David McGowan: Oh Mikey, You Gotta Lotta Splainin' to Do!

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Re: pong...

Postby 5E6A » Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:51 pm

And as for KSA, they are drilling like bandits to keep up with decline, so their ability to actually double their output is dubious...<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/13/232547/321">www.theoildrum.com/story/...232547/321</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby stickdog99 » Wed Aug 16, 2006 7:16 pm

Well, you peak oil guys have convinced me.<br><br>No wonder gas prices are so high! Now you have to excuse me because I have to take my SUV down to Whole Foods to get some organic butter. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby 5E6A » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:52 pm

Ya know sitckdog, I was not trying to convince you of anything. My posts were merely fodder for consideration. But that's ok, everyone knows that sarcasm is a much better vehicle for dialogue than reasoned critical thought.... <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=5e6a>5E6A</A> at: 8/16/06 6:53 pm<br></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby wintler » Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:27 pm

The focus on Simmons smells exactly like the focus on Ruppert - 'look, heres an easy to discredit individual saying something we don't want to hear'. Never mind the dozens of scientists in ASPO peakoil.net, the independant depletionists Richard Duncan, Samsam Bhaktiari, Les Magoon, ODAC, and Walter Youngquist (to pick a few), the permaculturists who started warning of PO thirty years ago, or the thousands of very engaged and alert 'ordinary people' (from all walks, all nations) on lists like energyresources@yahoo and sites like theoildrum.com and peakoil.com . Is oil peaking? What do you think? <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/3/31559/92662">www.theoildrum.com/story/...1559/92662</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> (Read the comments if interested in a board where nobody abuses or accuses other posters, thanks to a cooperative culture rather than iron-clad moderators or COC.) <br><br>Some days, particularly when reading ill-informed scepticism, I think Jay Hanson was right in arguing we are actually incapable of collectively accepting, understanding or usefully grappling with this problem. Some people have and are trying, but most are still and will probably remain in thrall to many fairy tales we degrade ourselves with: we'll think of something; official sources can't be wrong; the aliens/jesus/Ralph Nader will save us; people can do anything; the oil co's have secret patents; its all a conspiracy (yep, everything). My current pessimism is DE's cue to again reverse engineer the international conspiracy case, starting from my state of mind .. whatever (no acrimony, merely weary). <p></p><i></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby Dreams End » Wed Aug 16, 2006 11:35 pm

I just did the google search and all these articles came up and all of them were related to Simmons' book. <br><br>And since his website brags of how they are particularly positioned with close relationships to big oil, I assume, then, that big oil doesn't have a problem with all the publicity he's getting saying that peak is coming. <br><br>This matters to me, if not to anyone else. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby 5E6A » Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:04 am

"...all these articles came up and all of them were related to Simmons' book. "<br><br>For my own parsing of what the import of this is, could you be more specific about which articles came up as being related to Simmons, how they relate to him and how their content is to be construed with respect to your evaluation of him and their relation to him? <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=5e6a>5E6A</A> at: 8/16/06 11:08 pm<br></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby wintler » Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:51 am

I don't doubt that DE, Simmons is a very credible figure for western audiences (he's rich), and he has prob got as much coverage as all the rest put together, but that is an artifact of our media, not of his importance. Are Alex Jones or M.Ruppert entirely credible spokespeople for the issues tagged conspiracy theories? No (in my opinion obviously). But does that mean there are no conspiracies? No way. It is always worth scrutinising your sources, but when there are many sources on a complex issue, discrediting a few popularisers does not discredit the issue. <br><br>For the n'th time, how is this supposed PO scam supposed to work? Yes oil co's make more $ with war and higher prices, but how are they hiding the billions of barrels that the USGS says are still out there but noone can seem to find? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby Dreams End » Thu Aug 17, 2006 2:08 am

I don't know much about "finding" oil. Simmons said that data from SA, for example, is hard to come by. I don't imagine geologists are allowed to go traipsing around whatever oil producing country they want looking for oil. <br><br>But my point was simply this: peak oil is not self evident. People can disagree about it, but when the data is contradictory and the most easily googled "spokespeople" are the folks we've been discussing, it's quite natural that some might reject the concept.<br><br>That's why I brought a lot of that stuff up, in reply to the poster who was going on about how sad it is that intelligent people can disbelieve peak oil.<br><br>But Simmons is the one getting the message to the mainstream...so like him or not, you'll have to deal with him. Meanwhile, yes, I think that engineered scarcity is quite possible...in fact, since many mainstream scientists aren't buying peak oil, there's really not even much to "hide". Many geologists evidently aren't that concerned so no need to cook the books about what's going on now. Just float a bunch of info about what is going to happen in the future, then let the speculators do the rest.<br><br>I don't see why this idea is so hard to believe. It's like assuming that Enron was about "peak electrons". <p></p><i></i>
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Re: pong...

Postby wintler » Thu Aug 17, 2006 9:45 pm

Its hard to believe because oil is owned largely by nations (not big business) from which it must be extracted before being sold on international markets, which is very different to a manufactured product (electricity) being sold into a near monopoly market in one US state. One v.large corporation vs. one white-anted State government is gouging heaven, hundreds of corporations trading internationally is as near to a perfect market as we're ever going to see (if still operating on imperfect information). <br><br>People have tried to corner international commodity markets to ramp up price before (for silver most memorably) and have nearly always failed, because somewhere in the world there is always a bigger gorilla who doesn't like have its wallet lifted. You think GM is happy to see most of its new 6-8cyl cars rusting on the lot, or the US Air Force is glad to cut back training cos they can't afford the fuel? Who exactly is supporting this PO scam? Big western oil co's, i can believe; who else?<br><br>OPEC and the Texas Railroad Commision USED to have swing-producer power to pressure oil price - but where are they now? US-48 peaked in 1971, puff went the TRC's spare capacity and thus price setting power, they stopped setting production quota's and defacto price, now people go "who?" when in 1969 they were the centre of the economic universe. OPEC effectively stopped setting quota's last year, why would they do that? Because they're pumping as hard and fast as they can. Reports are the KSA has over a hundred drilling rigs going over its oil fields where two years ago they had thirty. No spare capacity, no control on price, rock- meet hard place. <p></p><i></i>
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