No peak oil...they 've been lying to us.

[mac2]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147&hl=en

This is a very interesting speech. BP is allowed to take our oil and profit. We paid for the pipeline. They don't pay royalties either to build refineries, etc.

I remember reminding my Senator that when the pipeline was discussed they said it was enough oil to last generations out. All of sudden even California can't get enough.

My memory tells me they are lying and should lose their charter to do business here in the US. The Brits (royal elites not the people) want us ruined just like 200 years ago.

Read: The Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins.
and the Conspirators by Al Martin. Both turned states evidence regarding Iran Contra, etc.

A new book about the same criminal gang is called Den of Theives is also on the market. I haven't read that one yet.

So what this man is talking about is pretty credible since it is backed up by other inside people (State Evidence and Whistle Blowers).

We should remember the signers of the Declaration of Independence more. They risked their lives, forturnes, and even safety of their families so we could be free. We can't let this band of Neo Cons steal our freedom now. The History channel makes me sick when they degrade our founders. They weren't rich. The land owners weren't rich then like they are today. We had no CEO with millions and billions..."economic royals" is what I call them.

Every vote counts...still rings in my ears from election 2000-2006. Why have you forgotten that?

[DJ13]

1. Of course they've been lying

Its the same lie they were using back in the 70's.

Back then the industry shills were claiming the oil would run out before 1999.

Its a shame so many ecology minded people want to believe oil is running out(peak oil), as they have been complicit in perpetuating a lie solely designed to defraud consumers.

[mac2]

2. Back when we could only buy $5 worth of gas at a time

when tankers were in the harbor. Iran has tankers sitting off shore now.

It's profiteering by the Neo Cons over and over...and some are Democrats.

[DJ13]

3. Yeah, I remember those times

Anyone old enough to remember has no rational excuse for believing were running low on oil now.

And sadly you're right, many of these neocons ARE Democrats (in name only).

[mac2]

9. There have been articles about DLC Democrats recruiting

Republicans to run for public office. Ones who are Progressive are ignored and even made fun of by the media.

[FREEWILL56]

10. You've got that right that some are dems.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x151242

I will add that when the peak of oil is hit that,
1 They won't tell you for many reasons.
2 The defining factors could change due to price increases, wars, assholes in charge of a country and not just ours, accidents, conservation efforts, etc..
3 Reaching peak oil does not mean no oil or shortages as the curve will slowly go the downhill route.
4 There will still be oil around by the time you die. Just less of it at a much higher cost.

[hogwyld]

4. Are the oil companies so powerful

That they can manipulate the price worldwide? I travel a lot, and fuel is cheaper here than in most places.

[mac2]

8. What do you think they use to get products to market?

Even the shipping companies can justify the cost of bring goods here and having nothing to send back. Trade going one way is very costly.

[SlicerDicer-]

27. This is called Tax that does this :)

[elfin]

5. "They" (Sauds, Oil companies) are just testing the waters

for the "peak" they can charge consumers without massive changes in consumption patterns.

If we become inured to $4 plus a gallon - that is where it will stay.

They don't care if we can't afford food or other necessities, as long as they get more huge profits.

If patterns change drastically - look for it to drop back to $3 plus -- for a while.

[suziedemocrat]

6. EXACTLY!!!! They are trying to determine how "elastic" the demand for gas/oil is.

I still remember a little of my college economics - and I think you are absolutely correct. They want to find the sweet spot where they can maximize profits. In a way it is only what you should expect from a for-profit organization. That's why I get angry when anyone says "Hybrids/Solar Panels/Wind/ will take forever to pay back the initial investment." That assumes that the price of energy will not go up substantially, as I think it will. The only answer it to limit the products you absolutely can't live without. Drive a small car and drive less. Insulate your home. Buy energy-efficient appliances. Plant a garden. Pay off your credit cards, and stop using them when the interest goes up. They need us to need them. Not needing them, to the extent possible, is our only come-back.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. How much oil are we going to need? It might be more than you think.

Economists, in general, seem to insist that there can be no viable economic system that can provide society an acceptable standard of living and full employment without continuous economic growth. When we stop having economic growth for more than short periods of time we have recessions and even, in the worst cases, economic depressions with all the human misery that entails, such as widespread unemployment, homelessness, family breakups, and malnourishment (or even in extreme cases starvation).

In tandem with continuous economic growth over the years we have had a continuous growth in oil consumption as well. This makes sense as oil is our civilizations prime source of energy and it takes vast amounts of energy to fuel modern industrial economies. Over the past 15 years or so world oil consumption has increased on average around 2% per year.

Now, on the surface, a 2% per annum growth in consumption doesn't seem like it would be that significant an amount.However there is one implication of exponential growth in consumption of a resource that most people are quite unaware of, and that is, starting at any point in time, if you have a continuous exponential growth in consumption of a resource you will reach a point in which consumption of that resource has doubled. Now here is the real kicker: for each doubling period, the amount of the resource consumed in that single doubling period is greater than all that resource consumed in history up to the start of the doubling time. So what is the doubling time in oil consumption with a 2% per annum growth pattern? It's easy enough to figure out. You divide the number 70 by the percent increase in consumption per year to get the number of years it would take for consumption to double. So 70/2 = 35. Therefore if we start today in April 2008 and world oil consumption continues to increase at 2% per year, world oil consumption would be twice what it is today by April 2043. Furthermore the amount of oil consumed in that single 35 year period from 2008 to 2043 would be more than all the oil consumed in history from the start of the oil age in the late 1800s to 2008.

If, due to the increasing demand for oil from China and India etc, the world oil consumption annual consumption increase went from 2% to 3% per year, the doubling time would shrink to 23.3333 years (70/3).

If you think I've got to be kidding that in one 35 year doubling time we could consume more oil than we have consumed in history in the (approximately) 150 years between the start of the oil age (the first commercial oil wells came on stream in the early 1860s) to the current year 2008, you can easily verify for yourself how it works with a chess board and a few grains of rice. Put one grain of rice on the first square of a chessboard and then double the amount of grains on each succeeding square. Therefore, put 2 grains on the second square, 4 grains on the third square, 8 grains on the 4th square. 16 grains on the fifth square etc.

Now note that in the doubling from say square three to square four we went from 1+2+4 = 7 grains of rice on the chess board to 15 grains of rice on the chessboard as we added 8 grains to square 4. So in that one doubling we had to use more grains of rice than previously existed on the entire chessboard. So for those who assure us there is lots of oil, if only the oil companies and the OPEC countries would stop hoarding to jack up prices and stiff us, just be aware that you, by implication, must believe that there is enough oil available to easily provide the world for the next 35 years with more oil than it has consumed in the last 150 years. If you qualify the idea that there is lots of oil, by saying that there is lots of oil at current consumption rates, then explain how you are going to maintain economic growth and the continuing industrialization of China and the rest of Asia without growing oil supplies, or alternatively explain how world economies are going to be changed to a model that does not require continuous economic growth. Keep in the mind that the news making "big find" recently announced by a Brazilian oil company of a new deep water off-shore field was announced as up to 33 billion barrels. That is roughly the amount of oil, the world uses in slightly over 1 year, and it lies in very deep water and very deep underground, all of which will it make it difficult and very expensive to produce compared to traditional, shore based oil.

If you say that we will switch to alternates to take the place of oil, be aware that not only do we have to provide enough alternative energy sources to replace the current existing demand for oil, but also to provide for an overall per annum increase in world energy equivalent to a 2% per annum increase in energy that would normally be provided by oil (or switch our economies to a steady state model instead of a perpetual growth model).

Some more resources:

Watch the presentation by retired physics prof. Albert Bartlett on exponential growth and resource consumption here (Real Player format only, but audio only MP3 also available): http://globalpublicmedia.com/dr_albert_bartlett_arithmetic_population_and_energy

Here is a link to a paper prepared by Bartlett which covers much of the same ground as his lecture: Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis.

Originally posted on this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3201026

[kristopher]

11. Another Malthusian doomer.

Marx focused exclusively on the means of production. He got it wrong.
Malthus focused exclusively on reproduction. He got it wrong.
To get it right, you need to look at the interplay between the two - production and reproduction (cultural materialism).

To make the point specific, Malthus doesn't predict population decline in advanced countries; and the existence of that decline is pretty strong evidence that Malthus' belief about the possibility of alternatives to crash and burn population control is of very limited use. Applying a logistic growth model to petroleum consumption is pretty thin also, IMO. While it is possible that everyone on the planet will ignore the threat of global warming as Exxon-Mobile would like, somehow, I just don't think it is a possibility with a high degree of probability.

[tom_paine]

12. Another Head-in-the-Sand Cornucopianist

True or False: Do or do not somewhere approaching 2 BILLION people live on less than a dollar a day? Do not hundreds of millions live in poverty and starvation, if not billions?

TRUE OR FALSE???

Sounds like even with Malthus failing to recognize the inexorable march of technology nor it's ability to exponentially increase ecologcial carrying capacity, he still got some of the basic principles right. We are still fucking and reproducing like rabbits to the extent that much, if not half or more, of humanity lives in marginal conditions, to speak euphemistically, in spite ofthe fact that we have orders of magnitude more energy, food, and technology at our disposal. Why would that be, I wonder? :sarcasm:

That people can still give Malthus wholesale blanket criticism without recognizing that one or more of his basic tenets turned out to be correct even AFTER several layers of technological deux ex machina, is a testament to the shortsightedness of human beings and the power of the evolutionary survival mechanism from prehistory, the Discount Rate... and denial.

Projection is a funny thing. No one is immune. Not you nor I nor anyone. It is part of being human. It is funny how you sweepingly dismiss any arguments contrary to your position with a smear (malthusian doomer). You call a name and automatically it invalidates anttjhing anyone has to say. I returned you the favor of namecalling in the subject, but being fully self-aware of this tendency, I mock you, but won't dismiss you wholly with a sweep of my hand. Only idiots do that.

In reality, it is possible that you will be proven true, though with the mounting environmental, social, economic, and political unravellings at the first hint of climate change and fuel scarcity, that possibility grows less likely.

But it would also be foolish to ignore humanity's track record thus far to pull the technological rabbit out of the hat, the deux ex machina, to allow us to just barely keep up with our reproductive fecundity.

Aside from new technologies, that as for Malthus, we cannot forsee or even imagine right now... aside from those, the only way I can think of humanity to pull ourselves out of this mess is by the discovery and rapid brininging-on-line of massive amounts of cheap, pollution-free fusion energy.

Now, this does not address the other ancillary impacts from Peak Oil like the plastics industry, fertilizer, and liquid fuels, but I will put on my best Cornucopian Magician's Hat and say that the new spinoff technologies from mass-produced fusion reactors in high-energy physics and chemistry will address those things. If all of THAT happens, we can continue endless growth and perhaps go to the stars.

In the end, neither view is 100% certain to come out. And it is possible that science will provide us another technological deux ex machina to allow us to put off the brutal mathematics for more generations or even permanently, if we as a species can go extra-solar.

It is also possible that giving cheap, limitless energy to human beings and all the desrtructive power that entails, would be like giving monkeys a bunch of flamethrowers in a paper factory.

But at this point, it is our only feasible hope to both meet our massively increasing energy needs and immediately reducing our CO2 and pollution outputs.

In either case, your smearing bullshit is tiresome, but I guess some people are just that way. Now go ahead, dismiss me, even though I did not dismiss you and even said you might be right in the long run, unlikely as the evidence is shaping up for that to be.

Lastly, your response to JohnnyCanuck sucks. He brought up facts and figures, you retorted with some non-specific drivel about what a misguided asshole Malthus was (perhaps you should seek self-awareness and understanding about your fixation with Malthus) and some namecalling.

Honestly, I exepected no better of you, as I expect you not to answer my question about Malthus and the 1-2 billion living in poverty, hungry and largely without realiable sources of clean water. Rather, I expect you to call me some names and rage some more, non-specifically of course, about what an asshole Malthus was.

[kristopher]

13. Nice rant

Too bad it's totally off point. Until and unless you can use Malthus to explain population reduction in the advanced countries, then it does no good to point to problems and say that his interpretation of their origins is viable. Cultural materialism, on the other hand, explains both the overpopulation/poverty and the decline in populations of advanced countries. This leads to some fairly probable scenarios that those preoccupied with Malthus tend to overlook.

Let's put up a simple proposition: Reproduction is linked inextricably to production.
Let's say that population expansion and decline is closely correlated to the cost/benefit of child rearing. As the cost of rearing a child to adulthood increases, the likelihood of the child representing a net return on invested resources declines. So too, does the rate of reproduction.

If true, how would that affect the way we view the possibilities for dealing with the 2 billion in poverty?

Please note that I'm not rejecting Malthusian forces, I'm simply saying his belief that no change in political or economic forces could alter an inevitable population growth leading to an inevitable resource exhaustion has pretty well been disproved. There are many variables that make determining the course of events anything but inevitable. Thus to view it from the perspective of inevitability is one that limits choices. Now, call me crazy if you like, but I'm suspicious of people who want me to believe things that 1) aren't true and 2) limit my range of intellectual responses to a problem.

And that takes us to the appropriateness of my response to JohnnyCanuck. The thread OP challenges the peak oil scam for what it is, a scam. His reply was an attempt to perpetuate the same type of shoddy straight-line no variable analysis that is used to support the fear-mongering labeling itself 'peak oil'. In light of that, I thought a dismissive reply was what his homily merited. Sorry you don't agree.

[tom_paine]

14. And your response, unfortunately, is somewhat off point, but as you have responded to me civilly,

I will respond in kind.

No namecalling gets no namecalling in return.

First off, I do not fully disagree with your critique of Malthus as a whole. As I alluded to above, there is no question that many of his theses were incorrect, often stemming from his inability to perceive technologies not yet discovered. It is also easy to forgive. Who among us can predict where the technology will go and change?

If the Founding Fathers had understood the sciences of psychology, advertising and public relations, could have conceived what these things could be harnessed to create, I wonder if we would have had several more amendments to the Bill of Rights like It is the right of every citizen to be free of psychological manipulation for mercantile purposes.

or if they had foreseen ecology and things like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and all it's long-term environmental implications, which I cannot fail to note you never take into account in your posts, they might have amended this little beauty It is the right of every citizen to have clean air and fresh water available.

But I digress. I only bring up these examples to show that it is no sin to fail to understand where technology will take us, especially from an Early Industrial Revolution perspective, and should not be used to invalidate the philosophies of that time.

It is my belief (I know it is not yours) that is primarily what Malthus' writings lack, not so much a failure of basic principle.

The effect of technological advance, education - especially of women and cultural sophistication as it relates to downward population pressure, is scientifically/statistically about as undeniable as you can get, and while correlation does not imply causation, I will say that it is 99%+ probably so, in this case due to the massive weight of demographic and sociological evidence.

Exactly, IMO, as the evidence for Global Warming is, though that is a topic for another thread. In the case of the topic of THIS thread, I think the concept of Peak Oil is not nearly proven so well (though still the evidence and the hard mathematics of it is growing stronger daily).

I also agree with the OP that it is POSSIBLE, at least, that this early incarnation of Peak Oil, like the Phony Enron Energy Crisis of 2001, is mostly or wholly trumped up. Definitely possible. Doubly so, given that the last seven years of the Bushies, I think, have caused a dramatic upsurge in State Lawlessness (including unwarranted invasions, "secret policery", massive price fixing, and fraud) these last seven years.

Oil suppliers and oil barons alike are not stupid. They KNOW that with Bushler as "the police" they can walk out the front door with the furniture and the gold, metaphorically-speaking, and be sure of getting away with it.

Yes. Definitely possible, but like with Malthus, whatever details he got wrong due to his 18th-early 19th Century unsophistication, the overall mathematics is true. So the overall mathematics of the Peak Oil dilemma and Hubbert's Peak remains true, unless what I believe is a Cornucopian Fantasy, the idea of self-replenishing abiotic oil, is true.

Now we circle back to Malthus and my conclusion. First off, full disclosure: I have not read Malthus in probably 15 years, so unless I sit down and read him again, I cannot honestly dispute your "nuts and bolts" criticisms of him. I may just do that at some time, but right now I only remember the basic theory and it's central underpinnings.

In fact, in most places I would tend to agree with you about Malthus. We only differ in that you dismiss him entirely over it, while I maintain his failure was one of technological anticipation which does not invalidate his basic theories (it does make them far from fully correct or explanatory of our current situation - why would they be? - he wrote them at a time when people still didn't realize dirty hands spread infections and had barely just figured out the brain was the repository of knowledge).

Reproduction is clearly not 100% linked to production. But neither can we say it is 100% dissociated from it, either. Can we imagine that there could be 6.6 billion people alive today if not for industrial agriculture and chemical fertilizer? Industrialized, western medicine? Indoor plumbing? Etc.

So while the link is far from absolute (education of women being one thing inversely proportional to reproduction rates, thus acting as a negative population feedback on maturing societies), it is still present.

The 2 billion living in poverty exist. That was my only point. Therefore, even if Malthus was wrong about everything else, he was not COMPLETELY wrong.

And I will completely agree with you that the outcome is not yet certain, and that Malthus gives little hope, if I recall correctly.

Even IF reproduction/production were inextricably 100% linked, which they are not, the simple fact that sex feels well, "good" is too weak a term for it, and that making babies is evolutionarily hardwired into us, from the days that if we ever stopped making as many babies as we could, the species might die.

The mega-powerful lure of sex, the biological/evolutionary imperative, our human tendency toward lack of impulse control from the highest leaders to the homeless on the streetcorner, is enough to throw a massive monkey wrench into the production/reproduction relationship.

But again, in Malthus' time, who could put that kind of stuff in writing? Even if he was thinking it he could not have written it down for fear of fining or flogging for lewd indecent discussions, I have no doubt. It never would have been published and never read, if had had tried to add sex stuff.

That's the best I can do in answering your issues with Malthus without rereading him again.

In either case, this has been an interesting discussion. I thank you for remaining civil. We must agree to disagree. Though I think we both see a little better, after this exchange, that our level of disagreement is not quite as high as we thought.

I would welcome it if you have further thoughts in reply. If not, let's just agree to disagree and I'll see you around the boards. :hi:

[Fovea]

18. This is more complex than a simple game of linear resources

And logarithmic changes in demand.

Aspects like-

Anthropogenic climate change...

Non-renewable resources, and how they differ from agricultural production. How petrochemcial extensive agriculture is not actually sustainable.

As population increases so does demand for petroleum.
As the finite pool of oil is depleted, supply decreases as EROEI approaches 1.

As supply approaches zero, the value does not become infinite, because other options become available, including conservation and riding a mule.


But the combination of the following factors need to be kept in mind.

Demand is increasing at prices still higher than paid in the US.
Other major economies subsidize oil prices, such as the PRC. Even public transportation uses petroleum. Things that cannot go on forever do not.

Supply is not increasing, and heroic efforts to increase it risk damaging further production such as was recently alleged at al Ghawar. Previous reserve estimates were, as recently admitted, works of fiction with puffed up numbers because reserve capacity equaled bargaining power.

That supply which remains represents high hanging fruit, hard to acquire, inefficient or dirty to refine, or some combination of the above.

Unlike food, which one must eat a specific number of calories to live, oil, despite our justified panic, is a bit more fungible in human endeavor.

Based on the points above, one would do well keeping foremost in mind that a great deal of misery will go along with adaptation and innovation that allows us to sustain human life and progress on earth.

But I doubt that the current population will be sustainable. And I don't pretend that some future market based utopia will emerge from all that destruction.

The challenge of the 21st century is stark and will look starker before the long emergency is overcome. Will human civilization survive this century?

[JFreitas]

20. Malthus aside...

In any case, even if purely Malthusian crisis is further off than we might think, there are other "walls" against which we are running at full speed. Even though population is not growing in the developed countries, the truth is that "growth" is increasing the amount of resources used. As shown above, continued growth means that at regular intervals (say, every 20 to 35 years) we are essentially using up as much of a given resource as we did in all the previous time. It's not only oil. Can the world afford to have 3 billion inhabitants in China, South America and India, for instance, using as much resources as the average westerner? Is there even that amount of resources? What does it mean to argue whether a given resource will hit its maximum production/extraction rate in 5 years or 10 years? It's not just oil. I would be happy if it were only oil, as I truly believe we can come to some sort of lower-energy-state that allows us to continue enjoying technological civilization without oil. But what about fisheries? Top soil? Nickel? Titanium? Whatever?

There is such a thing as the precautionary principle.

[Terry in Austin]

15. Sadly, it's not about "them" -- it's about geology

Tempting as conspiracy theories might be, they all amount to denial of geological fact.

EIA stats show that production has been essentially flat since 2004. Meanwhile, demand continues to grow at an average of 1.5% per year.

Despite all the exploration activity worldwide, there aren't enough discoveries coming online even to keep production flat, let alone increase it to keep up with demand. We all have known all along that oil is a finite resource, and that someday it would start to be exhausted.

That someday is now.

It's sad. It's a loss. The prospect of withdrawal is terrifying to those committed to our consumer-industrial way of life. We are addicts in denial, and there are a number of stories we tell to express it.

The fact is that oil is in decline. It's time to start moving on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model">through the other stages, get to acceptance and start dealing with it.

[NickB79]

16. Calling Peak Oil a conspiracy is a lot like RW talking heads saying global warming is a conspiracy

And it's equally as laughable. You would have to accept that hundreds of thousands of people around the globe are in on the conspiracy, and that it's very, very well-concealed.

You have to accept that Mexico is PURPOSEFULLY allowing their oil production to decline by HALF in the past 5 years (despite threats of civil unrest). You have to accept that all 12 quoted OPEC nations have intentionally cut back their oil production by 1% in the past year despite the risk of initiating a global recession and a rush to alternative fuels/conservation. You have to accept that Russia is purposefully cutting production by 1% in the past year as well, despite that country's ravenous need for cash inflow to rebuild and modernize.

[SlicerDicer-]

28. Conspiracy!?!

You do know exactly why they exist do you not? They are created due to the fact that relevant places release so little in the tune of information or such hogwash for data it lets mind drift. This I think is a calculated however! Peak Oil is in MSM now people are talking about the production and consumption.. Talking about discovery vs usage. These things all add up that MSM has finally understood that peak oil is here. All we can do is hope that we change enough fast enough otherwise we are in for one hell of a shock..

West Texas is a very good example of what will happen to global oil fields. Its going to be a disaster :/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulxe1ie-vEY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWGsnW_NnxE MSM coverage of peaks! Check this stuff out seriously!

[bhikkhu]

17. The oil companies only control 20% of supply.

The rest is controlled by OPEC and other nations. Perhaps speculators are driving up prices, but that's an entirely different thing from "Peak Oil".

Peak oil theory just describes the maximum flow rate of supply referenced to total reserves remaining, and is an issue for geologists, not economists.

Pretty much every sort of question or even point of view may be researched here: http://energybulletin.net/

[Boomer]

19. Oh for pity's sake

Peak Oil is NOT about running out of oil. What part of "peak" and "halfway" is so difficult to understand?

Peak Oil is about reaching the middle of our oil supply, and the end of the cheap, easily extracted fiels. After reaching peak, the cost of extraction in expended energy begins to rise. Supply will not end, but it can't be ramped up.

The ramifications of Peak Oil are economic. Our infrastructure is built on the assumption of cheap energy, and it is wholly inadequate for sustaining our population on increasingly expensive petroleum. There will be upheavals as we begin to go into energy withdrawal pains and find that the dismantling of publc transporation was a really stupid idea, among many others, such as the centralization of agriculture.

[kristopher]

25. You have it wrong

"...After reaching peak, the cost of extraction in expended energy begins to rise. Supply will not end, but it can't be ramped up...."

"BUT IT CAN'T BE RAMPED UP"

Those are your words. When the reason "IT CAN'T BE RAMPED UP" is geologic, you are dealing with 'peak oil'. When the reason is economic, it is a matter of will based on profit to producer, then it is not "peak oil". In fact, it is the antithesis of 'peak oil' since it implies that if the economic incentive is increased sufficiently, then more oil will, in fact, be produced than is now produced. In other words, if we needed more oil (but we don't because demand is being met) we can bid the price higher and some producer will supply it.

It is this conflation of the two separate sets of cause-effect that I find extremely troubling. It overlays the real anxiety of high prices with the unfounded anxiety of imminent termination of supply.

[Speck Tater]

26. "imminent termination of supply"???

I've have NEVER heard any peak oil advocate suggest there would be an imminent termination of supply. That's a straw man argument.

In addition, there's a factor called energy returned on energy invested. If "ramping up" would cost more in energy than it would return in energy (in energy not dollars) then no matter what the dollar price, nobody will find it profitable to ramp up.

Much of the "hard oil" is of the kind that takes more energy to produce than the energy it returns. The idea that "some producer will supply it" is classical economic thinking that assumes supply is some how magically infinite (or at least unbounded) and that sufficient demand will always result in increased supply.

Then there is the problem that oil producing countries are using more of their own oil, leaving less they have available for export. No matter what the price, no oil producing country is going to sacrifice its OWN domestic supply to sell oil it needs to keep at home. PEMEX in Mexico is in SERIOUS decline, and they are keeping more of their oil for their own use, cutting what they export to the U.S.

"if we needed more oil (but we don't because demand is being met)" What planet are you living on? Supply is at 85 million barrels per day and demand is at 87 million. Demand is NOT being met. The unmet 2 million barrels a day is resulting in dire shortages in the poorest countries. But since it's not happening at American gas pumps, it's invisible to the American public, so they can be sold on the big lie that demand is being met. Ask the poor countries if THEIR demand is being met.

[kristopher]

32. Economic efficiency doesn't mean everyone can afford a product.

Repeat with bullhorn: The fact that some are doing without doesn't mean demand isn't being met. Take a minute or two and google 'economic efficiency'.


"Classic economic thinking" as you put it, does not assume some magically infinite supply. Far from it; it tells us to expect exactly the behavior we are witnessing from the owners of a finite, in demand resource.

You show clearly that you really just don't know what you are talking about.

[Speck Tater]

36. Economic Efficiency

From Wikipedia:

A system can be called economically efficient if

* No one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.
* The most output is obtained from a given amount of inputs.
* Production proceeds at the lowest possible per unit cost.

These definitions of efficiency are not exactly equivalent. However, they all encompass the idea that nothing more can be achieved given the resources available.

An economic system is more efficient if it can provide more goods and services for society without using more resources. The term microeconomic reform often refers to policies whose stated goal is to increase economic efficiency.

----------------

I really fail to see how that relates to what you are proposing. It seems to me you are saying that if 1000 people line up for tickets to a concert in a theater that seats 500, the demand is "really" only 500 because only 500 are seated.

That sounds like a lot of double talk to me. According to your line of reasoning demand can NEVER exceed supply.

[kristopher]

37. Demand can exceed supply.

In your theater ticket example demand is 1000, but supply is 500. However, that is neither here nor there for oil. The demand for crude is set by bidding on an open market. If the tickets were a set $10 at the door, do you suppose some people bought extra tickets and stood outside selling them for more than $10?

Do the poor people have someone to bid for the oil or the money to pay what others will bid for it?
No, they don't. The United States used to have the power to set the price for oil, and we set it low. Now that there are more bidders...

Increasing production would not only lower the amount of total profit brought in by the producers, it would also require the producers to invest large sums of their earnings to do so. If you were the owner of something, would you invest a lot of money to lower your profits? Especially when, because of climate change, limiting production and escalating the price is the overall socially responsible thing to do?

The refineries are running at 95% of capacity.

There were 47 refineries recently shut down to get to the state where the refiners aren't paying for a lot of excess refining capacity to just sit around. That is an example of a clear move towards "efficiency".

Another thing happening is that the major reserves are becoming concentrated in the hands of a few producers. As they gain more influence over market conditions I'd expect monopolistic pricing to start emerging.

A good way to avoid that is to shift to battery electric and leave the oil in the ground where it belongs

[Speck Tater]

38. So what you're saying is that...

Rich-person demand is really demand, but poor-person demand is NOT demand.

Hmmm. I guess you're right about one thing. I will never understand economics.

What I do understand is that in the next few years we will go from about 400 airports in the U.S. with commercial flights to around 40. Somewhere around 300 to 350 or more cities will lose ALL commercial air transport. I'd call that "collapse" of the air transportation system.

What I do understand is that the value of houses in suburban areas without access to mass transit will plummet, and those outlying suburbs will become slums, ghost towns, salvage dumps, small farms, etc. I'd call that the "collapse" of suburbia.

What I do understand is that food prices will not only keep going up, but food shortages will begin to be more and more common. People will begin to starve. Even in the "rich" U.S.

What I do understand is that transport costs will drive Wall Mart and stores built on the Wall Mart model of just-in-time trans-global shipping, out of business. I'd call that "collapse" in the retail sector.

What I understand is that people will begin to migrate south to avoid the prohibitive costs of heating a house in bitter northern winters. Property values in the north will collapse.

What I do understand is that gas shortages at the pump, in U.S. gas stations, will begin to show up in the last month or two of 2008, and continue to get worse from that point on.

I'm not going to argue whether these predictions will come true or not. I don't need to. All I need to do is wait a year or two to see them unfold. If you don't believe me, then all you need to do to prove me wrong is wait a year or two, and then proudly say "I told you so".

So with that in mind, I'm not going to argue or discuss the matter any further. I've made my predictions, and I stand by them. In two years I will either be proven right or proven wrong. I can wait.

[Nihil]

39. Nice post ...

... especially ...

> Rich-person demand is really demand, but poor-person demand is NOT demand.

I think that explains a lot of the "economic" arguments that are employed
against Peak Oil.

:-(

[Terry in Austin]

29. The economist's fallacy

> if the economic incentive is increased sufficiently, then more oil will, in fact, be produced than is now produced.

As oil geologist Kenneth Deffeyes put it: "The fantasy of economists -- they believe if you show up at the cashier's window with enough money, God will put more oil in the ground."

Now, the awful truth: oil "production" (extraction) has stopped increasing, because there isn't enough of it left.

It will never again increase.

No more ramping is possible.

Oil production is in permanent decline.

Peaked.

Jumped the shark.

Going, going, gone.

Any questions?

[kristopher]

31. Another dim bulb that criticizes without understanding

An economist is very unlikely to think that throwing money at a finite resource is going to increase the base quantity of that resource. So, frankly, you don't know what you are talking about.

There are a wide range of other variables that explain production numbers besides lack of ability to pump more. Since all the primary players are asserting that market forces are behind production numbers, you must provide some sort of proof beyond the fantasy that your claim is self evident. It isn't.

You saw high gas prices, you've heard of 'peak oil', you connected the wrong dots.

[Speck Tater]

33. OK. It's not self evident.

But it will be in a couple of years, so what say we postpone this discussion for two years, and meet back here to discuss it then?

[bhikkhu]

34. A good way of putting off argument

I usually hesitate, as it hardly seems worth it so often. The sun rises every morning whether we argue about it or not, and oil reserves dwindle whether we argue about it or not.

Geological facts exist independent of anyone's knowledge of them, so why argue? I suppose I do because I have two kids, and I hope to raise them to be able to recognize facts, and to act accordingly. It would be better for them if they were not the only ones, and so some ridicule for pointing out facts and suggesting reasonable measures is worth it.

[TheWraith]

21. Bing bing bing bing!

Dead on. It's NEVER been about supply, or demand, and to think that it is excuses and overlooks a level of theft that makes the sack of Rome by the Visigoths look like shoplifting.

[meow mix]

22. duh, its not about supplies. its about recovery costs.

read up on the subject before posting, please.. this is an embarrasing thread.

[Terry in Austin]

30. Please help us end your embarassment

Since you claim to be so well-read on the subject, perhaps you could direct us to some reality-based sources that document just where all these abundant supplies are supposed to come from.

[Speck Tater]

23. To peak oil deniers...

I smile condescendingly in your general direction.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html (click on 3rd hour with Jim and John and listen to the broadcast)

[Terry in Austin]

24. Perfect!

LMAO -- hi-5 at ya!

Good link, too. It's starting to make its way in the mainstream.

[bhikkhu]

35. That BP acts as a profit-driven corporation says nothing about peak oil

Corporations hold 20% of oil reserves, while nations hold 80%. They have little effect upon price, availability, or any other measure, though they reap the benefits of high prices. If they don't spend their profits on new production it is because that is essentially closed to them - the great majority of unexplored regions (and there isn't much, really) are under the control of nationalized oil companies.