The Age of Resource Wars, and Those Who Want Them

Truthout points to an article by Michael T. Clare nested in excellent commentary by Tom Englehardt:

The Chevron ad began: "It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30. Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over..."

I rubbed my eyes and read on:

"What we all do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and beyond. Demand is soaring like never before. As populations grow and economies take off, millions in the developing world are enjoying the benefits of a lifestyle that requires increasing amounts of energy. In fact, some say that in 20 years the world will consume 40% more oil than it does today. At the same time, many of the world's oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically and even politically. When growing demand meets tighter supplies, the result is more competition for the same resources.

"We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. Or we can commit to working together, and start by asking the tough questions: How do we meet the energy needs of the developing world and those of industrialized nations? What role will renewables and alternative energies play? What is the best way to protect our environment? How do we accelerate our conservation efforts?..."

I rubbed my eyes again. Most of this ad, part of a new campaign by an oil major, might easily have been taken more or less word for word from any of the pieces Michael Klare -- author of the indispensable Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum -- has been writing for Tomdispatch over these many months. When Klare writes such passages and they prove accurate somewhere down the line, they can perhaps be called "prescient." When the Chevron ad people do the same, what you have is something like a confession reflecting a seismic shift in mainstream consciousness -- and we have to take our seismic shifts where we find them. After all this time, it seems that "peak oil" may suddenly be on some part of Big Oil's agenda, which tells you something about the cul-de-sac into which we've blithely managed to drive our SUVs.

Just to add a little footnote of my own: During last year's fierce hurricane season, after catching endless TV and newspaper coverage of the destruction, and finding hardly a passing mention of the possibility of a link between the weather of that moment (commonly referred to as "bizarre" or "strange") and global warming, I wondered aloud whether our media (like our President) wasn't living in something of a bubble world ( Xtreme weather meets Xtreme media bubble ). Numerous journalists promptly wrote in angrily to suggest that I was off the wall; that, scientifically speaking, such a linkage was not even worthy of being raised in a respectable newspaper.

This year, with the first hurricanes arriving earlier, fiercer, and in record numbers, and hurricane prediction numbers for the rest of the season soaring, the TV news finds itself more regularly switching from scenes of destruction in the south to unnaturally melting vistas in the north, and its reporters regularly wondering on air about global warming tie-ins. And when, in a study which first appeared in the British science magazine Nature, Kerry Emanuel, an MIT ocean climatologist, suggested that the rise in hurricane intensity might indeed be linked to global warming, the news was not relegated to science journals, anxious insurance company publications, or on-line environmental websites. It could be found in USA Today ("Hurricanes have grown fiercer in recent decades, spurred by global warming, and even tougher storms are likely on the way, a researcher predicts...") and a wide range of other major publications. This too represents at least a modestly seismic shift worth noting...

Tom goes on to reproduce Klare's article, parts of which are posted here:

...The concept of a "twilight" of petroleum derives from what is known about the global supply and demand equation. Energy experts have long acknowledged that the global production of oil will someday reach a moment of maximum (or "peak") daily output, followed by an increasingly sharp drop in supply. But while the basic concept of peak oil has gained substantial worldwide acceptance, there is still much confusion about its actual character. Many people who express familiarity with the concept tend to view peak oil as a sharp pinnacle, with global output rising to the summit one month and dropping sharply the next; and looking back from a hundred years hence, things might actually appear this way. But for those of us embedded in this moment of time, peak oil will be experienced as something more like a rocky plateau -- an extended period of time, perhaps several decades in length, during which global oil production will remain at or near current levels but will fail to achieve the elevated output deemed necessary to satisfy future world demand. The result will be perennially high prices, intense international competition for available supplies, and periodic shortages caused by political and social unrest in the producing countries...

This new era will not begin with a single, clearly defined incident, but rather with a series of events suggesting the transition from a period of relative abundance to a time of persistent scarcity. These events will take both economic and political form: on the one hand, rising energy prices and contracting supplies; on the other, more diplomatic crises and military assertiveness...

"We've entered a new era of oil prices," said energy expert Daniel Yergin in an April interview with Time Magazine. If markets remain as tight as they are at present, "you'll see a lot more volatility, and you could see prices spike up as high as $65 to $80."

Analysts at Goldman Sachs are even more pessimistic, suggesting that oil could reach as high as $105 a barrel in the near future...

...On July 8, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman told reporters from the Christian Science Monitor that the era of cheap and abundant petroleum may now be over. "For the first time in my lifetime," he declared, major oil suppliers like Saudi Arabia "are right at their ragged edge" in their ability to satisfy rising world demand for energy...

...Eventually, of course, global oil production will not merely be stagnant, as during the Twilight Era, but will begin a gradual, irreversible decline, leading to the end of the Petroleum Age altogether. Just how difficult and dangerous the Twilight Era proves to be, and just how quickly it will come to an end, will depend on one key factor: How quickly we move to reduce our reliance on petroleum as a major source of our energy and begin the transition to alternative fuels. This transition cannot be avoided. It will come whether we are prepared for it or not. The only way we can avert its most painful features is by moving swiftly to lay the foundations for a post-petroleum economy.

It's worthwhile reading the whole thing.

On another front, there are those having a Big Time surfing the downside of the oil supply curve:

President Bush might not have turned up personally in Riyadh yesterday but he certainly sent a high-powered delegation to pay his respects to the new leader of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah.

The American turnout, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, former President George H. W. Bush, and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, was the latest signal that relations between the two countries have thawed since the strains of 9/11...

The warmer relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States were on display last April, when Crown Prince Abdullah - who succeeded his half brother, Fahd, on Monday as king - visited President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex. As a sign of public diplomacy, and personal bonds, they kissed on the cheek and held hands.

Yesterday represented a kind of reunion for the Americans who led the first gulf war in 1991. The United States delegation met with King Abdullah at the monarch's farm near Riyadh. In any event, the group remained in the country less than four hours.

"As the world's largest producer and as the world's largest consumer, our two countries have a special relationship," Samuel W. Bodman, the secretary of energy, said earlier this year after meeting in Washington with his Saudi counterpart, Ali al-Naimi. "We are, at least in certain respects, partners."

Even the contentious issue of high oil prices has been smoothly swept under the rug. Over the last two years, crude oil prices have more than doubled, and closed yesterday at a record $62.31, up 1.5 percent on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The administration has acknowledged that Saudi Arabia has been doing all it can to step up production, and the current spike was fed by higher demand, not curbs from suppliers.

"The Saudis aren't feeling any pressure from the high prices," said Thomas W. Lippman, a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. "People are waving money at them for something they are going to produce anyway. So why not take it?"

An Ownership Society, indeed.

And now that we've done the dirty work and eliminated Saudi Arabia's main competitor in Iraq- not to mention a nation full of godless seculars- I'm sure King Abdullah, Poppy, and Big Time Dick had some strategery to go over while Junior's sipping whiskey sours in Crawford.

Who to take out next? The godless Syrians, or the Shiite competitors to the Wahhabis for the Mantle of Islamic Righteousness? We all know what Big Time wants: whoever has the most oil to plunder, and that would be Iran.