The Collapse

James Howard Kunstler gets his Peak Oil wish

The World

Peak Oil is the only force that I can ever imagine producing the sort of “systemic collapse” that White Nationalists envision. An economic downturn is clearly insufficient.

Now it is time to see if Peak Oil lives up to all the hype. Forget about debating the merits of the theory. It is time to ride the roller coaster and see what happens.

The IEA recently admitted that world production of conventional oil hit its all time high in 2006. As recently as 2008, the IEA was saying that global conventional oil production wouldn’t peak for decades, and that the intervening period would give the world time to adapt with a “soft landing” into alternative energy sources.

The debate over “Peak Oil” has largely consisted over whether it would happen sooner or later and whether there would be a “hard landing” or a “soft landing.” If these figures hold up, it looks “sooner” and “hard landing” won the argument.

The International Energy Agency has released its World Energy Outlook for 2010, forecasting for the first time that the global crude oil production peak that so many have long feared, has in fact already been reached-more than four years ago. International demand has since fallen slightly thanks to a recent global economic downturn, but once economies around the world have recovered, the IEA says daily crude production alone will no longer be sufficient to meet their needs. . . .

I’m not going to get my hopes up yet. My attitude is “wait and see.” We should know within the next five years if the doomers have gotten the better of the optimists.

Note: The inability of the Obama administration to stop the Gulf Oil Spill or revive the American economy with trillions of dollars in government spending has me cautiously optimistic. Global aging in Europe and Japan is another factor “out there” that could conceivably make matters worse.