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.

On the plus side!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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...

Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic

[Anonymous Coward]

People who bought oil future loose their shirts.

Why? Did they get too hot?

With apologies to Andy Warhol

[wcrowe]

In the future every entity will have an associated conspiracy theory, for 15 minutes.

Re:On the plus side!

[elrous0]

If my sources are correct, all we have to do is kill a bunch of dinosaurs then wait.

Re:Bah!

[postbigbang]

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.

Re:Gas prices a factor in economic collapse?

[frank_adrian314159]

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...

Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic

[ultranova]

As each one of these applications turns away from oil, the price of oil will temporarily drop or stabilize. Eventually we'll either be 100% off oil, or at a level where it's sustainable for 1000's of years.

In order for an application to turn away from oil into other solutions, those other solutions must both exist and be economical - no, it's not sufficient to be cheaper than oil, the alternative must be cheap enough that the user can afford to pay. In order for such solutions to exist, they must be researched. That, in turn, takes time (insert a quote about nuclear fusion being 40 years away here). They won't magically appear out of nowhere simply because there is a market for them.

Besides, if we can solve our energy problems by, for example, getting nuclear fusion working, we can simply synthesize oil from carbon dioxide and water. It's not like it's particularly complex material, a basic oil being just a chain of carbon atoms with hydrogen atoms stuck along it.

Oh wait, that's free market economics, and I forgot that our president has announced that "that doesn't work any more."

It never has. Human mind is simply too ingenious when it comes to thinking up "get rich quick" -schemes, and too stupid to notice them when someone else thinks them up. Add the tendency of markets to concentrate to a few large players, which take the entire economy down with them if they fall, and it would take a true ideological fanatic to not put some restraints in.

But, to get back to the subject: alternative solutions take time to develop, and there's no guarantee that the market will start developing them in time, especially since all the speculators will come crawling out of the woodwork as soon as oil price starts rising and drive the price higher still, causing problems for everyone else.

Re:Bah!

[Bigjeff5]

Dude! You just said Nazi! You just got Godwinded... Godwindeded... whatever!

Re:On the plus side!

[countertrolling]

If my source is correct, we did.

Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic

[7-Vodka]

Dear CensorshipDonkey,
Hello, how is your postings on slashdot and all that going?
Well unfortunately it's my sad duty to inform you that we all got together and took a quick vote. We've voted that we do not want your breathing and general CO2 producing ass around.
Sorry about that!
Anyway if you could stop breathing and exhaling that would be great and all so we don't have to vote on a resolution on what to do next.
Hope all is well and sorry again.

Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic

[smoker2]

Aah reality C, where a really big number is supposed to make everything ok. The USA alone uses roughly 7 billion barrels a year, and that figure has been increasing by 3% year on year. If you take your 1.5 trillion figure for the US alone, then you have maybe 200 years of oil left. But I'm guessing you'll sell some of that so less than 200 years. And the rest of the world might like to use some of their oil too. If the rest of the world were to use oil at the same rate as the USA, then those 3.2 trillion barrels known world reserves will last about 20 years.

USA consumption = 7 billion barrels / year
USA population = 308 million
World population = 6.8 billion

6.8 billion / 308 million = 22.08
22.08 * 7 billion barrels = 154.56 billion barrels per year
3.2 trillion / 154.56 billion = 20.7 years
And those are very conservative population figures. In 10 years there could be easily another billion people.

Don't panic, I'm sure you'll be along with some bigger numbers shortly. How you can extrapolate the situation to being sustainable for 1000s of years is beyond my maths. But you blame it on the president mate, I'm sure that'll help.

Re:Bah!

[ichthus]

Now, don't be a Godwin nazi.

J/K. That sounds like a good plan. Draw up a petition and I will sign it.

Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic

[Eravnrekaree]

The thing is, you will have to basically completely obilerate a large area of the earths surface and it is highly doubtful that it would in any case be efficient enough to maintain this kind of consumption we have now. Most experts have said the oil sands is basically pie in the sky, a republican fantasy. The environmental impacts are far too great. The oil will be depleted anyway, it would only push back peak oil another decade or so. It is a little selfish of us to completely destroy a large area of the midwest to burn up this oil, leaving our future generations with no oil and a vast wasteland? Future generations will not benefit at all from this, the oil will be long gone for them.