Oil, Smoke & Mirrors - Documentary

[McKenzie]

Starts with Peak Oil but then gets into 9/11 around 19minutes and 30 seconds. Features Michael Meacher MP, Andreas von Buelow (spelling?), Richard Heinberg and others. Places 9/11 within a geopolitical context. 50 minutes long.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8677389869548020370&q=oil+smoke+mirrors

[spillthebeans]

1. A little bit of too much smoke

I don't understand why they endorse the peak oil myth.
People like Tarpley know it's a myth, he is in the movie, but isn't asked about it.

It's bad journalism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8TDhpYBu0o (just ignore the sandwich lady)

[AZCat]

2. Peak oil myth?

What exactly is mythical about Peak Oil?

[spillthebeans]

3. It was invented by Royal Dutch Shell

[AZCat]

6. You do realize...

that peak oil is a natural consequence of the market?

[spillthebeans]

10. You mean a finite resource?

If it's fossil it will, the question is why are private refineries bought off and shut down, why are new found fields not explored.

But the market works also with supply and demand, keeping supply low increases the price. And that is what the documents obtained by Palast support

[AZCat]

11. You're talking about market manipulation.

I would not be surprised if that occurs, but that does not change the inevitability of scarcity (which is what peak oil is all about).

[spillthebeans]

12. The problem is that it has been a written policy,

and everything what has been done is to minimize the flow of oil. Keep it in the ground etc.
and new large fields are left untouched. There a lot of people who worked on the inside and published books on the subject.

And with the Greg Palast there are even official documents that prove that peak oil
has been written up by the companies and is not a result of honest research.



People have to understand the marriage between dollar/oil and what it really means...

[AZCat]

13. It is a long and storied marriage.

OPEC, for example, quite openly regulates the supply of oil in order to maximize profits. The so-called energy shortage of the winter of 2000/2001 and the corresponding "largesse" to a certain "energy services" company has also been discussed ad-infinitum here at DU.

However, I am concerned about one thing in particular - that the shenanigans of the oil companies don't interfere with the urgency of conservation. Too many people (IMO) embrace conservation and efficiency because of the mistaken belief that a true oil shortage (as opposed to induced shortages) is impending. rather than supporting them because of other reasons (CO2 production, for example).

[rman]

26. answers:

with cheap (sweet crude) oil running out, less attractive sources of heavy crude, tar-sand and oil shale are being exploited. Those require different (more expensive) refinery technology.

Can you tell me which new found fields are not explored, how much and what type of oil they contain?

"keeping supply low increases the price" does not exclude peak oil - what would you do if you were an oil company and you know oil is starting to run out? price will rise anyway if natural supply falls short of demand, and you might actually want to start conserving what's left. Conservation will drive up price which in turn will cause demand destruction, which will help conservation - and in the mean time our profits are secure.

[mirandapriestly]

7. I never know what to think about that.

On the one hand, if oil is from fossil fuel then we will obviously run out. OTOH, the idea that something is almost gone hugely benefits the handlers of that resource, so I can see why they would start such a myth. If it were so close to being gone then it seems like big oil companies would have put their investments dollars elsewhere by now, they can't be that short sighted. It's probably going to run out but it's not as soon as Peak Oil says . I've heard of someone who says that oil doesn't come from fossil fuel and that it is a renewable resource, I haven't looked into that one, it sounds like BS, though...

[AZCat]

8. It's called "abiotic petroleum" theory

Wikipedia entry on abiotic petroleum

This isn't really my area but from what little I've read it's pretty much been disproved, although I don't know how conclusively.

[Nozebro]

14. Got some links for arguments that show it's "pretty much been disproved"?

I'm not saying there aren't those that argue against the notion of abiotic petroleum, but who told you that it's been "pretty much disproved"? Or, did you just say that because it suits your own position?

[Bushwick Bill]

16. Ask and ye shall receive.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_abiotic_oil.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/102104_no_free_pt1.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012805_no_free_pt3.shtml

Even if abiotic had some merit, it is not being replenished in any meaningful quantity to stave off peak. Three of the world's four largest oil fields have gone into production decline in the last few years, and there is strong evidence that number one, Ghawar, is peaking. Production has absolutely dropped off the shelf in Mexico recently. There is almost no way that global peak is more than five years away.

Greg Palast is weird because he wrote two articles on peak oil, and in the second, he basically admitted he is wrong and tried to save face. Here is a great letter to Greg Palast from a peak oil guru, Richard Heinberg. For what it's worth, Heinberg is very friendly to the 9/11 truth movement.
http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/171

Now, as to whether the administration's goal in invading Iraq was not to boost oil production, but to keep it in the ground, that is indeed a possibility. I think that dovetails with peak oil, because it means sitting on oil that will become even more valuable in the future. Anyway, I am a big fan of Greg Palast, Alex Jones, and Webster Tarpley, but they are all absolutely wrong about peak oil.

[Nozebro]

18. These do not disprove abiotic theories, and it sounds like what you're

doing is comparing the unprovable rate of abiotic replenishment with what some people call "peak oil".
We disagree on that. The new reserves being discovered and drilled (especially the deep water drilling in the Gulf), combined with more fuel efficient automobiles etc., means there's no reason to be concerned about the availability of useable petroleum in the foreseeable future. There's more than enough proven oil reserves to last for many years to come.

[AZCat]

17. No, but BushwickBill seems to have provided some.

I don't remember where I read it, but it was a while ago.

[rman]

25. Got some links with evidence that support abiotic oil theory?

Never mind arguments, evidence is where it's at.

[mirandapriestly]

20. Deep Hot Biosophere, yeah, that's what I was thinking of..eom

[AZCat]

21. Whoops - my mistake.

I was just skimming that wikipedia article and realized that there were more theories than I thought, and that the abiotic petroleum one probably isn't the one you were referring to. It looks like the deep biotic one might be the one Gold is talking about, not abiotic - my apologies.

[spillthebeans]

9. Maybe Greg Palast can convince you with the documents he obtained

http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-3641043830777908106

[mirandapriestly]

19. "Artificial scarcity"; like diamonds, I have "Armed Madhouse"

but I have the book on CD, so I couldn't see the documents, it sounds like they show that the oil companies have a plan to not take any of the oil out of Iraq - to give the illusion of scarcity , and he was also talking about how Venezuela has 5 times the oil reserves as Saudi Arabia, but I'm not sure exactly what the documents show. He talked about , was it Hubble? and the charts he did for the oil companies, wasn't that what Michael Ruppert used to show that there was Peak Oil? except then the oil companies said that after the Peak, it gets depleted rapidly. Lots of good tidbits in the interview.

[rman]

31. Talked about Hubbert, probably

Peak Oil is synonymous with "the Hubbert peak"

http://hubbert.mines.edu/

http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Oil

[rman]

23. Palast misrepresents what peak oil is

Palast says Hubbert and the peak oil crowd claim that the "peak" is the moment when the oil is gone. In reality the claim is that oil production rate will start declining once the peak has passed.


"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." - Greg Palast
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2295/No_Peaking_The_Hubbert_Humbug

You only need to have one look at a peak oil graph to realize Palast's claim is incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Oil

[Nozebro]

15. There is plenty of undiscovered and unrecovered petroleum.

Some huge deposits have been recently discovered (and some of them are due to be drilled soon, if they haven't already begun doing so) in the Gulf of Mexico (off the Texas/Louisiana coast) and some off the coast of Mexico. Newly developed and engineered deep well drilling technology will make it possible to drill deeper wells, and at today's wellhead prices, it's now economically feasible. Colorado has that extremely large shale coal area that Exxon abandoned developing back in April, 1982 - but now, it's economically feasible to develop it.

Plenty of oil. No problema. You are right. The oil energy has some very bright people in it and they know what they're doing when it comes to investing their money.

[rman]

24. where, how much?

10 billion barrels sounds "plenty" and "huge", but it's only 4 months of global supply.

And how does it fit the fact that peak discovery was in the 60's and 70's?

http://www.inforse.dk/europe/dieret/Oil%20peak/oil%20peak.html

[rman]

28. it is not close to "being gone" -

it is starting to run out, meaning that over the coming decades production rate will decline.

The end of oil is some 50 years down the road, the end of cheap oil is just about now.

In the past oil production has been keeping pace with demand.
Global production has been pretty much flat since 2004.
http://www.theoildrum.com/storyonly/2006/3/1/3402/63420

[mogster]

4. That's a very good movie

Describing a very well established fact; the decline of fossile fuel.

[spillthebeans]

5. It can't be a good movie if you put people in it who are not

endorsing peak oil and are saying it's a fraud in their publications and on other occasions... and don't ask them about peak oil.

It's deception.

[rman]

27. got anything else besides

unsubstantiated claims?

[spillthebeans]

29. Well, I was pointing to the video in my first response

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=125334&mesg_id=125355

Webster Tarpley is in the Oil, smoke & mirrors movie and isn't even asked about peak oil, he is a harsh critic of peak oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8TDhpYBu0o

He even criticizes peak oil people at 27.00 min in connection with 911 truth


If you want to present something with different opinions, ok.
But let it look like everybody agrees with only by being in the movie is deception.

It reminds me somehow of the 911 Commission report you start with what you want to prove and every evidence that contradicts it is left out and witnesses like William Rodriguez and their statement about explosions in the basement so not appear in the report.

[rman]

30. I disagree with Palast and Tarpley on peak oil

Here's why i disagree with Palast:

Palast says Hubbert and the peak oil crowd claim that the "peak" is the moment when the oil is gone. In reality the claim is that oil production rate will start declining once the peak has passed.


"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." - Greg Palast
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/2295/No_Peaking_The_Hubbert_Humbug

You only need to have one look at a peak oil graph to realize Palast's claim about peak oil theory is incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_Oil


--

Here's why i disagree with Tarpley:


Tarpley does acknowkedge Hubbert accurately predicted the peaking of US domestic oil production in the 70's.
The fact that other things also peaked at the time does not deminish the peaking of oil production, yet he mentions it as though it does deminish peak oil theory.

He continues by saying there is no geological evidence for peak oil.
This while the only evidence one needs is the realisation that resources are finity, and that production rate does follow a Bell-curve - as it did in the 70's, by Tarpley's own admission.
There's no question resource extraction will peak some time, but Tarpley seems to be denying this obvious fact.

"More oil then ever before in the market" does not contradict peak oil (unless we'd already be past the peak - but the claim is we are at the peak now: maximum production rate is now, which perfectly explains "More oil then ever before in the market".

Also shortage due to peak oil benefits big oil as much as artificial shortage would; the fact that oil corporations are making record profits does not disprove peak oil.

[spillthebeans]

32. Again, this has to be read in context

Palast writes

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.

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!”

Palast takes in his rather humoristic way the number Hubbert predicted for the entire world reservoir, compares it with the consumed amount so far and concludes that it should be nearly gone by now.

I think Palast knows what culmination means, he just wants to let Lord Victor Rothschild's pupil, Hubbert look stupid.





A book about the oil companies and US policy to keep oil in the ground (in a diary form)

http://www.reformation.org/energy-non-crisis.html
http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Non-Crisis-Lindsey-Williams/dp/0890510687/sr=1-1/qid=1164461887/ref=pd_bbs_1/105-3797424-1450057?ie=UTF8&s=books
An interesting inside look by a chaplain working in Alaska Oil fields in 1970's

There are a lot of other good books, but I can't remember the titles
There is one by a guy who investigated during the oil crisis in the 70's and he found that the state department did nothing to prevent the crisis. It's logical because they needed to do that to keep the dollar alive, like Tarpley said.


I'm astounded that so many people probably here are not much aware of dollar hegemony, fractional reserve banking and fiat currencies in general. I think it's one of the central issues.

[rman]

33. "We’re not talking “decline” in oil

from a production “peak,” we’re talking “culmination,” completely gone, kaput, dead out of crude.."
- Greg Palast

No amount of context makes that statement any less incorrect then it is.

He argues that since we're not out of oil now, that Hubbert is incorrect - but Hubbert never claimed we'd be out of oil by now, just that production would level of and start declining.

But I notice you cherry pick from issues i bring up, and ignore the rest, including everything i said about Tarpley in reply to your post. So i don't see any point in putting any more effort in this discussion.

[spillthebeans]

34. I think it's written badly by Palast

Either he doesn't know what the word culmination means or it means something different in BE.
Or he just made a mistake and that's why it's gone from his website and no longer on gregpalast.com

I haven't read his whole book or seen the secret documents from the state department he obtained.
And I can't find the orignal Hubbert writing from 1956 to prove or disprove what palast says hubbert is saying.




I had to go outside and collect leafs and had not much time for responding, sorry.


Tarpley talks at 17.00 mins about the peak.

YOU SAID:
There's no question resource extraction will peak some time, but Tarpley seems to be denying this obvious fact.

Tarpley says

The peak could be a 1000 years in the future, and this model would never know.
I think that there is a probably a peak somewhere....

[rman]

35. I was referring to the youtube video that you linked

In it he starts talking about peak oil right after the introduction by a woman who doesn't appear to understand that peak oil is not a one-off event like the "2000 bug" would have been if there was anything to it. She seems to think that fact that nothing happened on new year's eve 2000, lends credence to the notion that peak oil is a myth. Peculiar reasoning, if you ask me.

So perhaps Tarpley said something else about peak oil on another occasion. His saying the peak could be 1000 years in the future doesn't prove the peak is not now.

I suspect Tarpley has not studied peak oil as he has studied history, kindof like how Chomsky has not studied 9/11 and the JFK assassination as he has studied the media and US foreign policy. So i don't consider them to be authorities on those matters. Same with Palast.
I think they're either mistaken or they are gatekeepers and think that anyone who likes their work will believe anything they say.

[John Q. Citizen]

22. Fossil fuel is finite. However it is impossible to know how finite it is, so

"peak oil" is a hoax, because we can't know when half the oil supplies have been exhausted.

That said, I think conservation and alternate renewable energy sources always make sense for a whole lot of reasons.

[wildbilln864]

36. thanks for posting...

:)