<The Scales are BalancedThe Oil Drum Unconventional Oil: Tar Sands and Shale Oil - EROI on the Web, Part 3 of 6>
<DrumBeat: April 14, 2008DrumBeatDrumBeat: April 16, 2008>

244 comments on DrumBeat: April 15, 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Nate Hagens on April 15, 2008 - 9:14am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Oil advanced to a lifetime peak above $112 a barrel on Tuesday as investors sought to hedge against a battered dollar

I don't think so -dollar is flat over last few weeks and oil is up 10%...

The russian oil story is on todays cover of WSJ. Isn't that where the cornucopians (CERA et al) expect large growth in the coming decade?

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
dissident on April 15, 2008 - 9:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

But according to some on this board Russians have never heard before of the concept of peak oil. For supposedly ARAMCO style denialists there sure are a lot of articles from (not just about) Russia that don't hide the reality. This decline will lead to reduction in exports faster than the ELM model. Strategic preservation of resource choices will start playing an increasingly dominant role.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
BadgerB on April 15, 2008 - 10:59am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I have had many Russian friends over the years before and after the end of the cold war (one of the advantages to living in a college town in the USA, you get a small window into lots of other countries cultures even if it's from the perspective of the top 1%.) Anyway most people in the West (peak oil believers of not) think we will someday run out of oil that is worth extracting whether that's in 50 years and were already on the downhill slide or 1000 years out, my experience is that 95-99% believe oil is non renewable and will someday go away. From my limited interaction with my Russian friends this number seems like 50% maybe even a little less for some reason many of them subscribe to the Abiotic theories. This maybe why it seems the Russians are so slow to grasp the idea of peak oil, hard to have a peak when the earth will just bubble up more and quickly not over geologic periods of 20,60, or even 100 million years.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Ignorant on April 15, 2008 - 11:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I believe the abiotic theory was developed in the USSR during the Cold War. For some reason, the guy who developed it was politically connected, so it did get quite a lot of exposure - with "evidence" -within the scientific community there. May explain the reason for the large percentage difference.

I haven't seen much data on it.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
FMagyar on April 15, 2008 - 8:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Considering that this is the same culture that produced Lysenkoism, it may not be all that surprising

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
dissident on April 15, 2008 - 9:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

For some reason you seem to think that Lysenko's ideas are widely accepted in Russia today.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
dissident on April 15, 2008 - 9:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Your sample is not representative. Also, the MSM in Russia do not push the abiotic oil theory. In fact, this crank "theory" seems to get much more play in the west. In spite of the caricature picture being painted in the western MSM, Russia is not trapped in a 1950s Soviet timewarp.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
umass82 on April 15, 2008 - 10:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think that the dollar is tanking largely because of the energy shortage, the claim that the crashing dollar is the reason for the rise in oil prices is blaming the disease on the symptom and not visa versa.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
davebygolly on April 15, 2008 - 1:31pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There was an op-ed in yesterday's (or day before) WSJ frankly advocating inflation, that the Fed print more money, as the least among evils.

The rising cost of energy is devaluing everything in the US (except, in a certain sense, the military). All asset classes are affected. In reverse gear, high leverage based on these assets is destroying paper wealth on a gargantuan scale. Those being destroyed demand bailout by the printing press, to hell with the consequences.

You are absolutely right. The price of oil is behind it all. And since oil is peaking (or has peaked) it is fatuous to speak of a bottom. This time, there is no bottom. It's a hard sell, because there has always been a bottom before. What's new is that we are on the down slope off the oil age. Brave new world.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Starship Trooper on April 15, 2008 - 10:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Here's the noon price from the NY Fed reserve for 2008 and since the Euro became "live."

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Mamba on April 15, 2008 - 11:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It seems there must be a reason why mouthpieces for some of the major supplier countries are becoming acceptingly philosophical about peak oil, and in some cases seem to be embracing it. My money is on the idea that they realize that the resource can pay them even more if they cry shortage and dribble it onto the market for decades.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
weatherman on April 15, 2008 - 7:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I don't know. A long term price in this range is not in the supplier countries interests. It will and is stimulating the search for alternatives. One of the ideas mooted for replacing oil may turn out to be valid. I think a price of approx $50 a barrel suited them best in the long term. It looks like the reason they don't increase supply is because they can't.

0
Comments can no longer be added to this story.