Experts: Petroleum May Be Nearing a Peak (AP)

[Newsjock]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/05/28/financial/f111631D60.DTL&sn=010&sc=540

By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer
Saturday, May 28, 2005

Could the petroleum joyride — cheap, abundant oil that has sent the global economy whizzing along with the pedal to the metal and the AC blasting for decades — be coming to an end?

Some observers of the oil industry think so. They predict that this year, maybe next — almost certainly by the end of the decade — the world's oil production, having grown exuberantly for more than a century, will peak and begin to decline.

And then it really will be all downhill. The price of oil will increase drastically. Major oil-consuming countries will experience crippling inflation, unemployment and economic instability. Princeton University geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes predicts "a permanent state of oil shortage."

According to these experts, it will take a decade or more before conservation measures and new technologies can bridge the gap between supply and demand, and even then the situation will be touch and go.

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[merwin]

1. It's funny. This is something that's been predicted for the last couple

decades at least... and they're just NOW reporting on it, because it is hitting their pocketbooks finally. More proof that nobody cares until it affects them personally.

[heidler1]

5. IMO we behave vary simlar to lemmings, but a few of us see the cliff and

react before the fall.

[Roland99]

2. Or, is this a setup to get us accustomed to paying much higher gas prices?

Get us used to paying about $3-4/gallon and then, in about 10-20 years go, "Oh, wait. We were wrong. We have PLENTY of oil left"

[Warren Stupidity]

4. we will only have plenty of oil left

if China and India disappear. Otherwise we have a permanent shortage of fossil fuels.

[Deja Q]

9. And the European Union too...

[heidler1]

7. Oil wells are not like water wells. Water wells have rain for

inflow to replenish. Every oil producing country is greedily going full blast to take advantage of the high price of crude. Of course they tell ius they are doing it to keep the price down. Like the Saudi
leaders are doing it for Bush to keep the price down. LOL

[Warren Stupidity]

3. It ain't 'nearing a peak'

the author is confused regarding the rear view mirror and the windshield. We are moving away from the peak of cheap oil production.

Time will tell, but in all liklihood the gobal cheap oil production peak happened sometime in 2004-5. 9/11 and the second Iraqi War are the historical markers for the Oil Wars and the subsequent great economic dislocations that will come to define the beginning of the 21st century.

[heidler1]

10. How can people believe the Iraq War is not an oil war?

Sure it was poorly thought out concidering the facts. It would have been cheaper to keep on buying the oil from Saddam than invading Iraq. It would have been better to remove the "Oil for food" restrictions and let the Iraqi's go full bore. The net export of oil from Iraq is down since the war because of the insurgents. This would have been a big worry to the Kuwait leaders and the Saudi leaders and they would have been more inclined to protect the US economy, now with Saddam locked up they don't have a worry except from their own people.

[GettysbergII]

15. Hence pushing through the Real ID act and now trying to beef up the

Patriot Act. Once the economy goes into the toilet and all the bankrupt Americans become essencially debt slaves while one corporation after another is allowed to abrogate any pension or other fiscal obligation to the working class, the elite's goon squads can swoop down on anybody that complains as terrorists and disappear them into privatized prisons that ca-ching, ca-ching, add 30,000 a year per prisoner to the prison industrial complex larders, and then hold democratic elections and continue cranking out whatever vote count they want out of their magic paperless machines.

[Al-CIAda]

16. We have a winner. n/t

[stubtoe]

6. Link and more information here about Peak Oil

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/content/peak_oil

[dissent1977]

8. About time the corporate media acknowledged this

Scientists have been studying peak oil literally for decades, and the media have failed to educate the people about this extremely crucial issue. When the problems associated with a decline in oil production start to set in it will be the corporate media and the American government that bends over for the oil companies that will be to blame for the collapse.

[Deja Q]

11. Excellent post.

BTW, welcome to DU! :party: :bounce:

ANd our government sholdn't be bending over. The oil companies are filthy rich. It's time for them to put back into the system what they've taken out.

[aquart]

12. Oh gosh golly.

And not one thing done by this administration to help.

How much oil does a war need?

[Domitan]

13. I had a dream about this last night

On the front page of a major newspaper (e.g., New York Times, Toronto Star, et al) was a huge splash about Peak Oil with all the graphs and diagrams as well as headlines and excerpts...basically explaining to us that Peak Oil has arrived and what we citizens will have to expect and brace for in the days ahead.

[deacon2]

14. I predict

the western industrialized nations will be "Saudimized" enmasse in the very near future. They will claim "peak oil" as the reason they can't use any grease. But with Bushie at the helm of the S.S. Condoleeza Rice, the actual reasons are already abundantly clear.
How's that for a "graphic"?

[Deja Q]

17. Thank GOD. If there was no to-be shortage,

corporations would be able to continue their offshoring and urinating on THEIR FELLOW MAN in the name of PERSONAL $ELFISH GREED.

For once we're all stuck in the same boat and, ultimately, their greenbacks can't save them.

Fucking money anyway. God didn't invent the shit. Satan told man to do it.