The Arizona Daily Star talks about peak oil.
This year or 30 years from now, or sometime in between, the world will have used up half its known oil supply and, depending on whom you believe, one of two things will happen:
- Finding and extracting oil will get tougher and production won’t meet rising demand. Higher energy costs will spur exploration, innovation, invention and conservation. We’ll find enough oil to tide us over to a soft landing in a world of new energy technology, or…
- The world as we know it will come to an end.
“Peak Oil” is simple economics applied to oil production. When oil production maxes out and begins to decline because new sources of oil are harder to find, oil demand will outstrip supply which will cause oil prices to skyrocket. Considering how the world economy takes cheap oil for granted, it’s easy to see that peak oil could be a very major problem.
So what are we going to do about it?