This book examines the ways that oil economics will impact the rapidly changing global economy, and the oil industry itself, over the coming decades. The predictions of peak oil were both right and wrong. Oil production has been constrained in relation to demand for the past decade, with a resulting four-fold increase in the oil price slowing the entire global economy. High oil prices have encouraged a small increase in oil production, and mostly from the short-lived “fracking revolution,” but enough to be able to claim that “peak oil” was a false prophecy. The high oil price has also engendered massive exploration investments, but remaining hydrocarbon stocks generally offer poor returns in energy (the energy return on investment or EROI) and financial terms, and no longer replace the reserves being produced. As a result, the economically powerful oil companies are under great pressure, both financially and politically, as oil remains the backbone of the global economy./div”Development scenarios and political pressure for growth as a means of solving economic woes both require more net energy, which is the amount of energy available after energy (and thus financial) inputs required for new sources to come on line are deducted. In today’s economy, more energy usually means more oil. Although a barrel of oil from any source may look the same, “tight oil” and oil from tar sands require much higher prices to be profitable for the producer; these expensive sources have very different economic implications from the conventional oil supplies that underpinned economic growth for most of the 20th century. The role of oil in the global economy is not easily changed. Since currently installed infrastructure assumes oil, a change implies more than just substitution of an energy source. The speed with which such basic structural changes can be made is also constrained, and ultimately themselves dependent on fossil fuel inputs. It remains unclear how this scenario will evolve, and that uncertainty adds additional economic pressure to the investment decisions that must be made. “Drill baby drill” and new pipeline projects may be attractive politically, but projections of economic and associated oil production growth based on past performance are clearly untenable.

The world is about to run out of cheap oil and change dramatically. Within the next few years, global production will peak. Thereafter, even if industrial societies begin to switch to alternative energy sources, they will have less net energy each year to do all the work essential to the survival of complex societies. We are entering a new era, as different from the industrial era as the latter was from medieval times. In The Party's Over , Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century, and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the 21st century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion, and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the U.S. -- the world's foremost oil consumer -- is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future. More readable than other accounts of this issue, with fuller discussion of the context, social implications, and recommendations for personal, community, national, and global action, Heinberg's updated book is a riveting wake-up call for humankind as the oil era winds down, and a critical tool for understanding and influencing current U.S. foreign policy. Listen to an interview with Richard Heinberg from WRPI.

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year on Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Republics The Russian oil industry—which vies with Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer and exporter of oil, providing nearly 12 percent of the global supply—is facing mounting problems that could send shock waves through the Russian economy and worldwide. Wheel of Fortune provides an authoritative account of this vital industry from the last years of communism to its uncertain future. Tracking the interdependence among Russia’s oil industry, politics, and economy, Thane Gustafson shows how the stakes extend beyond international energy security to include the potential threat of a destabilized Russia. “Few have studied the Russian oil and gas industry longer or with a broader political perspective than Gustafson. The result is this superb book, which is not merely a fascinating, subtle history of the industry since the Soviet Union’s collapse but also the single most revealing work on Russian politics and economics published in the last several years.” —Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs “The history of Russia’s oil industry since the collapse of communism is the history of the country itself. There can be few better guides to this terrain than Thane Gustafson.” —Neil Buckley, Financial Times