A significant segment of the green movement have decided to stick a fork in the scary climate scenarios and return to other arguments, either the precautionary principle, or the “clean is good” argument, or the old standby Peak Oil. Peak Oil never really went away, it just looked sillier and sillier as time went on and the singularity event never happened.
Now, we have the Al-Guardian, the environmental extremist mouthpiece of the UK, with this weird article on how somehow the US DoD is somehow concerned that Peak Oil is somehow going to somehow happen in 2015, but they don’t really give much in the way of details.
The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.
So that’s clear to everyone? The “US military” “has warned”. And yet there’s no mention of this in the US MSM.
The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.
“By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,” says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.
10 MBPD is the output of Saudi Arabia. That’s pretty huge. And yet nothing in the rest of the media. Something’s smelling very fishy.
It adds: “While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.”
Well, no shiite.
The US military says its views cannot be taken as US government policy but admits they are meant to provide the Joint Forces with “an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concept to guide out future force developments.”
Some of our ex-military are invited to chime in, but this sounds to me like a scenario planning document rather than an actual forecast.
The warning is the latest in a series from around the world that has turned peak oil – the moment when demand exceeds supply – from a distant threat to a more immediate risk.
The Wicks Review on UK energy policy published last summer effectively dismissed fears but Lord Hunt, the British energy minister, met concerned industrialists two weeks ago in a sign that it is rapidly changing its mind on the seriousness of the issue.
Hmm. The Warmatarians need a new hook to hang their hats on, and so suddenly Peak Oil is respectable again.
Future fuel supplies are of acute importance to the US army because it is believed to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world. BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, said recently that there was little chance of crude from the carbon-heavy Canadian tar sands being banned in America because the US military like to have local supplies rather than rely on the politically unstable Middle East.
WTF is the significance of “biggest single user of petrol in the world”? They get what they need, the rest of us get what’s left over. What kind of moron is writing this stuff?
But there are signs that the US Department of Energy might also be changing its stance on peak oil. In a recent interview with French newspaper, Le Monde, Glen Sweetnam, main oil adviser to the Obama administration, admitted that “a chance exists that we may experience a decline” of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 if the investment was not forthcoming.
More WTF. What “investments”? Can anyone follow this article?
The Joint Operating Environment report paints a bleak picture of what can happen on occasions when there is serious economic upheaval. “One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest,” it points out.
And your point is___?
I don’t know what to make of this, but it appears like the DoD is doing scenario planning, and came up with a scenario for planning purposes, and the greenies grabbed it and ran with it, and are waving it around to show why Peak Oil is here NOW!!! OMGPONIES11TY!!!!!!!
IOW, another day.
