The nation has been put "unnecessarily at risk," according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.
The reason: failure of federal agencies to have a "coordinated or well-defined strategy either to reduce uncertainty about the timing of a peak [in oil production] or to mitigate its consequences.".....
In the absence of alternative fuels, peak oil poses enormous consequences for our way of life, which is heavily dependent on petroleum to move people and goods.....
Former oil men George W. Bush and Dick Cheney cannot be among those in the dark on this, though they clearly have chosen not to make it an issue for reasons we may not find out until they publish their memoirs. By then, they may have a lot of explaining to do.
Everyone in the industry knows that the United States cannot drill itself to energy independence. There simply is not enough oil left in the ground.
U.S. domestic oil production peaked in 1970. Not even the subsequent pumping of oil from the large North Slope fields of Alaska was sufficient to bring U.S. production back to where it had been.
Production in most oil producers outside the Middle East also has peaked, including Norway, Great Britain, Mexico and Indonesia......
Major oil-producer Kuwait recently dramatically revised downward its remaining oil reserves.
For a variety of reasons, alternative fuels may not be sufficiently available to make up for any drop in petroleum. That's particularly true, the GAO report notes, if peak oil occurs in the next decade or so.
Alternative fuels currently provide only the equivalent of 1 percent of petroleum consumption in the U.S. and are projected to displace only 4 percent of petroleum by 2015. That's why the push for conservation and pumped up investment in alternative energy is so urgent. A transition away from oil can't be accomplished overnight...
