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Peak Oil

Postby professorpan » Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:42 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>bv, you seem to be contradicting yourself or maybe I'm misunderstanding. I believe Palast, but this sort of contradits the claim of Peak oil. that is, this shows a deliberate creation of a shortage to manipulate prices rather than the natural result of oil depletion.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>No contradiction, really. The oil barons know that the black blood of the Earth is being sucked out at a rate that cannot continue. At the same time, their addiction to green blood (i.e. money) is equally voracious. Addicts have no scruples, after all.<br><br>So they seize what's left of the oil, and artificially drive up prices. They hold on to the dwindling reserves and also make obscene profits off of their market manipulations.<br><br>Yep, evil motherfucking bastards. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Peak Oil

Postby Dreams End » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:19 am

That could be. But let's please be sure not to use things like rising prices and oil wars as part of the "proof" of peak oil. I've seen it done and this is sloppy.<br><br>There is no difference, from an economic point of view, between scarcity and the perception of scarcity. Either one will do nicely. <p></p><i></i>
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Peak shmeak

Postby professorpan » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:32 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>That could be. But let's please be sure not to use things like rising prices and oil wars as part of the "proof" of peak oil. I've seen it done and this is sloppy.<br><br>There is no difference, from an economic point of view, between scarcity and the perception of scarcity. Either one will do nicely.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I don't waste a lot of mental energy trying to discern how much validity to give to the peak oil people, or to their critics. <br><br>It's all noxious smoke to me.<br><br>We are sucking oil from the Earth like vampires. That oil drives an economic engine -- one that every one of us is part of -- that is fouling the biosphere with CO2 and disease-inducing particulates. <br><br>I don't care if oil is as common as water -- there is no excuse for business as usual. Humans need to wake up, and quick -- and demand an immediate, global transition to clean energy production.<br><br>Or face the obvious -- and horrific -- consequences. <p></p><i></i>
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math?

Postby 5E6A » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:36 am

How about math? Will that convince you that something is happening?<br><br>Hubbert lineariztion:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/13575.html">www.energybulletin.net/13575.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/16/102942/337">www.theoildrum.com/story/...102942/337</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>loglet analysis:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/3/113719/7594">www.theoildrum.com/story/...13719/7594</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Hubbert parabolic:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2006/09/hubbert-parabola.html">graphoilogy.blogspot.com/...abola.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>The fact remains, more oil producing countries have reached a peak and are now declining than those still increasing in production. This is a trend, not a vast conspiracy. The ability of the elite to leverage petroleum based technology is declining. The bulk of those alive now have a chance to re-arrange society that will not fall into a trap of resource depletion based hardship. What do you want to do with that opportunity? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: math?

Postby Dreams End » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:24 am

Yeah, a graph proves everything.<br><br>It's all dependent on a set of assumptions...i.e. role of increase technology, likely new discoveries, etc. You can't extrapolate that cleanly from the limited past. I doubt hubbert factored in digging wells under 7000 feet of water and 20,000 feet of bedrock either. <br><br>Seriously, do you guys have Hubbert posters hanging in your bedrooms. Maybe next to Farrah Fawcett, who, if I recall, was THE beaty queen when Hubbert actually did these studies.<br><br>FOR AN OIL COMPANY.<br><br>WHEN PRICES WERE DROPPING.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: math?

Postby Et in Arcadia ego » Thu Sep 07, 2006 4:00 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>But, just in case, let's keep this theory secret, ok?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>I agree, m'am. To think lavish and flesh-bound women the world over would desire me for other than my enviable goatee is more than I could bare.<br><br>And I'd like to think I've made my feelings clear on how I feel about 'Them', so becoming one is in and of itself a misnomer.<br><br>Only violets on my Pauper's Grave, please.<br><br> <p>____________________<br>Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night.</p><i></i>
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Re: math?

Postby bvonahsen » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:02 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Yeah, a graph proves everything.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>Um.. actually, they do. When a numerical relationship is ploted or graphed the nature of the data can be more easily seen.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It's all dependent on a set of assumptions...i.e. role of increase technology, likely new discoveries, etc. You can't extrapolate that cleanly from the limited past. I doubt hubbert factored in digging wells under 7000 feet of water and 20,000 feet of bedrock either.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>True, assumptions matter. If you do the hard work first and carefully sift through your data and make sure your assumptions have as few errors as possible, then you will get good results. Results like nailing the US peak to within six months from back in the fifties. That's pretty damn impressive. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Seriously, do you guys have Hubbert posters hanging in your bedrooms. Maybe next to Farrah Fawcett, who, if I recall, was THE beaty queen when Hubbert actually did these studies.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>I am agnostic about peak oil but I am impressed with it's predictive power. It weights the scales heavily in it's favor in my mind. Something one would expect from good science. Hubbert made his prediction about the US peak back in the fifties, try to get your facts straight. But this is all kind of moot for reasons I've already explained. Regardless, I would expect that the oil companies would want to have a soft landing. Much like the federal reserve also wants a soft landing from the housing bubble. People have been predicting doom and gloom from <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>that</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> and it hasn't happened yet, for good reason. Their theories were wrong and/or they didn't do the hard work first.<br><br>BTW, ad hominem attacks just make <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>you</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> look bad. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: math?

Postby Dreams End » Thu Sep 07, 2006 9:54 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br><br>BTW, ad hominem attacks just make you look bad.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>So does a graph. I look terrible in graphs...all spiky and peaky.<br><br>Sorry about the wrong beauty queen. I had the seventies in my head...I guess that was when the US "peaked"? In any event, maybe I just had Farrah Fawcett in my head. She did look down over my bed for quite some time.<br><br>Have you ever read "The Bell Curve"? In that book, the author proved that black people did not succeed as well as white people because they have lower IQ's. He had lots of graphs and all kinds of data. So let's just repeal that silly emancipation thingamabob.<br><br>Anyway, since he's both researched it more and a better writer, here's Greg Palast again.<br><br>What if everything you thought you knew about Peak Oil was wrong?<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Editor’s note: This article is the first part in a two part series and should be read in conjunction with this article: Why Palast is Wrong.<br><br>Saddam had to go, we really should take a look at the theory that we went into Iraq to get its oil. A ride up “Hubbert’s Peak” will allow a clearer view of the real topic of this chapter: the geo-politics of petroleum.<br><br>On March 7, 1956, geologist M. King Hubbert presented a research paper that would, a half century later, become the New Gospel of Internet Economics, the Missing Link that would Explain It All from the September 11 attack to the invasion of Iraq.<br><br>In his 1956 paper, Hubbert wrote:<br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><br> On the basis of the present estimates of the ultimate reserves of world petroleum and natural gas, it appears that the culmination of world production of these products should occur within a half a century [i.e., by 2006].</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->( DE's helpfully sarcastic note: so much for predictive power.)<br><br>So get in your Hummer and take your last drive, Clive. Sometime during 2006, we will have used up every last drop of crude oil on the planet. We’re not talking “decline” in oil from a production “peak,” we’re talking “culmination,” completely gone, kaput, dead out of crude—and not enough natural gas left to roast a weenie. In his 1956 treatise, Hubbert wrote that Planet Earth could produce not a drop more than one and a quarter trillion barrels of crude.<br><br>We obtain a figure of about 1,250 billion barrels for the ultimate potential reserves of crude oil of the whole world. That’s the entire supply of crude that stingy Mother Nature bequeathed for human use from Adam to the end of civilization. Indeed, our oil-lusting world will have consumed, by the end of 2006, about 1.2 trillion barrels of oil. Therefore, by Hubbert’s calculation, we’re finished; maybe in the very week you read this book we’ll suck the planet dry. Then, as Porky Pig says, “That’s all, folks!”<br><br>But the pig ain’t sung yet. Planes still fly, lovers still cry and smog-o-saurus SUVs still choke the LA freeway. Why aren’t our gas tanks dry? Hubbert insisted Arabia could produce no more than 375 billion barrels of oil. Yet, Middle Eastern oil reserves remaining today total 734 billion barrels. And those are “proven” reserves—known and measured, not including the possibility of a single new oil strike or field extension. Worldwide, ready-to-go reserves total 1.189 trillion barrels—and that excludes the world’s two biggest untapped fields, which could easily double the world reserve. (One is in Iraq, the other we get to in Chapter 4 of our new book Armed Madhouse: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Class War)<br><br>In all fairness to the Hubbert Heads, there’s a more sophisticated, updated version of Hubbert’s theory. This is where the “peak” concept comes in. In this version of the Hubbert scripture, we ignore his dead wrong prediction of total crude available and look only at the up and down shape of his curve, the “peak.” The amount of oil discovered each year, Hubbert posited, will stop rising by 2000, then will crash rapidly toward zero when we will have used up our allotted 1.25 trillion barrels. We haven’t crashed or even peaked. Oil production has risen year after year after year and discoveries have more than kept pace.<br><br>Nevertheless, like believers undaunted by the failure of alien spaceships to take them to Mars on the date predicted, Peak enthusiasts keep moving the date of the oil apocalypse further into the future. In the new, revisionist models of Hubbert’s prediction, the high point in the curve of discoverable oil on our planet will come in a decade or so. Though we have a reprieve, goes the new theory, still, we’re running out of crude, dude! There’s only another twenty years left in proven reserves! Oh, my! “It’s true that there’s only twenty years’ supply left—and that’s been true for the last hundred years,” Lewis Lapham told me over a decent sauterne at Five Points. (He more often sups at Elaine’s, but I don’t rate that.) Lapham of Harper’s magazine is the only editor in the hemisphere with hard knowledge of the petroleum market, insight he inherited legitimately: His family helped found Mobil Oil, the back half of what is now Exxon Mobil.<br><br>He asked, “Why in the world would oil companies, or any company, announce that there’s lots of its product out there? You’d bust your own market. It’s better to say the cupboard’s bare.” As Lapham noted, we have been “running out of oil” since the days we drained it from whales. OPEC’s big headache before the war shut down Iraq’s fields was that there was way too much oil. We were swimming in it and oil prices stayed low. The last thing oil companies want is more oil from Iraq, any more than soybean farmers want more soybeans from Iraq. Increasing supply means decreasing price.<br><br>This war is about the oil, but what about the oil? The Hubbert Peaksters think they know. They are convinced that Dick Cheney in his bunker is panicked that the world’s supply of oil is about to run out, and so to Iraq we go, to seize the last of it. Here’s the flaw in that argument: To believe that George Bush and Dick Cheney hustled us into Iraq to open up that nation’s untapped bounty of petroleum is to believe that these two oil Texans in the White House are deeply troubled that the price of oil will rise unless they get us more crude.<br><br>But Dick and George get a rise out of the rise.<br><br>Have we peaked? The planet is producing today twice as much as the maximum predicted in 1956 by the “Peaking Man.” But the political uses of holy-shit-we’re-running-out-of-oil! has yet to peak. Indeed, Bush and Cheney are more than happy to allow others to promote Hubbert Peak hysteria in the public. “We need Iraq’s oil” is used as a good bogeyman to get the public behind an invasion that promises to get Americans a fill-up for the family gas guzzler for less than a hundred dollars. Anti-war progressives seized on the Hubbert humbug as proof that Bush’s invasion was a war of “Blood for Oil.” Nuns, professors and rock stars were outraged. But the average American thinks, Blood for oil? That’s a BARGAIN. (DE again--Have you seen the signs "Kick their ass and take their gas"?)<br><br>The Shell Game<br><br>Hubbert’s predictions may have been astonishingly wrong but his little forty-page research report is, nevertheless, astonishingly important in understanding the mindset of Big Oil.<br><br>Almost everything you need to know about Hubbert and the agenda behind his crucial 1956 study is contained on its cover page. The oil doomsday pronouncement is “Publication No. 95, Shell Development Company, Houston, Texas.” Hubbert was the chief Consultant on general geology for Shell Oil and his “end of oil” paper was presented to the Texas meeting of the American Petroleum Institute. All else flows there from.<br><br>Every once in a while the landlords of the planet have to remind us to be grateful for their services. In 1956 it was Shell Oil’s turn and Hubbert was their man for the job. It was not a happy time for the oilmen of Texas. Shell and the other Seven Sisters, as Big Oil was then known, faced a heck of a problem: crude was cheaper than dirt—$2.77 a barrel, that is, a nickel a gallon—and sinking. Worse, they were finding more of the stuff all over the planet, meaning prices would fall further. In March of that year, Hubbert presented the solution to his fellow oilmen at the API in Houston. He unveiled this magical chart, which you can view here in its original form as a public service.<br><br>The total sum of oil is 1,250 billion barrels—which runs out in 2006. This chart assumed a low annual burn of oil.<br><br>Look closely. When Hubbert spoke, oil reserves worldwide were zooming heavenward. Despite the tide of petroleum rising around us, Hubbert declared that oil discoveries in the USA had begun to peak “as recently as 1951 or 1952” and that the world’s reserves would follow not long thereafter. He didn’t need to wink. His oil industry audience understood what oil giant Shell wanted America to believe: Oil isn’t abundant, it’s a scarce commodity and therefore…<br><br> 1. It’s too cheap—so oil companies should, for the public’s own good, raise the price to conserve this precious resource.<br><br> 2. We need to find an abundant alternative to fossil fuel.<br><br> 3. We need to protect our access to dwindling sources of crude, by force if necessary.<br><br>Shell Oil, through Hubbert, sought, successfully, to change the way America thought of oil’s price, alternatives to oil and access to oil.<br><br>PRICE: The problem of falling oil prices was solved for Shell, brilliantly, in four years, in 1960, by the creation of OPEC. On paper, OPEC was created by national governments. If oil companies had created this cartel to fix prices, that would have made it a criminal conspiracy—cartels are illegal. But when governments conspire for the same purpose, the illegal conspiracy turns into a legitimate “alliance” of sovereign states. OPEC’s government cover makes the price-fixing perfectly legal, and Big Oil reaps the rewards.<br><br>ALTERNATIVES: As to replacing fossil fuels, Hubbert had the answer:<br>Limitless nuclear power. His 1956 paper is not called “Peak Oil.” Its title is “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels.” His let’s-go-nuclear chart, call it “Hubbert’s Plateau,” is usually ignored. You can view it <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.gregpalast.com/armedmadhouse/art/plat.jpg[/img">here</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Note that Hubbert envisions a high, flat plateau of nuclear energy outstripping fossil fuels by the twenty-first century, providing us a comfy, electric economy for five thousand years. Hubbert’s Uranium Reich was longer than anything the Führer could have imagined. Who would supply all this nuclear fuel? Lucky for us that Hubbert’s company, R<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>oyal Dutch Shell, was about to announce the formation of its new mega-venture, “URENCO,” a uranium enrichment consortium.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>ACCESS: Protecting our access to petroleum, a “peaking” resource, was Shell Oil’s urgent message. Hubbert’s paper was published in June 1956, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>not long after the CIA overthrew Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh for having nationalized Shell’s and BP’s assets. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> (DE--This is an OLD game)The paper was released just one month before Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s President, seized the Suez Canal, the oil tanker passageway, and just months before a British-French-Israeli invasion force took it back. Hubbert’s Peak thinking helped provide a justification for war over this “strategic resource.”<br><br>Have we peaked? Worldwide oil reserves continue to rise even faster than America and China can burn it. Since 1980, reserves, despite our binge-guzzling, have risen from 648 billion to 1.2 trillion barrels. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Yet, weirdly, despite the rising flood of discovered crude, its price quadrupled between 2001 and 2005.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Supply choked, yet there’s no peak in sight. Behind this slow in the flow of crude:<br><br> His bit of bother in OPEC’s second-largest reserve (Iraq)<br><br> Putin’s cutting off financing to, then his seizing of, Russian producer Yukos Oil, reducing its output<br><br>Hubbert’s Plateau<br><br> U.S.-promoted sabotage of oil piping, loading and refining systems in Venezuela; and, not least of all,<br><br> the Saudis sitting on their spigots.<br><br>The oil squeeze tightened after the Bush Administration, beginning with the energy bill of 2001, abandoned conservation and encouraged a monstrous jump of two million barrels a day in U.S. oil consumption.<br><br>So please don’t slander Mother Earth and say she’s run out of oil when it’s man-made mischief to blame. Evil, not geology, has a chokehold on energy; nature is ready to give us crude at $12 a barrel where it was just a few short years ago.<br><br>On June 6, Penguin Dutton will publish GNN contributor Greg Palast’s new book, Armed Madhouse: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Class War. Order it today – and view his investigative reports for Harper’s Magazine and BBC television’s Newsnight – www.GregPalast.com. QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2295/No_Peaking_The_Hubbert_Humbug">www.gnn.tv/articles/2295/No_Peaking_The_Hubbert_Humbug</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>And now, a gratuitous picture of Farrah Fawcett. Ask not for whom she smiles...she lived in MY bedroom for quite awhile. She clearly smiles for me.<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://adorocinema.cidadeinternet.com.br/personalidades/atores/farrah-fawcett/farrah-fawcett02.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>And here's a picture of Hubbert. <br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/images/MKingHubbert.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>Now, you tell ME who you're going to believe. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: math?

Postby FourthBase » Thu Sep 07, 2006 10:08 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Now, you tell ME who you're going to believe.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :rollin --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Rigorous?

Postby 5E6A » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:20 am

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Yeah, a graph proves everything.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Well the interesting thing is that it is not just a graph. But you seem much more interested in insults than actual discourse, so what is the point of trying to exchange information? You would rather remain steadfast in your dogma than actually learn something. Very rigorous.<br><br>Here's the point: the math behind those graphs is based on pre-peak observations. What is proof in the pudding, is that despite being based on pre-peak information as the data continues to come out, as evidenced by countries that have peaked, it follows what the graph predicted. Get it yet? The math hypothesised, the data confirms.<br><br>Now, what about technology? It would seem to be a sound statement to make that the technology available today is an order of magnitude or even three greater than what was available to Hubbert. Agreed? So yes it would seem to be a grounded statement that technology should have a great impact on the ability of petroleum geologists to find more and more of the stuff each year. Agreed? The exact opposite has occurred. Globally the number of barrels found each years has declined steadily since the late sixties. Each year, despite ever better technology to reveal oil and ever greater expenditures in pursuit of new finds, <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php">the number of barrels found is less than the previous</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Seriously, do you guys have Hubbert posters hanging in your bedrooms. Maybe next to Farrah Fawcett, who, if I recall, was THE beaty queen when Hubbert actually did these studies.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Hubbert first made his theory public in the mid fifties, twenty years before the United States peaked in oil production. His hypothesis, from a graph, was that it would do so in the erly 1970's. Guess what? Despite being ridiculed by industry and scholar alike, the data followed his theory in form of graph without deviation. As for how I decorate my house, no I have an array of art and photography, much of it produced by colleagues or myself. No pinups, it would be an affront to both my partner and adult guests alike.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Anyway, since he's both researched it more and a better writer, here's Greg Palast again.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>How do you know? Have you actually taken the time to fact check this article? I have a master's degree in information science, that's where you are taught how to not only organise information but also how to conduct research and use rigorous methodologies to verify the veracity of information, and have been using that education for the past six years to research and verify the reality of peak oil. I read Mr. Palast's article when it came out, and was struck by the inaccuracies in it. For instance:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>In his 1956 paper, Hubbert wrote:<br><br>On the basis of the present estimates of the ultimate reserves of world petroleum and natural gas, it appears that the culmination of world production of these products should occur within a half a century [i.e., by 2006].<br><br>So get in your Hummer and take your last drive, Clive. Sometime during 2006, we will have used up every last drop of crude oil on the planet.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>No, culminate means firstly: <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>a. To reach the highest point or degree; climax</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. This means a peak in production, after which it will decline. Palast is playing very loose with words very early in the article. In rigorous analysis of information sources, this does not bode well for the verisimilitude of the source.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"Oil production has risen year after year after year and discoveries have more than kept pace."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Yes oil production has risen year after year, however, in recent years the rate at which oil production increased has slowed and is now stagnant. In addition, discoveries have not kept pace with consumption. <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.sustainability.murdoch.edu.au/publications/oilfleay/04discoverandprodn.html">"Production in 1997 was 26 billion barrels and increasing while new discovery was 6 billion barrels and decreasing..."</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"Worldwide oil reserves continue to rise even faster than America and China can burn it."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Outright falsehood. We currently burn six times as much oil in one year than is added through new discoveries.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Since 1980, reserves, despite our binge-guzzling, have risen from 648 billion to 1.2 trillion barrels.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Again Palast plays loose with language and is not forthcoming with the actual data behind the numbers. Reserves are proven resources that have been statistically measured with test wells, production wells and data analysis. What went from 648 billion to 1.2 trillion was URR (Ultimately recoverable resource), which is <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9009529&contentId=7017933">"an estimate of the total amount of oil that will ever be recovered and produced. It is a subjective estimate in the face of only partial information."</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> Now for how it doubled. In the early 1980's, OPEC revised the bylaws governing production quotas. The new regulation set production as a function of stated reserves. Without any increase in discovery operations, and absent any indication from concurrent research, OPEC nations doubled their claims of oil in situ. Kuwait, in January of this year, was the first OPEC country to actually <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL20548125&imageid=?=&from=business">publicly admit that they only had 48 billion not 99 billion barrels of oil reserves</a><!--EZCODE LINK END-->. <br><br>So, if you would still like to believe Palast, go ahead. As an Information professional, I would council anyone who sought to use anything in his article against doing so on the grounds that it is so factually flawed that to cite the source would invite invalidating any claims put forth by the citer. This is what happens when one has a dogmatic viewpoint and is unwilling to actually fact check: misinformation is passed off as sound evidence. Whatever Mr. Palast's motive and the operative intent of his editor were, factual representation of reality were amiss. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Rigorous?

Postby Dreams End » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:09 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Here's the point: the math behind those graphs is based on pre-peak observations. What is proof in the pudding, is that despite being based on pre-peak information as the data continues to come out, as evidenced by countries that have peaked, it follows what the graph predicted. Get it yet? The math hypothesised, the data confirms.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Hubbert's paper is EXACTLY what palast said it was. I read it...did you? Here's a link to the pdf. The title, indeed, does say it all.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf">www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Very little data. Lots of assumptions. All the predictions are wrong, wrong, wrong. <br><br>Farrah doesn't lie. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Rigorous?

Postby 5E6A » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:40 pm

Perfect. I meticulously lay out all of the points where Palast is incorrect, and you come back, not with acceptance of the facts, but with another haughty retort about how Palast supposedly does not misrepresent. Since it takes two to tango, I shall rebut in like manner.<br><br>What a smug piece of benighted myopia you are DE. Did you look at figure 20, page 32, of the report? What does it show? A <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>global peak</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> just after 2000 with a decline in production taking until after 2150. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>2150</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->. Does that sound like the last drop in 2006? Palast is lying through his teeth. And you sir are, at best, inordinately stubborn about the facts.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Rigorous?

Postby FourthBase » Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:14 pm

Would it require waiting until the last drop for a Peak Oil crisis to ensue? <p></p><i></i>
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start date for the crises

Postby 5E6A » Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:46 pm

Peak now, peak X years hence, the crises is already about us. Peak oil, much like other resource depletion, desertification and soil degradation due to agriculture, decline of water purity and other ills facing us are all symptoms. The disease is mankind's inability to live within the limits present in the host. It is indeed a daunting and painful process to accept that we may not be able to continue the techno-orgy indefinitely. Ultimately what is sustainable is shaping up to look much more like pre than post-industrial in makeup. I suspect this possibility is what fuels many a persons desire to take on the roll of victim and lash out at the evidence that it is not possible for a multitude of companies and nationalised industry to across boundaries of time, geography, ethnicity, religion, political and economic structures manipulate a energy source in absolute lock step. This just does no happen.<br><br>What does happen, is that humans make errors. Errors that overestimated the longevity of a resource. What does happen, on a speck of dust floating in a vast emptiness that is a closed system, is that resources are finite. Finite even if oil happens to turn out to be abiotic. Even abiotic oil would have to be comprised of a finite number of molecules of component elements.<br><br>What is required is the realisation that playing the victim card is not going to get anyone anywhere. It may be partly the fault of the agendists that the dominate paradigm is one of consumption, that does not necessitate any of us partaking of the kool aid. Little of what mankind does takes into account a very fundamental concept that will have to be reckoned with if mankind is to emerge out the other side of this century: <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>just because we can, should we</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->?<br><br>The needs of the individual are very small and simple: clean food/water/air, shelter from the elements and community. Out present mode of society has far perverted and distorted the threshold for meeting those needs. Why? Because it does not turn a profit. The agendists have inculcated through education and media control, addicted through shiny widget consumerism and enslaved through the playing of base desire inherent in mankind. Now is the time to put an end to that. Now is the time to seek to preserve knowledge through the use of wisdom.<br><br>While the pursuit of industrial expansion through science has deepened mankind's understanding of existence, neither past nor further insights will help mankind live a fulfilled life. That has been in front of us all along. We, however to a fault, are easily distracted. And that, time and time again, has allowed the agendists to play us against each-other for their and only their advantage. We now have a chance to reverse all of that.<br><br>It does not take a giant research and development budget to calculate the median number of calories, calories being the net sum of inputs to support the industrial daily lifestyle as currently enjoyed by fossil fuel enamored society, and then compare that to the potential for solar, wind, hydro, bio and nuclear etc. production. They don't add up. No combination of non-petroleum fired energy creators, and here the distinction is difficult because much if not all of the alternative sources are dependent upon petroleum inputs for their manufacture, will replace a majority of the daily consumption of finite resources. The only rational choice at this point, is deconsumption. Through deconsumption, you also remove the ability of the agendists to further finance their domination. The choice is ours. We can continue to hide behind comforting dogma in the form of victim, or we can utilise the very Achilles heel of the agendists against them to reshape society into a sustainable and peaceable existence. Again what do you want to do with the opportunity afforded in the calamity? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Rigorous?

Postby bvonahsen » Thu Sep 07, 2006 2:15 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Have you ever read "The Bell Curve"? In that book, the author proved that black people did not succeed as well as white people because they have lower IQ's. He had lots of graphs and all kinds of data. So let's just repeal that silly emancipation thingamabob.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>I said: "True, assumptions matter. If you do the hard work first and carefully sift through your data and make sure your assumptions have as few errors as possible, then you will get good results." Charles Murray started with racist assumptions, it's hardly surprizing that's where he ended as well. Did you even read what I said Did you even think about it? Or were you just looking to get your next dig in? <br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Anyway, since he's both researched it more and a better writer, here's Greg Palast again.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>That he reasearched the topic and is a better writer doesn't make a word he says true. Seeing how he plays games with words in the article you quote makes me think I may have to re-evaluate my opinion of Greg. Playing semantic games to make your point is a very bad sign. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>What if everything you thought you knew about Peak Oil was wrong?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br>There is a better question that we should all ask yourselves: "How do I know?" How do we know what goes on in the interior on the sun? How is that possible, because we certainly do know, and if it is true that we can know such things then maybe the same approach would be usefull in other areas of life, like "How much oil is there really?" Otherwise, you are just being frivolous.<br><br>To give Greg Palast some credit, I think he is right that the oil companies have been attempting to artificially raise prices. At the same time they have effectivly sequestered Iraq's oil for a future time when prices will be very high indeed. If that is his central thesis it really isn't in conflict with peak oil. The two are not mutually exclusive. <p></p><i></i>
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