Peak Oil from a Security Studies Perspective
Peak Oil has grown up from on obscure theory of some weirdos (or so it was understood) into a mainstream theory - most disagreement is about the exact point in time of peak oil but not on the fact itself.
The Strategic Institute of the German Bundeswehr has now published a document on the implications of peak oil for security (more precisely: the study was leaked). The study is very well written and recommended as an essential read not only for geostrategist but especially for those involved in global sustainability questions. In fact, at least in wording the authors care about such diverse issues as environmental impact of unconventional oils and the impact of global-marked-induced land-use change on indigenous populations. It is worthwhile to have a closer look on some of their results:
While resource conflicts have existed before, peak oil poses a systemic risk for global economies as oil is required for a multitude of energy-related processes and for chemical purposes (e.g. as fertilizer).
Scarcity of oil is coupled with a concentration of remaining resources, notable in the Middle East.
Aggressive oil resource policy used to be expensive in terms of exploration and political costs (e.g. China in Africa). However, with rising oil prices, the ratio will change and benefit China. With concentrated resources, geopolitical leverage of oil-rich regions increases; this will be reflected in UN institutions.
Scarce resources are most efficienctly distributed via market mechanisms. However, morald hazard of national actors (trying to get preferred access to resources via bilateral agreements, and perhaps secret arrangments) may induce a straight forward prisoner’s dilemma.
It is speculated that unconventional resources in environmentally-conscious nations are used as a strategic reservoir only (I don’t see this is agreement with current exploitation of oil tar sands in Alberta).
Oil-dependend agriculture (both in terms of production processes and associated transportation of intermediate goods and products) means increasing food prices, impacting poor city populations globally, and - jointly with increased demand on “bio”-fuels - increased pressure on land use.
In fact, a sustained global food prices could be the most harmful outcome of peak oil.
Increasing oil prices induces (beside increasing food prices) higher coal prices, and higher demand on further electrification. The latter requires other resources (such as copper, lithium, etc.), possibly inducing further “peaks”.
Finally, there is a risk of reaching a “tipping point” via peak oil, i.e. higher food and transport prices induce the crash of industries (such as the car industry), flashing out a global recession with banking crisis and whatever you don’t want to think about.
The report has more to say on LNG and other crucial issues. As a bottomline, however, the report repeatedly calls for proactive countermeasures, notably a reduction of oil consumption and more efforts into renewable energy (infrastructures). A conclusion founded in a security-centered analysis, and surprisingly in broad scope in accordance with both climate change and sustainability concerns.
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