Peak Oil Concerns Sail Safely Beneath the Radar
The Pencil Warrior
By Dave Wheelock
for Mountain Mail
SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- When it takes a small university journalism project to uncover what is arguably the most critical challenge ever faced by industrial society you have Denial, with a capital “D.” Even as our civilization approaches the end of its lifeblood, precious few of us realize it.
Each year, a small army of Sonoma State University (California) students, faculty, and community members sift though hundreds of stories submitted by journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens. The result is Project Censored‘s annual publication exposing the 25 most significant stories that have been “overlooked, under-reported, or self-censored by the country’s major national news media.”
The issue in question - peak oil - is not new, having been proposed as a theory in 1956 by Shell Oil geoscientist M. King Hubbert. Simply put, peak oil describes the point when the maximum amount of oil will be - or according to some theorists, already has been - pumped out of the earth, at which time a permanent decline in production will begin. The consequences for industrial societies, built and dependent upon an inexpensive and reliable stream of energy and materiel derived from oil are staggering to contemplate.
In 2005 Project Censored featured a startling report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy that went missing in mainstream media. The report, formally titled “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management,” was headed by esteemed energy expert Robert L. Hirsch, Senior Energy Program Advisor at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
The report’s Executive Summary begins: “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist . . . but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.” The need for a “crash program rate of implementation” is stressed in the report, at a cost of “literally trillions of dollars.” Ominously it is noted “the world has never faced a problem like this . . . the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary.”
The Hirsch Report does not wade into the debate amongst scientists and petroleum industry figures over when peak production might occur, but the range of forecasts from optimists and pessimists alike is highlighted, projecting a peak date anywhere from 2005 to 2037.
Although Hubbert shocked industry insiders when his 1950s prediction that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s proved correct, a cadre of deniers has consistently challenged the concept of global peak oil. But Hubbert and Hirsch have not been the only voices raising the alarm.
In March 2004 the U.S. Department of Energy acknowledged “world oil reserves are being depleted three times as fast as they are being discovered . . . The disparity between increasing production and declining reserves can have only one outcome: a practical supply limit will be reached and future supply to meet conventional oil demand will not be available.” According to a September 2005 report released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “The doubling of oil prices from 2003-2005 is not an anomaly, but a picture of the future. Oil production is approaching its peak . . .” In November 2005 Dr. James Schlesinger, the first ever Secretary of Energy under Jimmy Carter, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “In the decades ahead . . . we shall reach a point, a plateau or peak, beyond which we shall be unable further to increase production of conventional oil worldwide. We need to understand that problem now and to begin to prepare for that transition.“ Vice provost of the California Institute of Technology David Goodstein has said, “The crisis will occur, and it will be painful. The best we can realistically hope for is that when it happens, it will . . . not so badly undermine our strength that we are unable to take the giant steps that are needed.”
Meanwhile Americans remain blissfully ignorant of this impending crisis, utterly uninformed by mainstream media or elected officials. Is there a fear that widespread knowledge will disrupt an economy dependent on an unsustainable rate of consumption? The presidential candidates go on debating and pontificating on seemingly everything EXCEPT peak oil. Could they be as ignorant as they seem, or are they influenced by market ideologues intent on squeezing out the last huge profits promised by sky-high prices?
Whatever the explanation, we may look back to this time of real emergency with regret, even anger. As the clock ticks on peak oil, a period of opportunity is rapidly becoming a time of tragedy.
Dave Wheelock, a member of the Oneida Nation, lives and works in Socorro. Contact him at davewheelock@yahoo.com. His views are not necessarily those of the Mountain Mail.
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