Oil Be Saying Goodbye Soon

Here's an excerpt from an essay by Dr. Elias Akleh, in which he reviews and predicts the global effect of declining oil reserves:

...While the crisis of oil depletion is descending upon us, global oil corporations and their crony politicians are trying to brush the facts aside in a purposeful denial and assure the people that there are plenty of oil reserves to last for long time. By denying the existence of oil crisis they are hoping to postpone the inevitable rush of other nations to acquire as much oil as possible so that they, themselves, would have more time to acquire and to control as much oil resources as possible. The competition had become so severe that led to regional wars. No body has any doubt that American invasion of Afghanistan and of Iraq was for oil. Afghanistan is located in the path of oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian region to India, China, and Japan. Iraq has the second largest oil reserve after Saudi Arabia. It is swimming in a sea of oil, and its fields have not yet peaked. The potential of discovering more oil fields in Iraq is very promising. Iraq’s oil would supply enough gas to the American military machinery in its conquest of Southeast Asian region. Iran’s potential of boosting its oil output by another 3 million bpd has made it another target for American hegemony. United States had built military bases encircling Iran. The American administration is building nine new military bases in the Afghan provinces of Helmand, Herat, Mimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. The US is spending about $80 million to upgrade its bases at Bagram and Kandahar with new runways. It had paid off Uzbek government to build air bases in Manas and in Qarshi Hanabad. US have also made agreements with Tajikistan, Kazakhistan and Turkmenistan to use their airfields for military operations ostensibly to fight “Islamic terrorists”. Pakistan has allowed American forces to use its commercial airport at Jacobabad and to use bases at Dalbandin and Pasni. With the American battleships in the Persian Gulf Iran’s encirclement becomes complete. The aggregate of these American military bases are setup in a location that allows the US to control the energy-rich regions of the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia. They are also located centrally to the three growing powers in the area, namely China, India, and Russia. In its greed for oil the American administration had tried twice unsuccessfully to topple the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Venezuela is the largest Latin American oil producer, and supplies the US with over 15% of its oil, making it the fourth largest supplier after Saudi Arabia, Canada and Mexico. Venezuela complained that its contracts with American refineries are profitable only to the American economy while Venezuela gets only the crumbs. Chavez announced that he wants to re-write the contracts to earn higher fees for Venezuela. He also wanted to contract with other oil clients and had struck deals with China and Spain, and made special deals with some neighboring countries especially with Cuba, where he bartered oil for education and medical services without the use of the petrodollar system. After American failure to topple his regime, Chavez built political and economical relationships with Russia, China, India, and Iran in an attempt to protect Venezuela’s vulnerable oil. He is hoping that the BRIC alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) will oppose any possible American invasion of his country. He also threatened to cut off oil supply to the US if the American administration attempts another coup...

This is a glass-half-empty view of today's geo-petrol world. All these gloom-and-doom prophets never take into account the possibility (nay, probability) of technological breakthroughs that will alleviate our dependence on oil. Problem is, the military-industrial-petroleum complex "owns" the world right now and it would not be in its best interests, financially, to support research leading to the replacement of oil as our chief energy source.