peak oil

Or more worrying, that after many years of false alarms, the world is truly beginning to run out of oil? That last question is at the center of a fierce debate. Adherents of the “peak oil” theory warn of a permanent oil shortage.

2004 April 4, Daniel Yergin, “Imagining a $7-a-Gallon Future”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Another consequence of reaching "peak oil" is the debate it will surely provoke in the United States over whether we should avert the coming crisis by drilling in pristine lands and waters long considered off limits or by engaging in conservation and development of alternative fuel sources.

2005 September 4, Carrie Abels Brattleboro, “The Breaking Point”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

In this view the 21st-century poison is peak oil theory, the idea that the world has reached its maximum oil production or soon will, and that we are entering a period when escalating energy costs will make the suburban lifestyle untenable.

2005 March 13, Natalie Canavor, “Running on Empty”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

By the time the last guitar duo performed “Here Comes the Sun,” everyone in the room was so keyed up — so ready to turn the impending dark age of peak oil and climate change into a renaissance — that no one heard the slightest menace in the line “Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting.”

2009 April 16, Jon Mooallem, “The End Is Near! (Yay!)”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

What follows from this is that the idea of peak oil has gone up in flames. We do not have too little fossil fuel, we have far too much.

2012 November 12, Damian Carrington, “IEA report reminds us peak oil idea has gone up in flames”, in the Guardian