Crossing the Energy Divide: Moving from Fossil Fuel Dependence to a Clean-Energy Future

9. The Water-Energy Connection

“Peak oil” has been a subject of welling concern—articulated in books ranging from academic to alarmist; in peak-oil blogs; in tense unpublicized meetings of oil company engineers and executives; and in damage-control advertising by oil companies aimed at reassuring us that there’s still an “ocean of oil” to be found—at slightly higher prices. Technically, peak oil will be an epochal moment. In reality, it probably won’t be recognized until after it has passed. What we need to be most concerned about is the years after that recognition. With human population expected to continue rising until midcentury, and the peaking of global oil production expected several decades before that, the gap between supply and demand ...