Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.

The North Sea was supposed to run out in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s. And now production is still on-line.

The Russians are turning east to the Chinese - to the Europeans' surprise. It always seemed to me that the relationship between Russia and China would shift from being based in Marx and Lenin to being based in oil and gas.

A premium in the oil price of somewhere between 10 to 15 dollars a barrel reflects this heightened anxiety.

The bulk of extra supplies that could be put into the market come from two places. One, they come from other Persian Gulf suppliers, of which Saudi Arabia is at the top of the list.

The world has produced about 1 trillion barrels of oil since the start of the industry in the nineteenth century. Currently, it is thought that there are at least 5 trillion barrels of petroleum resources, of which 1.4 trillion is sufficiently developed and technically and economically accessible.

In a world of increasing interdependence, energy security will depend much on how countries manage their relations with one another. That is why energy security will be one of the main challenges of foreign policy in the years ahead. Oil and gas have always been political commodities.