For Simmons, this is no idle question. His main fight these days is to push for increased transparency in the oil industry so that independent analysts can rely on more than guesswork to figure out how much oil we have left. It's a good cause as far as it goes, since the almost complete lack of solid information in the oil patch leads different analysts to wildly diverse conclusions. Peak oil doubters, for example, project a world production peak sometime around mid-century, if ever. They note that production has continued to increase for decades despite warnings of decline ever since the first oil embargo. They point out that estimates of world oil reserves have increased since 1980 despite the fact that we've gulped down more than 500 billion barrels of the stuff during that time. And they argue that higher prices will promote additional exploration and more extensive use of costly technology, while making it profitable to develop otherwise remote deepwater and Arctic oil fields.
But a growing number of analysts view these arguments as Pollyannaish at best and obtuse at worst. Yes, production has risen steadily over the past century, but declining oil fields mean this is unlikely to continue in the future. Claimed reserves have increased, but this is due more to political and statistical finagling than to actual new discoveries. And the slowing rate of big new finds combined with the increasing number of disappointments suggests that we shouldn't count on future mother lodes to bail us out. Saudi Arabia really is our last, best hope. If Simmons is right that Saudi Arabia's oil production has peaked, so has the world's.
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So, why hasn't anyone in either party seriously acknowledged the reality of peak oil? It's not because they don't know about it. George Bush is a former oil man, after all. “He tells me to keep speaking out loudly and honestly about our energy situation,” Simmons informed a reporter who asked what Bush thought of his recent peak oil warnings, but the all too obvious follow-up—does Bush believe he should do anything about it?—was left hanging.Unfortunately, the answer is all too easy to guess. Among Bush and his Republican allies, energy policy is almost entirely focused on one thing: opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. And while acknowledging peak oil might help with that fight, it would also open up a Pandora's box of issues Republicans are desperate to avoid. Conservative orthodoxy on taxes prevents any serious discussion of conservation measures like increased gas taxes, and Republican friendliness to business interests prevents consideration of stronger gas mileage standards for SUVs or federal standards for energy-friendly building codes. Bush and other Republican leaders pay lip service to development of alternative fuels, but serious funding is nowhere to be seen. The energy plan currently on offer from the White House is derided by practically everyone on both right and left as little more than a transparent set of payoffs to Bush administration cronies.
more...
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0506.drum.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3806925Peak Oil is THE issue. Period.
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