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Actually, we just might get a reprieve this time, too. But the math is against it.
In the late 70s, technical breakthroughs and better mathematical models helped us get to a number of major sources of oil. There had also been a highly successful world-wide energy conservation effort. The "peak" was pushed back by about two decades. But things are different now; we overlook it because as we continue to exploit any resource, the behind-the-scenes workings go toward making supply as stable as possible.
The most easily observed factor is the decrease in the rate of new oil discoveries. New-discovery rates have followed a sharp, but mathematically predicted, curve for twenty years. For several years there was NO new oil discovered whatsoever. Recent technology has turned up more new oil again, but the amounts are much smaller; the largest and most promising finds are also the most inaccessible. There may still be a bonanza of oil waiting to be found under the Arctic Ocean or on Antarctica, but the price of that oil will be quite high, even with major technological advances.
There is actually quite a bit of oil left. It's the effort required to get to it that is critical. If it costs more to get the oil than people are willing or able to pay ("demand destruction"), that's the crisis.
Any random distribution of resources works this way.
So OPEC and the oil industry are throttling back on refinery activity. They want to maintain a stable market for their product, and they are probably doing us a favor.
The first real crisis may hit when the workers on lowest rung of society's ladder find it economically advantageous to quit their jobs rather than to put as much of their paychecks into their gas tanks. That "point" is actually a mushy zone, so it's not going to announce itself; it will probably be reported in business publications as a "puzzling loss of the Work Ethic™".
But petroleum is not my main concern. It's a big one, to be sure, but there are a number of ways we could get around using oil in such great amounts. The thing that scares me is that our demand for base-load or "primary" energy is increasing with a doubling time of 30-35 years, and we're doing too little to make sure we can sustain our economy, let alone its growth. Petrochemicals are getting expensive; coal is filthy, and even modern scrubbers aren't efficient enough to clean it up for a major expansion; nuclear energy is opposed by the dominant group of environmentalists; wind energy gets extremely high visibility, but its overall contribution is still under half a percent; solar energy is stuck at about one-sixth of a percent and two-thirds of that goes to warm swimming pools. More confusing still, hydroelectric is folded into the "renewable" category; it accounts for nearly ALL "renewable" energy but is becoming much less desirable (for example, the lakes that form behind the dams need to be dredged periodically, an expensive and ecologically destructive procedure).
I am convinced that there is no problem that can't be solved (not merely fixed) by human intelligence and effort. The danger is that we have let too much time slip away from us. We made wisecracks about hippies and granola for the better part of three decades while the laws of physics and nature continued quietly. This is the "Oh, Shit!" era. How we solve it will probably set the pace and the mood for hundreds of years. But failure to solve it will bring on more misery and death than we have ever seen in history.
Sadly, it is getting difficult to sustain much optimism. But we keep trying.
--p!
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