- Bush's begging trip to Saudi Arabia, where he was to win more oil from the monarchy, has failed.
- Oil prices have reared back from last week's high (in the $120s)... due to US reserve stocks having less than expected oil content, and a drop in demand, especially in the US. But prices might resume their upward surge, as "developing markets" continue to demand more oil, and if some nations' subsidized demand continues. Some hedge fund folks guess a height of around $200/barrel.
- Meanwhile, Popular Mechanics offers a breakdown of oil supply mechanisms, along with a sketch of new possibilities: extracting more oil from sites, and establishing new power generation networks (the usual mix of wind and solar, along with conservative; nuclear is downplayed, interestingly).
- Nationalism and hoarding don't seem to be fading. There's even an American variant, namely underextracting local deposits so that some will remain when the rest of the world runs out. That's a weird one, given how we passed our peak a generation ago. Don't start with the western shale deposits - we're not working on them now, and their enormous cost and difficulty whenever we do is classic peak (i.e., we'll have to be that desperate). Not to mention isolationist (at best).
I (Bryan) remain curious about the discourse around peak oil. The term is still being danced around, while its ideas permeate more deeply into media and popular discussions, as far as I can tell. There are some exceptions. There's also the emergence of a middle ground, with things getting bad, but manageable, as per this Popular Mechanics graph:
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