Book Review - The Age of Oil

I’ve recently read The Age of Oil – The Mythology, History, and Future of the World’s Most Controversial Resource by Leonardo Maugeri. The author is a Vice President of Eni, the sixth-largest publicly listed oil company in the world (according to the book jacket). The book is very well written and researched, and offers some interesting insights from an insider’s perspective.

Here are my takeaways from the book:
The world is not running out of oil any time soon. Reserves keep growing over time. Especially compelling is how little drilling has been done in the Middle East, especially compared to the United States.
Oil is subject to the laws of supply and demand, and if oil prices get high, the oil producers start producing more. This eventually leads to over-production and a lessening of demand, which ultimately produces a glut of oil. Prices come down, demand increases, and the whole cycle starts over again.
Mr. Maugeri has one fatal logic flaw in his book, and that is his belief that there is no near-term solution to depending upon oil for transportation. This is where plug-in hybrids and EVs could throw a serious monkey wrench into a lot of oil executives' plans.

There’s a lot more, but these are the most relevant points for this discussion. Personally, I believe that it is irrelevant whether the world is running out of oil. The fact is that the United States has plenty of energy capacity to supply our transportation needs. The problem is how we transition our energy supply mix and vehicle mix to rely on our domestic energy supply. That’s for another post, though.