The purpose of the 'War On Terror' and all of it's subsidiaries are related to Peak Oil as follows:
- By maintaining a constant state of tension, high petroleum prices can be explained away as a temporary spike due to politics. This way, the publics attention can kept from the accelerating supply problems worldwide, thus preventing them from starting to make other arrangements for a post-carbon world (they can't have the addicts kicking too soon).
- Whoever controls the remaining (cheap) petroleum reserves stands to make a fortune in the years immediately following the peak of production. Even the most optimistic scenarios indicate it would take twenty years to mitigate the loss of petroleum production following peak. During this period of transition, the 'addicts' will have no choice but to pay, and pay, and pay.
Cheney as much acknowledged that peak will occur in the latter part of this decade at a speech in 1999 when he was still an 'official' oilman. Yet the reich-wing media and echo chamber spouts the party line that additional supplies will come on line. All one has to do is read about the wildly exaggerated EIA estimates to know that the facts are being covered up.
The peaking of worldwide conventional (high EROEI) petroleum is real, and will probably occur within the next few years. During the initial 10 yrs.+ following peak oil, petroleum will still be readily available. But with demand chronically outstripping supply, prices will go through the roof, and the profits for those selling the oil will be massive.
And if this bunch did not believe Peak Oil is looming, why are they throwing money at highly risky resources such as Russia (nationalization), Deep-Water and Artic (mother nature, limits of technology, limited net energy).
Consider the following statement:
From the standpoint of the oil industry obviously - and I'll talk a little later on about gas - for over a hundred years we as an industry have had to deal with the pesky problem that once you find oil and pump it out of the ground you've got to turn around and find more or go out of business. Producing oil is obviously a self-depleting activity. Every year you've got to find and develop reserves equal to your output just to stand still, just to stay even. This is as true for companies as well in the broader economic sense it is for the world. A new merged company like Exxon-Mobil will have to secure over a billion and a half barrels of new oil equivalent reserves every year just to replace existing production. It's like making one hundred per cent interest; discovering another major field of some five hundred million barrels equivalent every four months or finding two Hibernias a year. For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously in control of about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world often greet oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.- Cheney At London Institute of Petroleum, 1999
Puts a whole new spin on the Cheney 'Energy' task force, doesn't it.
Following is an article that sums up the peak oil/WOT link. I do not necessarily agree with all of the points, but I feel it provides a decent big picture view.
Energy Depletion And The US Descent Into Fascism
http://www.mountainsentinel.com/#energyfascism