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Yergin, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1991 book chronicling the history of the oil industry, said he supports the search for more fuel-efficient technologies. But since the 1990s, he argued, the world has "added more oil [reserves] than has been produced."

In addition, some of the fuel squeeze could be eased by oil and mining companies' breakthroughs in finding new techniques for extracting oil from Canadian tar sands and even ways to convert some of the nation's vast coal resources to petroleum.

Keeping pace

The energy consultants' report said new oil discoveries are distantly trailing new demand, and no "super giant" oil field has been found in more than 35 years. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which the Senate recently voted to open for oil drilling, might qualify. It would produce no petroleum for a decade, then would pump 1 million barrels a day -- still less than 5 percent of current U.S. consumption.

Others say global demand is rising so quickly that new oil discoveries alone cannot keep pace. Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., said that on a recent visit to Beijing, Chinese officials told him the number of cars and trucks there will surge from 24 million to 140 million by 2020.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has projected the year 2037 as the most likely date for a global oil production peak, but the Energy Department consulting team led by Robert Hirsch said it found another EIA scenario for a peak in 2016 to be "much more credible."

Woolsey is among a group of neoconservatives who have voiced national security concerns over the United States' importation of 62 percent of its oil, given the instability in the oil-rich Middle East and other Third World, oil-producing nations.

"Whatever you think about peak oil," Woolsey said, "you need to be concerned about the possibility that in the very near term at any point, ... regime change, government policy change or terrorist attacks could put a major, and perhaps even a long-duration spike on oil prices. ... We need to move away from oil in either case."

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