The Oil Drum

I was at a party a few days ago and I sat next to a guy who was a cheif andvisor to a government about future oil and gas supplies and infrastructure. I'm bluring his identity because it was 'private' chat.

He was an economist by training and seemed pretty smart. He was advizing his own and other European Union countries to diversify away from reliance on oil and gas supplies from Russia, because of possible problems connected with an alleged Russian 'desire' to use energy as a 'political weapon'. The key phrase here was, 'diversification of supply options.' He was very keen on getting gas from Algeria and Quatar. Specifically by building huge plants to liquify the gas and send it by tanker to Europe. I quietly mentioned that the cost in energy of turning the gas into a liquid might be quite high. He just brushed me aside and said that Algeria and Quatar had plenty of energy.

His other suggestion directed at european governments, which is apparently gaining a lot of ground, is to bypass Russia altogether! That we finance a new pipeline from the central asian republics which will go through Turkey, the long way round. As Turkey was a member of NATO and 'pro-western' this seemed to him to be a great way to literally get around the Russian problem.

I expressed some scepticism and advised caution. First because Turkey is also an 'Islamic' country with a rapidly growing population and very high rates of economic growth, who might need this oil and gas themselves at some future date, and could we really rely on Turkey always being 'pro-western', and what if Turkey's price for the pipeline is a promise of membership of the European Union, which many countries are opposed to because Turkey is a Muslim country.

Well, perhaps I went over the top a bit with my 'scepticism', because he looked at me like I was either insane or a fresh turd! We didn't converse all that much the rest of the evening and I felt a bit guilty about ruining his evening. Though I get the feeling my remarks were really water of a duck'c back to him.

Even though scientists in formel sense believe in the 'scientific method' and strive to be objective and observe the world as it is, I'm not sure that it works in practice. It seems like ideology plays an enormous part in their work, colouring it. I'm not sure whether this is a sign of the times, but it appears as if scientists are increasingly supplying their masters with the results they are expected to come up with. There seems to be great pressure to conform and produce results which are not only acceptable but comforting too.