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Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil
Yesterday the Guardian ran a story based on two anonymous sources inside the International Energy Agency who claimed that the agency had distorted key figures on oil reserves. "The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the [IEA] who claims it has been deliberately
underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves." Today the IEA released its annual energy outlook and rejected the whistleblowers'
charges. The Guardian has an editorial claiming that the economic establishment is too fearful to come clean on the reality of oil suppplies, and makes an analogy with the (marginalized, demonized) economists who warned of a coming economic collapse in 2007.
We might manage to find some more oil if we all stick our heads far enough into the sand, that is basically where it lives...
Reality A: No withheld data. Data is disseminated with some initial shock that by 20xx we will have oil shortages. People get a chance to plan accordingly. Private business gets a chance to cash in on better alternatives and more efficient products marketed to the consumer. California starts to look a little less crazy. Gasoline and fuel slowly becomes more expensive over the years as production slows. People adjust.
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic. People flip out. People die. Fuel shortages lead to water/food/heating shortages lead to war. Private industry doesn't have a chance to adjust. People aren't prepared to buy a new vehicle on the spot. Californians ride the nearest comet to Heaven's Gate. Crime increases, lawlessness arises, civilization breaks down, I'm forced into a Thunderdome with Cowboy Neal for my right to live.
If the IEA is capable of any logic at all, they are not cooking the books or withholding data. What's the motive of retaining data or fixing charts?
My work here is dung.
As a point of clarification, the issue is NOT when we will run out of oil. There's enough oil left in the subsurface to last a long time. The issue is how fast we can get it out of the ground. When an economical oil deposit is first discovered, there is a substantial amount of pressure on the oil (think spindletop) and it comes up to the surface of it's own accord. As the oil from the deposit is produced, the pressure drops and the oil ceases eventually coming up by itself all together. After that, you can still get it out of the ground, but you have to pump it and you never get back to the same flow rate.
World population is continually increasing, China and India are rapidly industrializing so demand for oil is going up and up, but the flow rate isn't. This is why we had $147/barrel oil a few years ago, not speculators. It's all supply and demand, but in this case the supply is limited. No amount oil shale or tar sands or deepwater deposits will do us much good because we can't achieve the same flow rate with these deposits as the traditional ones.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
I doubt it. raise the price too high and even addicts will find another drug....
Certainly the Saudi's will get much richer, but 'Big Oil' business is mostly a middleman these days. They make a good profit, but the vast bulk of the cost is for the crude from producers.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
an analogy with the (marginalized, demonized) economists who warned of a coming economic collapse in 2007.
Great. This argument boils down to "Someone who we were told was wrong turned out to be right. Therefore, this other person who we are told is wrong (and by extension everyone who we are told is wrong) must also be right." I have no idea whether or not these whistleblowers are correct or not, but this "argument" by analogy is worse than useless, because it encourages fuzzy thinking.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
These popular conspiracy theories about group X holding back product/information Y are all debunked by a single thought: IF these people are truly smart enough to rule the world (or an aspect of it), they know better than to try to control every single individual in it.
What does this mean? That they are smart enough to follow free markets. They are smart enough to know that they can't predict the future of the stock market, even if they can control an aspect of it. This assumes that these groups do have a level of involvement high enough to control the government, financial and religious institutions WITHOUT being exposed. You really think that a large group of people is capable of holding a secret so large for so long? A president gets a blowjob from an intern and the whole world hears about it. I doubt an army of engineers, scientists and politicians would be quiet about what really goes on in Area 51, killing people with vaccines, peak oil conspiracies or whatever bullshit is popular that day.
So give your conspiracy theories a rest and please report some real news.
Whistle Blowers have agendas too, sometimes. But it's a moot point, because the proper response is the same either way: fast track nuclear plants. There is no other reasonable solution to the inevitable energy problem. We will switch to nuclear at some point or our civilization will collapse.
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington.
Congrats, you just described supply and demand. Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*. Check back in a couple of years or so, and I think you'll find the balance has changed somewhat.
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
*There's also a whole commentary about how smart exactly is was for the US to basically outsource everything. Cost of living is cheap, but the blowback's a bitch.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Isn't it better that we start exploiting our own oil reserves when the prices reach astronomically high levels?
I'm pretty sure OPEC allocates allowed production levels by each country's "known reserves", giving the rulers of those countries all kinds of incentive to exaggerate their reserves.
The medieval Saudi despots and thugs like Hugo Chavez want to grab all the money they can while THEY'RE alive.
More specifically, speak cheap and easy energy is important.
Right now we have easy access to oil, coal, natural gas, and in some places, hydro- and other power sources.
On the horizon are not-so-cheap but getting-cheaper-and-easier-every-decade sources such as new drilling technologies to recover fossil fuels that were previously infeasible to recover, solar power, wind power, wave power, and other sources.
As long as energy prices rise slowly enough so there isn't a panic, yet fast enough to spur investment in higher-than-current-oil-price-per-gigajoule fuel sources, we should be fine.
Yes, there is a finite supply of non-renewable energy. However, if you are willing to pay the equivalent of $150/barrel for that energy, it's a lot less finite than if you are only willing to pay $75. When it comes to most forms of renewable energy including wind, wave, and solar, there may be a limit on the wattage and transport of that energy, but there is virtually no limit on the number of years we can use it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
By the time that happens we won't have any money left to exploit them with and it will be the Saudi's pumping oil out of the Midwest.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
You really ought to learn what Godwin's Law is before you start citing it:
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
I don't recall making any comparisons. I used a tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe environmental extremists that won't be happy until mankind reverts to a hunter-gatherer culture or dies out entirely.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Firstly, the term "enviro-nazi" has become a meme. I would argue that Godwin hardly applies here.
Secondly, because Godwin's Law does not take into account whether referencing nazis is appropriate to the discussion, it's become a half-assed method of trying to avoid any meaningful rebuttal all together -- usually by nazis. You're not a nazi, are you?
sig: sauer
I would argue that Godwin applies perfectly here. That it has been allowed to become a "meme" just means a significant part of the political spectrum have commited Godwin on themselves - and in the usual Godwin way, made fools of themselves.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Maybe I'm the exception, but gas is a very small part of my recurring bills. If gas prices double or triple, maybe I'll skip a new video game or dinner out every month. Whoop-de-do. And the price of shipping goods will increase. So I'll pay $0.79 instead of $0.59 for a potato. I'm just not quaking in my boots. The biggest overlooked fact of peak oil is that it will be a gradual decline as more oil recovery methods become economically feasible. So over the rest of my life, I suspect there will eventually be a cheaper mode of transportation than gas-powered cars. But for now, I'll stick with the convenience of 400 miles/fill-up, gas stations everywhere, and transportation costs (including car payment) below 15% of my income.
You say "environmental extremeists" as though it's one word.
Environmentalism has a long grey scale that you might be unfamiliar with. And like both current political leanings, there are a lot of other vectors to understand, too.
FWIW, I firmly believe that there's far more oil, pumpable at low cost, than we even know about. The problem isn't exporting oil dollars. The problem isn't exploiting domestic sources. The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Where did you get that figure? I keep track of this daily:
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/
We've been flirting with $80/bbl for quite some time.
I'm all for drilling for domestic oil. The problem is, if we drilled every damned energy positive, profitable will in the continental US and it's territorial waters, it probably wouldn't hold back peak oil a year (figures on www.theoildrum.com)
Granted, a year is a lot, particularly if your alternative during that year is "starvation."
But as usual, the liberal/conservative conflict is just bugs in a jar being shaken so they'll fight. Oil doesn't care. Physics doesn't care. Argue all you want, but the day it takes a barrel's worth of energy to get a barrel out of the ground (the problem we *really* need to watch, not peak oil, per se), it will start to become a remarkably unpleasant day.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In the future every entity will have an associated conspiracy theory, for 15 minutes.
Proverbs 21:19
My understanding of Godwin's law is not that referencing Nazis is bad (after all, they were a part of history). He just observed that eventually, if a fight goes on long enough, someone will make reference to them. He did not opine if that was bad or good.
Personally I think it's rather silly we can't talk about tyrants or their tyrannical governments. Even if I invoke a different tyrant to make my point, like Communist Dictator Nicholae Ceasescu, I still get accused of Godwining myself. It's like a blatant censorship of history, and the willful decision to put blinders over your eyes and deny that governments can, from time to time, be destructive to their own citizens.
Foolishness.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
What's great about something like this is that it's the perfect conspiracy theory. If you *believe* in Peak Oil, absolutely nothing the industry shows you--charts, graphs, sonic measurements, etc.--will convince you that "they" aren't lying and trying to conceal the truth. If you *don't* believe in Peak Oil, the folks who do are still whack-jobs no matter what their latest line is. Bonus points if you credit a *reverse* conspiracy on the part of greenies/socialists/oneworlders/etc. to use a fake crisis to sway public opinion. Sigh.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
It doesn't matter if there is more or not. The total determines the price. THe more simply means we'll be the last to fall, assuming an equal rate of use. However we use a lot more oil than other similar countries so that oil is a mitigating factor and if you think it's going to be sold at a discount to those in the US w/o some sort of government intervention then you are going to be in for a rude surprise.
The reality is that we will NEVER run out of oil! Many people lie, and the rest are too stupid to realise the folly of their words. Still others just want to push their own agenda — but the reality is that we will never run out of oil.
Imagine you're in a big room full of peanuts. And you open the shell, eat the nut, and throw the shell aside. Eventually, it will be harder and harder to find a peanut, because you'll be finding increasingly more peanut shells with no peanut inside.
The same story is with oil. It will just be harder and harder to find the oil, and the price will rise to reflect the increased costs of getting it. But there will always be some oil, somewhere, to be drilled. We will NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL!!!
There is more than one version of Godwin's law. You quoted a depreciated version that only applies to Usenet.
I'm sorry, but I think you've only served to reinforce my statement. You offered nothing in the way of argument against the premise that many environmentalists act as nazis. Further, you simply repeated the Godwin claim in an attempt to avoid meaningful rebuttal.
Also, the fact that "enviro-nazi" is a meme certainly applies here. The original post could have said "enviro-droids", "envirotards" or "envirobabies" and the argument would have held all the same. Does replacing one meme with a different one change the Godwin status of a statement?
sig: sauer
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington. Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Don't worry though, I'm sure our overlords in the Federal Government will come up with a solution. All we need is more energy conservation and investment in key primary states^W^W^Wethanol to save the day.
The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that....
People complain about the NIMBYs until someone wants to put something in their neighborhood.
"enviro-nazi's"?? Where did you get that name from??
Every environmentalist group that I know of has a goal of basically improving human environments. Clean air, clean water, balanced ecosystem, etc....
Whatever we do to the environment always comes back to us one way or another. It's real easy to be Laissez-Faire when you live in a rich country but it'll only insulate us for so long - that' s assuming we stay rich.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force.
How exactly do you invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and enough firearms to arm every adult citizen, should the need arise?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
(This is why I pay attention to the folks at The Oil Drum ( http://theoildrum.com/ ) and Energy Bulletin ( http://energybulletin.net/ ), they're well-intentioned academics/educators who are trying to get the world to live more smartly and sustainably...and the faster we do that, the better off we are going to be.)
Peak oil is not about "running out" of oil. Yes there's plenty under the ground of the Dakotas, but that's not the issue.
Peak oil is about when the consumption exceeds the discovery of new fields, which means the "warehouse" of oil is emptying out instead of filling. Initially nobody will notice, but soon they will and there will be a drive-up in prices due to the rapidly-dwindling reserve. It's similar to what has happened with Gamecube games. It's still possible to buy brand-new copies of, for example, Mario Sunshine but because no new copies are being made, the price has risen from $30 upto $80 (or more).
Rising scarcity resulted in rising prices, and the same will happen with oil in the very-near future (2011 or 2012). If you've got money to spare, buy oil stock NOW.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
That's one of the dumbest arguments people sometimes make. The reason they're not exploited is because current oil prices don't justify exploiting them. The deeper, the more isolated, the lower the flow rate, or a whole host of other factors concerning oil in a block lease, the higher the oil price you need to justify developing it.
This administration is so incompetent that they cover their tracks with bigger tracks.
Right, and I'm sick of all those doctors with their fancy X-ray machines and diagnostic protocols making ridiculous statements about how my smoking 4 packs a day could cause me to get cancer or emphysema. Damn elitist eggheads and their terribly flawed assumptions, think they're so damn smart.
If menthol cigarettes were good enough for our Founding Fathers, by God they're good enough for me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Speculation had a major impact on the last fast oil price rise last year. Your points on energy in to get energy out are correct of course, but you need to research on the other topics of the economic costs.
As to published figures, they are *highly* suspect, from anyplace, the saudis for example always seem to have near the same amount in alleged reserves... for the last few decades. And shell got busted over estimating their reserves in order to keep their stock market valuation high.
Spend a few evenings perusing a lot of the back posts at some place like the oildrum, plenty of good info out there on this subject. The consensus is more "we don't really know" about reserves because all the majors lie about it for various reasons, and that is also the point of the article and the leak.
In addition, now we will be contending with the scam/skim carbon market, as various governments will start insisting on additional stealth taxes on carbon emissions to further enrich the too big to fail boys, etc,(the real reason for cap and trade) so we really don't know yet what the costs will be in the future, other than "much higher than now".
So, until we have a viable alternative, why not use our domestic resources?
From a strategic standpoint, wouldn't it be better to wait till we've exhausted the oil supplies from everyone else before we start using our own?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
America, with 5% of the world's population, consumes about 25% of its resources. Reason? Single Use Zoning. The silly settlement pattern that puts housing neatly in one area, shopping in another, office space in another, and industry in another, and then forces people to drive between all these areas throughout the course of the day. Okay, it makes sense to zone off industry in certain cases where noise and pollution is an issue. But making it illegal to open a corner store in a residential area? No wonder so many journeys are made by car in the USA, bus journeys in that kind of sprawl take forever and mass transit gets a bad reputation (deservedly so). Induced traffic is another symptom of this problem - roads get wider, developers develop farther out to allow people to take advantage of the faster commute and lower property prices, roads get filled with cars belonging to these new commuters, and we're back to square one again with people demanding that the road gets widened even more!
As long as American settlement patterns are so screwed up, the problem will exist even if we aren't in a state of world peak oil. The problem is a hopeless addiction to petroleum that no magic wand nuclear power solution (mentioned by someone above) will be able to fix.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
What soot? Are you blind, man?
And you think that catalytic converters all are in fine condition, and none of the trucks and trains and airliners in this country exhaust rosewater?
For a moment, let's just say that all of that CO2 and water are healthy emissions. We'll ignore using coal to generate electricity. The long term effects are here.
Would nuclear generation of power be useful? Yes, save we haven't figured out how to deal with the waste products, contamination, and safety issues. I invite a cogent redesign of nuclear power. I'd love it. I'd enjoy better hydro generation. Better and more efficient batteries.
The soot issue isn't solved. Just because you can't see the particulate matter doesn't mean it's not there, and that's only in the case of passenger autos fueled in the North American and Brazilian market by gasoline and ethanol (a better but weaker choice). Diesel autos fuel the EU and Asia, as well as much of Africa. Yes, they're improving, but on the whole, not by very much.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Once we have reached the "peak", how long will it take to actually "run out"?
Forever.
We don't "run out." What happens is that the production decreases, and the price increases, so production heads asymptotically toward (but never reaching) zero production rate. As the price rises it becomes economically feasible to extract harder and harder to recover oil, and production never stops.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Uh...the IEA is saying that everything is fine and dandy and it's some random person in the IEA who is saying the sky is falling...not sure what you're driving at, I'm sure claiming things are fine as they are is a massive conspiracy to bring about a big scary bad world government.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Would nuclear generation of power be useful? Yes, save we haven't figured out how to deal with the waste products, contamination, and safety issues.
You lost me at "safety issues". The worst accident in the history of American nuclear power resulted in zero fatalities. You'll forgive me if I don't see safety issues as a reason to abandon nuclear power.
The waste issue is a real one, but one that can be mitigated by nuclear reprocessing. In any case, if global warming is actually being driven by mankind's emissions of CO2 then I should think that the choice between a few thousand tons of low-level nuclear waste (the only kind that requires long term storage, high-level waste decays on much shorter timescales) and a few billion tons of CO2 should be an obvious one.
Thanks for demonstrating my original point though. As an environmentalist you find every single option that's currently on the table to be unacceptable. That makes for great politicking but horrible engineering.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Third world scum?
Well, I can see that the US is entering the third world when this kind of talk passes as "argument". I expect that in latinamerica, where we are all frustrated and poor. Not from the first world, that is supposed to be enlightened.
Not anymore it seems.
NO SIG
Yet I always seem to notice that when gas prices reach record levels, the oil companies coincidentally generate record profits. But yeah, they are only the middle man. Right.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Offer its industry leaders cheap labour, thus tempting them into moving their manufacturing capacity to your country, letting your enemy run up a debt it has no hope of ever repaying, use threats of not giving more credit to force it to devote more and more of its remaining manufacturing capacity to paying you while driving up taxes and weakening social services until the brightest young minds leave it. When it has been bled dry, cut the supply of goods, discard the hollow husk of your enemy, and keep the manufacturing plants they so graciously gave you.
It's working rather splendidly, judging by the financial crisis.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Assume the IEA whisleblower is correct, and that peak oil is approaching far faster than we've been led to believe. Hell, we might even be on the downturn already!
When the rest of the oil in the world is drilled out and used up, what the hell is going to happen to economic progress? What the hell is going to happen to the whole of the industrialized world?
We might get lucky, there might be alternative energy sources made available by then, the whole crisis might be averted. I hope it is. But if it isn't, and the world is still dependent on oil when Saudi Arabia and Russia and South America and everywhere in the world that's currently selling oil run out, we're going to look pretty damn smart for not tapping our domestic reserves until after everyone else has gone belly up.
It's a long-term plan, an insurance policy if you will.
So why isn't anyone talking about it?
Well, because the economic collapse was caused by ACORN and the CRA, dummy! Glenn Beck said so...
That is all.
We have a radical fringe, just like the Dems and the Repubs.
The radical fringe of the environmentalists composes 80% of the environmentalists. I deeply care for the environment, but it seems like no-one sensible is allowed to call themselves an environmentalist.
More of us are interested in coal being a problem than nuclear plants.
Now you are. The hot topic/semi-religion now in environmentalism is “global warming”. 20 years ago it was nuclear power. The arguments against nuclear power were mostly scare tactics and fallacies of reasoning. The environmental movement (to me at least) lost all credibility after that.
At least the founder of Greenpeace (Patric Moore - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html ) had the intellectual honesty to admit that he and the organisation was completely wrong about nuclear power.
The problem with nuclear plants are that they don't behave well, and leave nasty poo that doesn't become safe for about 300,000 years. Look it up.
Firstly, coal powerplants spew nasty radioactive waste directly into the atmosphere (on the same order of magnitude as nuclear power plants). Oh, and they spew a lot of other nasty shit in the atmosphere too. This causes a lot of unseen health problems (cancer, lung disease). Millions of people die each year because of the effects of coal power stations (and more than 5000 in coal mining accidents alone).
Secondly, you may never have heard of reprocessing of nuclear fuel or fast breeding reactors. With any of these steps the amount of nuclear waste left is minute, and its half-life is about two centuries. But no, they would rather prefer acid rain and global warming.
Unfortunately it seems as if environmentalists want to destroy the economy in addition to the environment with their coal power plants and unfeasible and extremely expensive “renewable energy” pipedreams. Neither wind nor solar are feasible. Their bio-fuel (ethanol from maize or sugercane) pipe dream destroys the environment at such a rate. But they would rather we chop down rainforest to plant sugarcane than to use oil.
That said, you can scrub anything. It depends on how much it costs as to whether it's practical. Coal burning plants are difficult to scrub.
Carbon-Dioxide recapturing in coal power stations is also something of a pipe dream. I suspect that they are only doing it to try and get money from the government.
Oh, yeah. Why do they hate GM foods? Would they rather see people starve? Nobody forces them to eat GM foods. GM maize may just lessen the wholescale environmental destruction that their bio-fuel pipe dreams create.
--- Sorry for the harsh tone, but environmentalists is really one group that (for me at least) is one of the most harmful hate groups of modern society.
Dude! You just said Nazi! You just got Godwinded... Godwindeded... whatever!
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Anytime you encounter one of these conspiracy theories, you have to ask yourself, "Why would they do this?" In this case, what incentive would the US Government have to try and suppress oil prices? That flies in the face of the current government economic philosophy, which is to reflate all assets at any cost. Everything the government has tried to do in the last year has been an attempt to raise prices, not lower them. I think the thought is that if they can manage to report a positive CPI number, they can get people and institutions to start releveraging.
What we've seen in past year is that high oil prices destroy economic growth which destroys high oil prices.
That's not what happened at all, the oil prices had nothing to do with economic growth, and the oil prices also had nothing to do with supply/demand which would ordinarily govern such things.
The oil prices were artificially inflated by the OPEC cartel, which is unmaintainable. They reset prices before the bubble burst on them (which would be very bad for OPEC), and for a little while oil was priced a little lower than it should have been.
The economic crisis was a completely separate issue, caused by funny business in the housing markets - particularly the insurance markets.
In fact what was remarkable about the period of extremely high oil prices was consumption of oil did not change much, people simply got a little angry, and put MPG higher on their list of "things I want in a car" for their next purchase. A lot of companies used oil prices as an excuse, but for most of them it was a complete crock.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Except you're the crazy one here.
Environmental extremists do exist; and the worst thing is that most environmentalists don't have a bloody clue what is actually good for the environment.
The best, cleanest sources for stable energy we have now are hydroelectric and nuclear. Hydroelectric is hard to utilize any further without disrupting the ecosystem badly, and I haven't seen too many people who call themselves environmentalist without having an irrational fear about anything relating to nuclear power.
The only way to satisfy some environmentalists is to wipe the human race off the planet, because they are going to scream about the current pollution levels and any cost-effective measures to control them.
Well yes, if you take a percentage of every sale, higher prices will lead to higher profits.
As opposed to what? If they have the power you seem to think they do, why do prices ever fall?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Before you spout off about Chernobyl, you might want to consider the fact that the type of reactor, shielding, and countermeasure systems used at Chernobyl are over 40 years out of date. Nobody makes reactors like that anymore. Not to mention that Chernobyl only happened because of the incompetence of the staff.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
You ignore the fact that China must purchase US dollars to keep its currency pegged and maintain the advantage of cheap labor. Their wealth is therefore built upon the value of the paper the US gives it. Make that paper worthless and the value of those holdings dissolves. Further, many of those shiny manfuacturing plants will be left idle and the value of goods made depreciates since the chief purchaser can no longer afford them.
The massive foreign holdings of the dollar has made the United States into the equivalent of a "bank too big to let fail." Just like the corporate fat cats cashing in millions while the economy around crumbled, the US continues to happily give pieces of paper to enjoy cheap goods, finance it's wars, and feed its appetite for oil.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Do you realise that it only costs "big oil" around $10 per barrel extracted from the ground. And they are currently selling said barrels of oil on at $79 per barrel. That looks like a healthy $70 a barrel profit right there, before you get to forecourt pricing. In 2007, ExxonMobil made a net profit of $40.6 billion. Shell made $31.3 billion, Chevron made $18.7 billion, ConocoPhillips made $11.9 billion and BP made $20.8 billion.
Yeah, big oil is the middle man, and they're getting fat. Capitalism at its finest, buy low, sell high. What was your point ?
The Japanese wupped the Chinese because China was backwards technologically. They tried to fight the world's best airplane (the A5M - predecessor to the Zero) with world war 1 biplanes. They were crushed. I don't think you can say the same about the U.S. military being backwards or easily defeated
And yes Americans will fight in hand-to-hand combat using their hunting rifles if that's what it takes. As Churchill said in the last war: "We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The increases in oil prices could have the long term potential of damaging the economy, but I think your conclusion on the impact of oil prices is correct. The oil prices surged and quickly subsided before they could have any significant effect beyond stirring up anger.
However, I would say the funny business in the housing market was only part of the cause for the current economic debacle. Aside from the games finance, investment and insurance companies were playing with large blocks of risky mortgages was the borrowing of funds from the Fed at very low interest rates and then lending that money to every warm body on the street combined with out of control spending practices of the masses and inflation offset by incomes that had turned stagnant around 2000 and unless you were in the top 10% income brackets was flat until the meltdown where the income quickly dropped to near nil for those who ended up without a job.
Increases in consumer spending and inflation combined with stagnant wages by itself would have eventually been enough to kill the economy. The banking greed only added fuel to the fire. In fact, if wages for the other 90% of the wage earners had continued their rate increase seen in the 1990s then credit would not be as much of an issue as it is today. Banks have money they've borrowed from the Fed that they could lend to individuals, but they wont as most individuals wages are already strapped with debt.
I never metameme I didn't like.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Actually those construction methods have nothing to do with any evil greenies impinging on some poor picked on corporation's profitable endeavors. Construction on top of permafrost presents unique challenges to the long term viability of any project be it roads or buildings. What you are describing are hard earned engineering techniques that were preceeded by many construction failures on Alaska's permafrost and have zilch to do with greenies or environmental protection.
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually. Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I'd rather we rush ahead right now and find out we had decades of leeway than sit on our asses right now and wake up tomorrow to find out we didn't have as much time as we thought we had.
Now, don't be a Godwin nazi.
J/K. That sounds like a good plan. Draw up a petition and I will sign it.
sig: sauer
Except its all tar sand of which there is really no economically viable way to mine (in a significant and quick way). Most experts have dismissed the idea that this will circumvent peak oil as the production would not be enough and the environmental effects are too great. The tar sands also produce twice as much CO2. Its an environmental nightmare and to promote this as a solution when there is concern of global mass extinction due to CO2 is absurd!.
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually.
That actually isn't true, but the likely outcome isn't a lot better. It's all supply and demand: as oil grows scarce its price will increase, and as that happens (gradually, you'd hope) demand will taper off because of the exorbitant price. Of course this assumes a free market in which all consumers have accurate information, and the scary thing about TFA is that it suggests we don't have accurate information about the oil market - this shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention - so we might be buying oil too cheaply given its current supply. That sort of arrangement isn't sustainable, so if it's true then there will eventually be a supply crisis and prices will spike suddenly. (You know, like the month after we dip below 10% unemployment and think everything is getting better.)
Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I've always agreed with this approach, too. Since we know supplies are limited we should incentivise the creation of compatible alternatives, making oil part of a broader energy market. We seem to be doing that, slowly. Electric cars will eliminate the dependence of some drivers on oil specifically, and if enough people buy them we'll put oil alongside coal, solar, wind and old Soviet weapons in powering the grid. But it's probably not happening fast enough (if this whistleblower is correct). I recommend keeping lots of canned food in the basement.
The economic reality is that peak oil is all bullshit. The MARKET says what the price will be. When supplies become truly scarce, oil prices will rise.
The concept of peak oil is based upon the market realities you cite, as well as observations about declining discoveries of oil resources. In a reasonably free market where everyone has good information about supply, this will lead to a gradual price shift as we approach the limits of the supply. We do not have this sort of free market, unfortunately. You're right that this will all become irrelevant once the market for energy has switched to alternatives, but that doesn't mean the price increase won't provoke a major crisis in the short term. And an oil crisis doesn't just affect transportation.
I know you're being sarcastic, but apart from the fact that much of what has been extracted from the ground already has gone up in smoke....
What's remains in the ground is going to require increasing energy (and associated pollution) or will be in inconvenient or pristine areas.
Take a look at the environmental impact of mining and extracting Alberta's oil sands for instance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Oil_Sands
for a similar case in point -by the end of the CA gold rush they were making huge cyanide leaches to extract miniscule amounts of gold from ore that had to be pounded into dust. those companies then all folded leaving CA and Nevada (mostly) with these Superfund-type sites (except no one will ever pay to have them cleaned up)
-I'm just sayin'
No seriously. The IEA and USGS (US Geological Survey) were both formed after the 1970's oil shock to provide us with reliable data about future oil supplies. They idea was to provide us with plenty of time to prepare ourselves for future oil shocks. And they did just that - delivering solid if boring data for 30 years.
The suddenly in 2000 everything changed. Sources hereto though uneconomic were included, assumptions like magic improvements in extraction efficiency were added. And the projections altered accordingly.
Seems Bush put about as much store in solid reliable oil data as he did in solid reliable Iraqi intelligence, or scientific advice on global warming for that matter. He was nothing if not consistent.
http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/weo2004/TheUppsalaCode.html.
You mean the polluted land with oil pipes transporting oil across Alaska that caused caribou population to increase because they all huddled up next to the oil pipes for warmth and fewer died from the cold?
A few notes, banks are not forced into lending to anyone, the CRA only applies to banks who sign up for FDIC coverage and even then only some banks fall under the CRA regulations. There are ways that banks can work around the CRA and guess what, they did.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
"More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions."
"Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year."
"Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."
"Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance"
"only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans."
"private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans."
GW Bush was calling for reforms until they arrived...
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851
Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005
October 26, 2005 "H.R. 1461 fails to include key elements that are essential to protect the safety and soundness of the housing finance system and the broader financial system at large. As a result, the Administration opposes the bill. "
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=74353
Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1427 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007
May 16, 2007 "Any efforts to weaken the existing portfolio language contained in H.R. 1427 will threaten the Administration's support for this bill. "
The house actually passed H.R. 1461 but was never cosidered by the Senate and McCain's support for S190 came only after the report of corruption and bad management of Fannie and Freddie came out. And then what did he do? Nada, the Senate let it slide.
There is plenty of blame to go around but this idea that some how the Democrats in concert with lower income earning U.S. citizens caused the current economic crisis is dumb founding idiocy.
What you said doesn't necessarily contradict what he said...
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
1. A good portion of our congress is owned by the oil companies
2. These oil companies want to continue to sell as much oil as possible, ergo...
3. These oil companies oppose anything that might reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, so...
4. Any information that might result in an increased sense of urgency to develop alternative energy sources is suppressed, or at least massaged.
Don't believe me? Hey, they did the same for global warming
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
...you know times they are a' changin' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens). Personally, I'm lucky enough to have a petroleum geologist for a brother who can debunk all this stuff for me. Only, he actually pointed out the reality of peak oil to me about two years ago. I don't buy into the typical doomer analysis that society will come crumbling down around our ears. I *do*, however, think that cheap oil is behind us. And for the folks who just shrug their shoulders and say "meh, I don't drive, who cares", you really don't appreciate how energy-dependant (and thus oil-dependant) the world economy is. For a realistic analysis, check out Jeff Rubin's book "Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller".
Then you have the big players of OPEC demanding that oil must be payed in USA Dollars. This made the dollar the new GOLD in a sense; but in another sense it made OIL into the new GOLD. The USA can get away with crazy shit because its currency is in a position that never existed before. It also means that Saudi Arabia has more than just 6% of the USA economy it also holds the currency a float. Iraq went to the Euro. bad move. Iran was next on the list and if it were not for the CIA leaked report Cheney might have got his way... (anybody remember how the media was ramping up in the same way with some of the same lines just a few years ago? I often wondered how far it would have gone without the CIA leak...)
As the world moves off oil and is forced to move from oil and the dollar gets weaker-- or even if it gets stronger-- it is already undermined and exploited so that it is quite overvalued. This is going to be a bumpy transition that was likely never contemplated when we were screwed into dumping the gold standard for sort term (generational) gains. War doesn't leave any side unharmed, the economic war the USA has conducted for generations does not come without costs and we are experiencing some now and will much more later on. I don't think most the experts know how to deal with this mess; other than the ones who know how to profit from a predictable downfall and could be contributing to a solution (but they don't get to be successful for doing the right thing do they?) I suppose the USA could become an even bigger casino for mega investors and that could keep things going a little longer?
My bet is China takes the lead. They've positioned themselves quite well so far, they even have been economically invading nations like we used to do-- (see Minegolia, watch Guana become unstable in the next decade...) China's money is strong. The EU is better.. I suppose, but its not china...
As far as the next GOLD, I'd aim for WATER since OIL is on its way out. (I totally think Pickens wanted water rights more than wind power.) Water pollution continues; I expect poor management to be encouraged as well.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
There's general agreement in the industry that we're near peak oil. The peak may have happened already, in 2006-2008. The most optimistic view is that the peak will be around 2020. That's not far away.
Prices aren't that good an indicator of availability. Because supply and demand are both relatively inelastic and change slowly. So small variations in supply or demand produce big changes in price. The worldwide recession has cut demand a bit, which brought the price way down. Supply did not increase.
All the easy places have already been drilled. US oil production peaked in 1970. Look at this list of countries where production has peaked.
Then there's France. Back in the 1970s, France decided to go nuclear. France has 59 nuclear power plants and exports electricity. It's good to plan ahead.
Your point was valid in the 1990s though.
Virtually everything in a modern home, a modern hospital, a modern medicine cabinet, our modern lives are made from petroleum. The Peak Oil proponents rarely mention that most of the stuff they intend to have us use to "Go Green" is made from Oil. Their fancy CFL bulbs depend on Oil for the components. Most "Green" solutions rely on Oil-derived materials to be manufactured. The very bicycles they want us to peddle, the stroller they push, the mosquito repellant they use to keep their hippy kids free of West Nile, are all petroleum based at one component level or another.
I can't wait for the day the PETA-loving Peak Oil blabbering tree huggers realize the only oil-free option for a new bicycle seat is leather. May as well leave the fur on.
Learned nothing from the recent oil price spike did we? Price goes up, crisis starts, demand drops, price drops, crisis stops. The end of oil's dominance as a fuel source will be slow, not sudden. There are PLENTY of alternatives waiting in the wings for economies of scale to make them as cheap or cheaper than oil.
The people shilling peak oil are just trying to make money off the "crisis" plain and simple - another feature of the market.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
It has been repeatedly shown that long term economies structurally change to accommodate high oil prices. We live drive less by say living nearer to work. We buy vehicles that are more fuel efficient. Petrol/Gas cost the equivalent of 6.80USD per US gallon at the moment. Much more than it does in the US, but our economy has not ground to a halt because of it.
What is really bad for the economy is changing oil prices. Here the high taxes in Europe cushion us from fluctuating oil prices. The price of petrol today is only 20% higher than it was a decade ago in the UK.
Over 600 comments in and no one has mentioned LS9? These folks have found the solution to peak oil: make more of the stuff. Hopefully they can get up to speed quickly; if they can keep costs reasonable, we could have true energy independence...and a fresh source of tariffs on exported petroleum.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
In other words your arguments have no credibility and your just acting out in anger. As is evidenced when you repeat claims that the Democrats somehow destroyed any hope of additional regulation of Fannie and Freddie in a response to a post where I gave you the links to GW Bush's response claiming he will not support a house bill that passed that provided for regulation. And while I didn't provide a link I did give you the information you would need to look into McCain's half assed support of the same while in the senate.
And the funny thing is, none of it matters because if you read any of the reports that looked into the meltdown all the nutso news headlines and talking head spin masters are full of shit. Poor people receiving mortgages did not bring down the economy, that has to be the dumbest conclusion anyone from any political party could ever proclaim. Complete idiocy.
What soot?
Why does the snow turn black at the side of the road?
Why do the wheels on my road bike stain my hands black when I change a tire?
Modern cars are cleaner, sure, sometimes you can even taste it when an old beater drives by, but all hydrocarbon based vehicles are certainly contaminating our environment.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.