Brent Musberger & T. Boone Pickens Talk Peak Oil During OSU-Kansas Game

[hatrack]

:wtf:

During the prime-time (seen be a large audience across the USA) college football game between Oklahoma State University and Kansas University, ABC kept showing the new Oklahoma State football stadium that Pickens is funding. So after halftime when Brent Musberger said that he would be interviewing Pickens, I assumed it would be a discussion only about the stadium.

Then, early on in the conversation, Musberger mentions that he's read Pickens' books, and that Pickens had correctly foreseen $60, $80, $100 per barrel oil. Then out of the blue Musberger says, "I have to ask you, Boone, are we at peak oil?" Pickens says, "You mean globally? Yes, I think we are." Pickens goes on to talk about world production topping out at around 85 mbpd. With demand at 87 or 88 mbpd, he explained,we will have to see some demand destruction. Mind you, this discussion happened with the football game still continuing. It was very surreal to hear a peak oil discussion intermixed with football play-by-play.

Then Musberger when on to ask Pickens about water in Texas, and Pickens went on to talk about his project to pipe water from the Texas panhandle to Texas' metro areas.

This whole discussion went on for quite a while, and at one point Musberger paused and jokingly said, "I just want to remind our viewers that I do realize there's a football game still taking place".

Wish I had recorded the game so I could watch the whole discussion again. Wild!

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3225#more - (About four-fifths of the way down the page.)

Wild.

[Tess49]

1. I saw this, too. I was a bit surprised by it myself. n/t

[tridim]

2. It was truly bizarre

An oil man saying we're at peak oil? Isn't that big news?

As an aside, GO KU! I still can't believe how good they got in just a few years. They've sucked my entire life, we always had to say, "Yea, just wait until basketball season starts".

[bananas]

4. He said it a while back.

He's building wind farms in Texas now.

[IrateCitizen]

3. That's surreal...

Is it a sign of the society we live in that one has to get such news during a sports broadcast? Meanwhile, nary a word of this on the major network news programs.... :shrug:

[robertpaulsen]

5. You said it.

:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf:

Congratulations Musberger, for having the courage to talk about what network news avoids!

[IDemo]

6. Not such an unlikely venue for the discussion

I'd say that football and other large stadium events will become some of the first victims of a severe oil crunch. The fuel consumed to get 30 to 80 thousand fans to and from the game will simply become too precious to burn for entertainment's sake.

[Vogon_Glory]

7. Don't Bet on That. Fewer Tailgate Parties, More Transit.

I wouldn't bet on that. A severe fuel crunch is likely to clear out a lot of space for fans' individual parties and drastically lower the number of tailgate parties, but I suspect that shuttlebuses will pick up the slack in most parts of the country and rail transit will carry fans to the stadiums in other parts.

[IDemo]

8. Shuttlebuses to begin with, sure,

But perhaps our definitions of "severe" are on different scales. I'm not talking about a politically driven event such as the 70's gas "crisis", but of the real decline of global oil exports. I doubt that the gas rationing and travel restriction measures we will be seeing in a few years will be amenable towards events such as college and pro football games.