Why, in my opinion, I think peak-oil theories are crap.

[MisterHowdy]

Yes, its true that countries like the US (especially the US)
are super-dependant on oil and that oil is a finite resource
that will run out and is running out.
Most peak oil theories state that when supply descends below demand all
hell will break loose: Famine, chaos, cannabalism(lol), total economic collapse, etc, etc

If this is true, then why aren't our politicians scared-shitless about this.
And don't say " It's because they make money from oil", because money would be completely useless
in a post-peak oil/doomsday society. And so would political power and wealth/status all things that motivate the elite and make them elite.
The elite would have nothing and would benefit from nothing in a post peak-oil society.
So why aren't they planning for this?
Why aren't they switching over to alternative fuels?
Why aren't they encouraging us to consume less?
Why aren't there electric vehicles?
Why isn't the US military/airforce developing equipment that runs on alternative fuel?

Some say that the fact that the US has invaded Iraq, and the other insane things that it does
are proof of how "desperate" they are for oil and verifies peak oil theory.
But I say, the fact the the US suppress' alternative fuel use
and discourages its citizens to be more efficient is a sign that peak-oil
is not the doomsday scenario that most think it is.

I only bring this up because I am tired of people trying to justify Iraq
by saying that it is in the US' best interest to control such large oil fields to
ensure that the peak-oil apocalypse doesn't happen.
Thats crap.

[sendero]

1. Well...

... I "believe" in peak oil.

I don't think it is far away.

I don't think that when reached, there will be an immediate meltdown. We will not go from full production (enough to meet everyone's needs) to half production in a month or even a year.

In other words, it will end with a whimper not a bang. And human beings, organizations and governments have a long a distinguished history of ignoring problems until they are too huge to ignore.

All that said, their can be, and will never be any justiciation for stealing the natural resources of another country. Folks who come up with that rationalization, well, I really need a new car and I'm just going to take theirs, at gunpoint. Same damn thing.

[Skinner]

2. Regardless of what one thinks about peak oil...

...your reason for disbelieving it is not particularly convincing.

Politicians are not known for dealing with possible crisis situations that may happen in the longer-term. Until the crisis becomes apparent to everyone, they are very reluctant to push for anything that might require sacrifice on the part of their constituents.

This behavior also explains why very few politicians are trying to do anything about global warming. But the politicians' reluctance to act does not make global warming true or untrue. Just as politicians' reluctance to act does not make peak oil true or untrue.

[Telly Savalas]

4. Damn it. You beat me to the argument by a minute!

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. You are exactly right

This is a problem in the way we define practicality and understand causality (the same error leads us to understand the "market" as an "invisible hand" rather than a set of complex, concrete processes). We had better start understanding complexity and ecology (taken broadly), and that damn quick. The European Enlightenment understanding of subjectivity and causality is, quite literally, killing us -- not because it is bad in itself (it's actually quite useful for, say, sinking a pool ball, and splitting the atom), but because it arrogates to itself all processes, and reduces anything not itself to the incomprehensible. This is why complexity theory is "complicated" (so to speak) for the ordinary John and Jane Doe, and our politicians besides. Then people immediately suggest that these versions of causality and action are merely the human condition. Nonsense. More European colonialism of the mind: the human thinks like us, we are the human... No. They are historically (and geographically)contingent forms of thought. We need an evolution in thought. Buddhism is a good place to start....:-)

[northzax]

34. good point

you should like run a website or something.

[Telly Savalas]

3. By that logic, the lack of planning towards addressing climate change

constitutes proof that it's a hoax also.

I'm not buying it.

[brokensymmetry]

5. I think you may need to rethink this.

The oil will not simply "run out". It will decline.
Take a look at the poorer nations of the world
right now - you'll find they cannot afford oil
and its derivatives.

Later, we'll see the poor in the U.S. and other
developed countries fall off the train. But the
elites will have plenty of oil. Do you really
suppose that $10 per gallon gasoline will matter
to someone in the top 1/10 percent of wealth?
Do you imagine that a high elected official will
be forced to ride a bicycle? No? But you and
I face the problem of affording it, don't we?

By the way - some of the elites are panicking.
Look up Simmons in "Twilight in the desert",
Google T. Boone Pickens and Richard Rainwater.
And there are many, many others.

But do as you will. There isn't much you and I
can do anyway.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. cannibalism

spell checker is your friend.

I actually do not quite recall the serious argument regarding peak oil that required cannibalism as an outcome, but I could be wrong. An argument against X that presents a series of false and exaggerated claims that are then falsified, and in doing so attempts to then declare X falsified is an old and tired rhetorical dodge.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html


What you gloss over is the simple fact that we are running out of one of the two essential fluids that drive our planetary civilization (and we are running out of fresh water as well) and that this simple fact is going to cause a rather profound change in this same planetary civilization. So cannibalism may not be in our future, but our future, our ever nearer future, is going to be drastically different than the present.

[mmonk]

7. We want to control oil.

We want to regulate refining to control the prices upward. The fact higher prices at the pump are producing record profits is the smoking gun. In cases where the resource is running out, exploration costs rise in tandem and thus the profits do not rise. Sorry Hubert's peak fans, we're not there yet. We should want to reduce fossil fuels for the environment and for less political control of our government for big oil and government graft.

[MadHound]

8. Well, first all, let's look at the evidence

There have been no large oil discoveries in the past fifty years. None, thus we're apparently left with what we've got, and that is running out. The world's largest oil pool, the Ghawar site in Saudi Arabia, is diminishing rapidly. They are having to pump in twice the volume of seawater as the oil that they get out of it. Sure sign of a dying well, and that's not the only one in the Middle East or around the world. Hell, even with prices as high as they are, we have yet to reopen American wells, that should tell you how dry they are.

And if we're not in Iraq for the oil, then explain all of the plans for the permanent US presence there, including many huge bases. In addition, why are we pressing so hard for the Iraqi oil rights to be given to private corporations? Hell, even PNAC, that staunch neo con think tank realizes that the reason to go into Iraq and Iran is oil.

Another sign that we're getting close, if not beyond Peak Oil is the latest flurry of alternatives. Seemingly out of nowhere, we've been introduced to hybrids, ethanol, biodiesel, wind, oil shale, hell even nuclear is being discussed again. This seems to contradict your contentions that nobody is planning for this or thinking ahead on this one. Granted, it is being done by a Republican administration, thus this all falls under a rubric of making the most money the quickest, but still, it is being put in play.

And frankly, it isn't suprising that we're still having oil pushed on us. For the oil companies it is still the goose that lays the golden egg. They simply have to keep prices under the public's tipping point, and record profits are theirs. Yes, corporations and governments are short term thinkers, living for the next fiscal quarter, and long range plans are a year, perhaps five years at the most. Not very conducive for major energy policy reform.

But hey, if you don't believe in Peak Oil, that's fine. It is coming anyway, and it won't be forgiving. I suggest that you stop basing your opinions on what various people and entities are doing, and what the actual scientific evidence says. It might suprise you.

[Matsubara]

11. I'm no authority on peak oil, but I don't think the capped US wells are "dry"

They are just not as productive and profitable as foreign sources - yet.

Whether or not we are near or past Peak oil - the reason for the US spike in gas prices is not due to scarcity - the fact is that the oil companies have not reopened some of the refineries they closed after Katrina, and now that they have seen how much they can jack the prices and get away with it, they've even cancelled construction of the new refineries that were supposed to be built. This is a very deliberate bottlenoeck - no different than what Enron did in 2000.

Here in Japan the price at the pump is only about 25-35% higher than it was 8 years ago. In the US, it has almost tripled. Doesn't that disparity tell you something?

[terisan]

15. Check out Russian oil reserves, and Inventiveness re alternatives in other countries.

[terisan]

10. You are correct. Also Peak Oil alarmists are scared rabbits or oil industry investors.

We have a planet stuffed with untapped energy resources. When and if oil becomes scarce, we will develop alternatives.
If the US is not inventing and investing in alternatives now, many other countries are. Check out what some of the Scandinavian countries are doing.as well as other countries----we will benefit from their inventiveness.

In the 1970s oil companies used the OPEC reductions in production to scare Americans and they succeeded. I had a close friend at the time who worked for an oil company. He informed me that they were keeping loaded oil tankers from coming in to harbor and unloading, apparently to maximize profits. They didn't care about the lives that were being disrupted. they don't care now.

I was a grad student at the time and colleges were going crazy running seminars about the oil crisis and doing future planning ---all based on fear. I couldn't convince anyone that the scare was temorary and manufactured.
Well within a short period of time, OPEC members, being individually greedy, started increasing output, the oil companies, having profited much, also succeeded in getting an oil friendly president in office ( who immediately removed the solar panels on the White House), Government funding for alternatives disappeared and oil prices went down for decades.

I praise the end of oil as fuel (it has other more helpful uses). Gasoline is dirty, smelly, poisonous, and destroying our planet.

Peak Oil "Chicken Littles" can do us all a favor by using their brain power for inventing and promoting alternatives and for demanding big taxes on big oil. They need to start paying for Bush's war.

[GeorgeGist]

12. Lest we forget ...

most capitalists' and politicians' 1st priority is current profits and losses.

[mmonk]

13. The rise of big oil and politics surrounding it

began in the Nixon administration. Our debt and the financing of it was controlled more on gold and reserve notes. To protect ourselves from foreign governments calling in that debt and forcing the government to buy and build up gold reserves and other currencies, we helped form the oil cartel known as OPEC whereby we tied oil to the dollar. This allowed for a kind of taxation on the rest of the world by forcing them to use dollars to buy oil in the markets. That thereby limited their ability to dump our currency and debt. Anyone remember the last oil "crisis"? It doesn't appear we have overcome 360 to 450 million years of fossil formulation of life on earth yet.

[Jonathan50]

18. I guess you've never heard of Standard Oil?

Big oil and the policies surrounding it have been around since well before WWII.

Google "Churchill Iran Mossadegh" and learn a few things.

[mmonk]

19. I know big oil and influence have been around longer.

Using it as a form of currency and taxation by the United States has not.

[mainegreen]

14. Why do you assume our politicians aren't scared shitless?

Do you honestly believe they would tell us if they were?

[IDemo]

17. Here is one who has spoken repeatedly about it

Roscoe Bartlett -> http://www.energybulletin.net/4733.html

[mainegreen]

21. Intersting read. Thanks.

We need more people stand up and say that.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[daa]

20. You better spend some time at the oildrum.com

In 2006 Saudi production fell 8%.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2325

"The second and more natural interpretation is even more disturbing: the mighty Ghawar oil field is already in decline, and the Saudis don't want anyone to know."

Of course we will never know since the project, Brewster Jennings & Associates, headed by Valerie Plame was our inside to Middle East oil. After that slime Cheney gave her up we have no idea the true scope of the decline.

[mmonk]

26. Oil fields in different areas can go into decline.

That doesn't mean we have reached peak oil yet. No corresponding increase in exploration and extraction costs worldwide indicates we haven't got there yet. Profit margins are at an all time high.

[Strelnikov_]

29. And their consumption went up 7%

For a country like us that consumes nearly 25% of the worlds petroleum export market, the spike will come harder and faster than anyone can imagine.

[Az]

22. Its because Corporate thought leads the way not human thought

Big difference. Humans tend to look to the future and try to decide if this short term project is really worth the long term damages. But a Corporation does not have the same insentives. Its motivation is short term only for the simple reason that if it does not capitulate to the short term some other Corporation will and this will result in a loss of stock. So they have to move according to short term rational.

A Corporate CEO may be very aware of problems in the long term. But he is forced to act in the short term by the system in place. If he does not he will be replaced by the board in favor of someone that will increase profits. That is the point of a Corporation.

[Strelnikov_]

23. Why are the politicians not reacting?

They never have. It is not their nature.


As our fifth strand, we have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other, and extracting enough food from the human peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them.

. . .

Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like Anasazi elites treating themselves to necklaces of 2000 turquoise beads, Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster, reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEO's. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels.

From Chapt. 5, 'The Maya Collapses', from 'Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed’ by Jared Diamond

[KittyWampus]

24. Peak Oil does NOT state "when supply descends below demand all hell breaks". Learn what it is

and what you are actually talking about.

Peak Oil = an end to cheap, easily extracted and refined oil.

It is already here as a documented fact.

Hence Canada sifting tar sand.

Hence liquifying coal.

[Joe Fields]

25. Sometimes there really is only one side to a story.

And logic dictates what the end game of peak oil will be. And if you rely on politicians for logical behavior, you have a lot to learn.

[bullwinkle428]

27. It won't suddenly "run out" - we've known forever that oil shale,

for example, is capable of yielding mass quantities of crude, but it hasn't been economically feasible to do so. Once the amount produced by conventional methods starts to dwindle, things like shale will come into play, but we'll be paying out the wazoo for it! That's where the advantages of being part of the elite come then start to make sense...

[Strelnikov_]

30. Where does the energy come from to tap all that shale oil potential?

Since even the 'new/improved' processes seem to yield little to no net energy (EROEI<2).

Economists seem to have a problem wrapping their heads around the concept that this is a resource scarcity issue (energy) with no economic substitute. In the future, we will simply use the energy directly (via a carrier such as electricity) versus investing it in the production of shale oil for a limited net energy gain.

In any process, the total energy of the universe remains constant.

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Strelnikov_]

31. Hmm . . sounds like the OP just hit the denial stage n/t

[Javaman]

32. yeah, I could care less if he believes or not, it's still going to run out. lol nt

[mmonk]

33. I think when the geology of the middle eastern

countries reaches peak oil status, you will see a big shift to other areas of the world for extraction. You'll also see a huge upsurge in costs that will hurt the profit margins oil companies enjoy. At that point is when it will get more dicey. Right now, our move into Iraq, the Caspian areas and other places is driven both out of current greed and current geopolitics of hegemony and the way the US uses OPEC to its benefit. Once that shift occurs, the US hegemony will begin to lose some of its grip depending on where the new explorations reside and our control in who does the extraction and what the terms will be.

[Strelnikov_]

35. Then we are in disagreement

'Big oil' controls maybe 4% of the worlds reserves. The balance of reserves are mostly held by state owned oil companies, 67% of which is in the Middle East.

If there were the chance of any potential deposits of significance outside the Middle East and Russia, 'big oil' would be using their profits to buy exclusive access, now, like they have done in Nigeria and the Caspian region (which has turned into a bust, by the way).

We invaded Iraq, and are trying to maintain hegemony over the Middle East for one reason, it is the last remaining area on earth, outside of Russia, that holds large reserves of energetically viable petroleum.

Oh, by the way, with the 'above ground' problems in Iraq, it appears that the Middle East has, indeed, peaked.


The propaganda war about peak oil (media/political blackout) is about keeping the addicts hooked as long as possible. All one has to do is review the Reich propaganda about 'peak oil' (abiotic oil, loony lefties, capped wells, etc etc) to know something is up.

The motive? There are tremendous profits to be made, by those holding the oil, in decade or two following peak due to the time it will take to respond to high liquid fuel prices. They cannot have the addicts kick too soon.