The Oil Drum

A Matt Simmons phone interview on CNBC, in which Matt sounds a very loud and certain clarion call about our direction--calling it (potentially) "The Great American Disaster." I think it is safe to say that Matt has gotten pretty pessimistic, even doomerish lately.

Under the fold, more from Richard Heinberg with a great review of accelerating events, Phil Hart talks peak oil on Aussie TV, KrisCan interviews Andre Angelantoni about post-peak life, and David Bell of ASPO-Oz appears on Bloomberg.

For those who didn't see it last night, Tony Jones interviewed Richard Heinberg about peak oil on the ABC's "Lateline" program.

Video - RealPlayer and Windows Media.

TONY JONES: Now to tonight's interview with Richard Heinberg. He's one of the world's leading experts on the phenomenon of peak oil. That's the point at which the world's oil reserves go into decline. The idea is that having reached its peak it's all downhill from there and there's evidence that global rates of oil discovery have been declining since the 1960s, and that new oilfields are becoming more and more inaccessible.

So as demand increases and supply decreases the price of oil goes up and up and up, as we've painfully experienced in recent years. No one really knows when we'll reach peak oil. It may have already happened, it may take another three decades. Why has the price of oil gone up so fast and so high in recent years? How much higher could it go and can anything be done to reverse this relentless process?

Richard Heinberg has written a series of books on the oil crisis including 'The Party's over', 'Power Down' and his latest 'The Oil Depletion Protocol'. I spoke to him a short time ago in Santa Rosa, California.

Richard Heinberg, thanks for joining us.

First up, if you have not listened to it yet, you really must listen to this interview by George Kenney of Electric Politics interviewing David Strahan, author of The Last Oil Shock (70 mins). (Mr Strahan kindly mentions The Oil Drum.) (link to interview), (link to David Strahan's book site)

Next up, Jim Jubak is senior markets editor for MSN Money. He's talking about peak oil in a surprisingly lucid way...(good catch Khebab!) [Editor's note from Super G] YouTube link moved below the fold to speed page load times.

Under the fold, a CNBC ethanol discussion and a link to Richard Heinberg's latest.

For a one-hour audio interview with peak oil educator Richard Heinberg about peak oil, his "Peak Oil Trilogy" (The Party's Over, Powerdown, and The Oil Depletion Protocol), and the ASPO-USA 2006 Boston World Oil Conference (REGISTER NOW!), "Time for Action: A Midnight Ride for Peak Oil," scheduled for October 26-27, 2006, in Boston, Massachusetts, go to this link or access the interview directly on the Peak Oil/Global Warming Channel.

Discuss.

James Wolcott of Vanity Fair fame has a provocative piece today that begins by looking at the Richard Rainwater piece in Fortune (which, initially had a kind mention of TOD) and ends up discussing Rich Heinberg's case for impeaching the president because of dereliction of duty with regard to "ignoring the very real threat posed by Peak Oil."  The integration of the two lines of logic is an interesting polemic.

For your threading pleasure...

You may also want to check out this interview with Richard Heinberg and JH Kunstler with Jim Puplava over at FinancialSense (it's about an hour). I found it to be a good "primer interview" that you can send to people who might be inclined to listen. (Plus, there's a pretty cool plug in there regarding TOD by Heinberg about ten minutes (47 mins in) from the end. Thanks for that, Richard.)

I caught up with Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Powerdown at the recent Peak Oil and Community Solutions Conference. Here's the conversation.