Posted on 09/27/2005 9:16:23 PM PDT by eks41
No one knows how much is left, but humankind can't wait any longer before coming up with alternatives
Are global oil supplies about to peak? Are they, in other words, about to reach their maximum and then go into decline? There is a simple answer to this question: no one has the faintest idea.
Consider these two statements: 1. "Last year Saudi Aramco made credible claims that as much as 500bn-700bn barrels remain to be discovered in the kingdom." 2. "Saudi Arabia clearly seems to be nearing or at its peak output and cannot materially grow its oil production."
The first comes from a report by Energy Intelligence, a consultancy used by the major oil companies. The second comes from a book by Matthew Simmons, an energy investor who advises the Bush administration. Whom should we believe? I have now read 4,000 pages of reports on global oil supply, and I know less about it than I did before I started. The only firm conclusion I have reached is that the people sitting on the world's reserves are liars.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I guess the author has never heard of the price mechanism.
The problem is not in price mechanism. The problem is that OPEC countries lie about their supplies.
"The only firm conclusion I have reached is that the people sitting on the world's reserves are liars."
There is oil everywhere. We just need to get to it.
Wormer, he's a dead man!
Marmalard, dead!
Niedermeyer....dead!
Chavez...
Khadafi...
Assad...
The problem is not too little oil it is too much. That is why this country is addicted to Mid East Oil. It's cheap. As the cheap oil gets used up, the rising price will bring make domestic and alternative energy sources cost effective. The Free Market will take care of this problem. But I guess a Socialist Rag like the Guardian would never understand basic economics.
Hi prices encourage developement of alternatives. Unreliability of OPEC supplies also encourages development of alternative engergy sources.
It is better to deal with fiction than fact, just in case. Indeed it is better to say you have read the Guardian rather than wasting your money.
Experts have been underestimating oil reserves since 1874, when Pennsylvania's state geologist direly warned that ''the U.S. [has] enough petroleum to keep its kerosene lamps burning for only four years.'' Later experts put the date of exhaustion in the 1920s, then the 1940s. In 1972, the Club of Rome said the world had only 20 to 31 years of known oil reserves. Yet today, measured reserves are higher than ever.
don't let the peak oil crowd hear you say that!
the Saudis just doubled their estimates.
I cringe every time I see the word "humankind" in an article.
Well, folks, it appears that the Peak Oil Myth rides again! No matter how many times me and my compatriots point to history, no matter how many times it is pointed out that the free market will solve the problem just fine on its own, and no matter how many times the date for the "peak" has to be pushed back, a section of the population still seems to buy into it.
Did we run out of wood before we switched our industrial fuel to coal?
Did we switch to oil because we ran out of coal?
Of course we didn't. And the market managed to do it all just fine without any need to peddle a Global Peak Wood theory or a Global Peak Coal theory. Despite the noted absence of government intervention to bully the consumer into "conservation" or subsidies for discovering alternatives to either coal or wood, industry and the market at large did all the legwork all by itself.
I've been hearing that we're going to run out of oil 'in 20 years' since the early 1960's. At that point, my biology teacher was telling us that we had already seriously damaged the planet, possibly beyond saving it.
They never give up, do they?
It makes me wonder if we had the ancestors of these people howling about Peak Coal and Peak Wood sometime in the past.
At that point, my biology teacher was telling us that we had already seriously damaged the planet, possibly beyond saving it.
On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
Arthur Guiterman
The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar’s bust is on my shelf,
And I don’t feel so well myself.
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