Great news! Mr Saleri calls $100+ oil just a near-term obstacle.. You guys at theoildrum.com can obviously close shop now and we can all continue happy motoring for many decades to come!

I don't know what sort of drugs Mr. Saleri is ingesting to come up with those resource numbers, but if it makes your vision go that rosy, we could just distribute some of that stuff to make the problem go away.

And I thought CERA was insanely optimistic......

If you sift through all the spin and homage to The Holy Market, Saleri's article actually was kind of interesting. He's tacitly admitting we are already past Peak Cheap Oil - basically his supply argument is that there's a lot more $100+ oil than there was $20- oil. And his projected consumption increases run from 0% (i.e. we're already at peak) to 2% per year; is he assuming slow global growth, or increased global conservation/efficiency? His projection actually sounds like a more optimistic version of Stuart's bumpy plateau: we're already at an inflection point, where continuous increases in production are no longer possible, but we can still grow supply at a much slower rate and at much higher prices for a while longer.

Who saw Peter Jackson's King Kong?

I laughed the whole way through, it was just so completely over the top.. I haven't even stopped to decide whether it was a good movie or not.. it just made me giddy, running down a ravine under the legs of some great, stampeding Saurpods, because that was the safest place to hide from the Marauding Allosaurs..

Can a market economy really get powered by giddiness? 'You say there's less?! Well now, I'll tell you how there's really MUCH, MUCH more!!' Wow, what a feeling I get, just saying that out loud!

I guess my take-away is that it's easier to print an article that basically says YES, than one that says NO. I could keep saying NO, and not get heard (there's a place in the world for the angry young man), or I could find the YES component on my side of the court. Back to that Kayaking analogy.. focus on the water you want to ride, not the rocks you are trying to avoid.

"There's no greatness without audacity." Oscar Wilde

Bob

Why? It is pretty well known that one thing the Saudis (and remember that Saleri worked (works?) for ARAMCO) really fear is that oil importing nations will get really serious about conservation and renewables, and thus permanently reduce the demand for and drive down the price of their exports. Thus, anything FUD they can spread to discourage investments from being made in renewables & conservation, so much the better for them.

In other words, this piece is pure propaganda & disinformation.

So much for the reputation of the paper that printed it.