This is the last of the posts that deal with the content of the ASPO Conference last week in Houston. I will have my usual personal closing review tomorrow. As I hope you will gather, it was full of information and somewhat intense. And that did not include talking to folk in the breaks, which expanded a lot on what was being said in the papers. So if you want to think of this as the first commercial for next years meeting (which will be in California) then you’re right again. And just to remind you, the earlier posts were a report on the Workshop day, the first morning report, the rest of Thursday, and then Friday morning. A quick thanks to all, and it was more fun than I had even hoped to meet so many of the TOD folk, as well as so many others – thank you all, and of course, a much bigger thank you to the organizers for putting this on. The result, gentle folk, was well worth the effort.

We rejoin the meeting just as we sat down to lunch, and a talk by Houston Mayor Bill White who has the enviable distinction of having Matt Simmons as the Treasurer of his Campaign Committee. He acknowledged Matt as a prophet (with all that usually brings). He sees the current situation as one that comes down to a race between depletion and technology. It is not possible to give a political speech and create more oil fields. It is not possible by giving a political speech to create a hydrogen economy either immediately or in the practical future. It is not possible by giving a political speech to over-ride the laws of physics.