http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?oref=login

Peak Oil Gets Cover Page of NYT

8/22/2005 1:44:06 PM

http://www.saudiaramco.com/bvsm/JSP/home.jsp

8/22/2005 1:46:50 PM

I wonder if the new york times rule applies to this.

[Edited on August 22, 2005 at 3:02 PM. Reason : ]

8/22/2005 2:59:17 PM

This is not the first time that the world has 'run out of oil. It's more like the fifth. Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of the oil industry.

8/22/2005 3:09:00 PM

yeah, all 100 and some change years of it

but it'll be recycled, right lonesnark? nothing more to see here! it might actually be renewable!

8/22/2005 3:18:29 PM

We need to funnel a lot more money into R&D and develop a new energy source. Until then, the middle east has got the industrialized world by the nutsack.

I guess you could argue that we have them by the sack too...

8/22/2005 4:09:34 PM

Quote :

"We need to funnel a lot more money into R&D and develop a new energy source."

This naive, idealistic viewpoint never gets old, does it?

8/22/2005 6:11:11 PM

IRONIC YOUR USER NAME IS FUEL AND YOU'RE STANDING UP FOR PETROL

8/22/2005 6:53:52 PM

more nuclear power => less dependance on oil.

its really not a bad solution.

8/22/2005 10:36:23 PM

EXCEPT THAT THE TURRISTS WILL STEAL ALL OUR NUCULAR FUEL AND TURN THEM INTO THOSE DEVASTATING THINGS KNOWN AS DIRTY BOMBS!

Seriously, though, I'm all for nuclear power. I wish it'd be more widely adopted. I can't wait for fusion to take off, though.

[Edited on August 22, 2005 at 10:41 PM. Reason : fu...sion.....HAA!]

8/22/2005 10:40:51 PM

Quote :

"I can't wait for fusion to take off"

Me either! Whenever fusion starts to work out, the world will be a far better place, because then we can allow the middle east to sink back into the anarchy from which it came.

Until then, I'm not going to entertain wild speculation about "Peak Oil" when the rate of oil production is increasing at 11% a year. Call me back whenever it actually levels off.

8/22/2005 11:05:37 PM

If somebody wants fusion to work they need to figure out how hydrolysis works in an efficient manner.

God damnit, Keanu Reeves knows kung fu, he was there when they discovered the secret to hydrolysis. SOMEBODY GO MAKE HIM TALK!

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 12:29 AM. Reason : I might... be ranting... about fuel cells... Too late for that now...]

8/23/2005 12:29:01 AM

What does hydrolysis have to do with fusion? Are you saying that we break water down to get hydrogen to fuel the fusion process?

Granted, it would take a good amount of initialization energy, but once the fusion reaction gets going, it's pretty much self-sustaining. Point is, once we've got a reaction going, we can use the energy generated from that to break down water, thus producing hydrogen, thus keeping the fusion process going. Rinse and repeat. The only trick is getting the fusion reaction to last long enough to get any appreciable juice from it (my understanding is that the best fusion reactors can only currently keep up the reaction for, like, 10 seconds, after which the magnetic fields that contain the reaction mysteriously break down.)

8/23/2005 1:20:22 AM

http://www.smartcommute.org/

Stop wasting my grandson's oil, bitch.

Walk if you can...and carpool if you can.

Don't rev up your V8 engine just cuz your lardass cannot walk to the McDs 2 blocks down.

8/23/2005 1:22:02 AM

Then again, I'd hate to see a fusion power plant have a melt down.

Quote :

"Me either! Whenever fusion starts to work out, the world will be a far better place, because then we can allow the middle east to sink back into the anarchy from which it came."

The middle east was not all so bad in history. It funny when you think about it. Alexander the Great trashed one of the grandest empires in history and it has yet to come out of chaos since. Kinda makes you realize these people just need to be left the hell alone. I'm talking about the persian empire. An empire responsible for the first roads, postal system, and provincial governers. For the first time in history a king gave rule to his subkingdoms by giving them a leader native to that location. But as always conquest has to break things down. The present is no different.

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 1:47 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 1:48 AM. Reason : sp]

8/23/2005 1:47:02 AM

Quote :

"Walk if you can...and carpool if you can. Don't rev up your V8 engine just cuz your lardass cannot walk to the McDs 2 blocks down."

8/23/2005 1:50:26 AM

Quote :

"Stop wasting my grandson's oil, bitch."

Hey, I paid for it with my money. If your grandson wants oil so badly, he can go buy all he wants at the local refinery.

8/23/2005 8:21:56 AM

Quote :

"The middle east was not all so bad in history. It funny when you think about it. Alexander the Great trashed one of the grandest empires in history and it has yet to come out of chaos since. Kinda makes you realize these people just need to be left the hell alone. I'm talking about the persian empire. An empire responsible for the first roads, postal system, and provincial governers. For the first time in history a king gave rule to his subkingdoms by giving them a leader native to that location. But as always conquest has to break things down. The present is no different."

while the persian empire was great and all i think you're overstating this stuff. first off: greece had its first olympics hundreds of years before the persian empire existed, so i'm thinking there were roads before then (also, mesopotamia was found to have roads some 3000 years earlier). not to mention the fact that you're forgetting the byzantine empire and the ottoman empire. both of which were VERY successful for a long time. (The Ottoman empire for far longer than the persian empire). istanbul was the largest city in europe in the late 16th century. the middle east has certainly flourished and fallen multiple times since alexander the great.

seems like someone just got to the middle east in the third lecture of their world history class. keep reading, they'll come back to the middle east later on.

8/23/2005 8:36:39 AM

There were a couple of people on NPR talking about peak oil yesterday and how they think that Saudi Arabia, and by extension the World, has already reached it.

Apparently people are starting to whisper that Suadi fields aren't as healthy as the Saudi gov. claims.

8/23/2005 10:25:07 AM

To be producing as much oil as the fields are with as little investment as there has been, they sould pretty damn healthy to me. They are only spending $4 for every barrel produced, just imagine how much oil they could produce if they started spending $25 a barrel!

8/23/2005 12:42:39 PM

Quote :

"while the persian empire was great and all i think you're overstating this stuff. first off: greece had its first olympics hundreds of years before the persian empire existed, so i'm thinking there were roads before then (also, mesopotamia was found to have roads some 3000 years earlier). not to mention the fact that you're forgetting the byzantine empire and the ottoman empire. both of which were VERY successful for a long time. (The Ottoman empire for far longer than the persian empire). istanbul was the largest city in europe in the late 16th century. the middle east has certainly flourished and fallen multiple times since alexander the great. seems like someone just got to the middle east in the third lecture of their world history class. keep reading, they'll come back to the middle east later on."

No. Your history is flawed. Plus your moot arguements have nothing to do with the fact that the middle east can not be changed through aggresive means. One thing is certain, these people eat, sleep, and breath war. They're celebraties are war heroes for crying out loud. When I was talking about the first roads i didn't mean dirt paths and cobblestone boardwalks. I was talking about the first highway that stretched from eastern persia to the edge of western turkey. You say i'm forgetting the Byzantine empire when infact the Byzantine empire was a split off of the Roman empire. And plus their religion was Orthadox Christian. The ottoman empire was not as extensive as the persian empire. We can discuss historical discrepincies but the issue remains. The realization(spelling i know) we are further destabalizing the middle east is what I was alluding to. Spend some more time in class yourself.

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 4:48 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 4:48 PM. Reason : .]

8/23/2005 4:47:10 PM

Lonesnark seriously man.

I don't want you to think I'm a dick when I say you have no idea what peak oil is.

8/23/2005 4:59:47 PM

WTF LoneSnark

8/23/2005 5:01:03 PM

Quote :

"The ottoman empire was not as extensive as the persian empire. We can discuss historical discrepincies but the issue remains. The realization(spelling i know) we are further destabalizing the middle east is what I was alluding to. Spend some more time in class yourself. "

the ottoman was marginally smaller than the persian empire (2.4 million sq miles vs. 2.2 million sq. miles).

not to mention you said that the middle east "hasn't come out of chaos" since alexander the great. that's just dead wrong. they've been quite prosperous at many points in the past 700 years or so. the big thing that's really fucked them was when europeans (mostly britain) formed their borders based on western interests and not cultural or historical interests. not alexander the great. while he had a big influence in his time, it didn't stretch 2500 years or whatever.

8/23/2005 5:09:09 PM

I was alluding in my first post about alexander the great in connection with history today. Allusion is a form of persuasive argument. While my message didn't cover all of history the issue remains the same. Conquest in the middle east has brought nothing to the world ecept more wars.

Quote :

"the big thing that's really fucked them was when europeans (mostly britain) formed their borders based on western interests and not cultural or historical interests."

At least you see my side of the arguement yet you still want to discuss minor discrepincies when you dont have all the facts yourself.

8/23/2005 5:16:48 PM

i don't see where i screwed up the facts. i just didn't want you saying that the middle has been in turmoil since the time of alexander the great. it makes the situation look far more helpless than it really is and it glosses over much more current and relevant history.

8/23/2005 5:21:24 PM

Thats just the thing. The situation is helpless. When something is helpless it is not harvestable. In other words we cant fix something that is unfixable through aggressive means. What is being "glossed" over is the current situation in the middle as it relates to history. Its called fucking logic.

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 5:25 PM. Reason : .]

8/23/2005 5:25:14 PM

so it's helpless because you say it is. i understand. you ever think of having some reasonable evidence?

8/23/2005 5:29:53 PM

Almost 1500 dead and counting, and you want reasonable evidence.

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 5:31 PM. Reason : jesus h christ]

8/23/2005 5:30:32 PM

i don't think invading iraq will or has saved the middle east. but i also don't think the situation is helpless. keep trying.

8/23/2005 5:31:08 PM

In my argument i said, and i repeat myself,

Quote :

"the middle east can not be changed through aggresive means"

does not mean other routes are doomed to helplessness. Damnit to I have to speak in retard to you.

8/23/2005 5:33:29 PM

i guess you to because that's all you've been speaking


[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 5:35 PM. Reason : .]

8/23/2005 5:34:53 PM

End of argument

[Edited on August 23, 2005 at 5:35 PM. Reason : sheesh]

8/23/2005 5:35:12 PM

you no longer warrent any response from me, good day

8/23/2005 5:37:19 PM

so by aggressive you mean a war or you mean aggressive action? because i think aggressive action needs to be taken. not necessarily in the form of war. sheesh. and to keep things straight i was just correcting you on the alexander the great thing. and saying that the situation isn't helpless. i never said war was the answer. i never really disagreed with you on that point.

8/23/2005 5:37:40 PM

The EIA officially is stating that oil demand will outstrip supply in the fourth quarter of this year, as well as in Q1 and Q4 of 2006

http://theoildrum.blogspot.com/2005/08/more-eia-demand-will-outstrip-supply.html

8/24/2005 11:47:28 AM

Interesting... If the EIA is to be believed, the new higher prices are reversing the "Peak Oil Trend" that enviro-nuts were so excited about. As of 2006, US Domestic Oil Production will be increasing, reversing the 1980s downward trend.

It is amazing what a little investment can do.

As for your comments about outstripping supply, you are merely noting the seasonal shift in oil demand. Oil companies want to pump continuously throughout the year, people only want to heat their homes in winter. Therefore, as with any other consumer good, stockpiles are built up and drawn down in various quarters.

This fact has nothing to do with Peak Oil unless is says year 2006 will produce less oil than 2005, which it clearly does not.

8/24/2005 12:03:11 PM

don't look at raw pumping volume

look at the ratio demand/supply.... is next year's ratio going to be greater than this years?

[Edited on August 24, 2005 at 12:19 PM. Reason : s]

8/24/2005 12:19:04 PM

Check out Steven Levitt's response to the NY Times article. (i know, i'm a few days late on this)

http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/08/peak-oil-welcome-to-medias-new-version.html

Quote :

"The cover story of the New York Times Sunday Magazine written by Peter Maass is about "Peak Oil." The idea behind "peak oil" is that the world has been on a path of increasing oil production for many years, and now we are about to peak and go into a situation where there are dwindling reserves, leading to triple-digit prices for a barrel of oil, an unparalleled worldwide depression, and as one web page puts it, "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon." One might think that doomsday proponents would be chastened by the long history of people of their ilk being wrong: Nostradamus, Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, etc. Clearly they are not. What most of these doomsday scenarios have gotten wrong is the fundamental idea of economics: people respond to incentives. If the price of a good goes up, people demand less of it, the companies that make it figure out how to make more of it, and everyone tries to figure out how to produce substitutes for it. Add to that the march of technological innovation (like the green revolution, birth control, etc.). The end result: markets figure out how to deal with problems of supply and demand. Which is exactly the situation with oil right now. I don't know much about world oil reserves. I'm not even necessarily arguing with their facts about how much the output from existing oil fields is going to decline, or that world demand for oil is increasing. But these changes in supply and demand are slow and gradual -- a few percent each year. Markets have a way with dealing with situations like this: prices rise a little bit. That is not a catastrophe, it is a message that some things that used to be worth doing at low oil prices are no longer worth doing. Some people will switch from SUVs to hybrids, for instance. Maybe we'll be willing to build some nuclear power plants, or it will become worth it to put solar panels on more houses. The NY Times article totally flubs the economics time and again. Here is one example from the article: The author writes: The consequences of an actual shortfall of supply would be immense. If consumption begins to exceed production by even a small amount, the price of a barrel of oil could soar to triple-digit levels. This, in turn, could bring on a global recession, a result of exorbitant prices for transport fuels and for products that rely on petrochemicals -- which is to say, almost every product on the market. The impact on the American way of life would be profound: cars cannot be propelled by roof-borne windmills. The suburban and exurban lifestyles, hinged to two-car families and constant trips to work, school and Wal-Mart, might become unaffordable or, if gas rationing is imposed, impossible. Carpools would be the least imposing of many inconveniences; the cost of home heating would soar -- assuming, of course, that climate-controlled habitats do not become just a fond memory. If oil prices rise, consumers of oil will be (a little) worse off. But, we are talking about needing to cut demand by a few percent a year. That doesn't mean putting windmills on cars, it means cutting out a few low value trips. It doesn't mean abandoning North Dakota, it means keeping the thermostat a degree or two cooler in the winter. A little later, the author writes The onset of triple-digit prices might seem a blessing for the Saudis -- they would receive greater amounts of money for their increasingly scarce oil. But one popular misunderstanding about the Saudis -- and about OPEC in general -- is that high prices, no matter how high, are to their benefit. Although oil costing more than $60 a barrel hasn't caused a global recession, that could still happen: it can take a while for high prices to have their ruinous impact. And the higher above $60 that prices rise, the more likely a recession will become. High oil prices are inflationary; they raise the cost of virtually everything -- from gasoline to jet fuel to plastics and fertilizers -- and that means people buy less and travel less, which means a drop-off in economic activity. So after a brief windfall for producers, oil prices would slide as recession sets in and once-voracious economies slow down, using less oil. Prices have collapsed before, and not so long ago: in 1998, oil fell to $10 a barrel after an untimely increase in OPEC production and a reduction in demand from Asia, which was suffering through a financial crash. Oops, there goes the whole peak oil argument. When the price rises, demand falls, and oil prices slide. What happened to the "end of the world as we know it?" Now we are back to $10 a barrel oil. Without realizing it, the author just invoked basic economics to invalidate the entire premise of the article! Just for good measure, he goes on to write: High prices can have another unfortunate effect for producers. When crude costs $10 a barrel or even $30 a barrel, alternative fuels are prohibitively expensive. For example, Canada has vast amounts of tar sands that can be rendered into heavy oil, but the cost of doing so is quite high. Yet those tar sands and other alternatives, like bioethanol, hydrogen fuel cells and liquid fuel from natural gas or coal, become economically viable as the going rate for a barrel rises past, say, $40 or more, especially if consuming governments choose to offer their own incentives or subsidies. So even if high prices don't cause a recession, the Saudis risk losing market share to rivals into whose nonfundamentalist hands Americans would much prefer to channel their energy dollars. As he notes, high prices lead people to develop substitutes. Which is exactly why we don't need to panic over peak oil in the first place. So why do I compare peak oil to shark attacks? It is because shark attacks mostly stay about constant, but fear of them goes up sharply when the media decides to report on them. The same thing, I bet, will now happen with peak oil. I expect tons of copycat journalism stoking the fears of consumers about oil induced catastrophe, even though nothing fundamental has changed in the oil outlook in the last decade. (For those of you interested in more economic perspectives on peak oil, check out these three posts by Jim Hamilton of econbrowser: here, here, and here. And thanks to Alex from marginalrevolution for pointing me to Hamilton's posts.)"

[Edited on August 24, 2005 at 3:23 PM. Reason : a]

8/24/2005 3:23:22 PM

I'm definitely in accord with Levitt on this. I feel the whole Peak Oil Catastrophe Boogeyman is a lot of hype.

8/24/2005 3:25:08 PM

Quote :

"One might think that doomsday proponents would be chastened by the long history of people of their ilk being wrong: Nostradamus, Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, etc. Clearly they are not."

This is a logical fallacy, and I think you probably know it.

"I woke up alive today, so I will every other day forever, and I'll never die!"

Think about it.

Besides, I know (and some of my peak-oil believing compatriots know) that this isn't a 100% doomsday scenario. The idea I try to espouse is that we NEED to do something. We can't just say "well, science will take care of it," or "business will take care of it." Someone actually needs to DO the taking care of it, see?

Yeah, we'll probably find a solution. I don't think we'll ever have the energy we have now with cheap oil, but we'll have the energy to keep civilzation running and keep people fed and alive. I do think that will probably happen. The crisis might have to get closer before we really get working on it, but there's a point where it's too late to take this seriously. We should start NOW so that we never have to come close to that. That's what I think.

Yes, people respond to incentives. If the incentives are widely publicized and they know about them, they'll respond to them. Right now, the incentives aren't there, and therein lies the problem.

If we don't do anything about it, oil WILL run out and we WILL have a crisis on our hands. Mark my words. Hopefully, though, we'll do something.

[Edited on August 24, 2005 at 3:28 PM. Reason : .]

8/24/2005 3:27:51 PM

Quote :

"This is a logical fallacy, and I think you probably know it. "I woke up alive today, so I will every other day forever, and I'll never die!" Think about it. "

I think you're reading too much into that statement.

Also, a better analogy is

People have predicted I will die.

I haven't died yet.

I probably won't die in the next 5 minutes.

The point isn't that we will never run out of oil, it is that by the time we do it probably won't matter. The market will take care of itself.

8/24/2005 3:35:27 PM

Quote :

"Someone actually needs to DO the taking care of it, see?"

DirtyGreek, I'm sure I've mentioned this before on TWW. Why don't you go take care of it for us?

Call up some bank somewhere, pitch your "peak oil" argument, borrow a few million dollars, and start researching some alternatives. I don't know why you insist that we need to do anything, when you have all the power you need to take care of it for us, making yourself a millionare in the process.

If you think we need to save oil for the future, go buy an oil-well somewhere and sit on it, for the future. If you think we need to research alternatives, then go do that! Whatever it is you think needs to be done, you and your fellow "Peak Oillers" can do it! And the market will reward you hansomely if you're right.

I can understand your comments if you are seeking investors. But it sounds like you want us to take care of it for you, which isn't going to happen because we don't believe anything needs to be done.

8/24/2005 4:54:20 PM

The alternative fuels exist already, but their popularity is what is keeping them from the mainstream market. We as a country always call on more production to meet our increasing demand. What is keeping us from lessening the demand? Biodiesel, vegetable oil, and ethanol are all viable alternatives to petroleum fuels. The main things keeping these from being viable alternatives are the infrastructure to distribute them, the oil companies themselves, and vehicle fuel system components that are incompatible with the alternative fuels. I know I'll open up a new can of worms with this post, but the technology is there; the investment isn't in R&D it is in implementation. Brazil has been running 100% ethanol automotive fuel for quite a long time now and they are doing just fine. Someone on another forum said that E85 (85% ethanol 15% gasoline if you don't know) was cheaper than regular 87 octane by a good amount (at the time, 87 octane was $2.18/g and E85 was selling for $1.87/g). I'm sure that margin will grow as petroleum keeps increasing in price. Farms can produce ethanol quite easily from waste products, which would harvest energy from something that otherwise would just decompose out in a field. In Brazil they make ethanol from sugarcane, and it takes less energy to produce than is used from the ethanol. Gasoline takes more energy to produce than is used from burning gasoline. There are plenty of options, most are available now, they are just not demanded enough for people to start implementing them.

I agree with DirtyGreek, that in general, everyone bitches about the price of gasoline, but very few actually do anything to decrease how much of it they use.

[Edited on August 24, 2005 at 5:39 PM. Reason : ]

8/24/2005 5:37:03 PM

^ I also recall someone saying that ethanol was less efficient than gas, so the savings per gallon are squandered by the relative inefficiency...

8/24/2005 5:48:51 PM

For what it is worth (I don't know anything about economics, so I am not defending any side here) :

http://arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=68940&d=24&m=8&y=2005

Quote :

"We’ve Nothing to Do With Rising Oil Prices: Sultan P.K. Abdul Ghafour, Arab News JEDDAH, 24 August 2005 — Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, yesterday reaffirmed that Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with increasing oil prices in the world market and had done everything possible to lower them."

A lot of ministers and even th King have said this several times.

So if oil prices are not under human control, are they some sentient being that can control itself? I mean, what's stopping producers/sellers from decreasing the price right now? Seems like some AI going on here.

8/24/2005 6:14:45 PM

Quote :

"I also recall someone saying that ethanol was less efficient than gas, so the savings per gallon are squandered by the relative inefficiency.."

debunked.

http://www.dirtygreek.org/journal/journalId/1404

Lonesnark, I think you misunderstand the free hand of hte market. It doesn't work without people doing what it directs them to do. If everyone in the world sits on their asses, the market doesn't keep going. It depends on actions by individuals. I'm sure you know that, but the way you talk, you sound like you think "the market" is an intelligent entity that works outside of human influence. On the contrary, it works BECAUSE of human influence, it's just that we may not be influencing it intentionally.

"nothing needs to be done" either means you don't understand how these things work, or you think oil is renewable.

[Edited on August 24, 2005 at 6:49 PM. Reason : .]

8/24/2005 6:47:33 PM

someone answer me ^ please. thank you.

8/24/2005 6:50:02 PM

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/08/24/national/w134322D04.DTL

8/24/2005 6:51:06 PM

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

Oil prices are controlled by the OPEC

8/24/2005 6:54:14 PM