Energy Geopolitics 2006

[The2ndWheel]

http://www.energybulletin.net/16393.html

News reports flitting across computer screens these days seem increasingly to be related to the subject of energy. But what do they signify? The modern world affairs analyst is in little better position to discern the patterns and portents than was his or her ancient Roman counterpart, the reader of entrails. What is one to make of items like these?

While the specific meanings of—and connections between—these occurrences are often difficult to discern, their overall drift is becoming plainer with every passing day: The world is plunging into an energy crisis unlike any before, while geopolitical alliances are shifting quickly and to a degree not seen since the end of the Soviet era, and perhaps not since the end of World War II.

Global oil production is peaking—for all practical purposes, now. In the past weeks, the New York Times, Bill Clinton, and the executive vice president of Ford Motor Company (among many others) have stated that world oil flow is at peak. We have even seen one of the major oil companies (Chevron) place ads in multiple magazines and newspapers in order—gently, perhaps, but insistently and conspicuously—to break the news to the American people that the era of cheap oil, and cheap energy in general, is finished, over, done, dead, and gone. And that era just happens to be the only one that Americans alive today have ever known.