There has been some discussion over the past few years on the matter of the future of oil production and whether we’re already past the peak.
It always sounded like a bunch of propaganda to me, and by my reading of the new article “Peak Oil Panic” by Ronald Bailey in Reason my guess was about right.
The problem is not a lack of oil, but government intervention in the market which poses the threat – of course:
“The good news is that the peak oil doomsters are probably wrong that world oil production is about to decline forever. Most analysts believe that world petroleum supplies will meet projected demand at reasonable prices for at least another generation. The bad news is that much of the world’s oil reserves are in the custody of unstable and sometimes hostile regimes. But the oil producing nations would be the ultimate losers if they provoked an “oil crisis,” since that would spur industrialized countries to cut back on imports and develop alternative energy technologies…
“The problem is that the vast majority of the world’s remaining oil reserves are not possessed by private enterprises. Seventy-seven percent of known reserves belong to government-owned companies. That means oil will be produced with all the efficiency associated with central planning. Michael Economides estimates, for example, that it will take $4 billion in investment to keep Venezuela’s oil production at current levels. Yet that country’s Castro-wannabe president, Hugo Chavez, is investing just half that.”
The Republicans – supposed champions of open markets – have decided that markets don’t work, and that only empire can provide Americans with the energy they need. Bailey describes a Heritage Foundation panel discussion called “The Coming Energy Wars: A 21st Century Time Bomb?”
“Ilan Berman, vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council, regretted that ‘energy is not viewed through a national security prism. We should be competing to lock up supplies and diversifying and exploring new technologies.’ Berman argued that as resources become scarcer there is no way to avoid a zero-sum game. ‘We have to approach this through the lens of the haves and have-nots,’ he declared.”
It ought to be amazing what socialists the so-called “conservatives” in this country are.
By leading the states of the world into an unnecessary war over resources when capitalism can do the job just fine, the politicians can only end up jeopardizing what they pretend to secure.
I’m sure this one will generate a lot of mail, so post it at Stress.