The World's Oil Crisis

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Most socially aware Americans have heard about something called the “oil crisis.” Many people understand the basic idea, but what most people don’t realize is that the oil crisis is an unstoppable global phenomenon that will permanently change the way we live. Most importantly, people do not know that, by many accounts, this “crisis” will occur sometime in the next three to five years. There is not much question among experts that the oil crisis will occur, but there is plenty of speculation about when it will occur and what it will be like. Our society is deeply dependent on oil to function. Almost every consumer good in America requires some form of petroleum somewhere in its production (Savinar 15). Oil also powers nearly all of our transportation industry. The factors determining the severity of the oil crisis are complex in the extreme, so making predictions about it is likewise very difficult. Because predictions are so speculative and the consequences are so important, there are widely differing opinions about when and how the crisis will occur. One important element of the crisis is the concept of “Peak Oil.” According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil&Gas or ASPO, a multi-national network of scientists, affiliated with European institutions and universities, Peak Oil is the date at which global oil production will reach its greatest ever rate and begin to decrease. (ASPO). While some people believe that Peak Oil will bring a disastrous energy crisis, I would argue that Peak Oil will stimulate rapid advances in energy technology that will soften the transition from oil to alternative energy.

People have used oil since ancient times as a medicine and as a building material. However, oil did ...

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Savinar, Matt. Life After the Oil Crash. 4/2/06 http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Schneider, Greg, “The Electric-Car Slide.” The Car and its Future. Ed. Kaitlen Jay Exum. H. W. Wilson Company 2004. 159-163

Silliman, Stephen E. Engineering class lecture. Oct. 2005

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United States. US Dept. of Energy. “U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” Energy Office of Communications. December 19, 2005. April 10, 2006 http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/reserves/index.html

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