Some say that Peak oil is already here, others say that it will be some considerable time before we hit peak oil. What you believe is up to you, but when you read the following statement in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, one of the most reputable sources of information on the planet, you do step back and think that things may never be the same again on our little planet:
Petroleum extraction
"On a time scale within the span of prospective human history, the utilization of oil as a major source of energy will be a transitory affair of about 100 years. Nonetheless, it will have been an affair of profound importance to world industrialization." [1].
100 years? That essentially means that the recent surge in oil prices could well be, as around half of the commentaries in the media have observed, due to dwindling supplies and increasing demand for oil. If this is the case, and bear in mind that a great many of our essential products are made from oil, then we have got a serious problem in that we need the black stuff to make many of the products that are also essential for space colonization. Even if peak oil is not here just yet, it is obvious that it will arrive some time relatively soon, which means that if we are going to get the human race established in space, we have to do it now, before the oil becomes too scarce.
Of course, the other half of the commentaries in the media state that we may (with increasing technological capability) have enough oil to last a little longer than 100 years, but what then? Put simply, at some point during this generation or the next, relatively cheap oil will have been replaced with completely unaffordable oil, and we will have lost our best chance to use that energy resource for resource exploitation and human evolution in space. We cannot allow that to happen. We must engage as many people as possible in the space colonization project, the reasons for which are obvious: the wealth of natural resources just in our solar system would mean almost limitless energy for the human race for a length of time that could be measured in millions of years; and the likelihood of the human race being wiped out by natural or man-made disasters would be dramatically reduced because we would no longer have all our eggs in one basket.
Bookmark this website and come back regularly to get the latest on how we, and you, can help the human race to colonize space before we run out of cheap energy. Don't forget, if you have something to contribute to the issue of space colonization then you can share it with everyone by writing your own articles on this website.
- ↑ Petroleum. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 1, 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD