The Politics of Energy

My Dearest Moo Moo Cow,

Jim Puplava has published his latest highly rated perspectives series on oil, money & war: Part 2 Eyes Wide Shut: The Politics of Energy

Extremely interesting. Give it a read for he warns of the crisis approaching!

• A Crisis Approaches
  Time is running out and we are drawing closer to our next energy crisis. It is a crisis brought on by the conflict between rising global demand for energy and our growing inability to supply that demand. Despite the ominous signs all around us, our nation’s leaders and experts remain in denial concerning it. We have gone from a Republican to a Democrat-dominated Congress. In the transition nothing has changed. The U.S. has no real energy plan that focuses on domestic energy production of oil or gas, renewables or the expansion of our energy grid. For the past 30 years the United States has been losing control over its energy supply and thereby making its economy ever more vulnerable to external political and economic factors. If our economy is to grow, then we must have access to energy. If we are unwilling to explore, refine or build new sources of energy, then what country can we rely on to supply it?
  
  Our leaders have made several errors in judgment in assuming oil will remain plentiful, no alternatives are worth pursuing, and that somehow OPEC will be able to meet the world’s increasing demand for energy. They ignore the fact that despite hundreds of billions in investment, Saudi Arabia has been unable to increase its production capacity over the last two decades. As Matt Simmons writes in Twilight in the Desert, at some point, large oil prospects will vanish completely and reserves will dwindle. Oil products will become much scarcer and less affordable. When oil supply peaks, the world will be forced to ration its use in one way or another.[17] Competition for oil will escalate.
  
  The question remains whether that competition is orderly and peaceful or strewn with conflict. Securing adequate oil supplies was an important element in all of the major wars of the last century and dominates conflicts in this new century. The United States—and the rest of the world by extension—is facing the biggest energy crisis in history. It is a crisis that we are completely unprepared for and one our leaders or the media are unwilling to acknowledge. From politician to citizen, our eyes remain wide shut.