Peak oil ads: No easy answers

Everybody needs to understand peak oil. Chevron started a campain called “Will you join us”:

Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oli is over. What we do next will determine how well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and beyond. So we incite you to join us for a series of discussions on some very important issues.

Financial Times reports Saudi officials saying that within the next 10 or 15 years OPEC will not be able to compensate rising demands anymore. Many people don’t have the slightest idea what that means.

Matt Savinar has provided a useful metaphor to explain what having less than demanded means:

… the ramifications of Peak Oil for our civilization are similar to the ramifications of dehydration for the human body. The human body is 70 percent water. The body of a 200 pound man thus holds 140 pounds of water. Because water is so crucial to everything the human body does, the man doesn’t need to lose all 140 pounds of water weight before collapsing due to dehydration. A loss of as little as 10-15 pounds of water may be enough to kill him.
In a similar sense, an oil-based economy such as ours doesn’t need to deplete its entire reserve of oil before it begins to collapse. A shortfall between demand and supply as little as 10-15 percent is enough to wholly shatter an oil-dependent economy and reduce its citizenry to poverty.

Here is a audio presentation (MP3) of Matt Savinar at globalpublicmedia.com.

Also:

Matthew Simmons is a reputated speaker on peak oil issues who provides a number of superb PDF presentations on the issue as well.