Luis mentioned by email that he may not be able to get back home to answer comments. Portugal beat Czech republic tonight 3-1 in the European Soccer championships - and apparently there's no beer in the stores and no gas in the gas stations.

Nothing for it then than to walk to the beach and watch the volleyball:-)

Fire away - this is beginning of the new age.

CW

PS - Czech posters are most welcome here to comment upon the energy situation in Czech - but we'd prefer you to use Ingilish what Beckam speiks.

This sounds quite serious, especially with protestors getting killed.

I know I'm a long way away but this is the first I've heard of it in Australia. I just double checked the news sites I normally go to and I've only found one item low down on the list. I would have thought it was of more interest, even here.

Best of luck
Mark31

This is why I think shortages from allocation problems not prices will be what hobbles our society post peak.

This event was caused by a shortage of cheap diesel. The strike is one shortage outcome others are possible.
This is a mild precursor to what we will see over the next two years. Demand destruction is not about a gradual
increase in prices with the poor meekly riding bicycles it will be violent and bloody.

This is actually quite sad. The populace of these countries, as in most others, are ill informed as to what underlies the basic problem. This is a classic example of how widespread education cannot only save money (= a form of energy) but also lives. Governments that have purposely withheld information will now reap what they have sown, widespread ignoraance. Of course the people will demand government assistance, of course they will see oil companies and OPEC cartels as the evil perpetrators of these high prices and/or shortages. It's a little late in the game to be educating strikers and soon-to-be rioters about the harsh realities of finite resources on a rock spinning in the black void of space.

Looks like the Euronews links have been pulled, they just 404 now

http://www.euronews.net/en/article/13/06/2008/fuel-strike-hits%20britain...

and

http://www.euronews.net/en/article/11/06/2008/two-die-in-spanish-and-por...

Links to other non-news euro trivia still work.

"I can't help feeling that for road transport these are the last breaths of a dying industry."

Of course, many Americans are completely confused by this news. They have been told again and again by our mainstream media and by so called energy "experts" that Europe was a rail centered continent, that it was America that relied on highway transportion for goods.

Of course if anyone had bothered to have taken a look at lorry sales and Diesel sales in the Euro zone they would have known better.

The immediate crisis is essentially a labor unrest issue and must be handled that way, but the interesting part will come afterward.

Europe now knows that it is hostage to it's haulage industry, and if the haulage industry sees the absoluteness of their power in this action, they will know it too. The danger then will not be only fuel related, but a continent that will be in service to it's haulage industry, a very dangerous situation for the European economy.

Let us turn for a second to the OPEC oil suppliers. The Peak oil community is betting that they are unable to increase production. If this is so, then they have no regrets and no decisions to make. They are simply trying to retain control and income for as long as possible.

But if OPEC has been simply restraining capital investment in production increases and letting the price run to it's maximum possible point without allowing instability in the oil markets, they have obviously misjudged badly. Europe will now have no choice. They must reduce the transport of goods by means of lorry to the absolute minimum and begin a process of increased fuel diversity away from oil by means of alternative fuels, hybrid drive lorries and any other method they can can conceive and utilize.

Luis closed the key post with the line,
"I can't help feeling that for road transport these are the last breaths of a dying industry." In that he is correct. Even over the objections of the oil and lorry transport industries, Europe will now begin the most radical program in it's history to reduce the use of fossil fuels and in particular crude oil in it's transport system. There simply is no other choice. America, Japan and China would do well to coordinate and begin a similiar program.

RC

I dont understand why the governments are not subsidising fuel for hauliers and transport firms. If they are aware of the PO situation then surely they must realise if they dont back up the road transport system things will colapse very quickly? You only have to look back to the year 2000 fuel protests in Britain to see how fast things will fall apart if they dont.

Is this how revolutions start?

" I've posted before you have the US DOJ vs BP on propane and the gas price fixing this week in Canada. Not to mention other price fixing in the past.

Why should consumers see this time as different?"

Eric, this is kinda my point. They won't see any difference because they're ignorant of the underlying factors. And "they" includes a lot of folks, like most government officials. Unless you're studying oil or the general topic of natural resources, ecology, and related areas, Peak Oil, Peak Everything, is relatively new, if even known. Two signs for me as to how clueless the US remains in this: (a) the US Congress drags the Big Oil Execs in for a grilling on rising prices, as if they were still on control of these resources, like in the "good old days" (circa 1960s) before resource nationalism; (b) my college-educated friends bashing the same oil companies over rising gas prices. They simply don't know how the fossil fuel system currently works (I don't understand it completely, either) but as a geologist that studies resources for a living, and reads TOD and ASPO regularly, I'm a bit more clued.

As former oil company execs, one would have expected that our President and VP would have done more to educate the populace than Bush's simple declaration that "America is addicted to oil". Given that assessment, then is it logical for the diagnosing doctor to prescribe more of the drug? Usually, one cuts back upon the drug and prescribes substitutes, that while not nearly as potent, allow the addict to more gently overcome their habit, thus saving their life for more useful things.

Much needs to be done to divert cargo to electrified rail but road transport will still be needed from rail to door.
Alternative fuels for road transport will have to be developed if the whole system is not to break down and descend into anarchy.LNG is the best replacement fuel in the relatively short term but requires a lot of infrastructure.
In Europe with the heavy fuel tax burden there is probably some scope for selective tax reduction to placate the "bruvvers".
But this will be a bandaid at best.Unless governments and private industry get together to develop a workable short and long range plan on this there will be a meltdown of the whole system.

Not much sign of that planning happening,I'm afraid.The "leadership" seem to be doing a Nero.

Another read that makes me doubt PO is a pressing problem; that things may very well settle down in the next year or two…

Story from “The Atlanta Journel-Constitution”, 13th June, 2008 (last three questions).
Questions to Stuart Schweitzer (MD, JP Morgan) and William Fisher (geologist, University of Texas).

AJC: Have we reached peak oil? Are we close?
Fisher: The idea of peak oil — that we are running out of oil — is not a cogent scientific argument. There are assumptions behind peak oil. You have to know that you are halfway through [all the world's oil]. To know you are halfway, you'd have to know how much oil is out there. And we don't know. The estimates vary by a factor of three.
The resource base around the world is pretty substantial. And how much you are converting to supply depends on the investment made. We know oil is finite. We will peak on oil production one of these days. But that won't be from physical factors. It will be because we are moving to say, a hydrogen economy.
Schweitzer: Non-OPEC supply has leveled off. There has been a decline in places — Mexico, the North Sea — and Russia, too, has had its challenges. Even within OPEC, it's hard to say what limitations OPEC may be encountering.
During the 1980s [after prices rose], demand contracted and prices collapsed. OPEC knows those lessons. I would expect that if it is within their power, they would prefer not to see prices go ever-upward.
The analysis I've seen suggests that ... Saudi Arabia is bringing on a significant new field in a year or so.

AJC: What would it take to convince you that you are wrong about peak oil?
Fisher: You'd have to go into a persistent decline of oil production for a couple of years, like the "peakers" say: 6 to 8 percent a year. If I saw that, I'd stand up and salute.
Schweitzer: I think markets work. We have had to adapt. What makes the rise in oil prices so disconcerting is the suddenness, without enough time for people to adapt.
I am not a believer in peak oil. I am a believer in the ability of markets to help the economy to adjust, but that doesn't mean that the adjustment will be painless.

AJC: Which is more likely a year from now: oil down $70, to $55 a barrel, or up $70, to $185?
Fisher: Absolutely nobody knows what is going to happen to oil prices. There are so many dependencies out there.
But there are new projects coming that will add 12 to 15 million barrels per day in additional capacity in the next few years. And some will be coming online to increase production in the next five or 10 years.
The amount of new projects coming online should be able to handle demand ... and might even exceed demand — depending on how much [a higher price] dampens demand.
Schweitzer: To my eye, oil prices have now reached levels they are unlikely to hold for the next year. I think that we'll see some pullback in prices.
I think that oil prices have reached a level that will extract more pain than the economy can withstand. We may very well expect a pullback in demand as economic activity slows further.
It's all a matter of degree. I would not expect prices to fall back to the levels of a year ago. I don't expect them to fall sharply.
Unless there comes to be a lot more supply or a lot more conservation — especially in the United States — I just don't see the supply-demand balance improving back to the "good old days" of $60-a-barrel oil.

Liar, liar, pants on fire? Or honest opinions?
Damned if I know!

Regards, Matt B, fence-sitter