Peak Oil Futures: Same Crisis, Different Responses
Peak oil theory predicts that global oil production will soon start a terminal decline. Most proponents of the theory imply that no adequate alternate resource and technology will be available to replace oil as the backbone resource of industrial society.
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Abstract Peak oil theory predicts that global oil production will soon start a terminal decline. Most proponents of the theory imply that no adequate alternate resource and technology will be available to replace oil as the backbone resource of industrial society. To understand what may happen if the proponents of peak oil theory are right, I analyze the historical experience of countries that have gone through a comparable experience. Japan (1918–1945), North Korea (1990s) and Cuba (1990s) have all been facing severe oil supply disruptions in the order of 20% or more. Despite the unique features of each case, it is possible to derive clues on how different parts of the world would react to a global energy crunch. The historical record suggests at least three possible peak oil trajectories: predatory militarism, totalitarian retrenchment, and socioeconomic adaptation.
1 Introduction The Stone Age came to an end not for a shortage of stones. The Coal Age came to an end not for a shortage of coal. But, contra former Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Yamani, the Oil Age may come to an end for a shortage of oil. This is what the proponents of ‘‘peak oil theory’’ suggest. Peak oil theory predicts that oil This is a carefully revised version of my 2010 article ‘Global energy crunch: how different parts of the world would react to a peak oil scenario’, Energy Policy 38 (8): 4562–4569. Thanks to Elsevier for permission to reprint. J. Friedrichs (&) Department of International Development, University of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, UK e-mail: [email protected]
O. Inderwildi and Sir David King (eds.), Energy, Transport, & the Environment, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4471-2717-8_4, Springer-Verlag London 2012
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production will soon start a terminal decline. Most authors imply, further, that no adequate alternate resource and technology will be available to replace oil as the backbone resource of industrial society.1 To be sure, the demise of oil has been predicted many times over. Oil shortages were predicted in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Peak oil theory was first introduced in 1956 by oil geologist Marion King Hubbert. During the oil crisis of 1973, US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Akins declared that ‘‘This time the wolf is here’’ [1]. Similar cries were heard in the second oil crisis of 1979. Although the history of oil is the chronicle of a death foretold, oil is a finite resource. It is bound to first become scarce and then run out. The extrapolation of unfettered growth into the indefinite future is therefore misleading, and a peak of global oil production is only a matter of time. Peak oil theorists proffer serious arguments why, despite many false alarms in the past, Cassandra will turn out to be right this time. In this chapter I am not going to repeat their arguments. I am not personally committed to peak oil, and I will be more than happy if Cassandra is proven wrong this one more time. However, given the momentous importance of oil for our industrial wa
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