Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World, by Michael C. Rupert

It was former Shell geoscientist M. King Hubbert (1903-1989) who launched his theory of Peak Oil in 1956, at a meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, Texas. He predicted that oil production in the United States would peak by the early seventies, then inexorably decline. He was proven right. Since then, a number of other energy industry insiders have added to their name to the Peak Oil argument. In 2005, energy investment banker Matthew Simons published the controversial Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which argued that Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves were close to peaking.

One of the most interesting aspects of the peak oil theory is that its strongest proponents are from the industry itself. Generally, it’s agreed that half of the world’s oil endowment of two trillion barrels has been used. At the current rate of extraction, the world has enough oil to last about 35 years.

On the other hand, if you’re a cornucopian, you’ll believe that technology is just waiting in the wings with the answer. That, or there are massive new reserves just about to be found. Yet even the most optimistic energy analysts, such as Canadian author Peter Tertzakian, suggest that the only way forward is a massive conservation effort, helped by advances in technology.

Where does this leave the world and its economy? Basically falling off a cliff, and perhaps sooner than we think. We are now at a stage that every new spurt of global economic activity creates a demand that raises the price of oil. Yet once oil prices increase, demand falls back, causing what experts in the peak oil movement call a corrugated peak.

Michael C. Ruppert is a journalist who has studied energy and economics, and his short 2009 book Confronting Collapse is his contribution to the debate. It’s written in an urgent, opinionated, and I hate to say, arrogant manner. Ruppert spends a lot of time noting the accuracy of his previous predictions, and even takes time to compare himself to famous historical figures. The ramshackle nature of Confronting Collapse, and its hubris, works against it. For those who have read a lot about peak oil, you may feel you have ‘been there, done that’ with this book. For novices wanting to explore peak oil, there are plenty substantial books available. Here is my recommended list:

• The Long Emergency, by Howard James Kunstler (2005)
  
• Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil, by Peter Maass (2009)
  
• The Party’s Over, by Richard Heinberg (2003)
  
• The Last Oil Shock: A Survivial Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man, by David Strahan (2007)
  
• Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller, by Jeff Rubin (2009)
  
• The End of Energy Obesity, by Peter Tertzakian (2009)
  

Confronting Collapse has its interesting aspects. The sections that deal with how money is tied to the amount of cheap oil the world has at its fingertips is instructive. But over all this book is too angry without being inspired, too self-congratulatory without enough new insights.

Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World, by Michael C. Ruppert. Published by Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN: 978-1603582643