In 2007, the Pentagon's budget will exceed the combined military spending of every other country in the world.
[snip]

Technology and the Future of Warfare
by Mark Williams
MIT Technology Review
March 23, 2006
Read the original here.

Western Canada's natural gas production is maturing, and maintaining output rates will only get more difficult.

While the region is home to significant gas reserves, they're getting harder to find as fields run out, and an increasing numbers of wells need to be drilled to keep current output steady.
[snip]

Canada Gas Supply Maturing; Output Set to Decline
by Norval Scott
March 16, 2006
Read the original here.

Last year, G8 leaders focused on mitigating the impacts of climate change and canceling debt. This year the G8 will focus on promoting trillions of dollars of investment in fossil fuels which will exacerbate both climate change and developing country debt.

"Energy Security" is one of three core themes scheduled for discussion at the upcoming Saint-Petersburg Summit and it will presumably be the core issue on the table when G8 Energy Ministers meet on March 15th and 16th in Moscow. Rather than use the G8 process as a means to overcome the world's addiction to oil and other fossil fuels, a G8 draft Plan of Action on Global Energy Security reveals that the Saint-Petersburg Summit is shaping up as an opportunity to ensure that the addiction will be well fed in the decades to come.

G8 Summit 2006
Global Energy Security Plan
March 6, 2006 Draft
Read the original here.

Interestingly, Matthew Simmons, year 1999-2000 energy advisor to President Bush, publicly was calling for Marshall Plan-size investments to address the impending energy crisis as early as 2002-3. "The Perfect Storm," he called it. It was 2001 when Bush first publicly stated we were in an energy crisis.

Then 9-11 happened so we invaded Afghanistan, which doesn't have much oil, then invaded Iraq, which sits on and next to lots of oil, but meanwhile dropped "energy" from the public converstion, except for when Bush said we need to encourage energy consumption, because, of course, we were invading to eliminate WMDs and establish democracy; not for the reason G8 now is identifying as our need for "energy security."
 

Essie Jain

"It's a supergiant field, so when you have a supergiant field declining, it's very difficult to compensate for that," said Adrian Lajous, a veteran oilman and the director of state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) from 1995 to 1999. "Cantarell has peaked and has started its decline."
[snip]

"Mexican Oilfield Important to the US is Declining"
by Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
March 16, 2006
Read the original here.

[Note: We have had good information going back a couple of years to anticipate this.  See here and here on this site, for example. Expect decline rates of up to 14% per year, according to an early report.

Our biggest fields in the world are rapidly approaching peak, and "new technologies" seem to serve to accelerate decline rates. Substitues offer lower net energies, and are more difficult to produce. The energy crunch still appears to be coming.  See "Bottleneck Indicators" in the menu to the left. - Dan]