A short, quick and dirty update today — actually more a pointer for anyone who cares about carbon-based matter…
Published monthly, the “Peak Oil Report — March 2007” by the bloggers at The Oil Drum is a very good resource and overview over anything peak oil. It has summaries of the current published oil production data as well as predictions by multiple parties. If their assumptions are correct we can kiss oil goodbye, at least as long as our demand for oil is growing exponentially.
What will happen in the next years is up to speculation — but I truly believe we as chemists and/or scientist should all start thinking about any alternative energy sources we can imagine; about energy preservation as well as storage; about alternate sources of carbon for industrial chemicals.
Just do the math: if the oil price will double (What price will be unbearable?) — who will suffer first? Is it worth spending billions on pharmaceutical research if we all die from a lack of oil (no more transportation, no more available food)?
So… what are you waiting for?
You will find a very interesting article about peak oil and wether it will really come and what that could mean in:
Nature Vol 445, 4147, 2007: That’s Oil Folks.
Here’s the link to the article (if you are lucky and have online access to Nature)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7123/full/445014a.html