Break out the bicycles

[struggle4progress]

<snip>
But the age of cheap oil is over. If you doubt this, take a look at the BBC's online report yesterday of a conference run by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. The reporter spoke to the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol. "In public, Mr Birol denied that supply would not be able to meet rising demand ... But after his speech he seemed to change his tune: 'For the time being there is no spare capacity. But we expect demand to increase by the fourth quarter by 3m barrels a day. If Saudi does not increase supply by 3m barrels a day by the end of the year we will face, how can I say this, it will be very difficult. We will have difficult times.'" The reporter asked him whether such a growth in supply was possible, or simply wishful thinking. "'You are from the press?' Birol replied. 'This is not for the press.'" So the BBC asked the other delegates what they thought of the prospects of a 30% increase in Saudi production. "The answers were unambiguous: 'absolutely out of the question'; 'completely impossible'; and '3m barrels - never, not even 300,000'. One delegate laughed so hard he had to support himself on a table." And this was before they heard that two BBC journalists had been gunned down in Riyadh.

The world's problem is as follows. We now consume six barrels of oil for every new barrel we discover. Major oil finds (of over 500m barrels) peaked in 1964. In 2000, there were 13 such discoveries, in 2001 six, in 2002 two and in 2003 none. Three major new projects will come onstream in 2007 and three in 2008. For the following years, none have yet been scheduled.
<snip>

The new technology designed to extract the dregs from old fields is expensive and doesn't seem to work very well, which is why Shell was forced to downgrade its anticipated reserves (other companies, under pressure from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, will surely follow). Extracting oil from tar sands and shales uses almost as much energy as it yields. The same goes for turning crops such as rape into biodiesel. Nuclear power is viable only if you overlook both the massive costs of decommissioning and the fact that no safe means has yet been discovered of disposing of the waste. We could cover the country with windmills and solar panels, but the electricity they produced would still be an expensive means of running our cars.

Just as the oil supply begins to look uncertain, global demand is rising faster than it has done for 16 years. Yesterday morning, General Motors announced that it is spending $3bn on doubling its production of cars for the Chinese market. Seventy-four minutes later, we saw the first signs of entropy: the International Air Travel Association revealed that the airlines are likely to lose $3bn this year because of high oil prices. The cheap carriers complained that they could be forced out of the market.
<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1233738,00.html

[shraby]

1. Back to the old

horse and buggy!!!

[HarveyBriggs]

2. That news is a real breath of fresh air!

The only good things about SUVs are the rate at which they are guzzling our dwindling supplies of oil and making themselves obsolete!

Harvey Briggs

[wtmusic]

3. Welcome to DU Harvey Briggs

:bounce: :toast: :bounce:

Now if they didn't toss so much sulfur dioxide into the air!

[lapfog_1]

4. Screw the BBC, just go to

the current issue of National Geographic. Not exactly known for
its left leaning stance on anything or known to make hysterical
"sky is falling" predictions.

If that article doesn't scare the pants off of anyone reading it then
either you can't read or you're not wearing pants.

The part about the tar sands is good too.

I don't think we will EVER see $1.25/gallon gas again, and if we
do, it will only be a for a very short time.

ANWR is absolutely no answer, never was. Neither is deep ocean
drilling or anything else. Nuclear? NIMBC (Not in My Back Continent)!
We need to START NOW to convert everything to electric power,
everything that we can, and then start a massive R & D effort on
solar power / fuel cells / hydrogen economy.

Not to mention pollution and global warming.

[rfkrocks]

5. all this science stuff is based on godlessness

don't you know that-trees cause pollution, and there is plenty of oil and we must never let Galileo out of prison-Mother Nature to Bush Energy Policy-Drop Dead

[Raster]

10. no, no, no...gawd will provide... when jeebus returns...

...he will replenish all the oil fields and say blessings over everyone's hummer. with the grace of gawd, gasoline will be free. internal combustion engines will become miraculously clean and efficient. there will be no air pollution. further, everyone will be raptured and get their own personal HOV lane on the freeway of eternal life.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. On LBN -- Exxon Head: U.S. Must Be Energy Dependent

From Newsday (Long Island)
Dated Tuesday June 8

Exxon Head: Energy Independence Is a Myth
By H. Joseph Hebert,
Associated Press Writer

The idea of American energy independence is a myth and the United States must maintain "constructive relationships" with oil-producing countries for its own prosperity, the head of petroleum giant Exxon Mobil Corp. said Monday night.
"We do not have the resource base to be energy independent," Exxon Mobil chairman Lee R. Raymond said in a speech in which he outlined some of what he called the "hard truths" about global energy markets.
Raymond, who runs the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said that while other countries, including Russia, will play a growing role in supplying oil to the world, the Middle East will remain the center of supply because it holds as much as half of the world's oil reserves.
"We simply cannot avoid significant reliance on oil and gas from the Middle East because the world's supply pool (of oil) is highly dependent upon the Middle East," Raymond said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Monbiot mentions Bush and Cheney. He should also mention Lee Raymond.

This article is the subject of a thread in Latest Breaking News forum.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. In my alternative history

Jimmy Carter is reelected in 1980 and sets the country on a massive energy conservation/restructuring program.

The Pentagon budget is cut by 25%, with the money sent to cities to build transit systems and to Amtrak to build a state-of-the-art inter-city high-speed rail system.

Scientists and engineers get grants for developing alternatives to petroleum, not only for fuel, but for plastics. Manufacturing companies get tax breaks for using recycled materials instead of new raw materials. States get aid for instituting Smart Growth policies, including retrofitting suburbs for non-automotive transportation.

But that would have been too intelligent.

[IrateCitizen]

8. You forgot that it wouldn't have been profitable enough, either

;-)

We had the chance to make a much less painful transition before, but to do so would have actually required foresight, not to mention avoiding the path of least resistance.

As usual, we chose the path of least resistance AT THAT TIME. Too bad that path will eventually come to a dead-end.

[Raster]

11. yeah but how would the oil companies have made all those profits...

...hmmmm? And with no exorbitant profits, how would they engineer regimes like the BFEE? I mean, who wants to be a despot if the pay and perks are shitty? Not me. Where is the fun in being a benevolent, poor despot? NO! If I'm going to be a petroleum despot, I'm gonna need big, black SUVs.

[HuckleB]

9. Bicycle! Bicycle! I want to ride my BICYCLE! I want to ride my bike!

And don't forget your helmets, please!

[DinahMoeHum]

12. You say Rolls (I say Royce) You say God (Gimme a choice)

you say Lord (I say Christ, I
don't believe in Peter Pan, Frankenstein or Superman)

:evilgrin: