Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil 720
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.
If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic. People flip out. People die. Fuel shortages lead to water/food/heating shortages lead to war. Private industry doesn't have a chance to adjust. People aren't prepared to buy a new vehicle on the spot. Californians ride the nearest comet to Heaven's Gate. Crime increases, lawlessness arises, civilization breaks down, I'm forced into a Thunderdome with Cowboy Neal for my right to live.
If the IEA is capable of any logic at all, they are not cooking the books or withholding data. What's the motive of retaining data or fixing charts?
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a good argument (Score:5, Insightful)
an analogy with the (marginalized, demonized) economists who warned of a coming economic collapse in 2007.
Great. This argument boils down to "Someone who we were told was wrong turned out to be right. Therefore, this other person who we are told is wrong (and by extension everyone who we are told is wrong) must also be right." I have no idea whether or not these whistleblowers are correct or not, but this "argument" by analogy is worse than useless, because it encourages fuzzy thinking.
Give it a rest, will you? (Score:4, Insightful)
These popular conspiracy theories about group X holding back product/information Y are all debunked by a single thought: IF these people are truly smart enough to rule the world (or an aspect of it), they know better than to try to control every single individual in it.
What does this mean? That they are smart enough to follow free markets. They are smart enough to know that they can't predict the future of the stock market, even if they can control an aspect of it. This assumes that these groups do have a level of involvement high enough to control the government, financial and religious institutions WITHOUT being exposed. You really think that a large group of people is capable of holding a secret so large for so long? A president gets a blowjob from an intern and the whole world hears about it. I doubt an army of engineers, scientists and politicians would be quiet about what really goes on in Area 51, killing people with vaccines, peak oil conspiracies or whatever bullshit is popular that day.
So give your conspiracy theories a rest and please report some real news.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Oh wait, that's free market economics, and I forgot that our president has announced that "that doesn't work any more."
So, mandates, high taxes, and bans on exploration and new extraction will be the norm, the price of oil will skyrocket, people will be unable to adjust and will panic/starve/die. So we have scenario B, enforced by our "leaders" rather than a real crisis...
Re:peak oil clarification (Score:3, Insightful)
If it is simply supply and demand, why are we now down to ~$50/barrel and yet demand hasn't decreased and supply hasn't increased? The price of oil is hardly an indicator of what you are suggesting.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic. People flip out. People die. Fuel shortages lead to water/food/heating shortages lead to war. Private industry doesn't have a chance to adjust. People aren't prepared to buy a new vehicle on the spot. Californians ride the nearest comet to Heaven's Gate. Crime increases, lawlessness arises, civilization breaks down, I'm forced into a Thunderdome with Cowboy Neal for my right to live.
The only way Reality B can happen is if government artificially lower the price of oil through price caps or subsidies.
Oil producers have no motivation to lie about oil reserves. They need the price to rise as the supply falls so that they maximize their profits. This will inevitably lead to your Reality A, a slow increase in price as supply falls.
Probably overblown (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Congrats, you just described supply and demand. Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*. Check back in a couple of years or so, and I think you'll find the balance has changed somewhat.
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
*There's also a whole commentary about how smart exactly is was for the US to basically outsource everything. Cost of living is cheap, but the blowback's a bitch.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it better that we start exploiting our own oil reserves when the prices reach astronomically high levels?
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
By the time that happens we won't have any money left to exploit them with and it will be the Saudi's pumping oil out of the Midwest.....
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
Reality A: No withheld data. Data is disseminated with some initial shock that by 20xx we will have oil shortages. People get a chance to plan accordingly. Private business gets a chance to cash in on better alternatives and more efficient products marketed to the consumer. California starts to look a little less crazy. Gasoline and fuel slowly becomes more expensive over the years as production slows. People adjust.
Um, California has been looking a lot less crazy ever since gas hit $5.00/gal, even if it since dropped down to half that but still more than twice the cost it was in 2000. The government is funding alternative energy development and alternative energy is being developed and deployed. Fuel/energy efficiency has become a major selling point for a wide variety of consumer products, especially vehicles but also refrigerators, A/C units, even basic home construction in the form of extra insulation paying for itself.
Everyone knows the long term price of gas is only going to go up, up, up. I'm not sure exactly how much more planning you think people could do or would do. Is some hard date 20 years in the future going to make people more proactive today, if the simple cost of fuel and electricity isn't already doing it?
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic.
I can't imagine a reality where the IEA "downplaying" peak oil today translates into an imminent oil shortage being completely unknown and unanticipated up to the very moment it happens "xx" years in the future. Over time, the simple realities of rising fuel costs will make it obvious that the oil party is going to end soon. If the IEA is still trying to downplay the risk, then they'll necessarily have to change their story.
Downplaying the danger to prevent a panic today is a strategy for today. The logic is probably based around not wanting to cause panic buying of gas, which would reduce the supply and increase the cost of fuel, which would further increase the costs of practically everything in our hobbling economy, which is the opposite of what we need.
I still think it's a bad move... Hiding data like this in general is a bad idea because when the truth is leaked it just further erodes any sort of trust in anything the government does say. When they finally announce that peak oil is really here and we all need to do something right now, everyone will just be saying "yeah right, what's their agenda this time?"
Re:peak oil clarification (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all supply and demand
It's really not. OPEC deliberately (and publicly) slows production to keep prices high. They've gotten used to the profits that $70+/bbl oil brings. We're never going back to pre-Katrina oil prices. In the long run, though, this is good - it merely ensures the rise of much more fuel efficient vehicles.
Re:Bah! (Score:2, Insightful)
Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
You really ought to learn what Godwin's Law is before you start citing it:
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
I don't recall making any comparisons. I used a tongue-in-cheek phrase [urbandictionary.com] to describe environmental extremists that won't be happy until mankind reverts to a hunter-gatherer culture or dies out entirely.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Oil producers have no motivation to lie about oil reserves.
Oil producers have ample motivation to lie about oil reserves. Who has more geopolitical and economic clout:
a) A country with 50 billion barrels in proven reserves, who publicly state they have 50 billion barrels in proven reserves, or
b) A country with 50 billion barrels in proven reserves, who publicly state they have 125 billion barrels in proven reserves?
Who is better able to attract foreign investment in port facilities or refineries? Who has more influence over the large oil-consuming nations?
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would argue that Godwin applies perfectly here. That it has been allowed to become a "meme" just means a significant part of the political spectrum have commited Godwin on themselves - and in the usual Godwin way, made fools of themselves.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
We will not "suddenly" run out of oil. What will happen, is that prices will become high, and stay high - even in the face of things which would previously send them into the cellar, such as, I don't know, a global recession.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
You say "environmental extremeists" as though it's one word.
Environmentalism has a long grey scale that you might be unfamiliar with. And like both current political leanings, there are a lot of other vectors to understand, too.
FWIW, I firmly believe that there's far more oil, pumpable at low cost, than we even know about. The problem isn't exporting oil dollars. The problem isn't exploiting domestic sources. The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be new here to OPEC. Let me be your guide.
OPEC exists to maximise the profits of its member countries. To avoid countries from competing against each other and thus lowering the price, there are production quotas.
Quotas are determined for each country based on its reserves.
Reserves are, however, only a rough estimation, because no one can go kilometres underground and survey the oil fields. They only have a few holes, pressure vs. flow data, composition and little more.
As a result, a geologist from Whatsamatterstan is asked from his minister: how much oil reserves do we have? If you say X, we make Y. If you say 2*X, we make 2*Y, and I will be happier. If you say X/2, I will hire another geologist.
So, as a result, reserve estimates within OPEC have a strong incentive to be exaggerated. In order to maximise profits, a country has to put a straight face until oil is really not flowing any more: if they let out the news that they cheated about reserves, they cannot sell oil at the same rate any more, and (not sure about OPEC by-laws) may face fines. So they will always deny any exaggeration in estimates until the bitter end.
Saudi Arabia, in particular, has an enormous incentive to lie about their cheap oil: they have a leadership position in OPEC because they have the largest reservoirs and the cheapest oil (used to be $2/barrel at production), which means they can keep everybody else who may disobey them in line by flooding the market, thereby sinking price, thereby hitting their profits. If they were to hit peak oil, that country would suddenly be powerless, useless to the US as a strategic ally, and will lose its position of prominence (most likely) to Iran, which you may guess will start a long domino effect.
Re:peak oil clarification (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
My understanding of Godwin's law is not that referencing Nazis is bad (after all, they were a part of history). He just observed that eventually, if a fight goes on long enough, someone will make reference to them. He did not opine if that was bad or good.
Personally I think it's rather silly we can't talk about tyrants or their tyrannical governments. Even if I invoke a different tyrant to make my point, like Communist Dictator Nicholae Ceasescu, I still get accused of Godwining myself. It's like a blatant censorship of history, and the willful decision to put blinders over your eyes and deny that governments can, from time to time, be destructive to their own citizens.
Foolishness.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
... and yet, miraculously, research on coal-to-liquid fuels continues all over the country! Damn that Reagan and his ineffective efforts.
Google: Coal to liquid [google.com]
- Alaska Jack
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
So, there are reserves that are "unattainable" because it is not energetically sane to extract, and they will never be economically feasible no matter the price.
You are operating under the assumption that methods cannot be developed to change the cost per unit of energy input. As costs go up, those with a keen eye for efficient design and a desire to make a lot of money will try to discover ways to make extraction cost effective and then patent it. They get to make tons of money off of the oil industry, and the industry gets to tap previously impractical wells.
By assuming that it is impossible no mater how much time or energy is put into the problem and then legislating from that assumption, they have kneecapped the entire oil industry in the US. I'm not a huge fan of any Politician that doubts the intelligence and fortitude of his own constituents. Especially when he's the president of the US, a country that is famous for it's problem solving abilities in the technical arena. It's akin to assuming that space flight will always be so expensive that only governments can afford to get involved, and then prohibiting any commercial research in that direction. Maybe the problem is too complex/expensive, but that doesn't mean you should prevent people from even trying to solve it if they want.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if there is more or not. The total determines the price. THe more simply means we'll be the last to fall, assuming an equal rate of use. However we use a lot more oil than other similar countries so that oil is a mitigating factor and if you think it's going to be sold at a discount to those in the US w/o some sort of government intervention then you are going to be in for a rude surprise.
Re:Give it a rest, will you? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's one thing classic conspiracy theory conspiracies very, very rarely have, and we're looking at it right now: Whistleblowers. It's not the first time either, that insiders have complained about political pressure.
So we're not exactly talking chemtrails-style conspiracies here, rather the kind of modest conspiracy that happens from time to time - such as a conspiracy to deny a link between smoking and cancer, or a conspiracy to deny that there's anything wrong with Iceland's economic situation. Not generation-spanning, all-encompassing conspiracies, just a couple of interest groups getting together and see if the can postpone inconvenient revelations (or their impact) a couple of more years.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the problem is too complex/expensive, but that doesn't mean you should prevent people from even trying to solve it if they want.
I'm confused how they're being prevented. Many oil companies have setups in Utah and Colorado mining shale oil, it's just not economically feasible now for them to develop the process further. That's the free market at work.
Real shame we can't pass legislation to force the oil companies to dump billions into oil shale research, but I guess that'd be socialism.
Re:Give it a rest, will you? (Score:3, Insightful)
OR, They're counting on you to believe this. It's positively diabolical.
In truth, the term "smart enough to rule the world" is meaningless. There's no such thing. There is simply the fact that people and organizations with varying levels of power and intelligence are struggling to manage the affairs of the world. They are doing a $adjective job of it. It may be that some of their methods include hiding or distorting information, for reasons they hope are good for themselves and the world as a whole, but primarily themselves and those who are closest to them. If that means screwing over everyone else, it's possible that some people would do it -- particularly if it means screwing over future generations who can in no way impede actions being taken now, before they are even born.
Humbug! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington. Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Don't worry though, I'm sure our overlords in the Federal Government will come up with a solution. All we need is more energy conservation and investment in key primary states^W^W^Wethanol to save the day.
The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that....
People complain about the NIMBYs until someone wants to put something in their neighborhood.
"enviro-nazi's"?? Where did you get that name from??
Every environmentalist group that I know of has a goal of basically improving human environments. Clean air, clean water, balanced ecosystem, etc....
Whatever we do to the environment always comes back to us one way or another. It's real easy to be Laissez-Faire when you live in a rich country but it'll only insulate us for so long - that' s assuming we stay rich.
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force.
How exactly do you invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and enough firearms to arm every adult citizen, should the need arise?
Re:Give it a rest, will you? (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. The only thing more annoying then a Conspiracy Theorist is someone who believes conspiracies don't exist.
Just because its not a huge, elaborate ploy, doesn't mean that there isn't SOMETHING underhanded going on, even if its just 1 individual.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's one of the dumbest arguments people sometimes make. The reason they're not exploited is because current oil prices don't justify exploiting them. The deeper, the more isolated, the lower the flow rate, or a whole host of other factors concerning oil in a block lease, the higher the oil price you need to justify developing it.
Re:Not worried (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you don't realise, but the price of "gas" is factored in in pretty much everything else you buy... That video game, how do you reckon it's transported to the store? That dinner, how do you think its ingredients are harvested, and possible, with what it is cooked?
Price of oil/gas rises --> price of all manufactured goods & services rises --> cost of living rises... This effect is far, far bigger than the "very small part of your recurring bills" that is you directly buying gas...
Re:Bah! (Score:2, Insightful)
No me, you retard, that's the way it is
So now we've moved up to personal insults, have we? Funny how I'm the one getting the troll mods.
You seem to think a few greens and their tame puppets in DC are responsible for most of the mess we're in
No, I seem to think that a few greens and their tame puppets are responsible for preventing us from exploiting domestic energy sources. I never claimed that they are wholly responsible for the "mess" that we're in. Thanks for putting words in my mouth though. Goes good with the side dish of insults that you've served up :)
upon which your reply is to accuse me of being an unrealistic daydreamer?
Where did I use the word "daydream"? I challenged your notion that oil isn't "expensive" enough to justify exploiting domestic resources. You've yet to respond to that challenge. Instead you've opted for insults. Perhaps you've learned all of your debate techniques from Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann? Why respond to the point when you can attack the messenger.....
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, until we have a viable alternative, why not use our domestic resources?
From a strategic standpoint, wouldn't it be better to wait till we've exhausted the oil supplies from everyone else before we start using our own?
Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic of economists (Score:1, Insightful)
See, here is where you are missing something. The 'Free market' isn't the magic bullet that you want to think it is. Oh sure, it will find an equilibrium between supply and demand. Nobody argues that. However, people might die and there might might be economic collapse while its happening, but gosh darn it, letting things take care of themselves gust makes sense!
'The free market' isn't omniscient. It can be blindsided by sudden changes. Those changes can be very bad in the short term. I might point out how the 'fee market' responded to banking deregulation over the last twenty years to illustrate my point. 'The market' has nobody's best interest at heart.
I am not advocating socialism or anything like that. The best system is probably a mixture of elements of a free market and a controlled economy.
From Peak to Asymptote (Score:5, Insightful)
Once we have reached the "peak", how long will it take to actually "run out"?
Forever.
We don't "run out." What happens is that the production decreases, and the price increases, so production heads asymptotically toward (but never reaching) zero production rate. As the price rises it becomes economically feasible to extract harder and harder to recover oil, and production never stops.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
You lost me at "safety issues". The worst accident in the history of American nuclear power resulted in zero fatalities. You'll forgive me if I don't see safety issues as a reason to abandon nuclear power.
The waste issue is a real one, but one that can be mitigated by nuclear reprocessing. In any case, if global warming is actually being driven by mankind's emissions of CO2 then I should think that the choice between a few thousand tons of low-level nuclear waste (the only kind that requires long term storage, high-level waste decays on much shorter timescales) and a few billion tons of CO2 should be an obvious one.
Thanks for demonstrating my original point though. As an environmentalist you find every single option that's currently on the table to be unacceptable. That makes for great politicking but horrible engineering.
Re:Bah! (Score:2, Insightful)
Third world scum?
Well, I can see that the US is entering the third world when this kind of talk passes as "argument". I expect that in latinamerica, where we are all frustrated and poor. Not from the first world, that is supposed to be enlightened.
Not anymore it seems.
Re:On the plus side! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
If there really isn't much oil left, then oil will slowly become more and more expensive as the remaining oil becomes harder and harder to extract. We will never truly run out of it -- it will just get so expensive that it will be used for only a few things.
Military vehicles, warships, and aircraft.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Offer its industry leaders cheap labour, thus tempting them into moving their manufacturing capacity to your country, letting your enemy run up a debt it has no hope of ever repaying, use threats of not giving more credit to force it to devote more and more of its remaining manufacturing capacity to paying you while driving up taxes and weakening social services until the brightest young minds leave it. When it has been bled dry, cut the supply of goods, discard the hollow husk of your enemy, and keep the manufacturing plants they so graciously gave you.
It's working rather splendidly, judging by the financial crisis.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Assume the IEA whisleblower is correct, and that peak oil is approaching far faster than we've been led to believe. Hell, we might even be on the downturn already!
When the rest of the oil in the world is drilled out and used up, what the hell is going to happen to economic progress? What the hell is going to happen to the whole of the industrialized world?
We might get lucky, there might be alternative energy sources made available by then, the whole crisis might be averted. I hope it is. But if it isn't, and the world is still dependent on oil when Saudi Arabia and Russia and South America and everywhere in the world that's currently selling oil run out, we're going to look pretty damn smart for not tapping our domestic reserves until after everyone else has gone belly up.
It's a long-term plan, an insurance policy if you will.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought Professor Nash killed the wholly Free Market idea some time back. After which, Black Friday (the digitization of the stock markets) killed it again. The BCCI scandal poured holy water on the grave. The global collapse due to Reaganomics/Thatcherism drove a stake through what would have been a heart, but might really have been a deformed liver. The current collapse did the bell, book and candle routine.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
OPEC allocates production quotas as a percentage of each member nation's claimed reserves. So any member of OPEC who wants to sell more oil this year under their quota system will claim proven reserves larger than they really have. And any member of OPEC who thinks other members are inflating their numbers, will inflate their own just to keep the field level.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
Point taken. It would be more precise to say "At a certain point, it will no longer be possible to extract oil from the ground to be used as a significant energy source."
I expect pumping to go on for quite a long time after oil's use as a major energy source ends. It's too valuable as a precursor to numerous chemicals.
As for energy consumption being directly proportional to economic growth. It's true that there are exceptions, but historically, most economic growth isn't from nonmaterial commodities like software, but from material commodities like buildings, food, automobiles, etc. These fundamentals are what will be under constraint if indeed, oil production has plateaued or on the decline.
If the plastic in computer parts quadruples in prices, and it costs $20 a day for you to get to and from work, and your lunch costs half of your day's salary, your local software company will have quite some new economic constraints, eh?
Note to self. Push for telecommuting.
Missing a motive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
What we've seen in past year is that high oil prices destroy economic growth which destroys high oil prices.
That's not what happened at all, the oil prices had nothing to do with economic growth, and the oil prices also had nothing to do with supply/demand which would ordinarily govern such things.
The oil prices were artificially inflated by the OPEC cartel, which is unmaintainable. They reset prices before the bubble burst on them (which would be very bad for OPEC), and for a little while oil was priced a little lower than it should have been.
The economic crisis was a completely separate issue, caused by funny business in the housing markets - particularly the insurance markets.
In fact what was remarkable about the period of extremely high oil prices was consumption of oil did not change much, people simply got a little angry, and put MPG higher on their list of "things I want in a car" for their next purchase. A lot of companies used oil prices as an excuse, but for most of them it was a complete crock.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
Were you going for the funny mod? Companies will lie if they perceive that the truth will significantly threaten their hip-pockets. Take for example the recent fad of "Greenwash". Companies are still doing their same old polluting thing, they just advertise their (usually non-existent) environmental credentials. Some other examples you may be more familiar with:
Not all corporations are dishonest, however some will behave unethically given sufficient motivation.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
You ignore the fact that China must purchase US dollars to keep its currency pegged and maintain the advantage of cheap labor. Their wealth is therefore built upon the value of the paper the US gives it. Make that paper worthless and the value of those holdings dissolves. Further, many of those shiny manfuacturing plants will be left idle and the value of goods made depreciates since the chief purchaser can no longer afford them.
The massive foreign holdings of the dollar has made the United States into the equivalent of a "bank too big to let fail." Just like the corporate fat cats cashing in millions while the economy around crumbled, the US continues to happily give pieces of paper to enjoy cheap goods, finance it's wars, and feed its appetite for oil.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, big oil is the middle man, and they're getting fat. Capitalism at its finest, buy low, sell high. What was your point ?
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
The increases in oil prices could have the long term potential of damaging the economy, but I think your conclusion on the impact of oil prices is correct. The oil prices surged and quickly subsided before they could have any significant effect beyond stirring up anger.
However, I would say the funny business in the housing market was only part of the cause for the current economic debacle. Aside from the games finance, investment and insurance companies were playing with large blocks of risky mortgages was the borrowing of funds from the Fed at very low interest rates and then lending that money to every warm body on the street combined with out of control spending practices of the masses and inflation offset by incomes that had turned stagnant around 2000 and unless you were in the top 10% income brackets was flat until the meltdown where the income quickly dropped to near nil for those who ended up without a job.
Increases in consumer spending and inflation combined with stagnant wages by itself would have eventually been enough to kill the economy. The banking greed only added fuel to the fire. In fact, if wages for the other 90% of the wage earners had continued their rate increase seen in the 1990s then credit would not be as much of an issue as it is today. Banks have money they've borrowed from the Fed that they could lend to individuals, but they wont as most individuals wages are already strapped with debt.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Reality D: Data is being withheld. Different forecasts of peak oil are generated and released, prompting suckers to buy, then sell, then buy back, etc, etc. oil futures. The people handling the transactions make out like bandits.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
I never metameme I didn't like.
Re:Not worried (Score:3, Insightful)
You're lucky. You're relatively prosperous. You have a very long way to fall before you really feel the pinch, by which I mean, for example, fuel costing so much relative to your income that you have to choose between heat and food. There are billions of people less fortunate than you. These people dream of being rich enough to heat or cook by natural gas or even kerosene - wood or charcoal's all they can afford (mind you, I'd rather cook on charcoal than kerosene, convenience be damned - that stuff stinks). And as for owning a car... no chance.
As cheap oil dwindles, your world (and mine) will become more and more like theirs. The only question is whether it happens gradually, through acceptance and adjustment, or suddenly, through denial and conflict.
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually. Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I'd rather we rush ahead right now and find out we had decades of leeway than sit on our asses right now and wake up tomorrow to find out we didn't have as much time as we thought we had.
Re:If True, Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic (Score:2, Insightful)
Except that he didn't "abolish" any program or stop funding research. The Congress of the United States passed an omnibus budget reconciliation bill, and one of the provisions of that bill shut down the federal corporation which performed the research; President Reagan signed that bill into law. Congress is free at any time to restart such research or fund any private research efforts.
Re:Seems like environmentalists should be cheering (Score:3, Insightful)
What's remains in the ground is going to require increasing energy (and associated pollution) or will be in inconvenient or pristine areas.
Take a look at the environmental impact of mining and extracting Alberta's oil sands for instance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Oil_Sands
for a similar case in point -by the end of the CA gold rush they were making huge cyanide leaches to extract miniscule amounts of gold from ore that had to be pounded into dust. those companies then all folded leaving CA and Nevada (mostly) with these Superfund-type sites (except no one will ever pay to have them cleaned up)
-I'm just sayin'
Its all Bush's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
No seriously. The IEA and USGS (US Geological Survey) were both formed after the 1970's oil shock to provide us with reliable data about future oil supplies. They idea was to provide us with plenty of time to prepare ourselves for future oil shocks. And they did just that - delivering solid if boring data for 30 years.
The suddenly in 2000 everything changed. Sources hereto though uneconomic were included, assumptions like magic improvements in extraction efficiency were added. And the projections altered accordingly.
Seems Bush put about as much store in solid reliable oil data as he did in solid reliable Iraqi intelligence, or scientific advice on global warming for that matter. He was nothing if not consistent.
http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/weo2004/TheUppsalaCode.html [peakoil.net].
What mess? What polluted land? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean the polluted land with oil pipes transporting oil across Alaska that caused caribou population to increase because they all huddled up next to the oil pipes for warmth and fewer died from the cold?
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
What you said doesn't necessarily contradict what he said...
The motive is obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
2. These oil companies want to continue to sell as much oil as possible, ergo...
3. These oil companies oppose anything that might reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, so...
4. Any information that might result in an increased sense of urgency to develop alternative energy sources is suppressed, or at least massaged.
Don't believe me? Hey, they did the same for global warming [cbsnews.com]
Re:On the plus side! (Score:3, Insightful)
> The fact that the price of future-dated oil doesn't reflect this suggests that the smart money doesn't believe peak oil is as imminent as the heralds of doom suggest.
The fact of relatively low futures prices can be explained several ways: ...
1) As you suggest: there is no problem.
2) Investors base their decisions on inaccurate/fixed supply estimates (as per the article)
3) The investment is too long term for the majority of investors.
4) "Smart Money" is an oxymoron.
It's not just cars and trucks ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Virtually everything in a modern home, a modern hospital, a modern medicine cabinet, our modern lives are made from petroleum. The Peak Oil proponents rarely mention that most of the stuff they intend to have us use to "Go Green" is made from Oil. Their fancy CFL bulbs depend on Oil for the components. Most "Green" solutions rely on Oil-derived materials to be manufactured. The very bicycles they want us to peddle, the stroller they push, the mosquito repellant they use to keep their hippy kids free of West Nile, are all petroleum based at one component level or another.
I can't wait for the day the PETA-loving Peak Oil blabbering tree huggers realize the only oil-free option for a new bicycle seat is leather. May as well leave the fur on.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Learned nothing from the recent oil price spike did we? Price goes up, crisis starts, demand drops, price drops, crisis stops. The end of oil's dominance as a fuel source will be slow, not sudden. There are PLENTY of alternatives waiting in the wings for economies of scale to make them as cheap or cheaper than oil.
The people shilling peak oil are just trying to make money off the "crisis" plain and simple - another feature of the market.
Re:Bah! (Score:1, Insightful)
AND environmentalists always say we have to stop burning carbon based fuels.... which I do agree with, but that's not going to happen in time to save the planet. Switching to nuclear power is the only option we have until fusion reactors become feasible and safe, they produce lots of tritium still ( and you thought they didn't have radioactive waste products). So just like Seven Chu says, nuclear power must be a part of our energy production during this century.
And I do agree, three mile island was a great example of how to contain an accident, which was caused by the engineers shutting off water to the reactor, causing it to overheat, very similar to chernobyl. But there was practically no radiation released, the most anyone got was equivalent to smoking 1 pack of cigarettes. But come on, those designs weren't even made with computers, today pebble bed reactors are extremely safe. Toshiba makes a nice mini nuclear reactor perfect for cargo ships, which burn fuel oil, very dirty stuff. Drop them in all the cargo ships, they burn 100,000 gallons of fuel crossing the ocean. I haven't heard of any alternatives for them.
A climate fix is needed to hold us over (we have too much carbon up there, and it's going to take a while until we stop releasing so much), spraying seawater into the air, a dyson sphere to block out some sun, or other creative options will have to be employed to cool off the earth.
We really need some pro nuclear propaganda in this country, we have by far the most knowledge of nuclear physics, and so much if it has been going to waste for the past 30 years.
As far as nuclear waste, I never saw the problem with sticking it in a mountain, unless you believe in mole people or something. The natural uranium mines has huge amounts of uranium in the ground, and it hasn't been a problem for millions of years, so whats the problem with artificially putting hot stuff in the ground. Hell, you really just need a concrete building to throw the waste in, just don't put it on a fault line.
We have something like 10,000 nukes sitting in the silos and building, they are made of dangerous material, and nobody wines about that, yet nuclear waste is somehow completely different?!
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words your arguments have no credibility and your just acting out in anger. As is evidenced when you repeat claims that the Democrats somehow destroyed any hope of additional regulation of Fannie and Freddie in a response to a post where I gave you the links to GW Bush's response claiming he will not support a house bill that passed that provided for regulation. And while I didn't provide a link I did give you the information you would need to look into McCain's half assed support of the same while in the senate.
And the funny thing is, none of it matters because if you read any of the reports that looked into the meltdown all the nutso news headlines and talking head spin masters are full of shit. Poor people receiving mortgages did not bring down the economy, that has to be the dumbest conclusion anyone from any political party could ever proclaim. Complete idiocy.
Re:Bah! (Score:2, Insightful)
What soot?
Why does the snow turn black at the side of the road?
Why do the wheels on my road bike stain my hands black when I change a tire?
Modern cars are cleaner, sure, sometimes you can even taste it when an old beater drives by, but all hydrocarbon based vehicles are certainly contaminating our environment.