Oil's at 92.something a barrel. We can all breathe easy. Peak oil's a flawed theory. At least that's what many are saying, but here's a fun article from New Republic.
"But it's worth trying to clarify what peak oil would actually entail. Here's Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute: "Sometime around 2010 (give or take two or three years), growing decline rates in oil production from existing oilfields will overwhelm new production streams coming online. The price of oil will rise dramatically. However, when it does it will cripple the trucking industry, the airline industry, tourism, agriculture—essentially, the whole economy. A serious recession will ensue,"
Umm...sorry, isn't that what's happening, right now? No one's travelling for pleasure, food prices are through the roof and aren't we actually seeing the worst week on Wall Street in anyone's memory?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Anyone's guess
Nobody knows where the price of oil is going. Some say up, some say down. The reason we don't know is that we (and not just us peasants but the people In The Know) have ABSOLUTELY no idea how much oil is actually in the ground. This article from Business Week goes into the hows and whys of that.
I especially like this conclusion:
In other words, there's a big slab of unknown built into the price of oil. Lots of people will confidently predict where prices are headed next, but most of them, including the bulls, have been wrong more than once. Truth is, the world is almost as starved for information as it is thirsty for oil.
Husband has been reading The One Percent Doctrine which discusses American foreign policy and the War on Terror. Essentially, the US government has been operating on the premise that if there's a 1% chance of a terrorist attack then action should be taken.
Apply this to peak oil. Don't even use such an extreme requirement. Say there's a 50% chance of the Peaknicks being even halfway right. Shouldn't this be a call for a national effort on the scale of the lunar landing?
Anyone?
I especially like this conclusion:
In other words, there's a big slab of unknown built into the price of oil. Lots of people will confidently predict where prices are headed next, but most of them, including the bulls, have been wrong more than once. Truth is, the world is almost as starved for information as it is thirsty for oil.
Husband has been reading The One Percent Doctrine which discusses American foreign policy and the War on Terror. Essentially, the US government has been operating on the premise that if there's a 1% chance of a terrorist attack then action should be taken.
Apply this to peak oil. Don't even use such an extreme requirement. Say there's a 50% chance of the Peaknicks being even halfway right. Shouldn't this be a call for a national effort on the scale of the lunar landing?
Anyone?
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