Where Have All the Peak Oil Believers Gone? 102 comments
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Crude oil is down more than 50% from its high of $147 a barrel. Where are the peak oil believers? the breathless analysts and cheerleaders of the commodity that warned of a Mad Max armageddon?
Physical peak oil, which I have no reason to accept as a valid statement either on theoretical, scientific or ideological grounds, would be insensitive to prices. …In fact the whole hypothesis of peak oil – which is that there is a certain amount of oil in the ground, consumed at a certain rate, and then it’s finished – does not react to anything…. (Climate change) is likely to be more of a natural limit than all these peak oil theories combined. … Peak oil has been predicted for 150 years. It has never happened, and it will stay this way.
Dr. Rühl, chief economist of BP
Last Friday, for the first time in two years, OPEC supposedly cut their production by 1.5 million barrels a day. I say supposedly because these agreements don’t mean much when the member countries are facing the same financial crisis. OPEC members are notorious for cheating on their quotes. So it is difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt today when they are in desperate need of cash from the only thing propping up their economy.
Here is an interesting chart showing the history of OPEC changes in supply. In recessions, when there is less demand for oil, price cuts or better put, announced price cuts, don’t have the same effect.
A walk down contrarian lane brings us to the The Economist cover from March 6, 1999 (see above). At the time oil was trading around $14 and thought by many to only be able to go lower. What we saw recently, sentiment-wise, was the opposite of this, where “peak oil” came to be bandied about incessantly in the media and taken as gospel to imply that oil could only go up.
Oily Bubble
Crude oil’s bubble-like march higher was rationalized by two main proponents, Goldman Sach’s Arjun Murti and Mathew Simmons. Simmons argued for 150 year old peak oil rationale for a spike while Murti made headlines in May 2006 by predicting a “super spike” taking us to $200 a barrel oil.
Murti has since cut his targets repeatedly as oil has crashed through them. First $140, then $110, then $75 and most recently in a bold attempt to get ahead of the price, $50 a barrel.
Although Murti may not have intended his analysis to get so much publicity, it did, and a lot of people came to believe that oil was somehow destined to continue higher: thus proving once again that listening to “experts” can be dangerous to your financial health.
The charts, however, were telling another tale to anyone who cared to listen to their whisperings. Crude oil had all the characteristics of a bubble and it has imploded like one too. Looking at a long-term chart, you can see that it has easily sliced through the long-term uptrend line.
If we are going to go through a deflationary period, then OPEC countries are in for a world of hurt because the demand curve has shifted. If they lower production, they hurt themselves; if they don’t and keep it steady or cheat by increasing it, they will flood the market with supply.
From a technical point of view, there is strong long-term support for crude oil in the $40 area. I have no idea if we will indeed go that low. But if we do, I’d suspect oil to find strong footing in that area.
Here’s a historical chart showing the previous OPEC changes in production:
Source: Wall Street Journal
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This article has 102 comments:
You kids are always in such a hurry.
But the proponents of the theory do not assert that. They only say that world production will PEAK and then will plateau and/or GRADUALLY decline. What this will do to prices depends of course also on demand, but since the world has critically depended on a growing supply of oil, this will require significant changes.
The market for oil is very large and very obscure. So it is hard to tell if peak oil has been reached or will soon be reached. Matt Simmons says that the first step to be taken should be to get good production data.
The peak oil practical policy recommendations with which I am familiar are only that a US energy policy be established and followed.
At this point, it seems to me that there is little controversy about the facts, but only about what to do about them, if anything. But if peak oil proponents are correct, the issues will soon overwhelm any immediate problems of global warming.
The problem is that the Americans have to buy and import it from unstable countries, and to buy just means to work for getting oil. If the car factories produce cars with much less fuel consumption or with electric motors, all the money that flows to the Arabs will stay in USA! And imagine all this bugs will create new jobs and work.
The solution is to save oil and to get rid of it. Where do you think Al Kaida gets the money from?? from the support of oil producing countries.
Its just as easy.
Roly
But oil-gas station prices are not down by 50%? Moreover, there were no corresponding increases or decreases in supply-demand in 2007-2008!
The greedy oil price hikers, believers, analysts and cheerleaders were led by top ten global oil companies who continue to loot consumers, fuel inflation and the recessionary credit crunch. This is nothing less than ENRON on a global scale.
But the supply problem persist. Check out the FT article reviewing a draft of the IEA's annual report. The upshot is that we need invest $350B / yr into existing oil infrastructure, including developing known fields and finding new ones, or face severe shortages.
Underlying this is a 9% annual drop in existing oil production from the world's premier fields. Anybody who's looked at it knows a 9% drop in oil production is catastrophic for the global economy. If it comes on the heels of the worst recession since the 1930's, we are in for a world of hurt.
So, you see, peak oil is alive and well, and the IEA is now one of the strongest proponents.
hopefully the artificial scenario that has played out over the last 18 months - huge rise and fall of oil prices - has convinced us of the need to find a better energy solution. the price of oil wont be especially relevant to a self-sufficient nation using wind, wave, sun, geo sources (using our heads instead of killing our kids) for our precious energy.
so dont think for a second the fundamentals have changed. be hopeful, instead, that we are coming to our senses, and that only one artificial spike spurs us into action.
and please dont pose a "where are they now" question. we are right here, seeing the same thing we always have, ringing the same bell we have rung for 30 years - "dont fight for oil, do use the truly great American resource - ingenuity - to solve the problem".
No one seems to care that our wonderful government just pumped (and may pump more) an unheard amount of dollars into our system.
Inflation is about to rear its very ugly head.
Oil and all commodities will dramatically increase in price. We are going to have to deal with unprecedented inflation.
We just sold our children's future out. Spineless politicians from both parties should be fired. This is going to be tough for many who can't understand what has happened to them.
Bend over and kiss your a$$ goodbye.
Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch were the 800-lb gorilla price pumpers, not oil companies. Equilibrium at $70 kills the unconventional plays like new heavy, Bakken shale, tar sands and ultradeep offshore frontiers.
Demand destruction doesn't alter peak oil reality. It just postpones our consumption (marginally) and kicks the political football around.
Wise old dinosaur speaking to the young ones:
"Don't worry, we've been here for millions of years and the planet has never been struck by an asteroid before and it never will..."
The only thing we can tell from the Great $ell off of October 2008 is that leverage, speculation, poor governance and corruption in oil producing government results in a market price subject to high volatility and little price precision.
Taking how lazily this article was written, by whom and why, makes me think that oil reserves most definitely do deplete, (whether you think oil come from Dinosaurs [fossil fuels, yeah sure, specially off of the continental shelf,] or [more reasonably] from slowly renewing abiotic geologic processes.)
What does he think happened to the Pennsylvania oil fields (the pen in Penzoil [that made such a wealthy man out of John D. Rockefeller?])
Or are they still drawing oil out of the fields in Texas?
Its runs out.
Its a finite resource.
Even if its renewable, the process takes geologically long.
Saying anything else is to fly in the face of reason and to deny the history of what has happened with every oil field we've discovered and exploited to date.
And the process of discovery is happening further and further off shore and the oil fields are smaller and smaller, of less and less quality, and will cost more and more to exploit.
Peak oil is real, logical and a way of recognizing that such peaks and throughs are how you deal with scarcity in commodity markets.
This is a piece of disinformation on a par with the Chinese guard standing in the middle of Tiananmen Square claiming that "Nothing happen here. Nobody die"" with a smile as phony as the assurances of a rutting teenage boy that he'll "only stick it in a little."
Somebody needs to rediscover what shame is.
You are pretty much of a dope. There are 60 major oil fields in the world. 56 of them are in serious decline. There have not been any significant discoveries since the 80s. How do you think the oilers are going to maintain oil flow at 85 millions barrels per day? Magic maybe? Oil will never run out but maintaining the required production rate is impossible. Shortages will cause chaos and war. Once shortages begin the price of oil will skyrocket. After that happens it's going to be very difficult to implement any of the so called "alternatives". Thanks to people like you the people and the politicians are going to sleep past the time when anything can be done that will come close to solving the problem. In the meantime humans can continue to drive their 880,000,000 oil powered vehicles down the road to destruction.
how about a buck ninety for gas in oklahoma? if you paid five bucks for gas, there would be exploration everywhere - drill, drill, drill. at five bucks you would be in line for purchase of an electric car, and would not yell too loud when your utility started building a nuke plant on the corner (in fact you might be willing to beat the crap out of protestors against the nuke plant). instead of buying a new plasma tv, you probably would be screwing your newly purchased solar panels into your roof.
and this is not even considering the toll importing all this oil takes on the economy. No, joe the citizen does not believe in Santa Claus, bonuses for scum on wall street, or peak oil. BECAUSE REALTY IS DEMONSTRATED IN THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR THINGS. you cannot mobilize joe at a buck ninety for gas. nothing will happen because oil ain't at the top of the list of perceived problems.
and ladies and gentlemen, this is why the bullshitters spewing economic recovery are full of crap. if we recover, we will immediately collide with a supply problem - the oil will kill the recovery and send us back to a recession.
there is no solution because we do not want one yet.
Hosted by your own petard. You guys will be chasing the price up and down the futures charts for the next several years. Lots of people will lose their shirts because they will not be investing in anything but a phantom supply that keeps on dwindling ever lower. And it won't be like gold, which can actually be recycled. Count me out.
Peak Oil is now a past tense term. Peak oil says nothing about price, only about flows. Price is one symptom of Peak Oil, and the fact that it has changed dramatically does not mean that the facts on the ground in the oil industry have changed beyond a sharp cut back in investment. Less oil is now produced every month and while production decline is relentless, it is hard and expensive to add new production.
The recession/depression we are entering is caused at least in part by Peak Oil (oil price spikes have preceded every recession since WW2). The high gas and food prices (themselves directly caused by Peak Oil) meant that people were less able to service their debt. That is at least partly why the sub prime mess started. Unlike the last major recession in the 1980's there is no new oil (such N.Sea or Prudhoe Bay) to help us power our way out of this one. So as JH Kunstler says this one will be "The Long Emergency".
We need to be thinking within the terms of a new paradigm: Zero or negative population growth, year on year reductions in resource use (we will get that anyway with oil, we do not have the choice to use more) and dramatic decreases in the size of our individual and collective environmental footprints. If we can manage <i>economic growth<i> within those constraints, all well and good.
One way or another we will do this anyway. We can choose to establish our living arrangements so that this is achieved with the minimum discomfort, or we can let nature impose her own limits on the parasite called <i>homo sapiens<i>. The latter course of action could see the human population decline to 1-2bn. The choice is ours.
I am surprised that this article was even published here. It is just opinion and takes a disingenuous negative approach to create controversy. Is this official BP propaganda?
this article shows how little you understand what peak oil really means. please do some more home work before you babble. i suggest you consult some of mike stathis work before you write again. he, on the other hand, has a full understanding of peak oil.
peak oil does not state that the world is running out of oil. it states that the world is running out of INEXPENSIVE oil. It also states that the extraction rate is declining. these are all facts. the theory portion of peak oil is that the declining rate will sharply increase at a given moment in time which is unknown. the perfect example is the oil rigs in the baltic sea. check and see how their production dramatically decreased at a faster pace year after year. if i get my geography wrong, i apologize. it's near england somewhere.
the price of oil MUST increase to finance new projects in deep sea and oil sands projects.
i certainly dont see your chart gyrating downward do you?
i am a peak oil supporter, and i am still here like many other people.
thank you for your contribution, although it was useless.
I do give you credit though for not saying oil was in a "bubble". The people who like to say bubble-this, bubble-that fail to look at a few facts:
Nasdaq/DotCom bubble = oversupply of companies hitting the markets with NO earnings
Housing bubble = oversupply of houses built on cheap financing
Oil bubble = ? No elephant oil fields found in 40 years. Demand is still expected to rise over the next 20 years.
Just stick to trading short term charts Babek. You have no business talking about this.
Sincerely,
A fellow trader
This type of scenario was expected by several who have been at the forefront of PO analysis.
Its called Queueing theory, Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes discussed this in his book Beyond Oil:The View from Hubbert's Peak.
Yep, the world has so much oil the Canadians are in the Tar Sands cos its cheap and easy!!!
What I find extremely telling is that out of 31 comments posted on your opinion piece so far, only one (I think) supports your thesis. All the others point out the reasons why Peak Oil is a reality (we're probably already past it) and why a 50% drop in the oil price does not gainsay that. To ad lib one commentator, short-term demand destruction caused by a recession that has just started to bite hard in the past few months (plus the hedge funds blowing up and getting hit with margin calls on their long oil positions) does not alter the Peak Oil reality. Have you not noticed that for Q3 2008 all of the major international oil companies reported flat (BP and Conoco Phillips) to down production year-over-year (Exxon -8%, Chevron -6%, and Royal Dutch -7%)? How can that be if Peak Oil is not already upon us?
I particularly liked the comments posted by msbpodcast, galewhitaker, and saildog and recommend you re-read them. And if you want to get yourself better educated before you write further about a subject in which you are currently incompetent, I would refer you to energybulletin.net/nod... and lifeaftertheoilcrash.n....
On Nov 01 01:29 PM S.Murphy wrote:
> "Peak oil," "global warming," "school reform," "spotted owls," "MADD
> campaigns," "political correctness," and the host of other topics
> promulgated by groups that profit by creating fear have added layers
> and layers of new public employees and departments who produce nothing
> for our economy and chip away at freedom. When and if Americans start
> to realize the fact that they continue to be duped by distorted politics,
> spin, and the media's eager willingness to present disinformation,
> maybe the USA can begin to create real wealth again .. get back to
> work again. Radical notions, forced into the public spotlight by
> vocal minorities and their legions of attorneys are destroying the
> greatness of this country.
Annual consumption is approximatley 31.5 billion barrels (assuming consumption of 86mmbod). Mathematically we have 33 years of reserves, however realistically we have less than 20 years of reserves left on the planet. Each year, without major discoveries oil production will decline 3-5% and consumption will increase by the same %.
Say what you want about peak oil but it is here now.
At current prices there will be little incentive to drill the deep mega-expenisve offshore and Alaskan wells necessary to supplement our needs going forward. Current prices will also inhibit the pursuit of renewable energy sources. Let OPEC have their make believe production cuts but over time it won't matter at all.
So, for the time being, enjoy lower gasoline prices and get back in those gas guzzling SUV's because in the near future the party will end badly.
> jack
The current cost of a roof top full of solar panels is low enough that it makes some since. When the price of oil is $200 a barrel, growing crystals for solar panels may make the whole solar energy idea moot. The same logic applies to the rest of the so called “alternative energy” sources.
If articles like this continue to be published by the minions of big oil, the populace will not come to grips with impending disaster of oil shortage chaos until it’s too late.
And by the way, it doesn't surprise me that the chief economist at BP claims that peak oil is nonsense. I had some very smart graduate students at the engineering school in Bangkok last.year, but they weren't smart on the subject of peak oil because their bosses had told them to toe the party line on that subject. That line was THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PEAK OIL, which made all the sense in the world to me, because if people really and truly believed in peak oil, then they would want vehicles that used ethanol or whiskey instead of gasoline brewed from crude..
Because they have to reset the International debts every 10 or 15 years. wasn't it the real estate holdings in the early 80s?
I can definately agree with User.
But if you think high high oil is sustainable, its not. neither is low low oil.
There has to be balance.
when inflation comes back, oil and commodities will get a ripping rally; this cycle in this cyclical industries should be shorter than what history depicted.
for now though, expect prices to stabilize around the 55-70 level.
its gonna take awhile for that to come down to affordable levels; but it could be sooner than we think.
On Nov 02 01:33 PM long term trend wrote:
> The important metric is Net Energy, and the world's Net Energy is
> decreasing over time.
Where are you Axelrod?
I won't have to fight alone against all of the disinformation that has been put into other Alpha articles.
"Newspapers don't report the news, they shape the news." John Gowan, Libertad.
We all read these reports, then form an opinion.
Some of us may even invest based on what we read.
Perhaps most, if not all, of what we read may a [successful] attempt to shape our opinion for financial interests.
Look how much Pickens has lost recently as an example.
Fundamentally, you're correct overpopulation is at the root of our present energy and food problems. The Earth simply wasn't designed to support 6.7 billion people. Unfortunately, humanity seems determined to learn this the hard way.
trucking uses a lot of distillate (Diesel) fuel; there are engines being developed that can use liquefied natural gas, allowing a 50% reduction in hauling cost for fuel. big brown (UPS) now routes their trucks to all right turns to cut fuel costs from waiting to make left turns.
my yankee ancestors were frugal, and some of their traits were passed on to me.
problems with green power have caused dislocations in dispatching energy supply from ephemeral sources, particularly when there is an inadequate transmission capability, such as the west texas wind farm that needs a beefed up grid from a much more widely spread out generating source.
we are in love with our freedom of motion, but we go to extremes in its exercise. by the way, how many remember the gas lines in the seventies? you could get fueled up at 5 AM if you had business in the country side that required travel, but commuters spent lots of time hoping to get to the station before they ran out.
when it comes to bubbles, it is instructive to read "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds"
by makay; the term bubble was applied to the South Sea and the Missippi, among others, but also Mackay addressed social madnesses such as witch hunts.
On Nov 01 09:55 PM msbpodcast wrote:
> Peak oil have been predicted since 1956 (not a hundred and fifty
> years ago,) by M. K. Hubbert.
>
> Taking how lazily this article was written, by whom and why, makes
> me think that oil reserves most definitely do deplete, (whether you
> think oil come from Dinosaurs [fossil fuels, yeah sure, specially
> off of the continental shelf,] or [more reasonably] from slowly renewing
> abiotic geologic processes.)
>
> What does he think happened to the Pennsylvania oil fields (the pen
> in Penzoil [that made such a wealthy man out of John D. Rockefeller?])
>
>
> Or are they still drawing oil out of the fields in Texas?
>
> Its runs out.
>
> Its a finite resource.
>
> Even if its renewable, the process takes geologically long.
>
> Saying anything else is to fly in the face of reason and to deny
> the history of what has happened with every oil field we've discovered
> and exploited to date.
>
> And the process of discovery is happening further and further off
> shore and the oil fields are smaller and smaller, of less and less
> quality, and will cost more and more to exploit.
>
> Peak oil is real, logical and a way of recognizing that such peaks
> and throughs are how you deal with scarcity in commodity markets.
>
>
> This is a piece of disinformation on a par with the Chinese guard
> standing in the middle of Tiananmen Square claiming that "Nothing
> happen here. Nobody die"" with a smile as phony as the assurances
> of a rutting teenage boy that he'll "only stick it in a little."
>
>
> Somebody needs to rediscover what shame is.
Why all the interest by the US in the Caspian Sea fields? Because drilling for deep sea oil is cost prohibitive and because China, Iran and Russia would like to develop/control those natural resources. The various branches of the US military are dependent upon diesel oil and aviation fuel to pursue hegemony around the world. They realize that "peak oil" will make it too costly, if not impossible, for them to perform their mission of guaranteeing western economic predominance.
No matter what day-traders and hedge-fund speculators do, "peak oil" is a fact. The current slack in the global economy provides a window of opportunity to develop renewable forms of energy. It also provides an
opportunity to stand-down from the relentless war of hegemony, and to redirect our nation's treasury and general revenue to more productive
uses than war and hegemony.
Without excess financial liquidity and without the ability to obscure futures trading data your price support target level around 40 appears to be reasonable.
Jack
You appear to be a trader. You get your information from the market and market wisdom. But if you're predicting the future of oil, surely some thought should be devoted to actual oil fields, consumption, etc.
If true capitalism was allowed to work its magic, we would easily be able to produce 100mbbl'day or even 120 mbbl/day. The only reason we can't is because a lot of foreign countries don't let the major players exploit the resources as necessary. If they were then Venezuela, Russia, Iran and S.A. would be producing much more than they currently are and prices would be way down. They simply have an invested interest in keeping oil prices up and supplies low. The world is awash with oil, a select few countries just won't let us produce enough of it.
Not all oil reserves are created equal because some require more energy to extract a barrel of oil compared to others. For example, it takes the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil to extract 15 barrels of oil from a conventional oil field like you'll find in Texas. However, it takes the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil to extract only 3 barrels of oil from oil shale in places like Colorado and Utah. This difference between the energy used and the energy obtained is called Net Energy. So the absolute number of barrels of oil are misleading -- you have to know the Net Energy of the energy source (conventional oil field, oil shale, oil sands, etc).
You say the world is awash in oil. Maybe if the world consumed half of the oil it currently does annually one could say the world is awash in oil but not with the annual consumption of oil today.
As for metals such as copper, there is in fact increasing pressure on supplies but they simply don't have as a visible presence in our lives as oil does. See tinyurl.com/finite-res... for more info.
Proved and recoverable = 1.1 trillion worldwide
Of that, about 10% of global reserves are located in places where the rule of law and enforcible civil contract exist: Gulf Coast, North Sea, Canada.
Now why anyone would bother to debate that we will run out of a mineral that take a million years to create and we are burning like there is no tomorrow, I have no idea.
But what is not in debate is that petroleum is a declining resource. In order to find it, oil companies are going to more and more difficult locations and thus their costs per barrel are up, due the human and technology costs involved.
Meanwhile we are steadily devloping more alternatives to petroluem and these substitutes are more and more realistic. And government are more willing to tax petroleum for its full environmental costs ie pollution.
So in the long run as petroleum finds continues to decline, you cant decline peak oil as ”rising oil” prices – it will and should become less important even as it becomes rare.
Let’s put it this way: guano went through a ”peak oil” scenario too, and (if you pardon the pun) it isnt worth shi# today.
On Nov 01 03:21 PM Roly wrote:
> Peak oil or not, it does not matter.
> The problem is that the Americans have to buy and import it from
> unstable countries, and to buy just means to work for getting oil.
> If the car factories produce cars with much less fuel consumption
> or with electric motors, all the money that flows to the Arabs will
> stay in USA! And imagine all this bugs will create new jobs and work.
>
> The solution is to save oil and to get rid of it. Where do you think
> Al Kaida gets the money from?? from the support of oil producing
> countries.
> Its just as easy.
> Roly
Visit his blog at:
jimrogers-investments..../
My point is simply that we have plenty of oil in the ground and we certainly wouldn't have peak oil theories if we were allowed to exploit the worlds resources like we do in most western countries. The reason that demand is down is due to those regimes in the world that have expropriated or straight up stolen reserves from major integrated oil companies preventing them from increasing worldwide production which IMO would easily make up for the declines in the worlds major oil fields. These countries haven't been able to exploit the resources as efficiently and we therefore only have declining supply.
My point is peak oil is due to us (politicians and rogue regimes) not letting ourselves grow production, not the world (oil fields) drying up.
The same group will not allow new refineries- anywhere, will not allow nuclear plants, not allow new coal plants, not allow new dams, etc.
They think powering airplanes with windmill power, or powering ships with geothermal, powering trains with biomass alcohol, powering your car with hydrogen, powering the factories and offices and homes with sea waves, etc. will be a good thing.
That is why they scream "Peak Oil!!" and "Global Warming- caused by burning that oil and coal!!"
Doom Criers have always been with us- "The Sky Is Falling!! (Get your umbrellas from us, for a fee.)
It seems the ones who Cry Doom the loudest are the ones making the most money from crying the Doom.
Suspicious to me. Follow the money and see where it leads.
Nope. Only ~20 billion barrels Ca, Fla, Ak outer continental shelf (OCS)
"Many proponents of domestic energy security consider gaining increased access to Federal resources to be one of the biggest challenges. Part or all of nine OCS planning areas, which include waters off 20 coastal states, have been subject to longstanding leasing moratoria enacted annually as part of the Interior and related agencies appropriations legislation, or are withdrawn from leasing until after June 30, 2012, as the result of presidential withdrawal (under section 12 of the OCSLA). Some of these areas contain large amounts of technically recoverable oil and natural gas resources. The MMS estimates that conventional oil and gas resources (i.e., UTRR) in OCS areas currently off limits to leasing and development total 19.1 billion barrels..." U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service February 2006
www.mms.gov/PDFs/2005E...
No one on this message board knows whether we have 30 years, 100 years or 200 years of oil - the point that you can't dispute is that we have a finite amount of oil, and we're starting to get to where we can see the limits and we have to recover a lot of the reserves that are inconvenient, expensive, or challenging to recover. Smart people would be looking at other energy sources. Idiots imagine infinite oil.
High dot-com stock prices did not "prove" the dot-com business model, anymore than their collapse "disproved" Amazon.com's business model.
The price of oil, up or down, does not prove or disprove peak oil. This article is not up to the standards we expect from Seeking Alpha.
Being proactive and assuming the worst is what we need to do, not just wait around for it to really happen. Sure, it might be hundreds of years away, but who cares. The fact that we don't know should be inspiration to act now and prepare just as if Peak Oil was confirmed and going to happen right away.
Bicycles are cheaper to make, less expensive, wasteful and polluting.
Therefore, everybody should be made to ride bicycles to commute. Whether they like it or not.
But wait!! Bicycles cost more to make than unicycles. 2 wheels- tires, rubber, steel or carbon fiber frames- expensive, wasteful and polluting compared to unicycles.
Therefore, everybody should be made to commute on unicycles.
That would save millions of gallons of gasoline. Not clogging the freeways and streets. Easier to park when arriving, and at home.
And that would save millions of pounds of steel and rubber.
Just picture it- millions of people on unicycles, everybody smiling at each other, singing a happy tune.
No more car racing. Car racing is expensive, wasteful, and polluting, and they go around and around, and wind up exactly where they started. Let them race on unicycles.
No more UPS deliveries in trucks. Each deliveryman can deliver one package at a time on their unicycles. What a big savings that would be.
No more US Mail deliveries in cars or trucks. Big savings there too when delivered on a unicycle.
I am on to something here. I am going to get my unicycle now, and avoid the rush later.
Myth: The World is Running Out of Oil
www.youtube.com/watch?...
Peak Oil does not say that we are running out of oil in the near future (by that I mean less than 10 years).
What Peak Oil means is that PRODUCTION of CONVENTIONAL OIL has reached maximum production and in the future PRODUCTION of CONVENTIONAL OIL will decrease over time. Consequently, if demand stays constant over time, oil prices will increase due to the long-term decline of production. Today the world consumes 85 million barrels of oil per day. If production declines over time and demand stays constant, oil prices will inexorably rise.
It's also important to understand the difference between CONVENTIONAL OIL and UNCONVENTIONAL OIL, such as canadian oil sands, oil shale, etc. The cost of extracting CONVENTIONAL OIL is relatively low. The cost of extracting UNCONVENTIONAL OIL is much higher and so requires a higher oil price to make it economically attractive. For instance, extracting oil from the canadian oil sands is economically unattractive if the oil price is less than $80/barrel.
If the world has reached Peak Oil, then unless demand is decreased, oil prices will inevitably rise over time, consequently depriving more and more people from having access to oil.
The true meaning of Peak Oil is called Resource Nationalism. USA, Japan, Korea, Germany are destined to pay far more for imported oil.
" 'Let me think. A Magnum ice cream. A cup of coffee. A cheese and ham arepa [sandwich]. Small stuff like that. Can't say I've ever really thought about the price. Why would you?'
"When a litre costs 0.7p, and filling the tank of a 4x4 costs 42p, it is a fair question. Petrol is so cheap here - reputedly the cheapest in the world - as to be almost free. Even under the artificially overvalued official exchange rate, petrol is 45 times cheaper than in Britain.
"So while oil-importing nations appeal for relief (George Bush called in vain this week on Saudi Arabia to increase its output so as to bear down on prices), major exporters such as Venezuela bask in their immunity from the petroinflationary pain. Venezuela has the seventh-largest oil reserves in the world, and petrol is lavishly subsidised...
"Nigeria used to be among the cheapest places on the planet to fill your car, with a litre going for just 0.3p in 1990. These prices fuelled a massive smuggling industry. A decade later it had reached 8p a litre, one of the factors in big protests against the government.
"In Iran, prices of 5p a litre and a lack of refining capacity combined to create shortages. Rather than introducing steep price rises, the government opted for rationing. But the result was the same: motorists went on the rampage, setting fire to petrol stations."
www.guardian.co.uk/bus...
What do you think? Has any government lowered any tax on any commodity?
We're at max 20 years away for solar energy generation to be a big player in the total energy output of the world.
We're at most 30 years away from a discernible *NET SHRINKING OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION*.
Finally, it's unknown how long this recession, (or it's counterpart, the hyperinflation) will run. Either case will actually cause actual consumption reduction until they run their course and proper growth can happen. (Think about it further, and you'll see hyperinflation actually can cause consumption to go down since wage will lag actual price increase due to globalization.)
Add these up, and I don't see good times ahead for Oil. Not for a while.
I wasn't able to convince you? What a pity. [sarcasm intended]
Was there any significant difference between the $147 oil and today's $60 oil?
NO.
Do a search for hANOVER fIST and Peak Oil - then read DaveMcGowan's take on it...along with my own independent research, I think that anyone with a brain can come to the conclusion that "Peak Oil" was simply a money grab for the Monkey King's boys on the backs of the gullible.
"Fossil fuels", indeed!
How right I was in my Nov 2 comment.
All your dumb bashers are now sitting on 50+% losses, which requires at least a double to only break even.
Whenever you see hordes of retail suckers jump on one side of the trade, take the other. And if they defend it with venomous passion, double up!
Right now I'm counting all the cash in my wallet from shorting that silly QM.
davesweb.cnchost.com/A...
On 2008 Nov 11 11:05 AM hANOVER fIST wrote:
> "Peak Oil" is a complete and utter falsehood.
>
> Was there any significant difference between the $147 oil and today's
> $60 oil?
>
> NO.
>
> Do a search for hANOVER fIST and Peak Oil - then read DaveMcGowan's
> take on it...along with my own independent research, I think that
> anyone with a brain can come to the conclusion that "Peak Oil" was
> simply a money grab for the Monkey King's boys on the backs of the
> gullible.
>
> "Fossil fuels", indeed!