When the lights go out

In The Last Oil Shock, David Strahan argues that we ignore the warnings at our peril. Modern industrial societies, he says, are dependent on oil, but over the past 50 years it has become evident that all the big fields have been discovered. Oil companies are busily exploring inhospitable parts of the globe and using the most up-to-date technologies to extract more crude from existing fields, but sooner or later we are going to have accept the inevitable: supply will be unable to keep up with demand.

guardian