2008 Woodie Awards
US Addiction to Oil Continues
Steve Hausmann
Issue date: 3/7/06 Section: News
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Look closer.
What you are seeing, in literally EVERYTHING, is oil. Whether it is in the production and transportation of goods and food or in the creation of energy itself, oil is the lifeblood of 21st century society.
This is true globally, but especially in America where we are the number one importer of oil in the world. Unfortunately, that blood is running thin.
America's oil production peaked in the late 1970's and has been decreasing ever since. Many experts forecast world oil production to meet its apex within the next five to ten years, some even claiming this inevitability to occur as soon as 2008.
President Bush, in his latest State of the Union address, brought up the topic of America's endless need for cheap petroleum, calling for the nation to "break this addiction through technology." Is it too late?
Thursday night brought author and expert on the quickly approaching oil crisis, Richard Heinberg, to the Ira Allen Chapel for a lecture on the subject. Explaining the complex idea of Peak Oil in easy-to-understand terms is no small feat, but Heinberg was able to put these concepts into a perspective that a novice could easily grasp.
Addressed in his lecture were the supposedly vast reserves of oil remaining in the
Middle East. The truth, Heinberg explained, is that most reserve estimates given by OPEC are greatly overstated.
For example, Iraq's stated reserves increased threefold in a single year with no decrease for years after despite continued drilling and oil production--an obvious impossibility.
We don't truly know how much oil is out there. What is for certain is that demand is increasing exponentially as world population explodes, while no new major oil fields have been discovered since the 1980s.
Most current petrol production, as Heinberg explained, comes from older super-fields, which will only last a finite amount of time.
With oil discoveries all but ceasing, production in decline and demand on the rise, something has to give. Heinberg suggested it might be society, as we know it. "We may be at a point of civilizational collapse," Heinberg sadly commented, and not without warrant.
Without cheap fuel to transport food cross-country, cities such as Phoenix and
Las Vegas will be cut off from agriculture entirely, as climates in such regions are not conducive to crop growth. Power outages will be increasingly common and "oil wars," which Heinberg claims have already begun, will become constant.