Peak Oil n the media

[CheKmx]

Found this article in the independent about peak oil this week

Fade to black: Is this the end of oil? - Green Living, Environment - The Independent

It makes mention of greater electrification of transport being required to deal with supply of easy oil drying up

[HarryB]

Seems to be a theme with The Independent, together with global warming. I am certainly more worried about the oil running out than the warming. At least with the higher oil prices we will use less and there will be an incentive to develop previously uneconomic oil fields. With the high oil price driven mainly by speculators rather than demand, do you think they know something the experts don't?

[oldosc]

With the high oil price driven mainly by speculators rather than demand, do you think they know something the experts don't?
Experts?.. I worked in Australia at Mt Goldsworthy, the press blurbs were all about vanishing resourses, plan running out etc,, meanwhile we were buisy mapping an Iron ore field 96% haematite, of 88 million tons ready for export as soon as the Port Headland harbour was finished (built)..apparently the PR job was to soften up the Aussi Govt to get a subsidy to ofset the cost of dredging...We had three MPs and four or five experts visit us, and they saw a lot....mostly double or treble.. I swear, no one of them was sober from leaving the air condidioned Plane/Hotel..until they left us (our temps were in the mid 90s.

[HarryB]

I ask the question because there is plenty of oil around at the moment but the speculators seem to be driving the price up. In fact what we are lacking is refining capacity (especially for the heavy oil from the middle east) and Gordon Brown and GW pleading with the Saudis for more oil to be pumped is a nonsense. It is a complicated business with for example the present taxation system driving up demand for diesel without actually thinking about how that demand could be satisfied. I only hope the latest oil shock will motivated us into changing the way we use energy.

[flecc]

In a sense the speculators are doing the world a favour in driving up the price of oil, since that will tend to depress the demand, conserve the reserves and reduce the global warming due to it's consumption.

A medal for them perhaps?
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[HarryB]

Of course if it is a bubble (and that is what speculators create) then it bursts we will have lower oil prices, maybe lower than is required to moderate consumption, who knows. However maybe they know something we don't?

[flecc]

Originally Posted by HarryB

However maybe they know something we don't?

They very often do, but what's difficult to glean this time is what side of the picture they are looking at.

On the one hand we have the apparent ever increasing demand for oil at a time when peak availability has probably already been passed, in which view they are anticipating.

On the other is the forecast in financial circles of a marked coming slowdown in the Chinese export and domestic markets, coupled with some western depression, which will lower demand. In this option they would be making their kill before that happens.

There are some much less palatable possibilities relating to Russian relations with the west or new actions in the Middle East.
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