A PEEK AT OIL

The following short piece by Byron King, who writes occasionally for Whiskey & Gunpowder, serves as an excellent introductory primer to the much-ballyhoo'd -- and deservedly so -- concept of "Peak Oil." No matter what lunatic conspiracy formulae you may associate with "Peak Oil," the simple fact remains that oil isn't squeezed into the earth's mantle (or is it the moho? the crust?) by an Omnipotent Wizard of Energy, sitting on a polluted cloud, feeding humanity the fossil fuels it so bady needs. No, oil's finite, we've used it like mad, and it's gonna run out some day.

One brief point before I turn this over to Byron: oil's not running out tomorrow, or the day after that. Probably not even next Thursday. But, and this is the key, as oil supplies begin to dwindle, in a world that sees ever-growing demand, we'll slowly approach the end of the world of "Cheap Oil." And then, when the product that drives our cultural engines, as well as those of the internal combustion variety, begins to run out . . . well that, my friends, is the rub.

Anyhow, enough of me. The article is here.