The Oil Drum

I just want to make a correction. When I said "His 2.5/mbd reduction in a decade would reduce US overall consumption by some small amount over one year's increase in demand given the current trends", I meant reduce world-wide overall consumption. Sorry.

In addition, if we look at the EIA's demand increase numbers for the US, we see that over the period 1997 to 2004, oil demand (consumption) increased by about 0.3/mbd year to year. So, if demand increases remain linear and if in the 10 years we cut domestic consumption by 2.5/mbd, we will increase our total new consumption by only 0.5 mb during that period and our growth rate will be cut to 0.05/mbd per year on a linear basis. But, our consumption would still be growing albeit at a much smaller rate. Yet, there will be less world oil supply to share, supply will be decreased. So, where's the solution to our problem here? Obviously, demand must decrease, catastropically so for those earliest affected by the scarcity. Therefore, we are not looking at a situation where excess capacity is available but we are doing the right thing by conserving, instead, we are looking at a situation where demand shrinks (so-called "demand destruction") due to lack of supply. Which is why I think Leiberman's assumptions are all wrong. He frames it as "oil independence". This is a red herring at this point. We will be more oil dependent than ever, there will just be less of it to go around.

After reading the article, the following thoughts come to mind:

--will those "savings" even offset demand growth?

--aren't those numbers rather puny, and isn't the time frame rather extended?

--aren't these politicians talking, and don't they do everything for show?

Then another thought occurred which sort of made all of the above moot:

If oil peaks between now and 2010, and if the decline is as bad as some say, then we're going to be cutting a hell of a lot more than 2.5 million barrels a day out of our "diet" "within a decade," whether or not Lieberman and the rest of them "act" in a "bipartisan" manner or not.

They're jumping on a foregone conclusion and pretending they're enacting some sort of solution.

As usual, I hate them for their disingenuousness.

But that's just my humble opinion.

We blame our leaders loudly for not taking action, and if someone tries to lead, we react with pure cynicism and jeer them for not taking perfect action.  

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to
the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust..." T. Roosevelt

An shift may be occurring in consciousness amongst conservative/mainline Christians where we stop expecting our superman God to magically bail us out with his infinite unconstrained-by-natural-law powers, and instead realize that we may have to grow up and take responsibility for that which has been entrusted to us, the physical world we should steward, not consume.

This change is quite significant, if it is occurring, and may allow groups to come together who previously saw nothing in common.

Re: "Politicians can't be expected to eat the whole triceratops in one bite..."

Of course that's right and this is a potentially important acknowledgement that we've got serious problems. But it does not yet raise the issue to the level of a national emergency and sends the false message that these moves will be adequate to solve our problems. They will not. They will not even stop growth in our oil & gas usage in the cited period (out to 2015). Since all that time US production will be declining as usual, any new growth depends on new imports.

What is curious about this is that it comes on the heels of the recently passed Energy Bill. So, I'll concede that some people are waking up and smelling the coffee instead of drinking the CERA/IEA/EIA kool-aid.