And we’re all gonna die!!!
I went to Caltech last night to hear a talk by Ken Deffeyes: “The Peak of World Oil Production: Thanksgiving Day, 2005″. He talked about the late M. King Hubbert and his analysis of oil production curves and such. It sounds dry, but he was a very engaging and entertaining speaker. And his main point is that the coming oil crisis is starting now.
He showed us a copy of a little article from two years ago about how Saudi Arabia has no more spare production capacity. He said, “This is the biggest story since the Industrial Revolution, so why is nobody paying any attention to it?” It used to be that Saudi Arabia was the regulator of the global oil economy. They held the price stable by opening or closing the taps on their wells. But now they have all the taps open all the way just to keep up with demand.
The last part of the talk was about what could be done about this. He thinks that from where we are now, the best thing we can hope for will be a global recession like the Great Depression. There will be oil rationing, although it’s not determined if it will be rationed by price, coupons, or by the inconvenience of having to wait in line for hours to buy it.
On the other hand, I kind of enjoyed riding my bike past long gas lines back in ‘74. And maybe I’ll even have some company when I’m riding my bike to work.
