Did anyone see Matt Simmons on CSPAN2 talking about peak oil and

[Gin]

how low the reserves all around the world are? He is an analyst who speaks to all the oil producing companies. He was sounding the alarm bells big time.

He thinks it's time to pull out plan B...if we even have one!

[Gregorian]

1. I'd sure like to know more about what he said.

The sad part is that there are so many uses for oil besides BURNING it. We jump in cars at the slightest whim.
People aren't usually honest unless it's positive. But I'll be honest that like 9/11, I am looking forward to another big disaster that might awaken the human race. I've been patiently watching, and waiting. And I'm extremely discouraged by the refusal to change our ways. I've changed mine. I'm doing my part. I am not righteous about it. I just feel I should have as small a footprint as possible, so those who follow in mine, will have as much of a humane experience as I've had. But for the most part, unless we literally melt the ice caps, or run out of oil, people aren't going to change. I would even go so far as to say that terrorism could be won by simply changing our lifestyles. Not running around with bombs and handcuffs.

[Jerseygirltoo]

2. Situation of Saudi Arabia

No, but I saw a great panel discussion on CSPAN2 last night called the Situation in Saudi Arabia. Very deep analysis by some knowledgable people. If they repeat it, I highly recommend it. Consensus seems to be that the royal family there is very shaky, their control over the country could collapse soon.

[Wwagsthedog]

3. Useful Links

http://www.peakoil.net/

http://peakoil.blogspot.com/

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html

http://www.financialsense.com/energy/main.htm

Lots of information out there that is being ignored by the general population.

[Gin]

5. I think the topic for the panel was "The fall of the Saudi Royal Family"

google Simmon's name and his info is there....he said China and India are equaling our usage and we better let them know that it's not gonna last long...or we will have some mighty angry neighbors.

[Mari333]

4. Just go into any store.

Everything is made from polyurethane..everything. No 2 plastic fills the shelves. Where are the cornstarch bags? where is the hemp being produced in this country? why do we allow the oil companies to dictate what everything is packaged in?
So much denial..and it will be to our downfall. No long term strategies, no long term anything..just shortterm profits for a few mindless greedy CEOs and the politicians they own.
Live simply. Survive. Thats all I can say.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. Links to Simmons' interviews on peak oil and gas.

Page down and you'll see the links underneath the ad for the CD and book. They're in MP3 format or you can view transcripts as well.

www.globalpublicmedia.com/INTERVIEWS/MATT.SIMMONS/


Q1: I'd like to ask you about why you have more concerns than some people about the state of the global gas supply, not just the North American natural gas supply.

There are a litany of reasons. Start with the fact that every serious long-term-energy forecast comes to the same conclusion, that natural gas needs to grow twice as fast as oil, because the whole world has finally realized that natural gas is the world's single-best source of energy; it's the most efficient, it has the least yield loss as you convert it from dry gas into usable energy; light a match and you got energy. It's the cleanest, and we now know how to transport it, either by pipeline or through cryogenic liquefaction, so you can actually get it anyplace. So the numbers on the projected demand are just absolutely enormous. What we don't have much data on is on the supply side, because the amount of analysis and data on the supply side for gas pales in comparison to what we have in oil, which isn't very good.

What worries me is that we are making the assumption in all of the proved reserves that are being batted around that that gas is actually proven-gas reserves, and a vast, vast amount of it has never seen a drill bit. In other words, they're just assumptions that those reserves are there. And the reason that there hasn't been any drilling is there has never been a transportation system, and when something is un-commercial, it doesn't tend to lend itself to people spending a lot of money to find out just how real it was, so that's my second concern, is that we might find that this vast amount of stranded gas was just an illusion.

The third reason I’m worried is that you can basically go down a list of key-gas producers by country and see very clearly that quite a few of the key-gas producer’s current supply is in decline: the United States, Canada, the U.K., Netherlands, Indonesia, Russia. Now that doesn’t mean in all those countries it will always be in decline, but it means categorically that what is now being produced is in decline. I've just rattled off 65% of the world's gas supply that is now in decline, so if you got a top line that needs to grow by even 20%, and a bottom line where 65% is in decline, and you're not even quite sure of the rate at which the decline is accelerating, and natural gas tends to always decline far faster than oil, because the heavier the oil is, the harder it is too have any fast decline, and gas is a vapor (it can decline real fast), so you add all those things up and say that we need an infinitely greater amount of data on our global-gas situation, because we didn’t see peaking in the United States in gas until 3 decades after the event happened.

MATT SIMMONS Interviewed by Julian Darley on May 19, 2004

[Peak_Oil]

7. Is this the end of things?

I've never felt this way before. I'm going to stop reading the news soon because I can't take it anymore. It's too depressing and there's nothing I can do about it anyway.

My mom's 72 and can't handle a shift to planting carrots now. She'd keel over in a minute.

Between Peak Oil and our military going completely nuts overseas imprisoning children... what the fuck is going on? I feel like we're minutes away from Armageddon.

Even if none of that were happening, our administration is selling all our good jobs to India, China, Vietnam, Ireland... it just goes on and on. We have 1.5 million out-of-work tech workers, and 1.5 million H1B visa tech workers here in the states! WTF???? Add it all up and the life we knew a little while ago is gone, and we'll have no way to make education valuable again here.

One of my friends is setting up a business importing nurses from the Philipines.

It's the only way left for him to make the bling we're used to making.

Both of my buddies who were making 120K+ are down to 35K cause nobody's buying anymore.