Boone Pickens: There's No End in Sight for the Rise in Crude Oil Prices
Posted by Sam Foucher on October 18, 2007 - 6:00pm
A lot of talks in the media about the recent jump in oil prices.
Boone Pickens yesterday morning:"We've never been where we are today at $87 a barrel and we're still whistling along. Everybody seems to be, 'So what? We can handle $87' " he said. "I don't know where the world chokes on the price."
John Kilduff (energy analyst):
“So one may almost say that the theory of universal suffrage assumes that the Average Citizen is an active, instructed, intelligent ruler of his country. The facts contradict this assumption.”
—James Bryce (1909, 35)
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Thanks for posting these, Khebab!
A significant reason for the recent highs in oil price, measured in USD, is simply continuing fall in value of the USD against other currencies.
The Bush Doctrine of lowering the dollar slowly over the next few years is turning dangerous. After what just happened with Turkey and China, its doubtful Bush cares anymore about the U.S dollar, and probably for good reason. While exports are up and will continue to rise in the coming years, the negative impact of higher oil, industrial metals, and imports will put a damper on the economy. The Housing bubble has yet to run its course.
Hopefully fuel demand falls. Thats all we can really hope for right now. If gasoline demand falls under 9 MBD, and overall demand stays at 20-22 MBD during the coming severe recession, we may just be all right for another 3-4 years, in a general sense. I think I'm hoping for the best. I'm going to go buy some more freeze drieds and scrap/tool metal and possibly some seeds. I honestly want to say I'm crazy, but right now, the best we can hope for is a few decent years. I will be tearful for joy if gas prices only double and food prices only triple, and unemployment doesn't reach 20%.
The prices have yet to really effect me, as my vehicle gets 45 MPG and I regular Costco. But for most people who drive Hummers and SUV's, minivans, and super trucks, and live in large cities/shop at the average Grocery, prices are getting unbearable. Along with Mortgage payments. Is there any money left? Hopefully credit cards have a ways to go before maxing out.
Thats the best we can hope for. Get those Oil/Gold futures now.
Oh, slap a yellow ribbon on your SUV...
There does seem to be a "What, Me Worry?" attitude still being pushed in the popular media oulets such as CNN. One does wonder if the author of this statement, "Despite the recent gains in crude prices, when adjusted for inflation, oil is still slightly cheaper than the $95 a barrel or so it would have been in the early 1980s.", is trying say that things really aren't all that bad.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/18/markets/oil/index.htm?cnn=yes
I for one am curious to know when the concept of "Peak Oil" will finally start seeping into the mass consciousness.
We do indeed live in very interesting times.
Its already happening to a certain degree.
When the MSM unleashes the words Peak Oil, you can bet top dollar that things are going to be crazy. I suspect this site and others to shut down from the demand. Thats probably the intent too-
MSM: "Peak Oil" "the British are coming" "Fire"
all Peak Oil sites are bombarbed with 10 million SUV owning soccer moms, 20 million college students, and 30 million other large vehicled people- all at once.
Peak Oil sites shut down across the net, with help of government planted hackers. The sheeple never learn the truth as the repositories of information and free thought are cut off from them allowing the propaganda to reign supreme. Fox news wins.
something along those lines. Its like a sad, sad, sad story.
I think the internet is just a little more resilient than that :-) Sure, TOD, PeakOil, DieOff, etc will get bombarded at first and hosting may go down, but the cluefull know how to use Google cache and once the initial furor dies down the masses will listen to talking heads on Tee Vee while the existing peak oil oriented sites cope with a 10X increase in subscribers.
There will, of course, be efforts to spin it just like the effort to spin global warming. Unlike global warming denial we'll see blaming - the oil companies, the {Arabs|Iranians|Venezuelans|etc}, the environmentalists, and so on.
There will be an immediate ferocious effort to undo environmental laws and pillage everything in sight - the environmentalists will be blamed for not permitted the development of the ANWR, and so on.
It'll take a bit, perhaps a couple of years due to depression slowing consumption, but it'll sink in that its us and we have to change here.
(please don't mind the poorer then normal spelling i am posting from a work computer)
sorry but it'a mostly a myth that the internet is that reseliant.
the hosting company that hosts this place and the other peak oil sites do not 'just' host these sites. They like many others host hundreds to thousands of other sites as well. such a ddos(disatributed denial of service) attack might make them tell the people who manage this site that they will no longer accept their busnius or demand that they pay a much higher rate. because this is only one site out of many they host and it's preventing them from getting revenue from the other's.
The effect of blacking out the internet sites might not be intended when they start to tell the populace of peak oil happening now or in a couple of years on the msm. but as you said though they will take advantage of it.
Best to brush up on shortwave radio.
Note that in the third video, Kevin Kerr said even though he is not a "peak oil nut" he then said that "peak oil is starting to come to fruition." I think "Peak Oil" has arrived. It's the implications that are not being explored in detail as they are here at TOD.
You almost had a hit song going there.
(Apologies to Tony Orlando and Dawn.)
((Music if you please, maestro.))
Oh slap a yellow ribbon on the old SUV,
There's no reason for oil ta' worry me,
Cause we've got a dynamite econo-me,
Or so say the talking heads on CNBC,
So forget about crude,
Don't be rude,
Go out to stock that Christmas tree,
And slap a yellow ribbon on yer' old SUV.
Slap a yellow ribbon on yer' old SUV.
I'm drivin' home, I've done my time
Now I've got to know how much gas will all be mine
If you received my email tellin' you gas will soon be three (or $6)
Then you'll know just what to do if want it free
If you want it free
CHORUS:
Oh slap a yellow ribbon on the old SUV,
There's no reason for oil ta' worry you & me,
Cause we've got that unstoppable dynamite econo-me,
Or so say the talking heads on Fox and CNBC,
...
Gotta work on some of the phrasing, but I agree, there's a great song there.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
Check out the Asylum Street Spankers video, Stick Magnetic Ribbons on Your SUV.
Warning: language. For mature audiences, with the sound turned down.
"I'm sitting here in Iraq
And I wish my head eyeballs in the back
It's a bummer that my Hummer
Isn't armored to a T
To show me your support
You've spent a dollar ninety-three ... "
Ah, but that's just it: even if I am better "positioned" than my neighbor in the near term, as the social fabric begins to tear apart we all will suffer, some sooner, some later. It's a completely alien notion to us (US), but at some point we're are going have to start thinking cooperation. Much can be done even on the local level. But ultimately we need to do so on the national and international level as well. Otherwise it will be hell, nay worse, hell without hope.
Are you running for prez? I would vote for you ;)
mindlessconsumption:
Gold still isn't back to its 1982 or 1983 high. Thats 20 years plus with no return, while the US dollar has had about 250% inflation.I'd like to suggest that people do
mindlessconsumption:
Gold still isn't back to its 1982 or 1983 high. Thats 20 years plus with no return, while the US dollar has had about 250% inflation.I'd like to suggest that people do their own research and use good judgement when making investments.
Ace, a falling greenback has something to do with it, but you show just over a 10% fall in the dollar over 2yrs, oil has gone up by that much in about a month!! Anybody who blames one factor will be wrong because this is a perfect storm of falling dollar, money growth rocket fuelling derivitives trading, a supply crunch from the production plateau, geopolitical problems becoming endemic, a global economy that doesn't fall just because the US is having problems and the risk of more hurricanes from global warming. Most of these factors appear far from the peak of their cycle, the only potential bearish factor is the stability of the global economy if commodity prices cause too much inflation, but that is some time off and most governments will print money to stave off a crisis, which could further fuel speculation.
Agreed, the underlying supply crunch could drive oil prices to $US100/barrel this winter and to $US150/barrel by the end of 2010. Please refer to Fig 1 of http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3064
I too was a little confused by your comment above.
USD Index has moved 1.2% in the last 7 days...big deal. Crude on the other hand.
But, you are correct it will aggravate the price moves.
With NYMEX above 90 in after hours, and as I posted in the drumbeat.
We could be less than 2 weeks from $100 dollars on supply, USD weakness and global tensions.
If the FED reduces rates OCT 31st, we could be looking at a larger than average fall in the USD$, and a corresponding jump in commodity prices.
Is it just me, or are the folks who host these ridiculous financial 'News' shows truly clueless idiots?
SubKommander Dred
There's precisely two directions that financial figures can go. Up, and down. The nature of economics is such that you can pick either direction in almost any situation, and justify it with studies, figures, et cetera. And you're likely to have a 50% correctness rate.
The market involves:
5% recent news + political situations
5% the amount of dopamine in trader's systems at any given moment (which has been proven to have a positive correlation with, for example, sunny days in Manhattan)
5% market indices and economic reports
25% fundamental facts about the company's profitability
30% chaotic positive feedback systems
30% chaotic negative feedback systems
Anyone that manages to make money consistently with a formal system in a financial market lessens the opportunity for anyone else to use that system, and creates opportunities for others to make money off their predictability. Quants who operate on nothing but trends, a crystal ball algorithm, the Fibonacci Sequence, and some variation of the machine Richard Pryor put together in Superman 3, control a good half of the money.
All this operates on stocks which are rarely if ever going to actually emit profits to the shareholders - the shares are valuable because theoretically, at some point in the future when the corp doesn't want to grow and has money to spare, they could. Probably by buying back stocks for the same effect as a dividend.
Stocks are not loans. They are ownership positions.
There is no need for a stock to produce dividends. In fact, corporate behavior changed when the tax rules changed sometime back in a way that punished dividends and rewarded capital gains. Dividends fell and the "surplus" income that had been paid out in dividends was plowed back into company growth (think acquisitions, largely).
The profit that a shareholder acquires is in the growth of the company that they own. If they want to "realize" their profit, they sell their share of the business.
Used to be that people lived off their dividends.
Now, those of us who use stocks as part of our income stream, sell off up to 4% of our "capital" each year.
(Four percent is a safe number that allows the capital to keep up with inflation.)
That's my understanding. My point was that dividing up the profits of a company among its owners is a fundamentally less chaotic system than the capital gains speculation based model we have now. It turns things like
*Being informed about the company
*Being informed about the company's competitors
*Being able to invest your fractional vote on the board into improving the company's profits
into
*Being able to seed a rumor about a company in the right places
*Being able to psychoanalyze the market as a whole
*Being able to find inside info on the company
*Growing the company into a monopolistic monster, even at the expense of profits
Short term profits are based on meta-information (rumors of rumors), and long-term profits are based on unsustainable(and eventually monopolistic) growth.
Is this system more adaptable to growing economies? Certainly. But is it much more dangerous in a shrinking economy, when things get rough? I think so. Too much positive feedback: if the market ever convinces itself that seriously hard times are coming, panic sets in and the times get significantly harder.
This all is parallel to the fact that we've let financial services grow to a ridiculous amount, and the trade balance run so far out of bounds. You can't run an economy sustainably on people selling each other credit, insurance, car loans, entertainment, military tech, leisure, intellectual property, and imported electronics; At least, not for very long. Having international companies drop all their profits here can sustain us for a while... until the rest of the world stops putting up with them, they all move to Dubai, or we stop putting up with them because they leak too much money to the third world.
I'm not an expert, I admit that... but the more I study economics, I just see so many progressively larger and more insane dominos being set up since Reagan. It scares me as much as (and in combination with) energy depletion and the rise of neofascism in politics. I'm 22, and I'm worried about how I can possibly grow up and raise a family in this country - peak oil is but one factor (which I find unlikely to cause other countries more than some serious headaches).
I've read of people who grew up during the Cold War having nervous breakdowns when they discovered just how far we were from total nuclear annihilation... and it seems so familiar, but the direction we're going just seems so much more inevitable, if a bit less lethal.
Is there any way that all this stuff won't combine into a disaster in the US? Is there something I'm missing? When Manhattan runs out of Prozac and vallium, what's our plan exactly? If we can accept the shredding of the constitution based on the destruction of two buildings, what will we do in an actual disaster? When our overextended anchor currency turns undesireable, what happens?
Squalish,
I'm almost 69 so I'm at the other extreme agewise. You face the same conumdrum of how the future might play out that everyone faces:
1) Problems will be mitigated sufficiently for business as usual (or business as usual lite) to continue.
or
2) Problems will not be mitigated and, additionally, the US may become a facist/corporatist country.
I personally do not believe there is any middle ground. So, what are you going to do? You could assign probabilities to all the crap on the horizon. Or, you could just make a guess like many of us have as to what will play out.
To me, it seems logical to assume that, based on past actions and inactions, there will be no meaningful mitigation and it will hit the fan. This choice will direct you in an appropriate direction - most likely to another forum where preparing for the future is discussed. There are a ton of forums to choose from. Here are three:
Durandal's http://www.wtdwtshtf.com
Chimp's http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
Jim Rawles' http://www.survivalblog.com
You need to recognize that there are true believers on both sides of the issue and no matter what they say, the decision still falls on your shoulders.
Todd
And I'm only a bit younger than Todd and I a bright future. (Along with the occasional storm.)
Here in the US very, very little petroleum is used for electrical generation. We're putting enough wind and solar on line each year that we could replace oil completely with only a little effort.
Oil will or has peaked. Then there will a little less oil each year so we will have to find other ways to power our transportation.
We've got the basic problems worked out. We could build electric cars right now. We would build electric cars right now if gas was less available/more expensive. But gas prices will most likely rise on a slow (smoothed) slope so fully electric cars are a few years down the road.
Were I young I would be looking for a career path in alternate energy. Either energy production or utilization.
Obviously one needs to give some thought to how they would react to cataclysmic events. There will be hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes. There will be economic downturns, some even likely to be severe. Always do a bit of "worst case" planning. But don't take it to an extreme and mess up your life (and mind).
Todd and I had to deal with problems that you will not. Polio was a very real danger. As was smallpox. And we lived through the possibility of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
You will have a different set of problems. One of them might even be fatal to you personally. But it's not likely that anything (short of an asteroid that we can't divert) is going to take everyone out or totally destroy civilization.
I think there will be "meaningful mitigation" for the problems at hand.
Transportation energy. We have a good handle on how to fix that one.
Global warming. We can at least minimize the hurt. It's not likely going to be all that hard on those of us in the US (except for more extreme weather). I wouldn't wish to be living on a foot or two higher than the ocean storm surge level like some folks or where the water supply is dependent on glacier melt. But those folks can, and will, migrate.
The Bush Administration. Thankfully, only fourteen more months of this idiocy.
The dollar is doing fine other than against the Euro/GBP/CND. If you look at the major oil consumers, the dollar effect is not that great. The reality is Peak Oil is driving this price rise, not a collapse in the dollar. The Euro-zone doesn't consume that much of the world's oil, so by itself it can't be that much of a factor.
The big driver here in terms of price, Asia, is still largely pegged to the dollar. And yet the price surges higher anyway.
The real fun in the dollar will come in 2020 when the boomers want their Social Security checks. Until then, rising interest rates and falling real estate prices could very well solve the problem with the current account deficit.
The oldest boomers are now 62 - they're well into the retirement trough already, while the next ten years is the peak for the cohort overall.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071015/ts_nm/usa_retirement_dc
The scary part is not that we'll "run out of social security money in 40 years if something is not done," it's that we are very shortly going to see huge decrease in our ability to borrow from the social security account (payroll taxes) to fund our budget, and within ten years, we'll be paying a significant amount of interest on social security money we've already borrowed from the fund (which we've been doing since the late 80's I believe). This is going to result in a large amount of debt being dropped onto the open market, at a time when the world is already shedding themselves of US dollars (petrobucks, the rise of the Euro, the fall of USD indexing + rise of baskets).
Hyperinflation, anyone?
Yup
Not really since the gov't isn't going to charge itself interest. The gov't currently borrows money form SS revenues (surplus). It uses the SS surplus to pay for general gov't spending (aka Miltary, education, infrastructure, etc). Although, the gov't will need to borrow much larger amounts of money to support budget deficits for federal spending and increased entitlement outlays, as the SS surplus declines and when SS outlays exceed SS revenues.
Starting next year, outlays begin to rise and the first wave of boomers are eligable for retirement and SS revenues will begin to decline. I think between 2011 and 2014 the outlays will exceed SS revenues. The gov't figures expect the outlays will not be a problem until about 2017 because they believe many boomers will work past minimum retirement age. But I believe we are headed for a severe recession (housing\credit bubbling popping), which will cause unemployment to rise significantly. An unemployeed boomer is much more likely to go for early retirment if they can't find a job. Considering the rise of heath insurance, its likely that the boomers will be the first group targeted for layoffs. I am almost certain that the gov't estimates do not include a recession in their estimates.
Its likely that the Republicans will lose control of both the houses and the executative branch by the 2008 elections (they'll loose some more seats this November). By 2009 the democrats will have a strong majority in both the senate, congress as well as have their man/women in the white house.
Its likely the the Democrats will substantially raise taxes (as they have been promising for years) and expand entitlements for the unemployeed and retirees which are large groups that vote for democrats. These policy changes will drive up inflation and unemployment. Higher entitlements lead to higher inflation and higher taxes lead to higher unemployment. This will further deterate tax revenues (less buying power due to inflation and less tax dollars from higher unemployment) will lead to larger deficits (as the higher taxes and inflation take a toll on the US economy. Eventually something will break.
The biggest issue that would prevent US hyperinflation is energy imports. The US needs energy imports to survive (even more in the future) Perhaps, if Congress gets desperate enough they will just start printing money. If this happens, virtually every exporter will stop shipping oil to the US, and the US as a nation ceases to exist. If we are lucky, the USA will become the DSA (Divided states of America) with each state havings its own currency.
I think in the near term energy prices will fall as a recession cuts demand (at least in the US, and perhaps in other regions). Although, I think there is a good chance that demand in Asia will continue to grow (after all Asia could sell off its dollar reserves for commodities and use capital to bail out bad loans). Its possible (but unlikely) that Asia will absorb all of the oil made available from reduced US consumption keeping oil prices high. I have strong doubts about this.
I think we will see shades of both inflation and deflation. The dollar is likely to continue to weaken as the economy slides into recession, which means imports will likely become more expensive (or at least not become significantly cheaper). Since we have a real estate market that is severely over priced, Real estate is bound to head into a deflationary cycle. There is a chance that a US lead recession will spread to other regions (Europe is a good candidate since it too has endured a credit/housing bubble). Asia has is also in a bubble but I think there is a 50-50 chance of it avoiding a major recession if internal demand picks up declining exports and if China uses its US dollar reserves to prop up its economy (might as well spend them).
if oil prices begin to slide because of a recession, investment in new energy projects will dry up, since no one is going to build a an offshore platform for profitable at $80 or $100 oil when prices are at $60. This will be a huge problem later on, because we need desperately replace declining reserves. If the economy is still in recession when oil prices begin to rise again (cause by depletion), there will not be enough available capital to restart these projects. In a recession bankers and investors are very hesistant to lend money if they believe the economy is weak. If energy prices remain high during a severe recession it will prevent the economy from ever recovering, since the industrialized economy is dependant on cheap energy for growth (which increases employment).
Another possible scenerio, is that the US goes to war in order to maintain access to foriegn energy supplies (ie full draft, carpet bombing population centers, etc). Don't think that if the democrats are in power that we won't go to war. The US went to war when Wilson, FDR and LBJ were president (all democrats). Its likely that other nations will join in with the US (possible as NATO) to ensure all western powers have access to energy supplies (Europe is dependant on foreign energy imports too) . Of course this could lead to an all out global war since some non-Nato nations (Russia, China) may not like the US or NATo taking over the Middle East, Africa. In which case, we will endure a nuclear war.
One last scenerio that I will discuss, is the possibility of a major global pandemic, killing billions. We can see some of the poor regions are already running into food shortages. These will likely get worse in the future, causing growth of diseases caused by mal-nuetrition and well as lack of proper medical treatment. Refugees fleeing will spread a contagious diseases to other regions resulting in a global spread. Remember the SARs and the bird flu? They are still out there. All they need is the right conditions to begin a pandemic. There are also other sources such as drug resistant staph and respitory infections that could develop into pandemics.
Actually the dollar is falling against almost all foreign currencies (including most of those in Africa which I find both humorous and quite scary).
This might not be available to the public, but it's the value of the dollar against all global currencies:
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3020-worlddollar.html?mod=2_0032
Here's a sample of the Asia list. I shortened some currency names to get things to align.
Country Currency Oct. 12 Oct. 5 YTD % change
Armenia dram 331.75 332.75 -8.8
Azerbaijan manat 0.8527 0.8528 -2.5
Bahrain dinar 0.3768 0.3769 -0.1
Bangladesh taka 68.145 68.245 -1.4
Bhutan ngultr 39.130 39.550 -11.3
Brunei dollar 1.4652 1.4757 -4.4
Cambodia riel 4001 4025 -1.4
China yuan 7.5105 7.5060 -3.8
Cyprus pound 0.4122 0.4134 -5.9
Hong Kong dollar 7.7553 7.7565 -0.3
India rupee 39.170 39.216 -11.2
Indonesia rupiah 9058 9091 0.7
Iran rial 9315 9309 0.9
Israel shekel 4.027 3.998 -4.5
Japan yen 117.619 116.918 -1.2
Jordan dinar 0.7063 0.7080 -0.4
Kazakhstan tenge 120.78 121.01 -4.8
Here's a sample of the Africa list:
Country Currency Oct. 12 Oct. 5 YTD % change
Algeria dinar 67.660 67.670 -4.9
Angola readj 74.986 74.986 -6.6
Benin CFA 462.49 463.90 -7.0
Botswana pula 6.0222 6.0404 unch.
Burkina Faso CFA 462.49 463.90 -7.0
Burundi franc 1127 1119 12.4
Cameroon CFA 462.49 463.90 -7.0
Cape Verde Isl escudo 78.700 78.380 -6.4
Cntrl Afr Rep CFA 462.49 463.90 -7.0
Chad CFA 462.49 463.90 -7.0
Comoros franc 347.75 348.75 -7.3
Dem Rep Congo Con. 560.00 560.00 3.7
Also note, that for the past two months, on a net basis, foreigners have been selling more US treasuries than they have been purchasing. Per the data, the last time that happened in consecutive months was 2001-07.
http://www.treas.gov/tic/tressect.txt
The fastest growing part of the national debt is the Intergovernmental Holdings (debt the government owes to itself). You have to manually do a historical search, but during 2007 debt held by the public has grown 2.8% while intergovernmenal holdings increased by 6.0%. In 2006 the growth rates were 4% and 9% respectively for the entire year.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
The purchase rate of US treasuries by non-governmental parties is slowing (so the government just borrows from itself, which must be convenient).
Have a nice day...
Here's a better display of the tabular data:
This graph with oil in dollars and euro's is from a very well known dutch businessnews site:
The title states: Oil was never this expensive
Hello TODers,
T. Boone Pickens has made legendary returns on oil-investing by applying his Peakoil Awareness to the FF-markets--good for him.
It has made me think of another legendary investor: Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway. Since WB lives in Omaha-- in the posting below, I imagine Warren gazing across the fields of grain, then suddenly applying his quotes and knowledge to fertilizer companies.
Now that you understand 'Peak Everything' & Olduvai Gorge Theory--what would Warren Buffet think of the future postPeak, long-term, biosolar mission-critical investing prospects in POT?
I have selected various quotes from Warren Buffet [WB] from this following link:
http://www.afterquotes.com/great/quotes/investing.htm
My comments will be [enclosed in brackets].
------------------------------------------------
WB: Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.
-------------------------------------------------
[As Olduvai kicks in: we can expect brownouts and blackouts, which will obviously preclude a lot of investors from making their internet trades. Google, and most of the internet, will of course be history by this time. I surmise that most of us will have to go to our local brokerage house, place our buy and sell orders, and then the electricity to run the old-style telegraph and ticker-tape trading exchanges will only be fired up once a week or once a month to make a uniform and fair national market.
Obviously, it is blatantly unfair if you cannot find the electricity or fuel to get to a place where you can finally tell your broker to execute a trade. For example: imagine the frustrated investors in Phx, St Louis, and Albany hearing on their hand-crank radios that Intel & Apple dropped 75% and they have no way to sell their shares due to regional blackouts and fuel shortages in their respective areas.
Thus, by owning mission-critical POT, and this corporation's increasing profitability to provide fertilizers to grow essential food: you will generally not have to worry about POT's minimal pricing flucuations if your broker cannot execute your monthly trade.]
-----------------------
WB:The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.
-----------------------
[This is perfect for POT as we go postPeak. Compare the durable advantage of POT to help grow vital foodstuffs, cotton for clothing, and trees for toilet paper vs investing in videogame companies, suntanning booth makers, golfing resorts, and carwashing corporations.]
---------------
WB: I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
---------------
Very few people will take the time to read EB, LATOC, TOD, and DIEOFF. Most others will be hugely postPeak uniformed, and very fearful and confused at what is happening to their declining world and lifestyles. Expect many holders of POT to sell in a rush to worthless cash. Then POT, and many other biosolar mission critical corps, will then offer 'real value' dividends such as fertilizer certificates, bicycle tire certificates, and so on. Then these stocks will go through the roof as people realize they now not only own a 'chicken', but are also guaranteed 'eggs' for owning these biosolar companies. Recall my earlier postings on guano-mining and ships of bones to keep long-distance networks viable for fertilizer distribution.]
------------------------
WB: Investing is laying out money today to receive more money tomorrow.
------------------------
[Recall my FF-time delay release of NPK energy density posting. Owning POT & using your 'NPK dividend' postPeak will be the best way to have more food tomorrow. The longest FF latency effect I can think of is fertilizing a newly planted tree for toilet paper twenty years ahead.]
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Ah the good old Olduvai Theory!!! His theory has failed when applied to most European countries 'whom industrialized long before us', but it's still touted as facts here.
Hello Partyguy,
Thxs for responding, but I think you need to further study this link:
http://www.oilcrash.com/articles/olduv_7.htm
From Section 9--Conclusions, Postulates 3,4:
3. The terminal decline of industrial civilization will begin circa 2008-2012.
4. Brownouts and blackouts are reliable leading indicators of terminal decline.
As I recall: it is still 2007, and google searches for brownouts and blackouts, and fuel shortage newslinks appear numerous times around the globe.
For your denial, as Olduvai has not yet even kicked in:
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12182
--------------------------------
Cesspool in the City
....WHAT, YOU MAY BE ASKING YOURSELF, does all this have to do with 21st-century America? Because it's about us.
Water shortages, low-flow shower heads, sluggish ever-shrinking toilets, blackouts, brownouts, and now food scares that become the subject of two-hour documentaries so that all the reporters get to say "diarrhea" in every other sentence.
---------------------------
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
A question: Do you still believe in those eco-fascist EarthMarines(tm) of yours, which will defend the "arks" on behalf of the elite ... who will retreat to secret caves and high-altitude blimps, and return with flowers and vaccines once the dying has slowed down? You made very, very specific predictions, remember?
Let's assume peak is right now. In forty years, then, we can still extract about as much oil as we did forty years ago - gross simplification, I know. My point is that those who think we will be eating each other in the jungle in forty years are have some pretty serious assumptions about human psychology. And just because a certain fringe movement happens to be right on oil depletion, doesn't mean they have a clue about human psychology. Especially not since their (and your, Bob Shaw AHStY) "head for the hills" advice would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if enough people believed in it.
Suit yourself, I'll stick with Bob. I think he has as good a grasp of the situation as anyone.
Hello Vinterman,
Thxs for responding. I suggest you need to do an advanced google search on my TOD postings to grasp the larger context of my postings:
Secession tendencies [Cascadia, New Vermont Republic, etc] to jumpstart the sequential building and enlargement of biosolar habitats; Asimov's Foundation concepts of predictive collapse and directed decline for optimal paradigm transition; political geo-boundaries realistically re-defined by watershed demarcation; the benefits of the Earthmarine vs Merc Dynamic compared to widespread anarchy on the local, regional, and continental scale; biosolar mission-critical investing to foster transition change, both on a local scale and continental scale, to enhance sustainable biosolar infrastructure spiderwebs and reduce short-term discounting; real value dividends from biosolar investing vs worthless cash, plus much more in my speculations.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
As I have mentioned many times, blackouts and brownouts have been occurring for decades. Despite my requests no one has been able to provide any evidence that their number is increasing.
This is continually rolled out as the key leading indicators for collapse, but no one seems to have any interest in attempting documentation.
Here is my theory:
3. The renewal of industrial civilization will begin circa 2008-2012.
4. The presence of birds and insects are reliable leading indicators of renewal.
At this point, the evidence seems to equally support both theories.
Here's a study that might prove interesting:
The Frequency of Large Blackouts in the United States
There's much research concerning blackouts. I encourage some web-sleuthing. Wish I had more time to find additional articles...
-best,
graywulffe
Very interesting. The data appears to support Bob's contention through 2004, but then 2005 (the last year of data) shows a drop off. Would be interesting to see more recent info.
Even more interesting, is that Bob seems to show no interest whatsoever in whether data would or would not support his assertion.
More fun to google blackout stories, than to consider whether the proliferation of stories has more to do with the ability of google to find things, than the actual change in blackout frequencies.
Bob,
We face a liquid fuels shortage, not a general fuels shortage.
Again, let me repeat this for all the doomsters:
We face a liquid fuels shortage, not a general fuels shortage.
Given that we can shift many current uses of liquid fuel over to electric power claims of imminent civilizational collapse are just plain sloppy fantasy.
Hello FuturePundit,
Respectfully disagree. We are facing Cimate Change, Overshoot, and Peak Everything in unison. Habitat function and health is based upon interlocking cross dependencies, no different for our civilizational habitat health and function, which of course is structured atop the natural environment.
Please respond with your detailed plan whereby Third World countries such as Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Haiti, etc smoothly transition from their general fuels and mineral shortages to abundant electrification. Maybe a less challenging country for your analysis might be Mexico with no out-migration and no home remittances. Please post your data-driven report in a future Drumbeat please.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Bob,
Since we are running out of fossil fuels the atmospheric CO2 concentration won't go up the way the global warming believers expect.
We are not in Haiti or Zimbabwe. They are hellish places for reasons other than Peak Oil. We are a highly developed country.
I wonder what PartyGuy is even referring to. Is there an article out there that makes such claims? If only someone had pasted a link into their two-sentence post.
My beef with Olduvai is that Duncan never explains why things should go so bad by 2008, really. He never says "by that date, oil will have peaked already by X years, and XYZ, therefore the blackouts will start."
I think Duncan is roughly correct, however, and his theory deserves eventually getting a Jared Diamond level treatment.
I agree it would be very interesting if someone would calculate the "Olduvai curve" for various countries, regions, continents and the world, preferably taking into account Diamond's 12 factors of collapse. The IEA probably has much relevant data, atleast for the OECD.
You don't have to wait very long since 2008 begins in just a few months. While western power grids have not experienced too many issues the past couple of years, that can't be said for less developed regions. India, China, parts of Asia, and much of Africa are constantly plagued with blackouts. If we consider the global power grid and the number of people affected by blackouts, the cycle began in 2005.
"As Olduvai kicks in: we can expect brownouts and blackouts, which will obviously preclude a lot of investors from making their internet trades. Google, and most of the internet, will of course be history by this time. I surmise that most of us will have to go to our local brokerage house, place our buy and sell orders, and then the electricity to run the old-style telegraph and ticker-tape trading exchanges will only be fired up once a week or once a month to make a uniform and fair national market.
Obviously, it is blatantly unfair if you cannot find the electricity or fuel to get to a place where you can finally tell your broker to execute a trade."
Do you have the ability to step back and realize how off the (reality) wall this is?
Have you actually allowed your thinking to run this far off the real world track?
Or you just trolling?
Mr Shaw is like the TOD Manny Ramirez. Ya gotta just let Manny be Manny cuz every so often he comes up with something so brazilliant you totally forget the bonehead play he just made in left field. The very opposite of a troll, a beatnik 'holy clown'. An original thinker.
Is that something like a parachute that opens some of the time?
Really useful when it does, but....
Hello Bob Wallace,
Thxs for responding. Please see my reply to TODer Vinterman upthread. I make no claim to accurate prophecy--just speculation with ever-changing, fluid timeframes & concepts that are hopefully co-related and interlocking in cascading effects, and hopefully backstopped by a plethora of supporting weblinks, when I can find them on Google.
I post whenever a new brainstorm [brainfart?] occurs: so expect more 'wild & crazy' extrapolation. My hope is that my musings will trigger even better ideas in real geniuses that can really help the needed paradigm shift to 60-75% of us moving to relocalized permaculture with a minimal machete' moshpit.
I always encourage constructive TODer elaboration or refutation of my text efforts. Most of all, I hope to avoid that greatest of blogging sins: a boring post.
IMO, the needed creativity required for the challenges ahead should be tickling the synapses of all TODers. I would love to see more TODers posting wild & crazy concepts by going to the next level of imagination for applicable mitigation and amelioration. Until then, I remain a fast-crash realist.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Why doesn't he just come out and say: "It's because of Peak Oil"? Heck he is speaking at ASPO this week and not a single mention. He gives credence to the terrorist premium malarkey knowing full well that speculators only hold a fraction of the oil contracts and they don't move the price that much.
I am wondering now if CNBC has told him flat out - don't say anything about peak oil or it will be your last time on this network. I get so frustrated when someone like Pickens dances around the issues with the buffoons on CNBC. All 3 of those blowhards look and act like used car salesmen. Sorry to offend any used car salesmen reading TOD, like they ever would.
Dont worry Toonsmith,
I soon realized it was the end a few months ago when I asked an immigrant from China who I worked with why they decided to buy an SUV that got 14 MPG.
They said they got it because it was safer than other vehicles. I laughed and asked, but you could have gotten a hybrid that gets 3 times as much mileage easily and the safety provided wouldn't have changed that much; in fact safer driving alone would have made a bigger difference in safety.
They responded in a way to justify their buying the SUV.
After that I rode public transportation instead of carpooling.
i speak to SUV driving soccer moms who are concerned with the precious's safety and future and hear that the law practically mandates an SUV. no kids in front, car seats in back, etc. then i tell them that attitude assures dieoff. it's always a hit.
If these "SUV-driving soccer moms" really gave a damn about their children's future, they would be walking, biking, creating a solid permaculture-oriented community support network, and teaching their children to grow and preserve food.
It's not even on their radar.
Right now they are much more concerned with BAU.
Once when I tried to bring up ELP to the out-laws some of them got up and walked away.
No patience with anything that isn't comfortable.
You have to be "open" to get the PO message.
(edited in the interest of spousal harmony)
Spaceman, i totally understand the reaction you received. Contemplating that degree of change is really hard. I currently work 22 miles from home and commute by freeway. I have no idea where i would work that I could walk to. Of course, in due time, that might work itself out, but i sure can't see how i would live sustainably and earn a living.
Perhaps where you work, or the ability to find work, might be more important to you than where you reside? You're emanating a vibe that your self-image involves living in the same 60's rambler on the same cul-de-sac - and you're trying to fit that square into a green circle.
We only put them there because the land was cheap, the land was practically unused (who cares about agriculture or forests?), and we all had cheap cars/oil/roads. So we designed tax policies that favored fast-depreciating stripmalls, we built up the roads, we based local government on property taxes, and we tried to make an environment where all our returning GIs could live and raise families away from the crowded, multiracial city centers - where a hundred million people could convince themselves they were alone in their castle.
If exponentially higher fuel costs vastly increase the price of driving, and you live somewhere impractical to serve via mass transit... Who's to say you can't move? We've raised our expectations of livingspace to the stratosphere, and even then we managed to overbuild during the bubble. Those 200 units of apartments could house 2000 third world expectations of shelter, instead of 350 US expectations of shelter. Noone gives a shit about housing codes when times are hard.
Can you move to a place that is closer to work or take a job closer to home?
Hmm, you know maybe they actually have a point, I mean think about it, an SUV that can't be driven for lack of affordable fuel is about as safe as a vehicle can get. Check back in with them in a few months time to see if they change their tune.
Not only safe, but good shelter (when other shelter has been gutted)--
Also, it is low entropy steel (most of the energy input already there)---
The future may be the SUV, but not for transportation.
I think we calculated the other day that the average SUV could be melted down to produce 88' of the rail needed for Alan's rail electrification program. If I recall correctly we needed ten years worth of SUV sales at current volumes to completely cover all of the needed track, and the base would not be zero as much existing track could be used.
So they're not totally useless, but I shudder to think at the wasted plastic after steel is recovered.
I think we might be able to recycle the plastic as well.
http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/TRASHTHINGS/trashthings.html
He does come out and say it. sort of
He said something like "world demand for oil is 88mb and their only able to produce 85".
Anyone with half a brain can figure what that means.
IMO guys like Boone have little or no patience for j6p who might not be able to figure that one out but in his mind he just said it all in that sentence.
That demand (or at least desire) is going to exceed supply by 3mb, prices will rise accordingly, and those with less deep pockets will find a way to do with less?
Folks who commute and have already loaded up their charge cards will be trying out car pools and burger flipping kids will be zooming around less in their pickups.
Same sort of stuff we did to adapt when oil supplies got short in the 1970s. Hopefully we will make more permanent adaptations this time around.
A better person in the White House might help....
--
Last time I was checked I had a full brain, but I seemed to need only half of mine to get to the obvious answer to that one.
So I guess you were right.
Bob Wallace said
"Folks who commute and have already loaded up their charge cards will be trying out car pools and burger flipping kids will be zooming around less in their pickups."
Where I live 'burger flipping kids" do a lot of zooming around on cheap Chinese motor scooters, and live with their parents until their late 20's. A pickup is an impossible dream for them. There's nothing wrong with their 'quality of life' though. There would appear to be plenty of potential for reduced energy consumption in American society which would not have too serious an impact on quality of life.
Español,
The quality of life in Spain is great. Most Americans do not realize that they don't have it as good as they think and that all that additional energy use provides nothing of value.
He's said it before. In 2004.
Source: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=736
As the realization/information begins to go arround that lack of supply is a significant problem (who would have thought??)as well as the falling dollar at what point will we start hearing the cry for more domestic exploration? When will the politicians be forced to begin with developing places such as ANWR??
Tapis above $US90/barrel at 1:40 GMT was $US90.45!
http://www.upstreamonline.com/market_data/?id=markets_crude
Another minor milestone: the first of the indicator crudes went over $90 in the past 12 hours.....Tapis crude (Malaysian/Singapore marker crude) is now above $90. Looks like it will be soon joined by WTI:
http://www.upstreamonline.com/market_data/?id=markets_crude
How much of that is oil going up and how much is dollar slide? Is there one that is denominated in the currency of an entity that is a rational actor in foreign policy? That would be euro or yen ...
It is not hard to Google this question, and friendly people answer it several times daily here. But I'll be nice and answer again.
Recently, oil has gone +10% when the dollar has gone -2%. Yes there is correlation, but it's not like the falling dollar is driving this thing. Clearly it's something else (peak oil.)
I wasn't asking for a math lesson, I was asking if there was a tidy table, updated daily like the one referenced above, only in euros instead of dollars :-) I get that dollar valuation is only a component of the pricing stuff we see. Come to think of it a dollar/euro page /w trending might be nice ...
Sorry to point this out but the Euro doesn't represent the most significant group of consumers of oil. The dollar still does -- because of pegs (official or unofficial) in Asia and elsewhere. That should probably change, but at the moment the dollar price is still very relevant.
Its probably the a perfect storm right now, maybe it will settle out to just peak oil in 2008, but I don't think much before that.
I wish gasoline had been baned in the 1980's and everyone in the cities had to drive an electric car
maxwell ucaps 3000 f
bmcnett is right, this gets answered pretty often around here. but i guess different people are finding this interesting at different times. Normally the question is taken care of by the time i get here, but anyway...
Oil price (West Texas Intermediate) in $US
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30144692236
Oil price (West Texas Intermediate) in EUROs
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:$XEU&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30144692236
Oil price (West Texas Intermediate) in Yen
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:$XJY&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30144692236
Oil price (West Texas Intermediate) in GOLD
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:$GOLD&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30144692236
Oil price (West Texas Intermediate) in GASOLINE
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:$GASO&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30144692236
Oil price (West Texas Intermediate) in S&P500
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$WTIC:$SPX&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p30144692236
If you can figure out the pattern you can see any combination of those, or any other symbol they carry on their database. You can add moving average trends or whatever you'd like. You can go back three years too if you are interested.
Thanks Dot!
That is a very cool website. I tried WTI versus $AUD (which has appreciated a lot against the $USD recently) and the current price is still higher than it's ever been.
We're in the middle of an election campaign here in oz and GW is a big topic, especially since we have now had 2 years of bad droughts. Peak Oil has not cracked a mention.
No political party Liberal (conservative), Labor or Green says anything about it. Peak Oil doesn't fit any Party's agenda.
Thanks for the links. I see that WTI is now trading at 10000 Yen
Boone Pickens said,
"I don't know where the world chokes on the price."
I am more curious as to when to when the world chokes on shit.
Gee, Pickens who is up to the gills in the tar sands predicts expensive oil, the only thing that can possibly bail out the tar sands industry for awhile, at least until a decent in situ extraction method can be found (anybody been following Petrobank in Canada recently.
Meantime, the catastrophists are beside themselves with glee, IT WILL BE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE!! :-O The party has finally began!!
And right on the ASPO-US Conference!! How good can it get?
The "Ulduvial Bores", opps, I meant gorge is back in full swing, in which the lights go out, even though they are fueled by coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear power, and medicince will become unavailable anyday now, even though it is produced mostly with natural gas as it's petro component, and the farms will go barren due to the lack of fertilizer, a petrochemical product, (yes, natural gas)
The speculators are nearly wetting their pants, even though, opps, my bad, they really trade almost no oil and have no effect....gee, I guess it's just a hobby for them. The oil companies say we don't set the price, the OPEC producers say they don't set the price, the catastrophist say the speculators don't set the price, gee.....I guess the numbers on these futures fall out of the sky on tablets of stone each morning, and the media somehow just gets them....mystical stuff, that is....
Gee Dub talks WWIII because of Iran, with a face so beet red it looks like he may be hittin' the sauce again (if I were in his spot, I would be), and Putin has long forgetten the rapists and murderers that slaughtered Russian children. He bows before the funders of murdurers on one side of the Gulf while we do same on the other side....choke on high oil prices? Let's take 'er to $150, $200, and get this slavery over with, let's see if the alternatives are there, let's get this on!
RC
yeah, and whether you like it or not, it's still fvckin' one cubic mile.
Roger,
wrong yet again, as usual. It’s not one cubic mile. Here’s the reason why.
If we take Hirsch’s assertion that mitigation will require twenty years, and put an end game consumption level at, say 0.25 cubic miles, then we’re no where near one cubic mile from freedom. In fact, over the course of the twenty years of mitigation, we’ll actually consume 12.5 cubic miles of oil. So, the harsh reality, despite your Madison Avenue sloganeering is this, right now, as we have yet to start mitigation, we’re 12.5 cubic miles from freedom.
Since Hirsch’s report was published about two years ago, we’re actually 14.5 cubic miles from freedom, and counting. And with every passing year, those cubic miles keep growing, and growing, and growing.
So, my question, Roger, is do we really have any more time for your “we don’t know, we don’t know” rhetoric?
We’re only 14.5 (and counting) cubic miles from freedom.
Interesting stat goritsas,
And in 20 years (remember that Khebab's original great post was in reference to only 1 year) how much oil in cubic miles will the United States alone produce?
How much will North America produce, U.S., Canada, and Mexico?
RC
Somebody should tell Danny Yergin about this...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=Z43UKGMSDPPITQFIQ...
Oil hits $90 for first time as dollar fuels rally
By Sophie Brodie
Last Updated: 7:48am BST 19/10/2007
US crude oil futures have hit $90 a barrel for the first time, setting a new high for the fifth time in as many trading days, as tensions in Turkey and the weakness of the dollar combine to drive up demand.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery surged $90.02 in after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since trading started in the mid 1980s
We're half way to Jan. 1, 2011 and Tiereney's 2005 bet against Matthew Simmons isn't looking so good at the moment.
(They bet that the price in 2010, when adjusted for inflation so it's stated in 2005 dollars, would/ would not be at least $200 per barrel.)
Why do American newscasters always sound either like they are children or like they are talking to children?
Why do American newscasters always sound either like they are children or like they are talking to children?
I think the question is "Why do Newscaster's MANAGEMENT hire children or those who talk like they are talking to Children?"
Why would News management hire to get that look and feel?
Take a look at WHO managment IS. Then answer the question.
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php
Because the majority of people who watch TV, and especially the majority of people who taking their consumption clues from TV ads, are essentially children?
Playing to their audience, I'd guess.
I worked in Nigeria for a while and the world is NOT whistling along. If anyone have not seen a country that has lost control of its currency and resources, they need to visit Nigeria. All institutions are defunct.
I'd really like to hear more about this, from someone who's been there...that's a hint.
This is any different today than it was at the end of the Colonial era?
"I don't know where the world chokes on the price."
I've seen alot of comments like this in the last few months, particularly in the context of people wondering that we haven't already choked. This often goes along with speculation that OPEC had, in the past, kept prices under $50/bbl out of fear of crashing the economy, and has now decided (based on recent events) that that isn't a concern, leaving them free to take profits.
What I have not seen, but have wondered about, is the potential for a form of "overshoot" in the economic sense. Our economy's productivity is tied to cheap energy. But our economy is enormous and very complex, so it has alot of inertia. That inertia will tend to increase the response time between a signal (rising energy costs) and feedback (economic slowdown). It is also largely debt-based, which will only serve to increase that delay time.
It seems to me that, based just on this qualitative, gut level perspective, likely that when we finally do see the economic impacts of expensive energy we may find that we have greatly overextended ourselves in the time between the onset of the signal and the arrival of the first strong feedbacks.
Thoughts?
Even though the long term trend due to rising demand, and flatish or falling production is strongly up, it is likely we will see some price retreats. I think we are more than 50% likley to see $75 before $100.
People on this site are reinforcing each others fears of the imminent collapse of civilization. Other countries have survived greater stresses than the comming oil price shock. If it wasn't for our large block of crazies here we wouldn't have a major problem adjusting. As it is the denialist half will be blaming anyone librul, for not letting big oil drill ANWR, and for derailing (stabbing in the back) our attempt to take over an oil producing country. That is what scares me, what if they manage to take over, as they did in Germany in 33.
Otherwise we can adjust to higher oil. Those stuck with SUVs will have to carpool. It would be a painful transition, but not an impossible one. The real energy problem is that it has been so cheap to dig or pump crap out of the ground and burn it, that we have become addicted to cheap energy. The alternatives including conservation/efficiency are considered to be the mark of sissies. Before long that attitude will change.
We could have more productive conversations here if we spent more time discussing how to shift away from oil than in talking about the imminent collapse of civilization.
We have substitutes for oil and natural gas. Some are more expensive. But how much more expensive? That is a question much more worth discussing than the total collapse of civilization.
I am also amazed, FuturePundit, by the focus of conversations about oil being on everything but the effective substitutes. I've posted about a few of them. But on the 'net, you read a lot of doom and gloom. In the media, you hear of nothing but all the "temporary" reasons for the oil "spike" and why we shouldn't be in a national state of emergency developing the substitutes. Just this week on CNBC, I heard one of their experts blaming the trip to $90/bbl on their standard explanation - speculation. Why there's at least $15/bbl of speculation in this price, he said. Not to worry. They were saying this same thing back at $45/bbl. It was all the fault of the hedge funds, remember? And, incredibly, they continue to talk about OPEC and whether they will or won't open up the taps to solve our "spike" problem for us. I posted back a couple of years ago saying that when oil is $100/bbl, they would still be taking about the "spike" as if it were 1980 all over again and waiting for OPEC to fix it. Well, here we are! For Pete's sake, we should be hearing about nothing but the real state of Ghawar and the other elephant fields, discussing the facts about LNG, coal, and the EROEI effective bio array (not corn ethanol) every night on the news and in every major magazine. It is so conspicuous by its absence.
netfind,
I keep thinking the rising price of oil represents a huge market opportunity for the development of substitutes.
I also keep thinking we have many ways to adjust to rising oil prices. For example, the rising price of gasoline is going to make the car companies produce diesel hybrids. I'm looking forward to being able to buy one.