The Oil Drum

Can anyone play devils advocate and talk the side of "no peak until 2040”

Oil Industry spokesperson mentally: “Peak? Peak? We don’t care about peaks. Peaks are a lot of BS. We had the per capita peak, world oil discovery peak, a US peak, North Sea peak, plenty peaks, they’re going on all the time, and we are still in the money.”

(Bit fanciful!)

So, it is not so much a question of ‘no peak’ (or any combination of misty dates and far off wavy plateaus) but that the industry will manage ‘peak’ and ‘post peak’ as they see fit. That a pesky part of the public suddenly seems steamed up about ‘peak oil’ is something that requires massaging and spin. Of course, they have all the facts, and they understand why some in the US are worried - because this peak is going to affect the economy (I sometimes think it already has - globalization, etc.), but it does not necessarily affect them, or not obviously so, superficially examined, or in a shortish time span, negatively, that is. I know someone who works for a big industrial baker. Believe me, the owner is not worried about grain reserves or hunger in the third world. As pointed out above, it is a question of perspective, and the PR is PR, certainly; but it is kinda genuine as well, as it represents a certain facet of their *own* presuppositions, little bits that are part of the belief system they use in their work. Naturally, they want to keep the upper hand, and so the non-scientific, but rather political discourse they offer ‘doubters’ or ‘pests’ also serves to obfuscate and keep information covert, so that fits nicely together.

In fact, it is not really up to them to address or discuss peak oil - that is the Gvmt’s job, through a reasoned energy policy and their relations with the petro people (eg forcing them to give up data.)

thx to RR for the work.