Not that I am a doom and gloom type, but this is a rather sobering article on the vulnerability of our reliance upon foreign oil as an energy resource:
This year the world is consuming about 84 million barrels of oil a day. America alone guzzles about 20.8 million barrels a day. Experts think oil-producing nations have only 1.5 million barrels a day or less of unused production capacity right now. A disruption anywhere could cause market panic and spiking prices. That’s largely why oil and gasoline prices are so high right now.
Saudi Arabia and other countries are trying to increase production, but that won’t help much before next year at the earliest. Meanwhile, any hiccup in production, delivery or refining could cause disaster.
‘A million or a million and a half barrels of oil a day off the market is a very realistic kind of scenario. You can think of a dozen different countries around the world … where you can see that happening. Or even a natural disaster could do that,’ Gates said in an interview.
Perhaps one of the best articles I have seen on the situation. Read it all when you get a moment.