$140+ per barrel - the end of the world as we know it?

[macsen rufus]

This could probably have gone in the Frontroom's "Science" forum, but I imagine it would soon get backroomish.....

There is no "GAH!" I know this is an unorthodox approach, but the issue is purely yes or no. There's an elephant in the room, and the question is: will we see oil prices coming down ever again?

Here's some background reading to keep you occupied whilst you fulminate against the lack of GAH! (You will note I have carefully selected a bunch of scare-mongering, Trotskyite pinko-liberal-whale-hugging lesbian nutcases for my sources ~D)

Declining Russian Oil Production Could Lead to $200 Oil and “Global Recession,” Says Deutsche Bank (http://www.moneymorning.com/2008/06/25/declining-russian-oil-production-could-lead-to-200-oil-and-global-recession-says-deutsche-bank/)

Sky-High Oil Will Make U.S. Go Broke (http://www.forbes.com/finance/2008/06/23/crude-biderman-margin-pf-etf-in_tt_0623trimtabs_inl.html)

Energy prospects after the petroleum age (http://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_DE-PROD/PROD0000000000181487.PDF)

Dick Cheney, Peak Oil and the Final Count Down (http://www.peakoil.net/Publications/Cheney_PeakOil_FCD.pdf)

[Sigurd]

Considering the fact that we are not planning to extract the oil that need a price of $120 a barrel any time soon, speaks of the oil companies not believing the extreme prices will last.

The dollar just needs to get back up on the stable value it has had for decades and it will all be sorted out. No need to panic yet.
In 10 or 20 years when we can actually speak of reduced oil production, then we can talk again. :smartass2:

[drone]

Gah!

I don't see it going much higher for a while. Usage in the US is dropping, and I believe China just decided to lower or drop petrol subsidies, which should lower demand some there. But I doubt it will drop much, unless this truly is a speculation bubble we are seeing at the moment. Once the dollar stabilizes the spikes should decrease.

I don't really have a problem with the price staying where it is at the moment. It is forcing US citizens to make smarter decisions on travel, vehicle selection, and home locations. It should also increase the manufacturing base in this country, as shipping costs have skyrocketed.

The fact that I live 6 miles from work has nothing to do with this stance, not at all. ~;) All those poor suckers driving their Tahoes from Front Royal/Winchester to DC probably have a different opinion.

[CountArach]

Yes but it will become high again soon.

[ICantSpellDawg]

You should have put a Gah! option. What do any of us know about anything? Gah would be much more fitting as nobody seems to know what is going on.

There are reasons for the prices to rise, and reasons for them to fall.

[macsen rufus]

What do any of us know about anything?

Since when has that ever stopped us? :laugh4:


dollar just needs to get back up on the stable value it has had for decades and it will all be sorted out

Dollar fluctuations don't explain how oil has risen against other currencies, or gold which is surging in price itself, for instance.


Considering the fact that we are not planning to extract the oil that need a price of $120 a barrel any time soon, speaks of the oil companies not believing the extreme prices will last.


You really think so? Never heard of "biding your time"? If it's going up all the while, it would be a great reason to leave it in the ground a little longer, no? Why sell at $120 if $300 is coming?

@Drone - 6 miles to work, sounds like you're one of the better placed to cope with what's coming... :yes:

[Ice]

It's here to stay, although it may fluctuate quite a bit.

[discovery1]

No, but we ain't doomed.

[HoreTore]

One of the advantages of living on a mountain of oil is that things like this only makes me smile :yes:

[Lemur]

Not only is it the end of the world, with all that entails -- biker gangs in leathers'n'feathers cruising the desert, raping and killing to find the juice, the precious gasoline -- but I have it on good authority that global warming will turn us all into gilled fish-men. I saw it on a poster, so it must be true.


https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/Lemurmania/FishMan.jpg

[discovery1]

One of the advantages of living on a mountain of oil is that things like this only makes me smile :yes:

Only problem with that is that people will look for alternatives, and then what do you do?

@Lemur or rather WWF: :thumbsdown:

[Samurai Waki]

No. and its one of the best things that has happened to this country, I'm actually seeing carpools being used, bus lines are at nearly max capacity, and trains are finally starting to make some headway again. from a social and ecological point of view this is not a bad thing.

[PanzerJaeger]

Alternate energy will lower demand at some point.

[Samurai Waki]

Alternate Energy will affect our kids more so than us.

[discovery1]

Special report on renewables in The Economist (http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11565685)

[Reverend Joe]

Bring on the global recession. We need a serious shakedown.

[King Jan III Sobieski]

The commies are behind it, I tell you! They want the capitalists and Arabs to duke it out, destroy each other, and they'll take over the world!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, no, I don't actually believe that, but I don't know what the solution is. :dizzy2::help::furious3:

[Mikeus Caesar]

I believe that right now we're at a kind of fork in the road.

A) Within the next few years the major countries of the world realise that the oil age is over, and that if we don't change soon, we're all buggered. Huge investment is put into renewables by the various world governments, and by 2030 we're all driving cars powered by hydrogen and the first fusion generator for commercial power usage has been brought online.

B) In the naivety that the world can carry on as it has, the world governments do nothing. The situation goes on to long, and by time it's finally realised that alternatives are needed asap, the oil is already almost gone. Some governments try a last attempt at researching alternatives, while the others panic, or fall apart due to growing internal turmoil. Commercial transportation of goods ceasing causes geographically large countries such as the USA and China to be hit hardest. People starve globally as food production falls (we're already seeing this) and civilisation as we know it falls apart. We enter a dark age similar to what occured after the fall of the Romans, and emerge from it stuck in a society that can now only advance as far as 19th century industry due to the only energy source still available being coal.

EDIT: Tragically, the way our world is, the way people don't act until the last minute because they dislike leaving their comfort zone, the tendency for governments to not play well together, option B is the most likely cause of action. The best we can hope for is a mixture of B and A, where first world countries save themselves at the last second due to numerous breakthrough technologies, but third world countries, unable to afford these new technologies, fall apart and suffer massive population die-offs due to starvation on a scale never seen before.

[macsen rufus]

One of the advantages of living on a mountain of oil is that things like this only makes me smile :yes:

According to the CIA factbook, Norway is sitting on 7.7 billion barrels, proven in 2008. BP figures show global consumption at 31 billion per year. That makes your "mountain" worth three months, or to put it another way, it delays the peak by a whole six weeks.


2007 Oil Reserves stand at 1237.9 billion barrels
Reserves have grown 107.8 billion barrels since 2001 and 168.5 billion barrels, or 14%, over the last decade.

Even proven reserves amount to less than 40 years at current consumption. How old will you be in 40 years? Does the thought of sky-high prices or oil scarcity at that time of your life really make you smile? Even if we could somehow DOUBLE the reserves, that might add another 40 years.

Now, we know there are problems with the reserve figures - OPEC especially has had very good cause to to exaggerate their holdings in the past, as this is what determines their export quotas. And they have proved incapable of turning up the production by any significant amount. And I'm sure you realise that oil companies need new reserves to maintain share prices, it's a treadmill, yet there's more effort going into "marketplace acquisitions" than exploration. Mergers, acquisitions and "corporate cannibalism" are the order of the day, and this is not normally associated with a healthy sector of the economy.

Although the past performance doesn't guarantee future returns, we should also compare growth rates. 1997-2007, average 1.4% pa more reseves. 2007 consumption grew by 1.1% globally. That 0.3% sounds good doesn't it?

:no: We're looking at a diminshing EROEI (energy return on energy invested) as newer finds are in deeper water, further from land, or harder to crack. Tar sands have an EROEI as low as 1.5:1, shales are technically difficult. Basically the new reserves aren't a like-for-like replacement of sweet Saudi crude, and that has to eat into the 0.3%.

No-one is suggesting the taps will run dry overnight. But small shortfalls in supply have large impacts on price, and price knocks on through the economy. A lot of people are going to be hurt badly, especially in the more oil-dependent societies. EVERYTHING depends on oil - agriculture (ironically the more "backward" agrarian areas are better placed to survive, they already know how to farm without huge energy subsidies...), manufacturing, communications, transport, and yes, even renewable energy. We will need to make some very wise energy-investment decisions, placing our energy in industiries which will generate more energy. Other sectors will need to de-intensify their energy use, agriculture especially - the only option will be more human labour, more people working the land again (gardens are more productive than farms on all measures).

If there is to be much of a future, it will have to be low-tech, localised and co-operative. The SUV of the 22nd century will probably have two wheels, a chain, and pedals :clown:

[Sigurd]

An amusing thread this...

I don't know how many of you actually work in oil & energy. I do and although I am not a geo-physicist (never call them geologist, they will crap all over you), I know several. They are responsible for finding new oil or gas and knows a thing or two about where to look.
I have been on a few lectures with them, and I have tried for a few days now to get a hold of the latest presentation I attended, just to show you guys a little from it.

Granted, there are a lot of factors that need to be in place for our mother earth to create petroleum or crude oil. You need the ingredients, the temperature, the sand filters, the highways and the trap. All of which is needed to produce oil or gas. One of them missing and you get nothing.
But the ingredients are plentiful and a map over the earth where these are found would be prudent at this point. When I get a hold of the presentation I talked about, I might make a thread about it.
Anyway, on this map there are explored areas and unexplored areas. You would see that the unexplored areas are larger than the explored. Oil could be found all over the world. Some areas are easy to extract like Saudi Arabia (you just need to poke a hole in the ground and oil comes out), others need advanced technology to get the black gold out, like Norway.

Yes the current world oil resource, meaning what we know exist in the ground at present and what we can currently forecast, will last around 40-50 years or so. But this is not taking into consideration that we have huge areas where oil could be, but haven't checked yet.

There are 3 factors to consider when it comes to oil and gas in the future.



New technology will increase the amount of energy we extract from petroleum. Currently only 12% of the energy harvested from petroleum is actually moving the car.
New technology will increase the extraction percentage of wells and instead of only getting about 30-40% of the oil up to the surface, we can with new technology double that. (giving new life to old wells).
Unexplored areas, e.g. North in the Barents Sea and on arctic landmass (for Norway), will yield petroleum for many decades in the future.

Personally I don't get why the oil-price is so high.
Why worry now over the shortage of oil, when in truth we don't need to worry about it until 20 years from now.

I think it is a combination of scaremongers like the 14 or so that has answered positive to this poll :stare:, low dollar value and the unrest in Iran or Nigeria (yeah some fear that they won't produce as much as they have promised), that cause the price pr barrel to be as high as it is. I won't buy the reason about there being too little oil to go around.
Dollars don't buy as much as it used to and since oil is nearly exclusively sold in dollars, the prices are high to cover the so-called losses.

[Ser Clegane]

Personally I don't get why the oil-price is so high.
Why worry now over the shortage of oil, when in truth we don't need to worry about it until 20 years from now.

I think it is a combination of scaremongers like the 14 or so that has answered positive to this poll :stare:, low dollar value and the unrest in Iran or Nigeria (yeah some fear that they won't produce as much as they have promised), that cause the price pr barrel to be as high as it is. I won't buy the reason about there being too little oil to go around.
Dollars don't buy as much as it used to and since oil is nearly exclusively sold in dollars, the prices are high to cover the so-called losses.

The following article about the general commodity price increase goes into the same direction.
How Speculators Are Causing the Cost of Living to Skyrocket (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,559550,00.html)

The gist of the article is that while strong demand certainly plays a role, the usual supply/demand dynamics are not the reson for the dramatic prioce increases on commodity markets, but that a good chunk of it is indeed caused by speculation (and the massive funds that are available to some managers and the need to invest them profitably).

An excerpt:

From the point of view of fundamental investment analysis, there are good reasons to continue to bet on further increases in commodities prices. Resources are becoming scarcer, while global demand for energy, mineral resources like copper and coal and crops like wheat and corn will continue to rise. Traders on the commodities exchanges call it a "supercycle" -- a trend that will continue for a long time.

The problem is that commodities don't behave like stocks or mortgages, the last two darlings of the investment community. It is often the case that many fund managers cannot (or choose not to) understand the specific rules of their latest toy on more than a superficial level. They trade in pieces of information that mean nothing until they are in possession of one of them.

Sometimes all it takes is a heavy rainstorm in Iowa to trigger a rally on the corn market. A poor harvest could reduce supply. Less supply drives up prices -- and higher returns for commodities traders.

In the case of oil, a foggy day in Houston's harbor is enough to trigger a panic in the market because it means that a few tankers will be unable to unload their cargos until the fog lifts. When a pipeline burst in Canada, "the price immediately jumped by $4," says Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst with Oppenheimer in New York with 20 years of experience in the industry. Gheit, also an engineer, knows how pipelines are repaired. "This isn't heart surgery. It's a plumber's job, child's play, finished in three days," he says. "The traders use every excuse in the book to drive up prices."

As a young man, Gheit was still analyzing oil prices at $4 a barrel. The ritualized relationship between production volume and consumption, demand that has been growing for years in China, unrest in the Middle East or Nigeria, the threat of cold snaps -- none of this is enough to explain the current price explosion, says Gheit. In fact, he is convinced that speculators are completely responsible. "It's pure hysteria," he says.

Other analysts agree. "The market is reacting to the fact that we might not have enough oil in the market 13 years from now -- excuse me?," says Edward Morse, chief energy economist at the investment bank Lehman Brothers. "You never recognize it's a bubble until the bubble is over." he says.

Signs of unusual behavior abound across the commodities markets. Take cotton, for example. In late February, the price of cotton futures jumped by 50 percent within two weeks. But cotton farmers haven't even been able to sell half of their harvest from the previous year yet. Warehouses in the United States are fuller than they have been since 1966. Indeed, all signs point to a price decline.

In a statement to the US Congress, the American Cotton Shippers' Association blames this "irrational" development on "speculators driving up prices." According to the trade group, cotton processors would never pay the fantasy prices being quoted on the commodities futures exchanges.

Two worlds have developed. One is the world of the traders at hedge funds and investment companies, and the other is that of farmers, grain dealers and mine operators. They may be dealing in the same commodities -- barrels of oil or bales of cotton, for example -- but for some these are nothing but abstract concepts while others see them as down-to-earth products.

The problems arise when these two worlds intersect, the fantasy world of speculators and the real economies of cotton processors and coffee roasters. It leads to distortions, like those currently affecting the cotton market.

[Mikeus Caesar]

You silly realists, shhh, you're ruining my dream of a perfect world - a world with fewer people, where you don't need qualifications to get somewhere. Just pure will and ability.

[macsen rufus]

Why worry now over the shortage of oil, when in truth we don't need to worry about it until 20 years from now.

Maybe because it will take us more than 20 years to get our collective arse into gear :yes:

[Husar]

Why do I keep thinking that stock markets are one of the worst inventions ever?

You sell almost half of your company to a bunch of silly, easily-scared people because you are unable to make enough profit yourself and subsequently you have to release unfinished products, release wrong balances and do other stupid/illegal things to keep all those easily-scared shareholders happy because otherwise you go completely bankrupt like you should have in the first place. :inquisitive: :thumbsdown:

And now I hear these silly wusses are responsible for the 442EUR I had to pay in addition to my monthly heating costs even though it wasn't really warm at all in my flat during the whole winter! :furious3:

Don't shareholders ever read about how stupid shareholders do this or that in newspapers or are they just too stupid to realize these articles are talking about them?

[Banquo's Ghost]

Don't shareholders ever read about how stupid shareholders do this or that in newspapers or are they just too stupid to realize these articles are talking about them?

The point is that one needs stupid shareholders to provide the money for clever shareholders to make profits.

:stupido2:

[Ice]

I think it is a combination of scaremongers like the 14 or so that has answered positive to this poll :stare:, low dollar value and the unrest in Iran or Nigeria (yeah some fear that they won't produce as much as they have promised), that cause the price pr barrel to be as high as it is. I won't buy the reason about there being too little oil to go around.
Dollars don't buy as much as it used to and since oil is nearly exclusively sold in dollars, the prices are high to cover the so-called losses.

I liked your assessment of the current supply side of oil. It was very interesting. :book:

However, I am not a scaremonger being one of the now 15 who have answered "no" to the poll. I don't believe oil will ever be as cheap as say 50 dollars a barrel. While there may be plenty of oil to go around (I don't dispute this), much of it, like you have said, is unexplored. This comes at a time when global demand is exploding especially in third world countries such as China and India.

I don't think we are doomed, but I don't think oil prices will ever be cheap again. There is a lot of money left to made on the exploration and production of new crude.

[PanzerJaeger]

EDIT: Tragically, the way our world is, the way people don't act until the last minute because they dislike leaving their comfort zone, the tendency for governments to not play well together, option B is the most likely cause of action. The best we can hope for is a mixture of B and A, where first world countries save themselves at the last second due to numerous breakthrough technologies, but third world countries, unable to afford these new technologies, fall apart and suffer massive population die-offs due to starvation on a scale never seen before.

:inquisitive:

The free market works in our favor though. SUV sales have collapsed, and small, effecient cars are in.

When did this big oil scare start? Last summer? The families of Toyota, Honda, Ford, and GM (I may be missing some) already have workable hybrids on the lots. Not just weird Prius types, but hybrids in their normal cars aswell. Honda just introduced the first hydrogen powered car, and the German motor groups have some big plans up their sleeves as well. Congress and other governments are already giving millions to the automakers for fuel saving techs to make up for the ever increasing fuel economy standards they are imposing.

Sure these aren't perfect solutions, but thats not how technology works. Its a progression. In a relatively short time, the market has responded to changing demnad with vehicles getting double and triple the milage that was standard in the past.

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

[Tribesman]

now thats a turn up , the free market works and the benefits of millions in government subsidies all in one reply .
Well done Panzer

[Fragony]

Doesn't stop our governherd from raising taxes over gassoline anyway since today, for the trees and 26.000 other reasons.

//hugs bike

[PanzerJaeger]

now thats a turn up , the free market works and the benefits of millions in government subsidies all in one reply .
Well done Panzer

You're really trying too hard...

[Spino]

End of the world? Hardly? As we know it? Perhaps...

Were it that oil was the only solution available to us that could provide electrical power to run our industry, heat our homes and fuel our cars then I say hey, break out the tin foil hats, raggedy robes and hastily scribbled signs bearing apocalyptic slogans such as "The End is Nigh!"

However the techno geek inside me is gleefully delighted that we now have the catalyst known as 'neccessity' inspiring the Mother of Invention to get off her lazy a$$ and fix us an alternative fuel laden ham sammich. Nuclear power, hydro power, wind power, solar power, hybrid powered cars, hydrogen fuel cells, etc., etc. It is wonderful to see the future back in vogue!

Beyond this skyrocketing fuel prices will force more people to... wait for it... use their own self-generated horsepower for frivolous trips that previously saw people burning dead dinosaurs in the name of small errands and leisure activities (i.e. trips to the local store for a mere loaf of bread, container of milk and a stick of butter and those lovely Sunday drives to nowhere). Maybe this will force Americans and other westerners to dredge up those 'uncool' cost conscious and waste eliminating habits of pre-war generations.

To be honest just moving the country off oil (especially the imported variety) for our electrical needs would be a huge step in the right direction. Relying on nuclear alone to bear the burden (arguably the quickest and most efficient means at our disposal) would have a much more profound impact than if everyone were to trade their conventional car in for a hybrid, electrical or hydrogen fuel cell model. Correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't the US use upwards of 70-75% of the oil it purchases to power its electrical grid... crazy, eh?

It is quite frightening to see things coming to a head as they are... with inflation, the mortgage crisis, oil speculation driving fuel costs sky high and a Mount Everest sized debt looming over us. I honestly don't think we're in for a modest recession this time around. I firmly believe the current trend is leading to something much bigger than anyone cares to admit and that the ride is going to get a helluva lot bumpier. I don't think we're in for a depression sized pit of despair (I'm being cautiously optimistic) but the combined forces of the four factors I mentioned have created one killer pothole that is going to seriously screw up the suspension. We may have to trade this jalopy in for a new model... which is not neccessarily a bad thing.

[Oleander Ardens]

Even if I'm no expert on the specific subject I recall that right now the major problem is that we don't have the stuff which will deliver us more refined petro up and running. It is excellent that we will be able to deliver more oil in the future for a good period of time, but right now the supply side is pretty limited because cheap oil made expensive investements not profitable. That's why oil became so interesting for investors and speculators - right now people will pay 140$ a barrel, so why shouldn't we make a nice profit of you? :clown:

[Sigurd]

A little digression.

I see two members mentioning Hydrogen fuel cell powered cars.
That they are environmental friendly is only half the picture. Hydrogen is not a natural resource or a energy source at all if you are strictly technical. Hydrogen is a energy carrier but the energy source is still petroleum (oil and gas). Yes Hydrogen is made by processing hydrocarbons and the waste is CO2. This is the process that produce most of our Hydrogen.

True you can get hydrogen from other sources like electrolysis of water or mixing sink and hydrochloric acid, but they are expensive and not used on an industrial scale.
That hydrogen powered cars emits zero greenhouse gases is true, but making the hydrogen that fuels the electric motor have already emitted plenty of CO2.

I see the oil price as of today is now $142 pr 159 liters (barrel).

[macsen rufus]

I see two members mentioning Hydrogen fuel cell powered cars.


:yes: That is an important point - unless the hydrogen comes from a clean source there's no real environmental benefit, beyond the locality where the car is driven having fewer petrochemical by-products in the air. There's still the CO2 emissions coming from a cracking plant, and there's still the consumption of oil/natural gas.

Here's an interesting graph from BP, relating historical prices to various world events. Note that today's price is now off the scale:

https://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l148/macsen_rufus/Oil_prices.gif




we don't have the stuff which will deliver us more refined petro up and running

That is the crux of the issue, and is more relevant to the economic effects. Even if we have 500 years reserves, without the refining and distribution capacity to keep pace with actual consumption there will be a shortfall and pricing pressures. Oil prices are notoriously inelastic - it takes a huge rise in price to garner a small reduction in usage. Generally people will go on paying the higher price, largely out of a perceived, or self-imposed, "necessity".

I believe we can currently churn out 80mbd, but if demand rises much further and 90mbd is required, where is that extra 10million barrels coming from in the short term? The fastest mechanism will be demand destruction - either individual curbs or some economic sectors contacting. The US automotive industry is looking terribly vulnerable at present, and this could have severe impacts for employment.

@Spino - well said, though I'm less optimistic about alternatives filling the gap (because we need to spend a lot of oil on them to raise their capacity).

[Spino]

Im sorry but I'm not one of those people who buy the whole carbon emissions, global warming argument at face value. Not that I don't believe there is some truth to it but to what extent is it our fault or simply part of the planet's natural cycle? If we use an 'end justifies the means' approach to reducing carbon emissions then massive deforestation suddenly becomes a sensible solution!

I believe the crux of this thread was not to point out the environmental impact of our dependency on fossil fuels (especially crude oil) but the the economic impact on the countries most dependent on them.

Anyway... If hydrogen needs to come from a clean source then wouldn't the movement of our electrical grid to nuclear, hydro, solar & wind power dramatically cut down the carbon emissions? America relies mainly on oil and coal for its electrical power with the remainder coming from nuclear, hydroelectric and other sources. It seems to me that if it's possible for both our electrical grid and our vehicles (planes & helicopter excepted) to dramatically minimize and/or eliminate their carbon emissions then the existence of carbon emitting hydrogen processing plants really won't really be a problem.

[PBI]

If we use an 'end justifies the means' approach to reducing carbon emissions then massive deforestation suddenly becomes a sensible solution!


Erm, how's that exactly? I've never heard anyone suggest that this would reduce carbon emissions.

[macsen rufus]

The case against speculators being to blame for oil price hikes: Peak Oil: IEA Inches Toward the Pessimists’ Camp (Wall Street journal) (http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/07/01/peak-oil-iea-inches-toward-the-pessimists-camp/)


Anyway... If hydrogen needs to come from a clean source then wouldn't the movement of our electrical grid to nuclear, hydro, solar & wind power dramatically cut down the carbon emissions? America relies mainly on oil and coal for its electrical power with the remainder coming from nuclear, hydroelectric and other sources. It seems to me that if it's possible for both our electrical grid and our vehicles (planes & helicopter excepted) to dramatically minimize and/or eliminate their carbon emissions then the existence of carbon emitting hydrogen processing plants really won't really be a problem.

Raises a few points - the nuclear fuel cycle is far from "low carbon" - it is very fossil-fuel dependent, from uranium mining through to the enormous embedded energy of concrete required for reactor domes.

Whilst the sort of changes you suggest are laudible, there is one issue that militates against their effectiveness on a global scale:


90% of the demand growth over the next five years will come from Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, the IEA said.


In the short to medium term at least, western demand reduction will be swamped by demand growth elsewhere, leading to continuing growth on the demand-side whilst supply-side contracts.

All in all I see a big Catch 22 on the whole "Peak Oil" scenario: deny it, do nothing and crash the economy OR admit it, create panic and crash the economy.

Meanwhile, I'm out looking for a comfortable cave to live in for the coming neo-Neolithic future :clown:

[Oleander Ardens]

As a matter of fact the SUV-craze caused a huge increase in oil demand, mostly in the USA but partly also in Europe. It is rather ironic that big Detroit fought against increased energy efficiency as it would be the devil, saying it would punish "unfairly" the domestic producer. Well, now the market is doing brutally what Detroit could have got gently. :whip:

BRIC states like China and India are facing huge financial pressure because they have artifically kept domestic oil prices low to keep the economy running - they seem to strech this huge rapid increase to lessen the huge impact. Actually India and China will face bigger trouble than Europe and even the USA because they spend a bigger percentage on commodities.

Overall I guess that the oil may face upward pressure until 2010.

P.S: Global warming is happening. It is almost certainly man-made. And even if there is an underlying "natural" warming cycle it would be stupid to accelerate it by blasting ever more Co2 into the atmosphere.

[macsen rufus]

It is rather ironic that big Detroit fought against increased energy efficiency as it would be the devil, saying it would punish "unfairly" the domestic producer. Well, now the market is doing brutally what Detroit could have got gently.


:yes:

America’s carmakers: That shrinking feeling (The Economist) (http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11670623)


P.S: Global warming is happening. It is almost certainly man-made. And even if there is an underlying "natural" warming cycle it would be stupid to accelerate it by blasting ever more Co2 into the atmosphere.

:yes::yes:

Climate change denial is generally politically motivated, and all the proposed "natural cycles" or other factors (eg cosmic rays recently!) have been analysed, accounted for, and we still see a major contribution from anthropogenic sources, and disruption of sinks. A congenial climate, like a functioning economy, is an essential pre-condition for continued human existence. Sure, the planet has naturally been through phases of high atmospheric carbon before, but those phases are notable for not supporting any naked, bipedal apes amonst their biodiversity. There's a reason there are (were) billions of tonnes of fossil carbon stashed below the earth's surface -- it was surplus to the needs of the biosphere -- returning it to the biosphere is bound to tilt the homoeostasis beyond a limit where biological cycles can regulate.

So we're now facing a double-whammy - climate chance AND economic collapse. I'm sure the Greeks had a word for it.... I guess it must be hubris.

[Oleander Ardens]

So now oil is at 122$. I considered also 125$ good enough for buying, but we will see how things will develop in the future...

[Marius Dynamite]

Here is a question for you - What part will Nuclear Energy play in the future, particularly when Oil begins to run out?

P.S. Bear in mind Nuclear Power has no Co2! Yay!!

[macsen rufus]

Nuclear Power has no Co2!

:no: wrong.

Try mining for minerals (eg uranium) without emitting CO2; try transporting said minerals without emitting CO2; try making concrete for reactor domes (and LOTS of it) without emitting CO2. Nuclear power is far from zero-carbon, and most of the carbon it does require is good old-fashioned oil.

Certainly the British govt is pressing ahead with a new wave of nuclearmania, planning to steamroll planning laws, local opposition and rational consideration along the way. At least EdF have been beaten back for now, so for the time being we get no extra uranium in our rivers and groundwater :clown:

[Sigurd]

Scaremongers 0 - me 1 ...

sorry for resurrecting this scaremonger... :mellow: