One other growing ecological limit to capitalism is, paradoxically, fear that the main source of carbon gases at the moment, petroleum, may be running out. The notion of "peak oil" has been taken increasingly seriously-that the point may be at hand at which oil production cannot rise any further to meet growing demand.
The issue first came into prominence back in 1998, after an article appeared in the Scientific American which predicted oil production would peak within ten years. Since then there have been rebuttals and counter-rebuttals, with various economists and geologists presenting very different scenarios for what is happening to oil reserves and potential output. 23 The arguments have to a considerable extent reflected the impact of different interests. The giant oil firms tend to exaggerate the extent of the long-term supplies, since their share prices depend on these. Their figures then come under question from those worried about the long-term future of the energy needs of nationally based capitalisms as well as from muck-raking critics of the system as a whole. And there are considerable difficulties in coming to any exact conclusion as to the real picture because the big oil producing states conceal the real extent of their reserves as they bargain with each other within OPEC and with the oil companies. As one critical report points out:
One of the big questions still waiting for an answer is the state of the oil production in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Most likely, this issue will decide the timing of world peak oil. . . because of the secrecy surrounding the oil production in the KSA.24
But it is possible to draw two firm conclusions from the debate. First, peak oil is likely within the next quarter century, and may be reached within years rather than decades, forcing reliance on other energy supplies. The International Energy Agency, the OECD's energy organisation, long resistant to the peak oil argument, now accepts that there will be "an imminent 'oil crunch' in a few years time" .25 The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy concluded in July 2000 that "world conventional oil production may increase two decades or more before it begins to decline". But John Bellamy Foster points out, "The analysis itself, however . . . suggested that a world oil peak could be reached as early as 202 1 ".26
Peak oil
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The Runaway System