflating geopolitical threats out there and the hurricanes, if they come, are still four months away.

This time the problem seems to be more systemic and is based on the fact that we here in America simply can’t quite produce or import enough gasoline to keep up with even late winter, much less summer, demand. For the last couple of months, gasoline stockpiles have been dropping at unprecedented rates. If gasoline stockpile depletion continues much longer, could it be the unmistakable beginning of mass troubles for everyone?

Falls Church News Press