tion of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which accounts for almost
a third of the current global oil supply. Up until that time, the
United States was the world’s leading oil producer, and the nation’s industrial
growth owes much to that locally produced oil and the subsequent
consistently cheap supplies from the Middle East.
In recent years, the oil peak debate has got even louder. But what is
important now is that perception is slowly changing among some of the
industry’s leading experts. Those who still refuse to accept the view that
oil production will start declining at some point are locked in a time warp
and there’s nothing you can do about them. These optimists have marshaled
all sorts of arguments.
The bottom line, however, is that serious people are getting concerned,
and even some people at the U.S. Department of Energy are
paying attention. Dr. Herman Franssen, a former chief economist at the
Department of Energy, has reportedly said that the “concept [of peak oil]
is realistic and most people would agree, but we disagree on the timing.”5
On that one, most geologists say oil will peak in five to ten years, but
most economists give it about 30 years or more.
They both seem to be missing something. I think that the peak could
come in about 15 years from now. I say this not because I have worked
out the intricate mathematical formula the way Hubbert did, but because
as an independent writer I have had time to scrutinize much of the information
available on oil production and projections and the theories advanced
by various oil peak experts. I’m neither a geologist nor an
industry economist, but I have covered the industry for many years and
talked to those who should know.
One of the many tricks I learned in this business is that whenever
there’s an agreement on an issue, the truth always lies in the middle. In
this case, economists are downplaying the problem, while geologists are
overplaying it. It doesn’t mean they are wrong, but literally nobody
knows until it shall come to pass, and that’s the tragedy. There are so
many assumptions built into every argument for or against the oil peak,
in part because both camps represent certain specific interests.
It is essential to understand how important oil is to our way of life. We
know that oil provides gasoline that powers our automobile engines, but
it’s also true that our lives today are dependent on oil for other things as
well. About 90 percent of the organic chemicals we use are made from
petroleum; think of pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals, and plastics—
they all are byproducts of oil.
INTRODUCTION 7