It’s usually a sign that a subject has reached its sell-by-date when RTE’s current affairs department, as agile as a supertanker executing a U-turn, manages to consider it. In this case, it’s “peak oil” that is the subject of “Future Shock: End of the Oil Age,” presented by the station’s resident scold-in-chief, George Lee. As with the previous Future Shock programme on the prospects of a property crash, it seems that the aim of this speculative piece is to scare the bejesus out of the cobblelock classes. From the show’s web page:
George Lee examines how close we are to the end of the oil age and how dramatically life may change in Ireland as the wells begin, finally, to dry up.
The Celtic Tiger thrived on a diet of cheap fuel. Indeed, the whole of Ireland’s trading economy, from our labour supply to our civic structures, from our ever-expanding suburbs to our lifestyle and leisure patterns, are all based on cheap fuel and maximum mobility. Without this steady supply of cheap oil, many of the presumptions behind our very standard of living itself may require rapid re-evaluation.
After the oil crash, even Ireland’s geographical position as an Atlantic island could become a defining, and isolating, factor in Ireland’s future.
It will interesting to see the room given to those who question the “peak” theory. As someone who’s spent (too much) time wondering about the potentially disastrous effects of M. King Hubbert‘s predication coming to pass (I’ve even read James Howard Kunstler’s hysterical The Long Emergency, alas), I’m increasingly dubious about the prospects of an imminent peaking–and all the upheaval associated with such an event. For example, one of the more articulate skeptics of the peak oil bandwagon, Michael Lynch, inconviently points out:
“Consider that over the past 100 years the U.S. has drilled 3.5 million wells into most of its oil basins yet still produces 5 million barrels a day. In the Middle East only 50,000 wells have been drilled into far more prolific basins…”
However, I still think urban SUV drivers should be served ASBOs…