Also a conversation with Daniel Yergin, Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates

on Charlie Rose .... interesting comments

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/06/27/2/a-conversation-with-daniel...

Wow, Moyers doesn't pull punches! I've seen some of his earlier stuff on other issues and he's been much more toned down and analytical. Not that I disagree with him on many issues and he even left out a lot of additional facts.

As a thought game, I wonder what would happen in the US, if the first three videos from this page were run on rotation on all major channels for a couple of weeks? Denial? Anger? Admittance? Action?

There's also a new Richard Heinberg video from Alliance for Sustainability.

Saudi-US relations, American elections, and the price of oil

Given the lack of transparency re Saudi oil assets and production capacity, what follows is conjecture. But what if...

Go back to the TOD analyses posted in March 2007 or so and revisit the Saudi oil production graphs displayed against the OPEC quota for KSA. Compare the graphs with the events.

Does ahyone have a credible explanation for the huge excess production over quota that occurred in the Summer and Fall of 2004 leading up to the Nov election? Was it political? The Saudis weren't happy with Bush for going into Iraq against their wishes, but the alternative may have been even less to their liking - a Pres. Kerry asking for a second time (re another unpopular war), "Who will be the last soldier to die for a mistake?" The price of oil was rising even with the huge bump-up in Saudi production, and Bush only won by, for example, 150,000 votes in Ohio - what would have happened had they produced a million b/d or so less in those months? Would a higher gas price spike going into November have made a difference and did KSA not want to take a chance on the consequences of an abrupt Kerry withdrawal from Iraq - a serious shift in the Sunni-Shiite balance of power in the region? I don't know and neither does anyone else, though many of us have opinions.

Now turn to the 2006 elections. By this time, were the Saudis so fed up with Bush's poor prosecution of the war that a calculation was made to encourage a divided American government by cutting production, keeping prices high, and shifting power Democrats in Congress. Admittedly, conjecture. But remember, KSA's oil policy is that the facts are secret and that, at no time in recent years has the Kingdom ever relented from its assertions that it maintains substantial surplus production capacity - not for one month, not for one minute.

But now, surely with all the trouble high energy prices have been causing in the world for almost a year now, but esp. in 2008, prudence (self-preservation) would have dictated Saudi action to restore production levels - not to perpetuate protected lifestyles in the OECD countries but to avoid the risk of politically destabilizing events, such as the Bhutto assasination, political strife in Egypt, etc. At this point, a US-centric view is unhelpful. The Saudis have to see what's going on in the rest of the world; so their inaction may say a lot about the validity of their (repeated and continuous) assertions of healthy production capacity margins.

This in turn leads to the question of whether something more resembling a market has emerged - some buyers can't afford to buy, some can; some sellers can't sell more (KSA), and some sellers won't (Libya). A market where the "swing producer" no longer exists and can only affect prices by withholding supply - not a particularly useful attribute in the current circumstances. The background on 2004 events is presented to ask this - in far less extreme circumstances than now, KSA bumped up its production suddenly by a large amount. But now, after many months of a far more apparent need in the world market, the Saudis only belatedly and by a smaller margin have begun to respond. What does this mean?

"Just my opinion, I could be wrong."

As a hobby I make mead (honeywine) and I'm very familiar with how quickly a dieoff can take place with yeast. One day your carboy can be burping away quite nicely and within 24 hours its all over as the yeast either use up all their nutrients (resource depletion) to make a dry wine or die in the high levels of alcohol (polution poisoning) to make a sweet wine.

Perhaps Simmons may be right about the presidential campaign after all

Boris
London

We are obviously smarter than yeast in as much as we can see what is coming, such as peak oil or global warming. However every single human is wired a little differently. Some can see a problem at face value and then seek out solutions, and then implement them. Others though see the problem as only one of perception, meaning they argue the problem (global warming) doesn't really exist, and those people/politicians become impediments to moving forward to solutions. Others still agree there is a problem but are resigned to do nothing, because it will cost too much or seems too daunting, and others even view it as a positive, such as considering how best to divide the spoils when the arctic becomes ice free in the Summers.

So the problem with humankind is not so much the inability for experts in a particular field to understand a problem, but it then becomes such a massive undertaking to get others to agree. For example, Gore tried to get Congress in the 80's to understand the potential dire consequences of global warming, yet Congress simply just ignored him. Simmons explained Peak oil to Bush in 2000 in a series of discussions, yet Bush did nothing to develop alternative energy except ethanol which is a bust, and invaded Iraq which is a disaster.

Getting on the same page in a democratic system is so difficult that we cannot move off our butts until the pond is at 50% full of lilly pads on the 29th day. On the 30th day as we argue what action to take, the pond fills with fauna. Even after the pond is full we still cannot agree on a solution. Some even claim its a benefit because it keeps the fish cool under all that shade. Others claim the lillies can be ground up for feed for cattle and money can be made. As days turn into weeks the pond becomes a giant block of leaves and time has run out on saving it.

Peak oil is no different than any other problem regarding human responses. Every other possible scenario is exhausted in an ongoing effort to avoid the geologic viewpoint of peak oil. What humankind's failure is that the experts in each field where a problem exists are ignored. Geologists are ignored regarding Peak oil. Scientists are ignored regarding global warming.

However, do we reject the electrician that tells us we need another circuit breaker? Do we reject the plumber that says a roto tool will be needed to clear the sewage pipe? Do we ignore the mechanic when he says the thermostat is shot - you need a new one or your engine will be damaged from overheating and cost you much more?

No, we listen to those experts in their fields of expertise. So why can't we listen to the geologists and scientists? Why are those experts considered conspirators by some?

When we simply listen to the consensus of experts in a field related to a problem, then quickly develop a set of steps to solve it, and implement those steps, then we will solve problems before they become a crisis.

Kunstler, talking about what a post-oil era might be like, reminded me of this passage from a book on 15th-century Spain:

"The obstacles to industrial advance were, however, formidable. Quite apart from the shortage of capital and of skilled workmen, distances were enormous and communications poor. Mule trains and ox-carts moved slowly and ponderously across the meseta, and the costs of transport added terrifyingly to prices: the cost, for instance, of carrying spices from Lisbon to Toledo was greater than the original price paid for the spices in Lisbon."

(J. H. Elliott, "Imperial Spain: 1469-1716")

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27aamodt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Your Brain Lies to You

FALSE beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories — and mislead us along the way. . . .

Journalists and campaign workers may think they are acting to counter misinformation by pointing out that it is not true. But by repeating a false rumor, they may inadvertently make it stronger. In its concerted effort to “stop the smears,” the Obama campaign may want to keep this in mind. Rather than emphasize that Mr. Obama is not a Muslim, for instance, it may be more effective to stress that he embraced Christianity as a young man. Consumers of news, for their part, are prone to selectively accept and remember statements that reinforce beliefs they already hold. In a replication of the study of students’ impressions of evidence about the death penalty, researchers found that even when subjects were given a specific instruction to be objective, they were still inclined to reject evidence that disagreed with their beliefs.

I wonder if Rubin considered the difference in demand elasticity between those people that he based his reduction in driving on (those with access to public transit) and those he excluded (people dependent on cars). I drive about 5000 miles a year. I walk or take transit to everything of necessity (work, grocery, friends, entertainment etc.

99.5% of my driving is discretionary. Visiting relatives, heading to the beach, mountains, etc. If gas was $10 maybe even $20 a gallon now, it wouldn't change that one bit. In fact, it might be easier to get out to the mountains due to less traffic so I might do it more.

BobCousins asked: "So I am wondering why yeast is held up as a warning?"

Look to Darwin and his current "reductionist" off-shoots, who insist on reducing man to a mere replicating machine.

Scientistic materialists -- including the radical Darwinists -- are like defoliants, or people who would take an axe to this beautiful tree that has organically grown over the past 2000 years. Please, I am not being polemical here. When you mess with the fundamental vision that holds a culture together "from the inside," you are messing with the equivalent of nuclear physics on the collective human plane: an Adam smasher, if you will. You just have no idea what you will unloose from the bowels of hell.

[...]

The adverse changes in the culture over the past 40 years have been undeniable to anyone who has lived through them. Do I blame only reductionistic Darwinism? Of course not. I blame the general "materialization" of man, of which that is just a reflection. And materialization means dehumanization. Again, it is inevitable.

[...]

Perhaps it is my psychoanalytic training which makes me very aware of the thin membrane that separates man from his most primitive and regressive impulses, and which prevents man from seeing his fellow man as prey. But if my fellow man is not even a man, just a self-replicating animal.... To me, this looks like a nightmare come true -- like a living hell. And it will naturally require a leviathan state to keep these animal-machines in check, and perhaps that is the point.

[...]

Human beings do not live in world of sense-data. But the postmodern vertical barbarians do. In their small minds, they are "liberated" from the "childish mythologies" of the past. In this regard, such an impoverished scientism "is assuredly cut to the measure of modern man who conceived it and who is at the same time its product" (Schuon).

Excerpt from Religious Humanism vs. Darwinist Animalism, Dr. Robert Godwin

Nice gestalt forming set of videos P. Goose, for instance makes one think that when we get exponential growth of population combined with exponential decrease in oil and other resources we will see the optimist in Mr. Kunstler with his view that the emergency will be a long one. But of course, like me, he is pretty old so any emergency in that time frame is likely to be viewed as long, eh?

Also makes me think that the future will tend towards cultural diversity. I understand that 500 is about the optimum size for a well functioning tribe where all members can recognize each other. Well I would say that that will speak very well for US cultural diversity, as at the current rate of population increase of I person every 10 seconds there can be 8 new tribes formed on every day of the year. I hope that will mean more diverse dinning opportunities for slow food and leisurely dinning (as long, of course, that I am not on the bill of fare).

Well it's been over a year and 73 vids posted so far....check_out_and_share www.peakaware.com

RE: Exponential Growth

The way the policies are here in the US, I just can't see us doing anything meaningful until it's too late. From the first video, once half the resources are gone it only take 1 more cycle to use the other half.

What politician would propose an immediate & radical change in the "American way of life" at the halfway point? Or the 1/4 way point which only gives us 2 cycles instead of 1? No, politicians will wait until it is clearly obvious to the village idiot (who he is pandering for his vote) that there is a problem, then propose a "solution" which is a slight change in the future such as increasing MPG to 30+ by 20xx.

Look at the nonsense with mandatory ethanol amounts, bans on offshore & ANWR drilling, bans on refineries, bans on nuclear power, bans on wind farms, bans on solar farms, etc. We should have been doing these things decades ago and transitioned our society to that of Europe - good public transportation, small cars & mopeds, "live-work-play" cities, etc. Instead we did the exact opposite - wipe out public transportation (especially on the West Coast), big, Big, BIG vehicles, and $750,000+ houses in the exurbs.

I'm trying not to sound like a doomer, but with America's complacency to act to do the right thing (when in fact we are doing the wrong things) and with only 1 or 2 cycles left until economic activity is SEVERELY impacted, is there any hope? Just look at how oil is affecting our military.

Are Human's Smarter than Yeast?

You have to be specific which humans you are talking about. Certainly the sumairians, egyptians, mesopotamians, mahrgarians, mohnjodarians, ancient chinese, aztecs, mayans etc were smarter than yeast because they knew how to live in their means, how to keep both population and consumption in check, how to be happy in less and how to give only naturally repairable damage to environment. On the contrary americans, british, russians, modern chinese, french, germans etc etc etc do not know these things.

It was a good talk on growth, but it was sadly lacking something. The words "human population". Human population growth is just an incredibly delicate subject it would seem. The clip talks about growth in pollution and lily pads and a few other things, but it was left for the listener to "connect the dots", i.e. it only IMPLICITLY pointed to human population growth. I think in cases like this scientists need to suck it up and grow a pair. Don't be cowed by the religious, business, economist and political cartel which pushes infinite population growth down our throats. And don't be cowed by the population Polly Annas who say "don't worry - will peak at 9 billion in 2050". At this point the human population needs to shrink, and we can't even get a significant amount of people agreeing that it shouldn't grow. Which is, for lack of a better word - pathetic.

Yawn. What exponential growth? Human population growth is just barely linear, and the peak population under a BAU scenario as forecasted by the UN has been repeatedly shifted downwards; it is now 9.2 billion in 2075.

If you want a little less vacuous discussion on 9/11 conspiracy theories I can recommend the JREF forums.

olberman thinks he can put wind farms anywhere?

"wind is not a good answer? try telling that to people who live near Palm Springs."

Wind can help but it can't do the job by itself -- not by a longshot.

the san gorgonio pass is a beautiful location and there are others but you can't put a wind farm just anywhere. It sounds like drill here drill now, never mind if there's an oil trap.

it's all about politics.
the left and the right sound dumb and dumber.

it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the war was about oil. I new that from the beginning. I was one of those original 10% of the country who was still opposed to bush and didn't trust him even though i didn't know about Peak Oil until late 2003.

it seemed like saddam had to prove he didn't have WMD.

We're crazy not to be using our own resources. Much has changed since the 1982 offshore drilling moratorium was enacted. Drilling technology has advanced over the past quarter-century. Oil companies can drill more efficiently in deeper water with significantly less risk to the environment. "Compared to worldwide tanker spill rates, outer continental shelf operations are more than five times safer,'' according to the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service. Domestic drilling would also create a huge economic boost to America.
Both US political parties cling to long-standing positions on energy - then blame their colleagues across the aisle for blocking their efforts.
The MMS overcharges oil companies just for prospecting rights alone, effectively stealing money that could be used to drill wells and find oil. For example the U.S. government just received $3.7 billion from company bids in a single lease sale in March 2008.
US oil companies have to weave their way through a labyrinth of environmental rules that Congress has imposed on them, plus defend themselves against bogus legal attacks from green extremists. The Government recently got $2 billion from Shell for offshore Alaska leases, then let lawyers stop drilling because the exploration ships "might bump into whales". The despots who sell us oil at $140 a barrel love the US government, we fund their entire bloated economies instead of using our own vast and abundant energy supplies.
Oil is the fuel of the immediate future - you can bet on it! We must move forward to a future in which cleaner natural gas, electricity, and renewable energy fuels cars and heats homes. But this transformation will take 20-30 years. In the meantime, the current Anti-American-Energy Congress has long pursued an energy policy that has done nothing to ease the price at the pump. Yes we need to wean ourselves from oil, but only as fast as technology can replace oil energy while we keep our country and economy safe. This is breaking the backs of American consumers and domestic industry infrastructure still dependent on fossil fuels, This is unacceptable anti-social, Anti-American behavior. Change is urgently needed.
Drill and drill now. We must take any and all action necessary to solve this very real crisis.
House Democrats keep blocking efforts to expand domestic offshore drilling. Not only has the Democrat controlled Congress failed to end our reliance on the Middle East for essential energy, they've actually helped grow that dependence to historic and dangerous new levels -- all because of their doctrinaire refusal to allow responsible energy production here at home.
Oil is the ultimate pocket book issue. Polls show that the price of gas is the No. 1 issue on voters' minds. A recent Consumer Reports survey found people place the blame for high gas prices first on the government, then on the foreign oil companies, and third is a tie between Congress and Middle East conflicts. In short, you the people are fed up.
Democrats need to announce their support for immediate domestic offshore drilling for oil and gas, ANWR oil production and oil-shale developments, to rapidly increase supply paired with investments in energy efficiency, if they are to have any hope of winning in November. Their "It Will Take Too Long, So Let’s Never Get Started" mantra is just plain stupid. Developing alternative energy will take even longer.
Creating alternatives to oil and gas isn’t as simple as flipping a switch or passing a mandate. Biofuels requirements for corn-based ethanol have already caused food inflation and global food riots. As for solar and other renewable sources like wind power that the daft media promotes. Both have serious disadvantages: the sources are inconsistent (the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing) and currently we don’t have the technology to store the power on a large scale. And they cost a lot more than existing energy supplies.
ANWR alone could be replacing 10-15% of America's imported oil within 3-5 years. Is anybody home in la la energy land?
The energy needs of the United States have made oil our number one import and the biggest factor in our imbalance of trade. It is not just that oil holds us hostage to the rest of the world. This imbalance of trade means we cannot support ourselves and must borrow from other countries every day just to get by.
There is an Urgent Need for Affordable Transportation Fuels Sourced in America;
1. There is no substitute for energy. The whole edifice of modern society is built upon it…. It is not “just another commodity” but the precondition of all commodities, a basic factor equal with air, water and earth. E. F. Schumacher (1973)
2. Energy is vital in order to create and sustain economic and social development. Our whole economy reflects the relative costs of energy: the cars we drive, the houses we occupy, the kinds of factories we have, and the equipment in them.
3. Hydrocarbons feed the world: About 97% of nitrogen fertilizers are derived from synthetically produced ammonia. Natural Gas-based Nitrogen fertilizer made it possible for us to populate the Earth, and now we're hooked. 40 percent (soon to be 60 percent) of the Earth's inhabitants thus owe their survival to natural gas, a non-renewable fossil fuel.
4. ...If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, .the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s -- the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation... In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is. Ben Stein
"Before you get all excited about tearing down the energy industry, stop and think for a moment about what makes your comfortable life possible. Your heat and most of your electricity are provided through the burning of oil and natural gas. The thousands of plastic items in your home, car and office are all made from crude oil. Much of your clothing is woven of fibers made from petroleum.
Without the hard work and ingenuity of the men and women who work for the energy companies, we would be living in the 17th century - no electricity, running water, cars, trucks, airplanes, ships, factories, waterproof clothing, soda bottles, safety glass, sterile food and medical containers, air conditioners, televisions, microwave ovens, X-Boxes, I-Pods, or any of the millions of other products made using power generated from the burning of fossil fuels."

"You would have to grow your own food, or ride your donkey to a nearby market, where there would be no refrigerators or electric lights. You'd have to kill and clean your own meat and cook it over an open fire. You'd have to chop down the trees for your home, and provide your own light by making candles from the fat of animals. Every single thing in your modern life is utterly and completely dependent upon a steady supply of oil. Without it, the entire Western world would collapse completely in a matter of weeks; tens of millions would perish from starvation, exposure, and disease." Todd Keister
The concept of using the rest of the world's oil first before exploiting our own is outdated; at $140 a barrel its either the result of mendacious policies or just plain stupidity. It has resulted in incredible unearned wealth being taken out of the pockets of every hard working American and bestowed upon entities in other countries, including governments and despots, some who fund terrorism aimed at murdering Americans.
Rep. Scott Garrett (R-5) said that "it is our responsibility to develop sound policies that will ensure energy security. What is a good energy policy? A good energy policy gives you more energy. More supply. A bad energy policy is one that makes us less secure and more dependent upon foreign sources like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and unstable regimes like Venezuela. Using 21st-century technology, the option to pursue deep-sea exploration would allow for the increase of American supply and result in a decrease in gas prices."
US current batch of elected officials have a better chance to reduce Earth’s gravitational pull than to reduce gas prices using their current anemic plans.
Help the World's Poor: by developing our own energy supplies America would free up the 10 million barrels per day currently imported, for other poorer country's needs and thus help ameliorate energy and food prices. This would go a long way in assisting the developing country's populations to enjoy a better standard of living.
China is expected to have 140 million automobiles plying its roads by 2020, seven times more than now, fueling demand for transportation infrastructure and services. If you think oil is going to go down in price with all this demand increase, think again.
SOME RECENT PRESS
OPEC Chief Sees $150-170 Oil in Coming Months; Crude oil prices could rise to as high as $170 per barrel in the coming months but are unlikely to hit $200 and should ease towards the end of the year, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said in an interview on Thursday. Source CNBC 26 Jun 2008.
OPEC President Chakib Khelil also said "...Threats against Iran would also support prices during the summer. A political crisis that would stop Iran's oil production would push prices over $200 a barrel, to possibly $400 a barrel, he said...." Source Bloomberg June 26th 2008
"....Are the ridiculously high prices we’re paying the fault of the big, bad oil companies? No, the lion’s share of the blame goes to politicians, who have locked away vast amounts of American energy -- both oil and natural gas.

In the 1980s, Congress began restricting more offshore areas from energy exploration -- prohibiting drilling in more and more places around the country. With energy relatively cheap, it was easy to give in to the carping demands of radical environmentalists, who (then as now) exaggerated the impact of drilling and downplayed the benefits.

Then, in 1990, President George H.W. Bush issued a directive restricting new offshore exploration and drilling. President Bill Clinton compounded this error in 1998 by extending the directive to 2012.

Fast forward to 2008, and it’s abundantly clear that we can’t leave huge deposits of energy to remain buried in our own backyard for another four years...." Source
Poll: 74 percent support offshore oil drilling in U.S.
Three in four likely voters – 74 percent – support offshore drilling for oil in U.S. coastal waters and more than half (59 percent) also favor drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows. Zogby International, Thursday, June 26, 2008
June 26th 2008. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin believes more oil and gas production from ANWR and offshore is crucial to America’s future..
"...the people who live here, want it drilled"
"Obama is way off base on all that. I think those politicians who don’t understand that we need more domestic supply of energy flowing into our hungry markets, you know, they’re living in La-La Land. And we’re in a world of hurt if their agenda continues to be to lock up these safe, secure domestic supplies of energy... "the people who live here, want it drilled. So that tells you that we have confidence in the safety and the responsibility that we’ll see there with the development of ANWR......"
Kudlow: Why don’t we just liberate, and decontrol, and deregulate the whole bloody energy business – whether it’s oil, gas, shale, nuclear, coal, natural gas, as well as wind and solar – why don’t we just decontrol, deregulate, go for an America first energy policy? Get independent of Saudi Arabia? America first. Create all of these millions of high paying jobs. Why isn’t anybody talking about that in this race? That’s the natural, Reaganesque thing to do. Isn’t it?

Palin: Yeah absolutely! You’re hitting the nail right on the head. That’s what so many of us normal Americans are asking. The same thing. Why aren’t the candidates talking like that? Where we can secure America and we can be more independent when we talk about energy sources if we could drill domestically.

Here we sent [Energy] Secretary Bodman overseas the other day, and our president had to visit the Saudis a few weeks ago, to ask them to ramp up development. That’s nonsense. Not when you know that we have the supplies here. You have the supplies in your sister state called Alaska, where we’re ready, willing and we’re able to pump these supplies of energy, flow them into hungry markets across the U.S. We want it to happen. It’s Congress holding us back...."
Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/25394468
It would help if Politicians from both parties should stop telling energy mistruths to the America people.
The Congress's current energy plan is a bit like saying that during a famine the solution is to tax the farmers more. The Democrats energy policy unfairly punishes their union base. More US oil and gas exploration would mean millions of good paying jobs for American engineers, oil field workers, pipeliners, steelworkers and all the associated and downstream service industries involved.
Under our energy plan all these millions of people working in US on domestic energy projects would be able to buy a house here not fund someone else's in Venezuela or the Middle East.
Democrats now propose punishing everyone in sight; giving the federal government more authority to crack down on price-gouging by oil companies and smaller vendors, a bill requiring energy producers to relinquish any land not currently being tapped for oil or gas production, and a measure creating new restrictions for commodity traders whose speculation who they consider might have driven up the price of oil. Even a small child could figure out that none of these punitive measures will have any measurable effect on supplies or gas prices. We need more affordable supplies not more useless rhetoric.
Currently, sending $600+ billion a year overseas for imported oil is creating millions of jobs and untold wealth in other countries!
The American people don't need psychological relief or meaningless gimmicks ... they need real energy relief that will help them fill up their tanks at an affordable price and jobs to put food on the table. They need a new aggressive America-First Energy Plan.
The facts are:
There is an urgent energy emergency facing America today, causing the current recession to deepen rapidly. Much of the recessionary causes can be traced back to the increasingly high price of energy and the fact that 60% of the US oil requirements are imported resulting in $600 billion + p.a leaking out of the US economy. The energy crisis negatively impacts every citizen, business, and government entity in the country, as well as world markets.
The American economy is in dire peril at this time. Most of the malaise can be directly traced back to energy supplies and the ever-increasing price. Net petroleum imports represented 41 percent of the total 2007 US trade deficit and the number will be much higher this year.

Most oil producing countries around the world are nationalizing their oil reserves, increasing export taxes, cutting off needed investment, and many are reducing export production capability in order to supply their own rapidly growing local needs.
There needs to be recognition that the depletion rates of existing mature oilfields world-wide are rising, and new oilfields are not coming online fast enough to replace the existing production capacity.
We are entering a new world order in which other countries with increasingly larger financial resources are competing for internationally available oil and gas resources and increasingly winning dwindling supplies by paying more, (China, India etc.).
Just as the developing world’s oil demand is exploding, the world’s largest and oldest oilfields (and some newer offshore fields, too) are declining more rapidly than oilfields used to decline in the past. Just at this juncture of rising demand and stagnant supply, five countries that together produce some 13 mb/d of oil and, more importantly have the potential to produce an additional 5 - 10 mb/d, have become saddled with governments that are so incompetent, corrupt, and/or crazy that they cannot operate their oilfields rationally.
At the same time, oil producing countries have created State-owned companies to control their own oil and gas resources and extract the maximum revenues from them, resulting in the locking up of over 80% of the world’s energy reserves from access to independent oil companies (IOCs).
America is the worst offender in blocking off access to its own oil and gas resources due to politically-created offshore and onshore drilling moratoriums, onerous taxes, imposts, bizarre regulations and laws. For example only a shameful 3 percent of the United States’ 1.76 billion acre outer continental shelf (OCS) is leased for oil and gas exploration and development.
Virtually every other country in the world is drilling on their continental shelf and onshore sedimentary basins to find oil and gas, very often using American capital and technology. Why is this happening? It is primarily because American politicians at the Federal, State and local levels have made it increasingly difficult if not impossible to produce oil and gas in America by closing the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS) and other areas with moratoriums and with an ever-increasing array of permitting requirements as well as onerous taxes and imposts. Hence American energy exploration companies have moved resources to other countries where energy prospects are available for development and the permitting requirements are easier. IOCs often accept a very small profit participation because increasingly that is the only business opportunity open to them. Hence vast amounts of American financial, engineering and entrepreneurial capacity have been wasted away.
For politicians and commentators to continue blaming independent oil companies for the high price of energy is an outright falsehood and a bald-faced lie. It is the decades-long inactions of American politicians themselves who have created the current American energy crisis.
With America facing it’s worse energy supply crisis it is high time for bipartisan affirmative action.
It is fiscally irresponsible (no, mindlessly stupid) to send more than $600 billion each year to other countries that are a lot smarter about energy than we, because they are willing to develop their own oil resources and sell them to us at a huge profit while we are not. This includes America-hating despots who sell us oil every day at a huge profit and are laughing all the way to their Swiss bank with our billions.
Without sufficient domestic oil and gas production Americans are being held hostage to foreign producers.
Environmental Impact Misconceptions
Oil exploration and production off the coast of Louisiana has been going on for decades, providing a shining example of the safety, effectiveness and limited environmental impact of modern exploration technology. All around the world today, countries drill offshore without significant environmental consequences, then sell the oil to us and make their companies people rich off our backs.
There is something immoral about refusing to drill in your own backyard because "it is bad for the environment" while being perfectly willing to buy the oil pulled out of someone else's back yard. We use oil and gas, therefore we should be willing to accept the responsibility to find it on our own soil and deal with the (minimal) environmental risks of that process.
There hasn’t been any significant oil spill from U.S. waters in over thirty years. The oil industry now has an excellent environmental record. The amount of new technology, redundancy testing all but eliminate that as a possibility today.
True effect of Oil Spills
Vast amounts of oil and gas are constantly leaking out of the world’s natural oil and gas reservoirs. Global emissions of potent greenhouse gas methane from natural marine seepage have been underestimated and are beneficially decreasing because of oil production reducing reservoir pressure. A huge fraction of the world's total oil and gas is episodically or continuously bypassing underground reservoirs completely and seeping from surface sediments on a large scale. Recent satellite photographs show numerous of oil slicks which go for miles in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, in areas where no oil production is occurring.
There are even naturally occurring microbes that live off oil and gas seepages.
Example; The 1969 Santa Barbara spill that occurred after an oil platform blew out six miles offshore leaked oil into the ocean.
But Santa Barbara oil reservoirs are today naturally leaking an estimated 187 barrels of oil each and every day. That’s around 70,000 barrels a year, or nearly 3 million barrels since the 1969 oil spill.
Yet the local population, faced with these incontrovertible facts, still blindly refuses to let oil companies extract the oil, which would result in reducing the offending reservoir pressures hence stopping the damaging leaks.
The local offshore natural oil seepage causes more air pollution than all of the vehicles in Santa Barbara. These natural seeps are a large source of air pollution in Santa Barbara County. One estimate suggests air pollution is equal to twice the emission rate from all the on-road vehicle traffic in the county. Redondo also has huge ongoing natural oil seeps, read this article.
Timeline Lies
Many shortsighted politicians dismiss the opening up of US moratorium areas with statements such as, “it would take decades to bring the oil and gas to market, so let’s not bother”. This a not correct.
Its simple to get new American energy supplies quickly, Appeal to Corporate Greed: If oil companies are given enough financial incentives, they will move much faster than anyone believes and could find and start producing new oil and gas within 2-3 years, then ramp quickly up to produce enough energy to completely replace oil imports within 10-12 years.
Come November any candidate for any seat who does not wholeheartedly support developing America's own energy resources immediately, is likely to get hit by a virtual "voter rejection train", poetically loaded with imported $5 a gallon gasoline from Chavez, Iran and Russia.

AMERICAN ENERGY FOR AMERICAN'S: BASIC ELEMENTS FOR AN ACTION PLAN
Proposed Presidential Executive Orders:
Declare an energy emergency and set aside the OCS and ANWR moratoriums and some permitting requirements so as to fast-track various critical new energy developments.
Declaration granting a tax holiday for declared special "American Energy Economic Zones" (AEEZ), see below.
Declaration temporarily eliminating up front oil and gas lease payments, royalties and other imposts, as well as regulatory delays.
Declaration making available $200 billion p.a. in low-cost construction financing guarantees and other incentives for new energy projects in AEEZ areas.
Proposed Government Actions;
1) Cancel the Moratorium on drilling on the US Continental Shelf today.
2) Cancel the Moratorium on drilling on the Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) 1002 area today.
3) Support the three international waters resources rights Claims made by American Companies to contiguous oil and gas reserves that could be developed without any regulatory lags. (See; www.strategicnine.com and www.unoilgas.com ).
4) Put aside most of the timeline and permitting requirements for urgent, identified critical energy projects as listed here in declared "American Energy Economic Zones" (AEEZ) “in the national interest” by creating a fast-track office to evaluate and approve requested leases within 90 days.
5) Allow unsolicited OCS Lease Applications anywhere immediately, grant them on a first-in first granted basis.
6) Enlarge new OCS post-moratorium lease block sizes from the paltry 5 mile by 5 mile area to a more realistic size of perhaps 100 miles by 100 miles in frontier regions.
7) Provide a ten year tax and impost holiday on strategic new oil and gas development projects in AEEZ areas. Offer matching funds for seismic and EM surveys to be repaid from eventual production to get oil flowing sooner.
8) Provide low-cost loan guarantees for development of urgently required new oil and gas project infrastructure in AEEZ areas.
9) Provide low-cost Government guarantees or loans for offshore oil and gas ("Energy Liberty") ships and vessels built to work in the US AEEZ areas for the next 5 years.
10) Temporarily exempt approved oil and gas projects within the AEEZ areas from the US Cabotage laws so that projects can more quickly secure production equipment from overseas shipyards.
11) Set Aside Regulatory Delays for projects within the AEEZ areas. Make regulatory bodies set up departments to “fast-track” approval of energy projects to clear hurdles within 3-6 months.
12) Eliminate Frivolous and Mendacious Lawsuit Delays for projects in AEEZ areas: Create a special court to hear energy related cases with a mandate to adjudicate cases within 7 days. Example: the lawsuits currently stopping Shell from drilling off Alaska, partly on the basis that their ships might bump into whales; if applied to the rest of the world’s oceans would cease all shipping and world trade!
13) Provide 250,000 new grants for students to pay for college for future petroleum engineers and geologists, and for technical petroleum production job training programs.
14) Eliminate any royalties, taxes and permitting costs on critical new energy projects in AEEZ areas for ten years, to enable energy companies to spend every dollar of risk capital they have on US drilling, building production equipment, and related expenses, as only holes in the ground will solve the energy problem.
15) For transport; Provide tax and other incentives to build distribution infrastructure and car-truck conversion stations to switch 25% of the US vehicular fleet to compressed natural gas (CNG) within 10 years. This will lower demand for oil and lower CO2 emissions, and would require approximately 5 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf) per annum of gas.
The Solution to high oil prices: An Energy Mini-Marshall Plan
Why this will work:
These are real solutions not thinly disguised and choreographed political stunts designed to win elections rather than bring Americans gas price relief.
Create an American Oil and Gas Rush: We need to get those independent oil and gas companies, their money, explorationists, engineers and drilling rigs back into American waters promptly.
The US government must make it so financially attractive for oil companies to immediately explore and develop American oil and gas resources that the new policies create a veritable stampede to bring new domestic oil and gas to the market in record time.
If American politicians created the financial and other incentives outlined here, all those drilling rigs that are working in other countries’ continental shelf regions will come back to the US and find affordable oil and gas for Americans.
This plan promotes improved National Economic Security through common sense domestic oil and gas developments.
This plan will result in energy jobs coming back to America. It recycles virtually all of the energy money back to the US economy in taxes, dividends, jobs – high paying blue-collar jobs and white collar jobs. Billions of Dollars would get recycled through taxes. A lot of those billions could go back to the adjacent states and help them balance their budgets.
This plan would unleash an immediate tidal wave of exploration and development in the American OCS , resulting in early and growing domestic oil and gas production, that would soon replace all imported fuels.
Rapidly developing America’s own energy resources would have a price-damping effect: The mere threat of future US domestic supply competition would cause Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut their prices. The U.S. Congress should take notice: economics do work - not just cutting demand, but robustly increasing supply of transportation fuels will get us out of the current oil crisis.
How to get new American energy supplies quickly, Appeal to Corporate Greed: If oil companies are given enough financial incentives, they will move much faster than anyone believes and could find and start producing new oil and gas within 2-3 years, then ramp quickly up to produce enough energy to completely replace oil imports within 10-12 years.
Example: Kellog, Brown and Root (http://www.kbr.com) recently designed and built the world’s largest floating oil production platform in just 12 months, the "Agbami". Where did it go? To Nigeria, where the "Government" is taking 90% of the revenues off the top, much of it disappearing into Swiss accounts.
Time to first oil and gas could be compressed from the typical 5-8 years to 2-3 years for some American resources if enough manpower and capital was directed to the projects. Just give the companies enough incentives and they will rise to the challenge.
American companies are bringing some oil and gas projects into production in less than 3 years in other countries right now.
This viable energy plan would significantly increase the security of the American homeland, create ten million new jobs for Americans and their communities, provide for America’s energy independence for 50-100 years as well as generate untold trillions in new taxes all within America and hence rapidly improve the general economic well-being.
We urge the US government to adopt this simple Energy-Economy Revitalization Plan - this is a blueprint that could be refined, improved and launched within just a few weeks.
All of the above measures would create a massive stampede of exploration and oil and gas production infrastructure on the US continental shelf and other US onshore areas, creating near-immediate increases in oil and gas production, hence rapidly lowering US consumer’s energy prices.
Much of the new offshore energy production would be in the form of Low CO2 natural gas, which, when used to make electricity or compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicle fuel, reduces CO2 emissions significantly, thus helping to meet much of the proposed US Cap-and-Trade carbon reduction objectives.
Stop Bureaucratic Tax Creep: Unfortunately US bureaucracies often tend to make decisions based on the individual Department’s staff’s own perceived self interest. For example, the more royalties and fees they secure, the larger and more important the department is and the greater salaries and benefits that accrue to the staff. These fees, payments and imposts are today a major drain on oil and gas exploration capital. It is money that would otherwise be spent exploring to produce more oil and gas.
Government must leave these department heads out of the room when making critical decisions about the energy issues. The issue is too important to let self-interested bureaucracies to continue to destroy the American economy with ever-increasing arrays of hidden energy taxes and imposts.
The benefits of developing America’s own oil and gas include an estimated $600-$700 billion per year in oil payments, currently going overseas, that under our plan would stay inside America creating millions of new jobs and prosperity, here, not there.
In order to salve the consciences of the affected bureaucracies perhaps the small amount of revenue lost could be simply replaced by adding a small tax (5cents/gallon) on at the consumer end (the back end) to replace the current onerous crushing front end pre-exploration imposts. It is likely that the resulting ultimate revenue flows to the various bureaucracies would be much higher in the long term. Thus America’s security would be enhanced. The consumer would enjoy lower prices and a secure supply for 50-100 years, as well as enjoy the benefits of millions of new jobs for Americans.
This plan is not a gift to the oil companies, its simply giving back to American's what we already own, our own oil and gas supplies, on our own soil, owned by us all, which have been inadvertently taken from us by our own government and bureaucracies.
The above measures would bring about the transformation of the American energy industry and indeed create a boom in the entire US economy within five to ten years.
Note; Nuclear, solar, geothermal, coal and other static energy sources are not covered or dealt with in this proposal, which focuses primarily on QUICKLY providing more domestically sourced transport fuel.

See; http://www.strategicnine.com/STERLING-AMERICAN-ENERGY-PLAN.htm

You know, I wonder. If yeast were as intelligent as humans, would it change its doubling time?

After all, isn't competing for a scarce resource what causes evolution, and therefore a GOOD thing in the eyes of the winners and their descendants? And, aren't the majority of countries led by the most competitive psychopath they can produce?

Of course WE all hope for a peaceful power-down, because we're democratic, but most OPEC countries are not democracies. Their leaders may just be kidding us for now. They might secretly be hoping for a real war, because they expect they'll come out on top of whatever smoking mess is left.

It's in their psychopathic nature - like the yeast.

I hope I'm wrong of course.