 | DrumBeat: April 8, 2008 | The Oil Drum | EROI on the Web part 2 of 6, (Provisional Results Summary, Imported Oil, Natural Gas) |  |
80 comments on Shell Sponsoring Peak Oil Communication?
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Jeremy has been a vocal messenger for some time on peak oil. See his Peak Oil meets Climate Change speech captured on YouTube.
Just thinking aloud here, but weren't oil execs up before Congress recently to explain their record profits? Although the majors are increasingly powerless compared to national oil companies like Aramco, they remain the public face of the oil business. If scarcity and inevitably higher prices are to come, some pre-emptive explanation of their situation may well be in the oil companies' interests. It is they who are in the firing line for any backlash that is to come.
US Congress has no interest debating risk/reward of oil and natural gas exploration as they like most Americans have a "gas pump" mentality and believe we have a GD given right to cheap energy. Their debate ignores competition for energy supplies and regardless of Peak Oil that easy stuff is long gone. They browbeat real energy suppliers while encouraging the "what if". Big (and little)oil will continue to invest in the opportunity created by small DC minds.
I watched that hearing. John Hofmeister explicitly denied (under oath) that we are at peak oil, and indicated that he sees global oil extraction rates reaching 110 million barrels per day.
Jeremy is just doing his job, that is, working for his company to maximise profits now and in the future. Looking for any selfless motive in his words is folly and naivete in the extreme. Within years, Shell and the other oil companies will be making enragingly-high profits as oil goes ballistic, and as an angry public seeks scapegoats. He is positioning his company so that it cannot be sued for knowing the truth and saying nothing (see Big Tobacco).
So nothing to see here, move along.
It is not a given that just because a man works for an oil company that they have no selfless motives. Would you have been as cynical in the late 1950s when M. King Hubbard was warning about US oil production peaking. Would you have said, Mamba, that looking for selfless motives in the words of M. King Hubbard was naivete in the extreme? Remember Hubbard worked for Shell also.
Cynicism is sometimes justified but some people carry it to the extremes. It is just possible that Jeremy Leggett, like Hubbard, actually sees peak oil as the disaster coming down the pike and is desperately trying to warn both his company and the world of the impending disaster in hopes that it may be mitigated slighted if swift and desperate action is taken.
Ron Patterson
There's a huge difference between a scientist like MKH and an oil CEO. My comments stand.
Jeremy is not an oil CEO; quite to the contrary, his firm is almost exclusively renewables. I personally see quite a few similarities between M. K. Hubbert and Jeremy Leggett.
Jeremy Leggett is not an oil CEO and never was. He was once a consultant for Shell but no more. He is now the CEO for his own created solar energy company. Obviously he foresaw the demise of the oil industry and is concentrating his efforts in something that will make a difference, something that just might help mitigate the coming collapse. Leggett is a trained geologist just like M. King Hubbard.
So because you thought Leggett was the CEO of an oil company, it is obvious that your comments are way off in left field. ("Off in Left Field", that is an American euphemism for "Totally unaware of what is really going on.")
Ron Patterson
LOL! Sometimes this is too easy. Hope others got a laugh out of this too, ;)