Challenges in a World of Oil Scarcity  

The unlikely source of CounterPunch (not known for quoting investment bankers) has an article by Matthew Simmons on the possible upside of peak oil. Plus a warning about the lack of contingency plans currently in place.

I happen to think the world can make the transition into what we might call the post-Saudi oil era in some very rational ways that will limit economic disruption. As a perpetual optimist, I believe the world still works beyond Peak Oil. While oil prices in this new world will obviously rise, this rise can be a blessing, not a curse. Far higher oil prices make all other forms of energy more competitive and spur on energy research programs that might discover some real long-term fixes.

Higher oil prices will also trigger a massive influx of money to all oil-exporting nations, even as their reserves and daily outputs shrink. With proper guidance, and based on the grim reality that this great flow of fluids for these oil countries is essentially a "last call" instead of just another boom that will be followed by another bust, oil-producing countries can make the most of the revenues that higher oil prices create.

It is imperative for countries like Saudi Arabia and the Middle East producers in general to wisely invest their pending windfall profits toward creating modern societies that work beyond oil. If such plans are enacted, their unforeseen benefits could turn into a surprising global miracle. The time for using high oil prices for guns, palaces, and Swiss bank accounts is over. This money now needs to be used to create the basis for more abundant life in these countries after Peak Oil.

Do the math to understand how powerful this spending boom could be. OPEC, as a group of countries, now has about 600 million people. By 2025 or 2030, the OPEC population could easily exceed one billion people. If future oil prices were to remain as low for the next 20 years as they have been over the last 10 years, it would almost ensure an ever-increasing gap between vast wealth for the ruling elites in these important countries and increasing poverty for the masses. Such a model is unsustainable. Social chaos, increasingly violent terrorism, and political or military revolutions would ultimately become "normal events" throughout all OPEC countries.

If the process is managed in a rational manner, an era of high oil prices can create the necessary revenue to begin building a genuine middle class in most OPEC nations. This process would, in turn, unleash a buying spree for OECD goods and services. The growth in demand for such goods that this new middle-class OPEC society would want might make even the economic miracle unleashed when the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe appear modest in comparison. It would certainly overwhelm the economic miracle of the 1980s and 1990s when the Asian tigers finally rose to prominence.

A world that learns to live with a dwindling oil supply will also be forced to control the emissions that energy use creates in an entirely different way than anyone envisioned when worries of global warming first began to surface. A continuation of urban sprawl would become an intolerable trend as the transportation that supports it becomes too costly. Fortunately, the world has already created the necessary tools to allow many highly productive people to stay and work at or closer to home. How odd it would be if the Internet became best known as a great tool to help pave the way for a world that uses less oil.

The biggest danger the world faces, if my thesis about Saudi Arabia's oil is correct, is that no one will begin preparing Plan B. As far as I know, there is not a single contingency plan in place or currently being written by any of the think tanks of the world that sets out a model illustrating how the world can continue to function smoothly once it is clear that Saudi Arabian oil has peaked. In a nutshell, it is this total lack of any "alternative scenario thinking" that makes this unavoidable event so alarming.