A Small Group of People
World oil consumption has doubled since 1970 and will continue to increase until the stuff runs out. According to one of the Independent's inside pages, a small group of people has met in London to consider when this might happen. The Independent does not wish to start a panic. After all, even though some people believe that oil production is about to peak or has peaked already, there are others who believe it will not happen for a while, and yet others who believe that science, and the free market which doesn't invest in it, will save us all. Geologists fit into the first camp, while the second - who would have thought it? - consists of "economists, political scientists and the oil majors".
Oil, we are told, is "essential to almost everything we do", from 90% of the world's transport to 99% of "our food", whoever "we" may be; and "in many cases, oil is not easily replaceable. There are no realistic alternatives to oil ... without massive investments in technology such as hydrogen", which is, of course, why massive investment does not and will not occur. In a free market, after all, from the seller's point of view there is no such thing as a shortage, or even a famine. There are only increased sales opportunities - ever-higher bids for ever more valuable merchandise. George W Bush and the men who run him are oil men. One of the first places in Iraq to be gloriously liberated was the oil ministry, in case there were weapons of mass destruction in the filing cabinets. Should peak oil really be just around the corner, this particular instance of benign bumbling might just benefit George W Bush and the men who run him in a manner not entirely to do with their inevitable reward in Heaven. Imagine that.
But is peak oil really upon us? One of the "biggest sceptics" at this small conference was a certain Mike Lynch, an "adviser to the US government who runs his own energy and economic research consultancy". The study of peak oil (viz. geology) is, according to Mike Lynch, not a science. "It is true that oil is finite but since 1989 people have repeatedly predicted the peak too soon and have had to keep on increasing their estimate of reserves. Just because a country's output has peaked and gone into decline, it doesn't mean that production can't rise again." So there. Just because a resource is finite doesn't mean it will run out, and pessimistic predictions from the past automatically invalidate those being made at present.
Perhaps because the story of this small conference is tucked away under "business analysis", the Independent is able to admit that "when peak oil does happen, its impact on the world economy - and the consumer lifestyles so many of us take for granted - will be profound". If we're set to lose nine-tenths of our transport and ninety-nine per cent of our food, I should say it will. According to the editor of the Energy Institute's Petroleum Review, in two or three years from now the world will move into "a land without maps where we are all likely to be poorer", except possibly those who control the oil ministries in Baghdad, Tehran and perhaps one or two other places as well.
And finally, "Mr Lynch is one of the few pundits who forecasts that oil prices will begin to ease, but as even he jokes: 'I have predicted nine of the last two price decreases.'" Civilisation may fall, but the Independent lives to advertise another day, and Mr Lynch has a sense of humour. That's all right, then.
Oil, we are told, is "essential to almost everything we do", from 90% of the world's transport to 99% of "our food", whoever "we" may be; and "in many cases, oil is not easily replaceable. There are no realistic alternatives to oil ... without massive investments in technology such as hydrogen", which is, of course, why massive investment does not and will not occur. In a free market, after all, from the seller's point of view there is no such thing as a shortage, or even a famine. There are only increased sales opportunities - ever-higher bids for ever more valuable merchandise. George W Bush and the men who run him are oil men. One of the first places in Iraq to be gloriously liberated was the oil ministry, in case there were weapons of mass destruction in the filing cabinets. Should peak oil really be just around the corner, this particular instance of benign bumbling might just benefit George W Bush and the men who run him in a manner not entirely to do with their inevitable reward in Heaven. Imagine that.
But is peak oil really upon us? One of the "biggest sceptics" at this small conference was a certain Mike Lynch, an "adviser to the US government who runs his own energy and economic research consultancy". The study of peak oil (viz. geology) is, according to Mike Lynch, not a science. "It is true that oil is finite but since 1989 people have repeatedly predicted the peak too soon and have had to keep on increasing their estimate of reserves. Just because a country's output has peaked and gone into decline, it doesn't mean that production can't rise again." So there. Just because a resource is finite doesn't mean it will run out, and pessimistic predictions from the past automatically invalidate those being made at present.
Perhaps because the story of this small conference is tucked away under "business analysis", the Independent is able to admit that "when peak oil does happen, its impact on the world economy - and the consumer lifestyles so many of us take for granted - will be profound". If we're set to lose nine-tenths of our transport and ninety-nine per cent of our food, I should say it will. According to the editor of the Energy Institute's Petroleum Review, in two or three years from now the world will move into "a land without maps where we are all likely to be poorer", except possibly those who control the oil ministries in Baghdad, Tehran and perhaps one or two other places as well.
And finally, "Mr Lynch is one of the few pundits who forecasts that oil prices will begin to ease, but as even he jokes: 'I have predicted nine of the last two price decreases.'" Civilisation may fall, but the Independent lives to advertise another day, and Mr Lynch has a sense of humour. That's all right, then.
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