<A Twelve-Step Plan to End Oil Addiction The Oil DrumDrumBeat: May 25, 2008>

42 comments on Peak Oil Overview - March 2008 (Pdf and Powerpoint available)

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ArianeB on May 24, 2008 - 2:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Over the last 24 hours listening to talk radio as well as colleagues here at work, oil is becoming a very hot topic indeed.

The blame is going in all directions, except in the one area that is accurate: supply and demand.

The most common seems to be: Crude reserves are way up but refineries are not producing at 100% capacity, thus gas prices are going up because the oil companies are holding back. This seems to be confusion between above ground crude reserves (which are actually down) and below ground crude reserves.

Another is that the dropping dollar is the cause. True the dollar's value has been cut in half vs. the Euro in the last 8 years, but at the same time oil prices have almost septupled. That only explains part of the increase.

America seems to be somewhere in the anger and denial stage.

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Gail the Actuary on May 24, 2008 - 10:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think you are right. It will take a few shocks for the message to fully sink in.

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RobinPC on May 25, 2008 - 10:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

On Friday (I think) I saw the front page of the Independent was taken up with "Are we running on empty?" - followed by pages of commentators (along with the Wasteminster regime) reassuring us that it wasn't really a supply problem and peak oil is only a theory. Meanwhile on BBC Radio news Chris Skrebowski gave an excellent summary but which was "balanced" as customary by a more reassuring view which most listeners will have opted for. I guess we do need some sort of managed panic-escalation. The sooner those airlines all close down the better, but please allow me a few hours to get the last train out of this city first!

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Gail the Actuary on May 25, 2008 - 2:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Peak oil requires such a big change in mind set that people can't believe it. If we knew for years that this would happen, why didn't our leaders say something?

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tobi on May 25, 2008 - 4:30pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think the answer to this one is quite simple. How would you as a politician manage to not destroy your chances to become re-elected and simultaneously tell people that they will have to spend money on a huge infrastructural change, that they will have to cut their energy-wasting lifestyle and that they won't be richer tomorrow than they are today?

Change is easier to implement after a crash. A system that becomes too complex cannot be repaired without huge investments of both time and money.

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DaveMart on May 25, 2008 - 4:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Just out of interest, it is much easier to convince people that they are right, and simply got a few details wrong which they could not have known accurately, then to try to convince them that they were completely wrong.

For example, if an oil expert has predicted that we have at least 20-30 years before peak oil would have any practical significance, the optimum approach is to confirm that they were absolutely right to say that at some stage that supplies would run low, and then go on to casually remark that new data now to hand shows that reassessment makes it clear that it is earlier than could have been known before.

Never try to convince anyone that you are serious, about influencing that they were wrong - it is far easier to convince them that they said something totally different to what they actually said, and are now vindicated.

The slightest caveat they used can be utilised to create this effect.

It is child's play to convince, for instance, Yergin, that he has been trying to warn of peak oil for years.

Man is a rationalising animal, rather than rational.

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Undertow on May 26, 2008 - 7:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There was a discussion about oil prices on the BBC's Dateline London this weekend. Goes out on BBC News Channel in the UK and BBC World everywhere else. The presenter Gavin Esler stated that some folk believe there is a con game going on and the middle east doesn't have all the oil it claims but they didn't really explore this much - perhaps another day...

Available for replay at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00byk4z - oil discussion starts about 15 mins in.

Not sure if that link will work outside the UK. Probably will as it's an international programme.

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