Recently published Forbes figures show not only that wanted Mexican drug barons can still be included in richlists as long as they are wealthy enough, but that big oil is still big. Last year's figures show 7 of the 10 most profitable firms are oil companies. Petronas of Malaysia made an appearance in 8th position as the most profitable company in Asia. This year, PetroChina had that honour. As the names imply, they are both oil interests.
In a year where banks and retailers suffered the top 6 most profitable companies were oil giants, with combined revenues into trillions of dollars and combined profits nearing $200 billion. The two most profitable companies in the US, the most profitable in China (and ultimately Asia), in Russia, the UK and Europe are big oil. So the motive to tell lies is there in abundance, and certainly someone's telling lies. The popular Chinese paper China Daily reported that not just one but three Chinese firms are in the shortlist of the most profitable in the world. Along with PetroChina, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and China Mobile were all reported to be in the top 10.
They aren't. They're all in the top ten for market value, but not profits. Likewise, China Daily cited ICBC as saying they are now the most profitable bank in the world. Again, this isn't true, according to the Forbes figures Banco Santander has that crown, though ICBC is the highest ranked bank for market value. You might think this was just down to confusion but there's a huge difference between market value and profit, and the English edition of People's Daily (another Chinese newspaper), got the story right. So China Daily, owned by the Communist Party of China just as People's Daily is, is lying about the status of its companies, presumably because market value isn't considered as important for propaganda purposes as profits. Doubleplus good.
Similarly, Peak Oil involves a misapprehension of the potential problem and a lot of deception, by pretty much all of the people involved. It was originally developed as a theory by M King Hubbert, who worked as a researcher for Royal Dutch Shell, a company with long standing ties to the French arm of the Rothschild family and the Bilderberg Group. Indeed, Nathan Mayer Victor Rothschild, the 3rd Baron Rothschild, was head of research for Royal Dutch Shell for several years in the 1960s despite his training being in biology, not hydrocarbon geology.
These days the theory is little advanced, and is propagated by the likes of Mike Ruppert, a 'former' CIA man who advances the theory that 9/11 was engineered or allowed to happen to enable the mobilisation of the US military to take control of the world's last remain oil and gas reserves in his book Crossing the Rubicon. The book is full of graphs that look just like the one presented by Hubbert in this short video:
Essentially, the theory is that global oil production will reach its peak approximately now, in the few years following the turn of the 21st century. The graph of production over time is a bell curve, with a rapid rise to the peak and a rapid fall away from it. There are numerous problems with this statistical manipulation.
Firstly, it assumes to know how much oil there is in the world, often referred to as Total Recoverable Reserves. This is a combination of Recoverable Reserves (oil in the ground that we already know about) and Yet To Find, an estimate of how much oil there's left out there that we don't know about. Once again we see the unknown unknowns of Team B's Communist threat and the more recent terrorist threat, and Iraq's WMD. We don't know how much oil is out there left to be found, so we'll assume there's an amount consistent with the prediction we want to make about when the peak in oil production will happen.
Secondly, it assumes that the extraction of oil is uniformly difficult, or easy. For example, if it's easy to get 90% of the world's oil but only particularly difficult to get the last 10%, then it's only as we approach having to extract that last 10% that we'll hit the problems identified by Ruppert et al. If, by contrast, only the first 10 or 15% of the oil is easy to extract, and there's another 85% of it buried deeper than present technology allows us to get, the problems come much more quickly. This itself is not only dependent on the physical amount and location of the oil, but also the technological development of equipment to locate and extract it, which is again something Hubbert could not know in the 1950s, and we cannot predict now. If we've reached the limit of such technology already then once again, the peak will happen earlier. If we've some way to go on the development then the peak will come later.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is the misuse of language by the thousands of people claiming to be experts. 'Peak Oil' refers, in the language of almost everyone who talks about it, to a peak in oil production. However, we don't produce oil. We extract it, ship it around the world, split it up, refine it, and convert it into useful things like petrol and plastic. Nowhere have we actually produced anything that wasn't there before in a modified form. The actual production of oil is something of a contentious issue. While there's a consensus that it is a fossil fuel produced biogenically, i.e. from organic matter, the abiogenic theory has yet to be comprehensively refuted.
Regardless of what actually makes oil, it must come from somewhere, be produced by some process. The figure never referred to in any calculation of peak oil that I've seen is the amount of oil being produced by the earth over any given period. When you have a system whereby oil is being produced, somehow, and then extracted by us at a certain rate then the point at which we run out, or even begin to run out, is affected by the rate of production as well as the rate of extraction. However, by calling extraction production and ignoring real production altogether, a fixed point in time can be defined in what's actually a dynamic process. This is then endorsed by thousands of scientists who are either so stupid as to not realise what they've missed or are actively participating in a deceit.
Sadly, the same is true of so many critics, commentators and alternative theorists/conspiracy theorists. In taking peak oil for granted, they use it as an assumption to inform on other topics. Peak Oil was the motive for 9/11, according to Ruppert. Indeed, many in the 9/11 movement buy into this notion without critically examining in the same way they examine the terrorist attacks and the possible culprits. Likewise, many in the environmental movement talk about Peak Oil alongside Climate Change, blaming the world's woes on big oil companies in a vaguely anticapitalist gesture.
Consider that the Shell CEO Jeroen Van Der Veer (Bilderberg) is now officially endorsing Peak Oil theory as a reality. Consider that Exxon Mobil in June 2007 issued an official statement saying it had never doubted the threat from Climate Change. Then, in May 2008 a 'revolt' led by the Rockefeller family (major shareholders) led to them ceasing to fund 'climate change denial', i.e. research countering the finding of the IPCC. In January 2009 the world's largest oil company then joined the ranks of those calling for a worldwide carbon tax. Consider that JP Morgan Chase, the world's largest private derivatives player, have bought a carbon credits firm. Along similar lines they are even subsidising the production of low-energy stoves to be distributed in Africa, on the face of it a noble and benevolent scheme. However, because the stoves use less energy (and thus produce less carbon dioxide), they generate carbon credits. NM Rothschild's Australian branch is also looking to lead the way in the new economy with their Carbon Ring Consortium. Similarly, Barclays launched the first index for the developing carbon trading market in December 2007, following JPMorgan Chase's creation in February 2007 of the world's first bond index designed to address the risks of climate change. Unsurprisingly, at the heart of Barclays, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and JP Morgan Chase are the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. To say that the world's leaders are denying the reality of peak oil and/or climate change so they can keep making money is simple ignorance.
Beyond that, there is the possibility of Peak Oil being an outright lie. Lindsay Williams and others have spoken of vast reserves in Northern Alaska around Prudhoe Bay and Gull Island. The largest untapped field in the world, and fifth largest ever discovered is Kashagan in Kazakhstan, only discovered in 2000. Carioca, an offshore field near Brazil, has recently been estimated to be the third largest ever discovered. In February 2009 Permex, the Mexican oil company, announced that the world's biggest oil field had been found but that due to technological constraints it couldn't expect to access most of it until 2040. Obviously these estimates will have to be proven and the extraction of that oil is subject to geological, technological, economic and political constraints but that's exactly the issue at stake, that the amount of oil available to us at what point in time and at what price is dependent on a great many factors outside the statistical estimates of peak oil experts.
At the Veterans for Peace convention in 2006, when asked whether Peak Oil was an 'oil company conspiracy', author and former economic hit man John Perkins replied:
"Peak Oil is not only an oil company conspiracy, it's a misconception in economics. Peak Oil, any kind of a calculation like that, is based on assumptions. The old Peak Oil assumption was on the basis of I think 30 or 40 dollars a barrel, and under that assumption the analysis was pretty accurate. But today oil is priced at over 70 dollars a barrel so the old Peak Oil conclusions are totally off the wall...The speech and Q and A session is in three parts, here, here and here. Pointing out the profits made by Exxon Mobil, Perkins went on to say how the fact that supply is restricted because of the wars in the Middle East is actually to the oil companies' advantage. Canada's reserves are said to be second only to Saudi Arabia's, and in the midst of the global recession Shell and Exxon are looking to buy up Canadian firms and therefore a stake in those fields, and again they're not letting a good crisis go to waste.
...So, Peak Oil, our measurements of that whole theory of Peak Oil and when it comes to an end, is dependent on what price of oil you put. As you increase the price of oil, you increase the places you can get it from." - John Perkins, VFP Convention
This hints at one distinct possibility, which implies Obama's talk about ending America's dependence on foreign oil is actually a real policy, not just election talk. Only this week there has been discussion in the news of the Roan Plateau in Colorado, previously considered a reserve in case of extra demands in wartime. When America put its currency on the Saudi Oil standard in the 1970s, it essentially pinned the value of its currency on continuing supplies of oil from Saudi Arabia, and them denominating their oil trades in dollars. The price of a barrel of oil is almost always quoted in dollars as a result of this deal. However, much as there's reason for scepticism about global Peak Oil, there's a real possibility that the Saudis are running out.
At Ghawar, the world's largest oil field until recent developments suggested otherwise, they are injecting millions of barrels a day of sea water into the wells to sustain oil pressure. This is nothing new, injections of water are quite common. But the proportion of water coming back out in the oil is up to 30%, which means they're pumping millions of barrels of oil out of the ground that's 30% sea water because they've had to pump in so much water to keep the oil flowing. This is where the North American Union comes in. Canada and Mexico have vast oil reserves, Canada also has a lot of wood and water, and Mexico has a massive labour force.
If the US stops importing oil from the Saudis then the Saudis no longer have vast revenues with which they can buy the US debt. Without the ability to borrow money, the very real bankruptcy of the US government would become obvious. By combining the US, Canada and Mexico economically, they not only have a much larger tax base to service the debt, making it more appealing to China and India and Japan, but also control of significant oil reserves to replace the Saudi imports. However, this would probably lead to the collapse of the Saudi royal family and regional civil war, so they need an excuse to cover the area in military bases so that they can maintain a certain grip on the region.
Also this week, Hillary Clinton (Bilderberg) declared that Pakistan poses a 'global threat' because they're letting the Taleban control parts of the country. In the fallout from the release without charge of every person involved in what the authorities told us was a 'very big plot', Pakistani officials have expressed their anger at constantly being associated with terrorism and blamed for it. They have a point, in that since the attack on Iran was shelved, Pakistan has taken their place as the country most often associated with the threat from terrorism. On the other hand, the Pakistanis have a long history of collaborating with paramilitary groups that are in effect indistinguishable from terrorists in the rather broad sense that we tend to use the word. The Pakistani ISI was critically involved in Operation Cyclone, the decade-long funding, arming and training of Arabs to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. I doubt the Americans will launch a military invasion of Pakistan, though it is possible, but given the influence of Kissinger and Brzezinski I think a less direct approach is planned.
Of course, all this constitutes a conspiracy theory, but one in keeping with the sorts of plans executed by a globalist superclass over the last decades and centuries. Nonetheless, the future is never set in stone and the potential for change is always here. Peak Oil may prove to be the reason, or the excuse, for mass depopulation. In an e-mail discussing the debate on the possible abiotic origin of oil, Michael Ruppert admitted:
"I advocate an immediate convening of political, economic, spiritual and scientific leaders from all nations to address the issue of Peak Oil (and Gas) and its immediate implications for economic collapse, massive famine and climate destruction (partially as a result of reversion to coal plants which accelerate global warming).Ruppert advocates the convening of leaders to develop a program of population reduction but somehow has the gall to call this a 'painful choice made by all of humanity'. No genocidal plan developed by groups of world leaders is even approximate to a choice made by all. It is ludicrous that Ruppert, a man who prides himself on blowing the whistle and critically dissecting propaganda would subscribe to such a horrific view of the world and advance it in such deceptive terms.
This would, scientifically speaking, include immediate steps to arrive at a crash program - agreed to by all nations and in accordance with the highest spiritual and ethical principles - to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction as a painful choice made by all of humanity." - Ruppert
Once again we see people abusing their positions of authority, sometimes due to professional or social context and sometimes due to loyalty to a private network. By advancing such a view, Ruppert is allying himself more with the likes of the Bilderberg Group and the Club of Rome than he is with similar critics and theorists. As noted by Dave McGowan (to whom Ruppert's above e-mail was sent), Fletcher Prouty, a former Air Force Colonel and longtime whistleblower and Kennedy assassination theorist, advances not only that Peak Oil is a myth but that oil is abiotic in origin. Though Ruppert's From the Wilderness site is part of the independent media that discusses such theories, it consistently ignores such articles from similarly independent websites which contradict the desired view. As Chris Bennett describes on the excellent WorldNetDaily, there is an inorganic theory of oil production worthy of consideration:
The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:
- Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system – huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.
- At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.
- Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."
- In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.
- In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.
- Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.
- Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil...
...Could this be true?
In August 2002, in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US)," Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of "The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum." Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude:
The Hydrogen-Carbon system does not spontaneously evolve hydrocarbons at pressures less than 30 Kbar, even in the most favorable environment. The H-C system evolves hydrocarbons under pressures found in the mantle of the Earth and at temperatures consistent with that environment.
He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century." - Chris Bennett, WorldNetDaily
Perhaps it is a lack of willingness to discuss this possibility that leads Peak Oil commentators to so nakedly ignore the question of how much oil is produced, by whatever process, over the timescales discussed for various Peak Oil scenarios. In the absence of certainty over where oil actually comes from all we're left with is speculation and conspiracy theories about what knowledge is reliable bearing in mind the vested interests of the authorities involved. Curiously, a point similar to this is made in a Channel 4 documentary on conspiracy theories by Nafeez Ahmed, himself a Peak Oil theorist who has suggested a cover-up on the part of the oil industry. Ahmed, who is an excellent writer and researcher in many respects, has said he believes we have already passed the peak of oil production, and mostly advances the theory that the US military and/or government were complicit in 9/11.
The show itself is marginal improvement on the BBC's Conspiracy Files, though not as good as Jon Ronson's series for Channel 4 some years ago, The Secret Rulers of the World. Indeed, only Ronson's tries to break away from the established mainstream media line, that all conspiracy theories are wrong and that all conspiracy theorists are fantasists, loners, idiots and so on. Having interviewed a total of three conspiracy theorists (including crackpot doyen David Icke), they dedicate most of the second half of the show to one of the most laughable, unscientific experiments I've ever seen on a television programme.
A professor and a doctor, portrayed as experts on 'conspiracy thinking', are shown conducting a psychological exercise which, while superficially confirming their conclusions actually proves them to be false at closer examination. As they are introduced, they admit that they aren't interested in whether a particular conspiracy theory is true, but from a 'psychological perspective' why some people believe in them and some don't. The suggestion that people might actually believe in conspiracy theories on the basis of evidence is evidently not part of the discussion.
30 students were given a rudimentary psychological evaluation, a paper questionnaire, aimed to assess three 'factors' - low levels of trust, feelings of alienation from society, and propensity to make assumptions. The experts predict those who score highly for these factors will be more prone to believing in conspiracy theories. From the results of these tests, two groups of six, the highest scoring and lowest scoring, are drawn. They are then sat down as groups as asked what they think of a 'brand new' conspiracy theory created by the two doctors. The theory? That the government is using mobile phones to track everyone all the time.
Herein lies one problem, these two men claim to be experts in conspiracy thinking, and so you'd think they'd have some familiarity with conspiracy theories, if just to get a sense of the range of opinions and views, in which case they'd realise this theory is far from new. Indeed, similar techniques have been depicted in popular spy shows like Spooks for years before the making of this documentary. Furthermore, as psychologists they must have realised that by putting this theory to them as groups instead of individually that their responses would be more likely to develop via what is called 'groupthink', essentially where opinions are voiced more due to them being obviously acceptable in the specific social context rather than on the basis of a rational or impassioned process.
So they discuss the theory for a bit, kick some ideas around about it's possible limits, and are then asked to vote in the hands up in a crowd way that they used to hold general elections until people pointed out it made it difficult for anyone to dissent. That's why we have secret ballots today, and in some countries have for the better part of two centuries. It's hardly a radical standard to expect of people aspiring to get to people's real opinions. Throughout the discussion and voting in the show, people in the groups are shown looking to others for validation and confirmation of their opinions. When the group predicted to be conspiracy theorists are asked to vote on if they think it is 'very likely or quite likely' to be true, all six voted yes, it was quite likely. When the other group were asked to vote on if they thought it was 'certainly not' true, five of the six voted yes.
However, given that the original test was meant to assess how prone the students were to making assumptions and leaping to conclusions and that the group who were meant to be sceptical were more certain in their beliefs, that the theory definitely wasn't true, it renders the whole experiment meaningless. Likewise, the group predicted to be more likely to believe in conspiracy theories were discussing the theory not literally in the sense of tracking everyone all the time, but the possibility of tracking people in that way, they weren't really voting on the original statement. Similarly, a dozen middle class students being asked about one poorly articulated conspiracy theory doesn't test anything on a wider scale. Despite this setbacks, or possibly in total ignorance of them, the show declares the experiment's results 'conclusive'.
Taking the results off to meet David Icke, one of the experts asks for his opinion on a 'large scale survey' they carried out. Responding to the allegation that people believe in conspiracies because it serves a psychological purpose, Icke responds by saying that people have looked at the evidence and realised they're being lied to. The expert responds by saying that for some of Icke's claims there is next to no evidence, but when prompted admits he hasn't actually read Icke's work, only read about it. This invalidates the entire process and the claim to expertise, because one cannot expect to be able to reasonably comment on work which one hasn't actually seen or read, and to seek to assess such beliefs solely through the framework of psychology is a waste of time.
No doubt, some people's experience and predilections will inform what they believe, perhaps everyone. But belief in conspiracy is as common as eating bread. Banks conspire to award huge bonuses to irresponsible directors, people conspire to murder out of jealousy or revenge, families conspire to keep secrets in the closet - the mainstream press is full of such stories, particularly 'real life story' magazines. However, by defining certain conspiracy theories as such and referring to other conspiracy theories via a different name, one can maintain a false distinction and design fraudulent, circular experiments to try to justify a means of classifying not only beliefs but also the people who believe in them.
Like the Peak Oil calculations, the aim is not a rigorous and careful investigation of the facts and the use of that information to develop sound policies, but to classify beliefs in ways conducive to political purposes. By tagging anyone who suspects the governmental and corporate elite as a conspiracy theorist they can discourage dissent and suspicion, as well as manipulate discussion of issues so that science and logic are made subservient to political demands. Just about any belief on the subject of Peak Oil, short of flat out denial of it being worthy of discussion, involves a conspiracy theory, in part because of what Nafeez Ahmed identifies, the lack of certainty requires some speculation in order to have a specific view of the world. Anyone who wants to be seen by the mainstream as an expert, or even just an authority, cannot explicitly endorse a conspiratorial worldview, at least not without calling it something else.
Global crude oil production peaked in 2008.
ReplyDeleteCredit for accurate Peak Oil predictions (within a few years) goes to the following (projected year for peak given in parentheses):
* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)
* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008)
* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst; Samuel Foucher, oil analyst; and Stuart Staniford, Physicist [Wikipedia Oil Megaprojects] (2008)
* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)
* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)
* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)
* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell geologist (2005)
* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)
* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)
* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)
* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)
* Fredrik Robelius, Oil analyst and author of "Giant Oil Fields" (2008 to 2018)
Oil production is now declining terminally.
Within a year or two, it is likely that oil prices will skyrocket as supply falls below demand. OPEC cuts could exacerbate the gap between supply and demand and drive prices even higher.
Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. There is no plan nor capital for a so-called electric economy. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
"By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame."
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, water supply, waste water treatment, and automated building systems.
Documented here:
http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
Hello Clifford,
ReplyDeleteBelieve what you will, but look at how you've sought to argue your case. Firstly, by reference to experts, the same experts who consistently ignore the relevance of actual oil production in the earth. Secondly, by appeal to 'independent' studies, when no such thing exists particularly in the most profitable industry in the world. Thirdly, you are assuming the price of oil is dictated purely by supply and demand, which is prove abundantly false by the continuing record profits made by Exxon Mobil and the others regardless of whether oil is $50 a barrel or $150. Fourthly, by predicting crisis and on the basis of that predicted crisis affirming what you think people should believe. It's a modified form of the precautionary principle, and just as self-invalidating.
Hi President Darkie,
ReplyDeleteThe independent agencies/ organizations that support the reality of Peak Oil include the National Academy of Sciences, Office of General Accountability and, the Congressional Research Service. This includes the 300 scientists, environmentalists, greens, university professors who wrote this report which established Peak Oil as a geological fact, and predicted the Peak aobout now: http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11771
For decades, the oil companies have purposely lied to the public by saying there is ample oil production for decades to come. Oil company executives gain stock options and high stock prices from convincing stock holders that all is well with their company's future. The Energy Information Agency, the International Energy Agency, and Cambridge Energy Research Associates are all allies of the oil companies, both private and national, and have lied to the public also. Recently 2 Shell execs spoke the truth about oil reserves and were promptly fired.
Oil prices were driven up in 2005-2008 by the plateau of oil production since 2005 to July of 2008 while demand increased. And then speculators drove the price higher. Now demand is down due to the recession, and the price has dropped, and some speculators lost their shirts. Unfortunately, many people lost their life savings and many poor people lost their jobs and are on the street, see the photo results here:
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/ and who is to blame here:
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/2009/04/great-peak-oil-recession-whos-to-blame.html
Read more here:
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
No scientific institution is independent, particularly not where hundreds of billions of dollars of oil are concerned. Unless you can show me a calculation which takes into account the factors I've mentioned I see no reason to reassess my conclusion that existing Peak Oil calculations are phoney, or just nonsense.
ReplyDeleteIf for decades oil companies have lied to the public about the reality of peak oil then why is the Shell CEO now 'admitting' that reality? In the absence of knowledge of the mechanism of oil production (organic or inorganic) how can anyone be certain of anything about the supply of oil?
The oil price in July 2008 was nearly $150 dollars a barrel. It's now about a third of that. No fluctuation in supply and demand can make prices vary so much. People aren't demanding 1/3 the amount of oil they were just under a year ago, or half as much as they were a year ago.
The price of oil is fixed just like the price of gold, by a cartel, essentially in secret. The Saudis essentially dominate OPEC, and the Saudies got into bed with the international banks and corporations back in the 70s, when a previous 'energy crisis' drove prices up and enabled a restructuring of the oil economy. This is why people like Daniel Estulin (Bilderberg journalist) and Lindsey Williams (former oil pipeline pastor) are able to predict major fluctuations in the price of oil.
Indeed, back in November 2007, as oil approached what was then a record $100 a barrel, the International Energy Agency who you say are in league with the oil companies was reporting that due to Peak Oil we would see $100 a barrel as a baseline price, whereas oil is currently a little under $50 a barrel less than 18 months later.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1681362,00.html
In short, there's no straightforward connection between the relative oil demand and supply and the price you have to pay to get a barrel of it.
Dear President Darkie,
ReplyDeleteIf the price of oil is set by a cartel, why is the price so low now, when the private and national oil companies could be making out like bandits?
The National Academy of Scientists is mostly made up of university professors who are not on the payroll of the oil companies and don't own oil stocks. As a group they are about as independent as possible.
I don't know the motives of the two Shell executives went public about Shell's reserves. Sometimes individuals are motivated out of concern for the public good.
In 1982 I taught a course titled "Energy Policy and Politics" at the University of New Hampshire.
I used the 600 page study "Energy in Transition 1985 to 2010" by the National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and National Institutes of Medicine) for the textbook.
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11771#toc
The study confirmed what I knew from age 10. We live in the oil age, just a speck in all of human history, and that the beginning of the end would occur in my lifetime. My father only had a night school education and worked as a lab technician in the refineries of Atlantic Richfield Company in Philadelphia. But he knew the power and value of oil, and he knew it was neither renewable nor replaceable.
After reading the NAS study, I knew that there was no transition to make and that a great human tragedy would unfold in my lifetime. At least one of the panelists saw what I saw, and I book marked this comment by panelist Professor Kenneth Boulding (page 617):
"In preparing for the future, therefore, it is very important to have a wide range of options and to think in advance about how we are going to react to the worst cases as well as the best. The report does not quite do this. There is an underlying assumption throughout, for instance, that we will solve the problem of the development of large quantities of usable energy from constantly renewable sources, say, by 2010. Suppose, however, that in the next 50, 100, or 200 years we do not solve this problem; what then? It can hardly be doubted that there will be a deeply traumatic experience for the human race, which could well result in a catastrophe for which there is no historical parallel.
It is a fundamental principle that we cannot discover what is not there. For nearly 100 years, for instance, there have been very high payoffs for the discovery of a cheap, light, and capacious battery for storing electricity on a large scale; we have completely failed to solve this problem. It is very hard to prove that something is impossible, but this failure at least suggests that the problem is difficult. The trouble with all permanent or long-lasting sources of energy, like the sun or the earth’s internal heat, is that they are extremely diffuse and the cost of concentrating their energy may therefore be very high. Or with a bit of luck, it may not; we cannot be sure. To face a winding down of the extraordinary explosion of economic development that followed the rise of science and the discovery of fossil fuels would require extraordinary courage and sense of community on the part of the human race, which we could develop perhaps only under conditions of high perception of extreme challenge. I hope this may never have to take place, but it seems to me we cannot rule it out of our scenarios altogether."
As a student of history (BA in History Muhlenberg College 1969) and as a political scientist I knew that the world economy was like a giant oil tanker going at full throttle on the open seas. It would take much effort and a long time to turn it. And really, there was no force to begin turning. So, I knew in 1982 that it was too late to change direction. Few scientists or government staff ever read the study, and it had almost no impact.
The NAS study forcasted Peak Oil for the 1990s and due to economic stagnation in the 1980s it was right on target. I did not realize until later that the downside of the curve would be very steep.
Interestingly, the vast majority of Peak Oil "scientists" believe that there is still time to make some transition to some other energy, though there is not even a plan for how this could work, let alone the problems of societal inertia, time, and capital. The ideology of continuing along is so strong that those who focus on preparing for Peak Oil impacts are labeled doomers and are avoided along with real discussion about preparing for Peak Oil on the most prominent Peak Oil discussion blogs.
In 2004, geologist Colin Campbell (retired -- Texaco, British Petroleum, Amoco) cautioned, "Throughout history, people have had difficulty in distinguishing reality from illusion. Reality is what happens, whereas illusion is what we would like to happen. Wishful thinking is a well-worn expression. Momentum is still another element: we tend to assume that things keep moving in the same direction. The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy reality. There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the iron grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half-truth and the flat lies."
Dear Clifford,
ReplyDeleteBy what measure is the price of oil 'so low' now? We're currently back into the realms of the 2000-2005 pricing, which one might consider 'normal', not 'low'.
Compared to where it was a year or so ago, it is low now, and to answer your question the cartel who controls the price of oil is interested in more than just profit. They've such a monopoly that they'll make vast amounts of money as long as oil remains a profitable industry.
However, if the Saudis are running out of oil then they'll no longer have the revenues to buy US debt. Without the ability to sell debt, the entire US economy would be quickly destroyed. The US set the value of the dollar on the Saudi oil standard back in the 1970s, as recorded in detail by John Perkins. I'd suggest that the current 'low' in the price of oil, contrary to the predictions of Peak Oil commentators but in keeping with the predictions of Estulin and Williams, is part of the management of the transition to a post US dollar carbon trading economy.
You claim to have known 'from age 10' that oil would begin to run out within your lifetime. I therefore ask you the following questions:
1) How, at the age of 10, were you able to predict the Total Recoverable Reserves in oilfields that hadn't even been discovered yet?
2) How, at the age of 10, were you able to identify the mechanism by which oil is produced in the grounds (organic or otherwise), and measure the rate by which this process occurs?
3) How, at the age of 10, were you able to predict the technological developments in location, extraction, and refining of oil that hadn't happened yet?
4) How, at the age of 10, were you able to know how long you would live and therefore whether or not we'd start running out of oil within that time period?
Obviously, without meaning to offend you, there's no way you could have possibly known any of these things when you were 10, yet you'd have to know all of them to be able to know what you say you knew at that age.
As to the question of replacing oil as our primary source of energy, I have no great knowledge of other possibilities, but to deny the possibility of ever developing a technology merely because one hasn't been developed yet (particularly at a time when energy research is dominated by the oil and military industries) is unscientific and illogical.