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German Military Braces For Peak Oil
myrdos2 writes "A study by a German military think tank leaked to the Internet warns of the potential for a dire global economic crisis in as little as 15 years as a result of a peak and an irreversible decline in world oil supplies. The study states that there is 'some probability that peak oil will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later. ... In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse.' The report closely matches one from the US military earlier this year, which stated that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact."
Nobody (except maybe the usual few paranoids, and perhaps the usual tabloid corporate mass media that loves them) said in the 1970s that oil would run out by the 1990s. What was said, by Kingman, who said in the 1950s that American oil would peak in the early 1970s and was right, was that global oil would peak in the 1990s. Peak does not mean end - it means the opposite, the maximum production. But Kingman's research showed in both cases that the peak would be followed immediately by a dropoff as steep and as short as was the ramp-up leading to the peak. However, demand continues to increase, so the shortfall grows even more rapidly, and immediately after the peak (once any relatively small surplus is consumed).
What Kingman's research did not have was the self-reflexive consequences of his research on the supply and demand curves. When America's oil peaked in the early 1970s, the resulting oil crunch not only changed the supply and demand curves that Kingman couldn't account for because the crunch and response data had never existed before. It also changed the appreciation of Kingman's research, and of his prediction that the global peak was coming. So that the world prepared in many ways for the next predicted peak, the global one. By the time the 1990s came, the effects were around: some peaking in large Saudi fields helped create the shortage pricing that we've never left since then. And the peak was delayed. But not for very long. Mainly what happened was that estimates of reserves were exaggerated (lies), in large amounts.
So we are indeed in the global peak oil period now, and in some ways have been since the 1990s.
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make install -not war
Petroleum is really convenient in terms of an energy source, but we have a whole lot of others. That means, when push comes to shove, we can find other ways of doing things. Thus we aren't likely to face a real wide shortage. Nuclear is a good example. There is lots and lots of power to be had from nuclear sources. No it isn't a 1:1 replacement for oil but that's ok, we can deal with that.
Some of it is economic. The more expensive oil gets, the more alternatives are attractive. You may notice that there's been a big upswing in biofuel research and such things. This isn't coincidence or just green funding. It is the fact that the more oil costs, the more attractive an alternative is. Some of it is also just not listening to the crazies. Nuclear is a bad word in America and the green types lobby heavily against it. Well if it is that or no power, people will stop listening in a hurry and demand more plants be built. Some of it is just technological progress. We are getting better and better at alternative energy, energy storage and so on.
Also please remember that this won't be a wall, as in suddenly we can't turn the lights on one morning. It'll be a gradual thing, an increase in prices as supplies dwindle and/or harder to reach deposits are tapped. That means that there is also time for replacements, and incentive for those, as prices rise. Gradual change is something economies cope with relatively well. It is sudden change that is the real problem. So if oil production has peaked and things start sliding down, that isn't likely to be a big issue unless for some unknown reason it is abrupt and production just grinds to a halt.
One thing you may notice is that humans are pretty good at solving problems. They aren't so good at mitigating problems, looking ahead and making sure they never happen, but when a problem does happen they are pretty good and solving that problems. Thus it seems pretty likely that this sort of thing will get solved too. Supply starts going down, prices go up, alternatives are more profitable, etc, etc.