The Peak Oil theory holds that the world's oil reserves are being depleted and that we will, in the near future, be unable to meet even today's demand for crude oil. The theory has its adherents and deniers. Conservatives are of course among the deniers, presumably since accepting the theory would mean making dislocating changes for big business, big energy, and the American people. But what if Peak Oil is correct? And what if the military thinks it might be correct?
In February the DoD published the Joint Operating Environment report for 2010, in which it analyzes world-wide trends and their implications for our military posture. I encourage you all to read it, rather than reading the comments I offer here.
Link: Joint Operating Environment Report 2010
The report is discussed in an article in The Guardian newspaper
Link: Guardian: Peak Oil
and in Crooks & Liars today, though I didn't notice much about it in the MSM.
The report is extremely interesting from every point of view. It accepts many of the assertions that environmentalists make about the world's inability to sustain growth in the consumption of energy, food, and water. It also discusses the evolution of the military in response to the political dislocations that will accompany the inevitable shortages.
Does this report mean that peak oil theory is correct? Does the military believe that it is correct, or are they concocting a plausible scenario to justify greater military expenditures? Beats me. Certainly the Energy Information Administration in the DoE consistently downplays peak oil fears and offers (to me) nonsensical predictions of vast gains in oil production that will magically appear and result in minimal short-term disolocations. Perhaps the military is just being more hard-headed in its what-if thinking.
Here is the money quote, their summary of energy trends:
"Energy Summary
To generate the energy required worldwide by the 2030s would require us to find an additional 1.4 MBD every year until then.
During the next twenty-five years, coal, oil, and natural gas will remain indispensable to meet energy requirements. The discovery rate for new petroleum and gas fields over the past two decades (with the
possible exception of Brazil) provides little reason for optimism that future efforts will find major new fields.
At present, investment in oil production is only beginning to pick up, with the result that production could reach a prolonged plateau. By 2030, the world will require production of 118 MBD, but energy producers may only be producing 100 MBD unless there are major changes in current investment and drilling capacity.
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.
Energy production and distribution infrastructure must see significant new investment if energy demand is to be satisfied at a cost compatible with economic growth and prosperity. Efficient hybrid, electric, and flex-fuel vehicles will likely dominate light-duty vehicle sales by 2035 and much of the growth in gasoline demand may be met through increases in biofuels production. Renewed interest in nuclear power and green energy sources such as solar power, wind, or geothermal may blunt rising prices for fossil fuels should business interest become actual investment. However, capital costs in some power-generation and distribution sectors are also rising, reflecting global demand for alternative energy sources and hindering their ability to compete effectively with relatively cheap fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will very likely remain the predominant energy source going forward."
If this is true we can only imagine the economic turmoil that we will see before the end of Obama's first term. Certainly it casts a new light on Obama's almost inexplicable reversal on offshore drilling and his support for nuclear energy. It could be true that oil cannot meet the demands of world economic growth, and cannot even meet the current demand for very many more years. To buffer the shock of the resulting crisis we may need to maximize current production while we somehow work on the incomprehensibly complex changes that we must make. I wish us luck with that. If Jimmy Carter proved anything it is that no one can get elected by telling the American people that they need to make sacrifices.
Maybe we will simply take all the remaining oil by force, and damn the consequences another few decades. We are in the midst of our second war for oil right now, and we remain content to pay for both sides of it. We pay for our effort with taxes and for our enemy's effort with oil imports. I think we can predict what the right wing would have us do - more of the same, only more.
We had better get to work.