If rising petroleum demand meets falling supply before new energy sources are ready, government officials say, a world that runs on oil could face cataclysmic consequences ranging from recessions to famine and even war.
Published: 04-Apr-2005
WASHINGTON – Within a couple of hours last week, crude oil prices hit a record $56 a barrel, President Bush fretted publicly over world oil shortages and the Senate voted to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to drilling.
The converging events drew attention to what administration officials call a temporary global energy crunch. But bigger worries also are bubbling to the surface – fears of a day of reckoning over world oil reserves.
Even as China and India are joining the grab for oil, most experts agree that world production will peak sometime in the next several decades – more likely in the next couple of years, a gaggle of outspoken academics say.
Visits to China, India, Malaysia and Pakistan are significant because the trip spells out the Saudi Kingdom's Look East policy, representing a new reorientation in its foreign policy that was heavily tilted toward the West.
Bush said he envisioned a future in which a plug-in hybrid car could drive 40 miles on a lithium-ion battery, then stop at a filling station for ethanol, a fuel usually made from corn, similar to HyMotion Prius pictured below.