By C. Paul Davis The sooner the key world oil players (oil companies, consultants, economists, advisors, and my barber) come to an agreement on the world’s oil energy supply the better. This includes Pro-Peak Oil advocates and Con-Peak Oil advocates. Today we have confusion where we need clarity. Today we have disagreement where we need agreement. Today we lack an honest energy plan where we need a “real” plan we can agree on that will work. Oil energy has only been with us for a short 150 years and it still creates over 40% of the world’s total energy. In fact 70% of this oil energy is used to produce gasoline or various distillates to meet today’s transportation needs. Without enough oil (meaning enough oil supply to meet today’s world oil demand) everything could come to a screeching halt figuratively and literally. The world won’t run out of oil any time soon, but if oil supply can no longer meet demand prices will quickly rise rapidly and people will no longer to be able to afford to buy gasoline for their cars, if they live in Calfiornia, or buy oil to produce electricity, if they live in Senegal, Africa. For all intents “cheap oil” is gone forever. Also, if we don’t have enough oil to make gasoline for our cars or fuel for our planes, trains, buses and truck where are we going to find the oil we need to produce over 300,000 consumer products we use and need every day of our lives? I want to believe so much that “unconventional oil” will make up the short fall in oil supply, but based on what I know it can’t do it today because of costs, pollution (land, air, and lakes), a lack of land, destruction of the environment, and excessive need for water. Also, the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) challenge must be addressed and solved. Today, it isn’t possible. Even though over the past six years I have come to accept Peak Oil as a reality based on my own study, research, and due diligence that the world no longer can produce enough affordable oil to meet demand. At the same time I like to be wrong – dead wrong – because consequences are too dire, if Peak Oil is for real. It is time for all of the major oil producing countries (particularly OPEC countries) to provide accurate and documented evidence regarding the size of their oil reserves and the physical status of their oil fields. This information is available for sure, if we really wanted to know how bad the oil situation really is or how good the situation is. The nice thing about telling the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you said. The time for truth has arrived or we as a country, as well as the world are going to blindly go down the energy road not knowing what lies ahead. It is an accepted fact that it will take at least two decades to implement any major change in moving from an oil energy world to alternative forms of energy, including unconventional sources of energy. Will the use of electric technology really replace the internal combustion engine? We will have to wait another 20 years to know the answer to that question. If the Obama Administration would make finding a solution to oil energy a high priority, I know we can invent or find some viable answers to the current energy crisis the world faces today. As I write these words I fully realize that there are some well known and respected people in the energy world who will state emphatically that we don’t have an oil energy problem and we have enough oil for at least the rest of this Century and all we have to do is drill for it in places where the politicians won’t allow oil companies to drill today – offshore in Gulf of Mexico and off our Eastern and Western coast lines. . Whether the debate is global warming or peak oil, I always ask one question of the people who say the world doesn’t have a problem in either area – “What happens if you are wrong?” The cost of oil is in the near future is going to exceed the $147 oil we experienced in July 2008 that contributed greatly to the global financial meld down. Also, $5.00 per gallon gasoline or higher will soon be the norm. The demand for oil will continue to grow and the supply of oil will continue to shrink. Oil companies know it and governments know it, but they won’t admit it. This is a good definition of Peak Oil. The IEA states the Peak Oil actually arrived in 2008, but people in influential places still won’t admit it. Only when Peak Oil is finally accepted will some positive mitigating things start to might happen. I hope we aren’t too late. C. Paul Davis, Senior Vice President, Titan Oil Recovery Inc.