What energy crisis?

Even I, a sceptic of doomsday predictions regarding declining oil reserves, found myself surprised by the latest reports on projected world reserves. A piece in the UK's Independant reveals just how thick the whool has been pulled over our eyes.

Exxon's Mr Tillerson told the convention in South Africa that his company estimated that global energy demand would increase by 50 per cent over the next 25 years. Mr Tillerson said that by some estimates there was as much as 7 trillion barrels of oil yet to be discovered. On a more conservative basis, the world still had more than 3 trillion barrels from conventional fields, oil sands deposits and other sources. "That is more than twice all the oil recovered up to now in all of human history," Mr Tillerson said.

The conservative projections are we still haven't used half of the world's supply! Does that even remotely square with the hype about unsustainable futures?

Now, before I get misunderstood, I should be perfectly clear that I don't think we should be sitting on our current status quo and ignore the future. I'm thrilled by the way the U.S. has started to lead in hybrid vehicle development--that stuff is great. I think we are sitting on a lot of technology that will prove once again that we are the most flexible economy in the world. I don't see a sudden shortfall and stagnation--that goes against the American way of problem solving.

And we have way more time than anyone thought to develop a better energy dependancy plan.