US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015Surplus oil production capacity could disappear by 2012:
US Joint Forces Command
The Guardian: 'As early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day,' says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.
It adds, 'While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India.'...
The warning is the latest in a series from around the world that has turned peak oil -- the moment when demand exceeds supply -- from a distant threat to a more immediate risk... Future fuel supplies are of acute importance to the US army because it is believed to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world. BP chief executive Tony Hayward said recently that there was little chance of crude from the carbon-heavy Canadian tar sands being banned in America because the US military like to have local supplies rather than rely on the politically unstable Middle East...
There are signs that the US Department of Energy might also be changing its stance on peak oil. In a recent interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Glen Sweetnam, main oil adviser to the Obama administration, admitted that 'a chance exists that we may experience a decline' of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 if the investment was not forthcoming...
The Joint Operating Environment report paints a bleak picture of what can happen on occasions when there is serious economic upheaval. 'One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.'
