Relating to this post: One good argument for using public policy to aggressively push alternative fuels and regulate environmental quality is that affordable oil is running out. There is, of course, much dispute over when Hubbert’s peak will be reached, or whether it already has been. Some even believe that new technologies will continue to enable us to extract oil from more and more obscure places, ensuring steady supply.
Unlikely.
Four good posts to read on oil: Joel Makower says Hubbert’s peak is here, drawing on a letter from an anonymous oil company employee on EnergyBulletin. Then, there’s Kevin Drum, who points out that of course demand is about to exceed supply — we’ve known that’s coming for years — and points back to this post of his from last year, which gets into the details.
I leave you with this cheery thought from anonymous oil guy:
It is not a question of “if” peak oil has occurred – it has! The better question might be “when are the crows coming home to roost?” When will we begin to actually experience the shortages and the rising prices? I think we might make a decade, if everybody plays nice across the world. But when has that ever happened when something got scarce?
