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Peaking means coming down...
...and dreams don't manifest unless they are dreamt, so let's hope US domination of global power has peaked, eh? First though I'm going to knock out a lay inquiry into whether it already has.


The US is by far the single largest consumer of energy in the world, and 80% of US energy consumption relies on fossil fuels according to their own Department Of Energy report in 2000, petroleum making up by far the largest portion. Apart from the ever increasingly apparent environmental reasons why this isn't sustainable there's also the fact that global oil production is about to begin declining. This is heavy shit. If you divide the remaining global oil reserves by current consumption you find that there's theoretically enough for the next forty years, but the production rate from oil fields decreases as resources deplete. We're not about to run out of oil but production is going to decline as we begin the approach toward exhaustion. As we're about half way if not further through mineable supply right now, Peak Oil, the point at which it is no longer possible to increase oil production, is on us.

Because of our dependence on energy, increasing energy production is equally as vital for the sustenance of the global economy as the principle of growth. Peak Oil means investment collapse (e.g. pensions...) and recession, bigger and nastier than the one during the last oil crisis in 1975. It's by no means purely a US issue, but as they're the biggest consumer by an enormous margin aren't they likely to feel it most, especially on top of their ever-impending fiscal bankruptcy?



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