Tim Miles

Does the World Have a Peak Oil Problem?

Michael Lynch is entitled to his opinion. However, what he does not say is that all the oil he believes is available to the United States and the world (even if his estimates are correct) is more difficult and more expensive to extract despite improvements in technology. The other problems include: 1) the process of recovering oil from tar sands requires a lot of energy; and 2) many of the nations we rely on for our oil imports are not the greatest friends of the United States or are politically unstable. Those facts together with what Ryan notes about the oil consumption trends of emerging nations and the effect of oil-based economies on the environment don't exactly present us with a rosy scenario. One can debate the issue of whether or not we have reached the peak in global production ad nauseum. That really ignores the point that the United States needs to chart a different energy course now if it wants to protect national security and have greater economic stability in the future.