Oil was affordable again as OPEC could produce more oil, but only because they cooked the books on their reserves. Do some research on how the USGS cooks its books.
It'd be more fun if you tell us how the USGS + OPEC do it.
I think Peak Oil is the biggest, least discussed issue underling every economic concern brought up in this thread.
Yeah, but you got to be patient until the hottest show in town goes out of fashion, curently known as climate change, dunno what they'll call it next but formerly known as global warming and previously global cooling. At some point we'll figure out we can't affect the planet and do the thing we do best -- adapt.
Doesn't Mike Ruppert think 9/11 was an inside job ?
He's made a lot of predictions over the past few years which did not pan out. Evidently he's quite adept at manipulating ignorance & fear
Employment, affordable food and energy costs, lower taxes, and someone to blame.
Historically, cities did better than the countryside in times of famine because they had more purchasing power. Times are hard, farmers get the best prices in the city. Higher taxes will ensure those that can't affford them -- the angry ppl, leave faster. Having most essentials in proximity means less energy spent to procure them. A more able police force will handle crime unless you have your own militia to protect you. In fact cities will become more dense and the country will depopulate itself as a result. Property in the city increases in value vs losing value in the country.
All things considered I think cities would be safer than the country
I meant that as price increases you would expect supply to increase somewhat as producers open their valves wider. We did not see this in the last spike which suggests their valves were already wide open.
If 2005 was the peak why has oil production plateaued since. Why did it not drop sooner and how long is a peak supposed to last ?
This low hanging fruit was shut down and replaced with natural gas and coal. The task of reducing oil consumption will be much more difficult today.
You sure about that ?
Currently Europeans pay at the pump as if oil cost $250-$300 a barrel. That means if the price goes up another $100 they still have a cushion, whether their govts would allow it is another matter. So I'd look at Europe today to see what life would be like in the future.
The EU and several other countries set a price floor above equilibirum price during the last crisis ie the 70s and retained it to the present but Reagan removed it in '81. Others forced their economies to adapt to less with a higher than market price. Every time the oil price rises they set a new floor again.
You could argue removing the price floor allowed the US to grow much faster and you'd be right. If oil production does not increase in the future then this will be the first thing the US does. And then we'll just watch the market do its thing. No need for any zero-sum oil wars, just trust the market, its the only way that will allow us to transition away from oil & gas.
There are no (or very few) large onshore fields left to find, hence they are curtailing investment.
And the reason is they are being
shutout by nationalised oil companies who now control most of the world's reserves and promising areas. This does not necessarily imply there is less oil in the ground, it just means less opportunities for the oil majors to make the kind of profits in days gone by. This little fact alone gives me reason to suspect peakers do not know where the
real peak even is !!
Will this cause a short term peak in production ? quite possibly as these NOC's might not have the best tech or staff. So there'll be a spike in prices but it will also stimulate investment at the same time, because otherwise it will speed up the transtion away from oil, a lesson the oil producers will re-learn to their detriment.
And in some cases they are using their profits to buy back their shares which makes perfect sense if your business is going extinct.
You could say the same thing about mergers too, but aren't mergers a cheaper way of increasing a company's reserves and therefore shareholder value as they currently cannot add to their reserves the usual way.
It appears that nothing of substance will be decided in Copenhagen this year. The negative impact to the economy of any policy that seriously addresses AGW is not politically possible given the current economic woes. And given that the economy will continue to worsen as peak oil bites, I conclude that we will never do anything meaningful to address AGW.
But i'm not sure if thats necessarily a bad thing as the question as to what degree man is influencing climate remains unanswered. Will doing what they want make a difference and is there any way to test it ? --$trillions at stake
We don't have any proof but rather only an inference that c02 is responsible. A correlation that CO2 emissions match recent climate change isn't sufficient causation to conclude cutting down on emissions will affect the climate. How do we even tell whether cutbacks have had the desired effect. How much time do we give it ?
And if so, could money be better spent dealing with climate change than trying to avert it. What happens if we are unable to avert it after having tried ? We would be in twice as deep with lesser resources at hand
One thing for sure is warmers don't believe in peak oil. They see world GDP going up and are only concerned how much C02 it will put out. Just look at the scenarios in this IPCC
graph 
Perhaps, but it saddens me. This is not a political issue. It is a physics issue with profound implications for believers of every political, religious, and cultural system in the world.
If this is about science then what evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong ? 'Real' science can be tested.
I'm not disputing the concept of peak oil ie continuous growth with finite resources. But this statement on its own is useless because it only serves as a backdrop to peddle more 'predictions'. And PO just keeps on changing the dates saying its gonna happen 'real soon' each time as they have no clue how much finite actually is. Why else would they keep getting dates wrong.
We are already past the limit. We the yeast have overshot our test tube. Check out Kunstler's The Fate of the Yeast People.
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/11/the-fate-of-the-yeast-people.html
This guys a present day Malthusian. Last we heard of them was in the 60s where the issue was we could not feed enough people. In comes the green revolution which these types always overlook as 'cornucopian' and which forces them to quickly became silent. These types only have problems to offer, never solutions amounting to more than, umm, we need to cut down, somehow.
Jevons wrote a
book in 1865 about how coal was running out in the UK and created a 'Coal Panic'. A Royal Commision on coal was setup to study about the reserves and found that reserves were not an issue.
Isn't this the same story yet again with Heinberg's
book ?
I think if you normalize oil for inflation you will find that it has not increased much over the last 100 years, until recently.
If by 'recently' you mean '71 onwards then yes otherwise no. The graph i posted on the previous page, in real prices (2008) is no different to this
graph.
No that's not what I am saying. I am saying that production from existing oil fields in aggregate will start to decline at between 6% and 9% per year within 12-36 months. This means that we must find (6% * 85MB/day) of new oil every year just to keep the production rate flat. We will find some more oil, but all of it will go towards partially replacing depleting wells.
Would you agree with ths
estimate ?
Where do you get the data to show 6-9% declines ? Reserves in many countries are closely held secrets and can grow as better tech comes into play. A peak could be 5,10,15 or 20 years ahead.
How important is energy to the economy as a whole? Energy expenditures were only 7.2 percent of GDP in 2000, and oil expenditures were only 2.1 percent of GDP.
SouceFrom
here and in today's money
'46 - '73, price was avg $20/b
'86 - '00 price was avg $30/b
'01 - now it looks like we avg $50/b
So it took just over 50 years ('46-'00) for price to dbl. According to your predictions, upto peak at 2011-2014, oil makes up under 4% of GDP. We seem to be ok for now.
How long till it doubles again to $100 and stays there or close to 8% of GDP ?
A 6-9% decline implies a halving in 7-12 years from 2011-2014, which puts us at 2018 - 2026, or a bit over twenty years on from '00. We've already been there, it corresponds to '80-'85.
How long till it doubles again to $200 or close to 16% of GDP ? Again another 7-12 years or 2025-2038. Europe is already at this point today
All this assumes that demand is going to keep on rising but at those prices i seriously doubt it which means it will take longer for the price doublings to occur
