IEA Forecast: Economy Depends on 'Yet to Be Found' Oil

The US is a treaty member and has pledged the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to the International Energy Agency [IEA] to mitigate the risk of another 1973 Oil Embargo.

The following graph is from the recently released 2010 World Energy Outlook.


Several red flags should accompany this graph:

1. The future of our economy depends on crude oil "fields yet to be found" and "fields yet to be developed" on a scale several times bigger than Saudi Arabia.
2. It takes 6-10 years to develop newly discovered oil fields. According to the graph, we have 3 years.
3. Based on the vertical bar, this graph was created in 2009, before the BP Spill and the moratorium on new exploration. The rate of exploration has slowed
4. Crude oil "fields to be developed" will have to be capitalized as governments compete for debt, devalue currencies and people struggle to pay for both their mortgages and their commute.

It is beyond the author's comprehension how governments can bet the survival of their nations, cities and people on oil "yet to be developed", and worse, "yet to be found".

I would invest in guns, food stocks, gardening supplies, coal, railroads, personal rapid transit, electric motor scooters and renewable (solar, wind, tides). There are not yet opportunities for some of these investments.

• Guns to survive this level of competence and gun companies because they will sell many of them.
• Food stocks because farming and food distribution is going to be disrupted by higher gas prices and outages.
• Gardening suppliers. People will strive to be self-reli
• Coal because it is local. Not oil because my guess it will be nationalized, rationed and price controlled.
• Railroads and Personal Rapid Transit (PRT, ultra-light robotic railroads) for the same reason, efficient transport of goods and people. Railroads operate at over 400 ton-miles per gallon. PRT move people and cargo in a city using 1/10 the energy of cars, passenger trains and buses. Network build at Morgantown, WV as the solution to the 1973 Oil Embargo has delivered 110 million oil-free, injury-free passenger miles.
• Electric motor scooters but not electric cars. Electric motor scooters because China has several hundred million electric motor scooters so they can use coal as a transport fuel and their people can afford the cost of scooters. Not electric cars because they do not solve congestion, accidents and require debt.
• Renewable as people, companies and governments scramble to build an economic lifeboat for their economic community.

Disclosure: Author is founder of JPods, and fully invested in JPods, a PRT company.