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Wired has taken notice of peak oil, so hopefully the word will start to spread and more and more people will realize we have a massive problem on our hands.
I’ve talked about peak oil before, but to recap it is the notion that at some point, the maximum amount of oil the world has to offer versus our consumption of it, will peak. Supply compared to demand was at its highest level last year, and never again will it be as high. From here on out, it’s a downward journey until there is no oil left. This is in part due to an increase in demand for oil throughout the world. As countries like China and India with massive populations continue to grow and add more cars to their streets, the demand for oil steadily increases. However, oil is a non-renewable resource so once we have exhausted all of it in the world, game over. So real supply is always decreasing (even though available supply may increase at times due to more refineries or pumps — this is temporary).
So you might at first think the road down to oil exhaustion will take a while, since it was practically a century climbing to the top of the hill. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Demand is ever-increasing, which means we will use the supplies up faster and faster. Also, intermittent outages will occur as supplies begin to fail. These shortages will mirror the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970′s. These crises will not just be a couple weeks of long lines, but will have a massive impact on the world economy. A few such crises and countries being cut off altogether will be catastrophic.
Every last thing we have in the west is based on oil. Farming. Plastics. Clothing. The blagoblag. Power production. Solar panels. Wind turbines. Nothing we have could be made without oil as it stands right now. When supplies begin to fail, we’ll see widespread repurcussions. It won’t be pretty.
