[JohnDenver]

I think it's easy, as a layman, to get overawed by all the graphs that Campbell etc. are trotting out. Wow, you think, these guys have the credentials, and they've really done their homework. They have convincing evidence, hard science. Oil's going over the hump in 2006, and oil/gas combined is going over the hump in 2010, so it looks pretty grim.

But here's where I keep getting stuck: If the evidence is so airtight and convincing, why does only a small minority believe it? Bear in mind that I'm not talking about the fact that a peak will occur. Everyone agrees with that. I'm talking about the predictions of the "early-peak" crowd, like Deffeyes (2005) and ASPO (2006). Also, bear in mind that I am not talking about ordinary laymen, who can be excused for failing to see beyond the striking similarity to Y2K. I am talking about critical people involved in the oil/gas business, and high-level people in public policy like Alan Greenspan. Why don't they believe it?

I think that is probably the most devastating critique a layman can level at peak oilers. Yah, sure, you read about all the data on a website called "dieoff.com" on the Internet, and it looked good to you, but if it's so convincing, why doesn't Greenspan buy into it? Why don't the majority of petroleum engineers and geologists buy into it? Why don't the Saudis buy into it? Or, more to the point, why aren't they *behaving* like they buy into it? They're all acting like peak oil is 20 years away, not one year away.

So how do you explain that? The stock answers seem to be: A) They're all incompetent, or B) It's a conspiracy, but I find both of those answers pretty unsatisfying.

One example: Matt Simmon's assessment of the state of Saudi oil fields. Simmon's claim that SA is about to peak is certainly a linchpin of the early peak argument, but I haven't seen anything to support that claim beyond the fact that Matt Simmon's is making it. (I guess that's why it's so critical to stress his credentials as an OIL BANKER from HOUSTON.) Even he himself admits that he doesn't have access to the actual facts; that's why he's so adamant about the need for transparency and disclosure. His argument, in a nutshell, is this: They won't disclose their internal figures, therefore they are lying. This is the claim underlying the graphs and other "scientific" trappings of the argument, and it's obviously not scientific at all. It's more like something from Conspiracy Theory 101.

As opposed to Mr. Simmons, the US government is totally in bed with the Saudis (as seen in Fahrenheit 911), and we've undoubtedly got spies and insiders ferreting out intelligence on their oil fields, and this intelligence is surely being disseminated to key people in the government like Greenspan. They have certainly taken a close look at Matt Simmon's arguments, and it would be very surprising if their data was inferior to that of Simmons, who pieced his together from old reports which are publicly available. They remain unconvinced. Why?

You could say the same thing about the secret/proprietary database that ASPO uses for its model. Undoubtedly, the US Government and the major oil companies have looked at the same data. So why aren't they convinced?

If you say, "They are convinced, but they're pretending like they aren't because it's a conspiracy," then the early peak theory isn't really a hard scientific argument. It's a conspiracy theory, and you should frankly face up to that. That would account for why it is only believed by a small minority of informed people.

But why a conspiracy? If peak oil is coming in 2005/2006 and peak oil/gas in 2010, and Greenspan etc. know it, then they are cynically and knowingly condemning the American people to massive malinvestment and an economic train wreck, and the question, as always, is why? It honestly strains my credulity to believe that the US Government is contaminated with cynicism to that degree. For all his faults, I believe that Greenspan is patriotic and loves the US, and does not wish to see it needlessly harmed for the nebulous aims of some cynical conspiracy he belongs to.

Here's the alternative explanation: Campbell, Deffeyes, and Simmons are underestimating reserves and future production because they are private citizens, and therefore do not have access to the best data. It wouldn't be the first time they goofed up like that.

[gnm]

[/quote] and Greenspan etc. know it, then they are cynically and knowingly condemning the American people to massive malinvestment and an economic train wreck,[quote]

Well, yes...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 8NOI21.DTL

(not the only place I've seen those numbers either) So how can $40trillion (conservatively) of deficit be met? Easy - no social security or medicare....

as to why? Who knows... unbounded greed finally catching up... the bill finally coming due... I am sure that the huge profits people like Greenspan have made off the system will ensure him and his family a comfortable place in the future while the rest grovel for bread.... Perfect recipe for the people who think they are our rulers to really live like royalty without all that messy republic stuff...

-G

[Permanently_Baffled]

Good post Denver, you have also got to consider why the hell the Europeans , Chinese , Russians are all also condemning there people to economic armageddon if they know peak oil is 2005? Are they all convinced that PO is 20 years away or do they know and are all conspiring together?

I suppose the scariest explanation is that they have assessed the problem, concluded it isn't solvable and have stuck there collective heads in the sand

Its all so confusing....

PB

[trespam]

There are several responses. I think one should be concerned. But think about this, as brought up by a previous poster:

1. The US government is doing its best to hide the implications of the $7.2 trillion in actual debt and $37 trillion in debt obligations. SS is a bankrupt system. Seen any big news comments about that? Greenspan does alude to problems.

2. Greenspan has already aluded to natural gas problems.

3. Jim Baker sent a report to Bush and company that indicates we are entering an era of energy capacity constraints.

4. Many of the people in the government buy into the myth of eternal growth. Why would they think otherwise.

5. They believe that investment will solve the problem and that the market will solve all problems. Therefore, why worry. It's against the ideology.

In 2000, stocks were way overpriced. I didn't see too many government people out telling people to pull their money out of the stock market. Greenspan alluded to irrational exhuberance. But that was it. Selling a negative message is not popular.

Your government has just invested over $100 billion to "secure" the oil production capabilities of Iraq. The plans were under development to secure them before 9/11. The WMD and democracy arguments are just a ruse. Iraq was about oil, and the US wouldn't have invested this effort if they didn't believe that oil supplies will become tight.

Is peak oil a conspiracy? There is a fringe. FTW, LATOC--if they didnt' have peak oil, they'd be off on some other conspiracy.

But Richard Smalley? T. Boone Pickens? David Goodstein? These are not conspiracy theorists. These are scientists and/or oil men who have looked at the evidence and are concerned.

[JoeW]

To respond to Denver's post, there are many reasons why prominent players would prefer not to lend additional credibility to the imminent peak oil theory:
1) Perhaps the "powers-that-be" already have a solution, or a partial solution. If the solution (eg. more fuel efficient vehicles, alternative fuels, etc.) would be unpopular at this point, the democratic way is to wait for it to become popular. This is why politicians pay attention to polls. And they should. Polls indicate that gasoline would have to reach $3/gal for a protracted period before a significant drivers would even consider trading their SUV's for more efficient machines. That is likely because most drivers in the U. S. have difficulty with the basic math involved in budgeting, as witnessed by the enormous credit problem here.
2) Perhaps the U. S. government intends to make a fortune on oil futures using the social security trust fund, to ensure the economic viability of social security for the baby-boom generation.
3) Lending credibility to the imminent peak oil theory would be political suicide if it turns out to be wrong. It's (politically) better to wait until the disaster strikes and be the hero with the solution in hand.
4) Lending credibility to the imminent peak oil theory could drive further market speculation and oil price volatility, which would be harmful to the global economy.
5) There could be some other reason(s) that we could not even begin to guess because they surely have much better information than we do.

In light of all of this, it will be interesting to see the peak unfold. Whether it is 2005 or 2035, it is all but certain to happen in my lifetime.

Joe

[StayOnTarget]

You should always be skeptical. Lets not take their word for it. That, I think is the purpose of this site. Its nearly impossible for any one of us alone to ferret through all of the data and articles in the public domain. Only by combining our time resources in an open forum such as this can we even begin to develop a picture of the issues at hand. I think Cambell and Co would agree with that.


I agree with Trespam in that there are certainly some interesting secondary indicators of a looming energy crisis. All is not well with the empire. The US is at war (seems we're always at war... The cold war, war on drugs, war on terrorism...) in Iraq and Afghanistan. For instance there have been a several articles posted regarding the entrance of banks into the oil markets.

http://tinyurl.com/573lg

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs would not jump in with both feet and hold the physical commodity if they thought that the current market strength was part of the typical pricing cycle. The financial industry has, like us been digesting the steady flow of news and analysis. Apparently they see a tightening of supply that will make their investment grow in value in the future. Does this equate to 'peak oil' sooner rather than later? I would consider it a secondary indicator that we are right now beginning to transition from a buyers market to a sellers market. Peak production now or within the next decade is irrelevant. Market volatility will accelerate with an upward pricing trend. IMHO.

[jato]

Information = power.

Withholding or distorting information = control.

[clv101]

If you assume there isn't a solution that will enable business as usual then as far as the important people in the world are concerned there is no advantage to sounding off about peak oil.

Okay... Bush gets up on the stage tomorrow and delivers a stunning peak oil speech, outlining the situation in a similar way as ASPO would. What happens? Does Bush, the US or even the whole world benefit? I'm not sure they do... Bush would either be ridiculed or believed, if ridiculed that's the end of the Bush administration and if believed then the markets would crash before he'd have left the stage, who does that help?

At the end of the day it's just not politically or economically advantageous for anyone to do anything that results in everyone learning about the full ramifications of peak oil early.

[Barbara]

john,
I want to answer about "peakoilists". no, we weren't convinced by dieoff.org or Simmons and Campbell. that's was just a start: from then on, we look carefully into any mainstream media news, looking for those news nobody pays attention. we read reports from many people and other experts. we look at what our govts are doing... expecially in the arab countries. we listen any word coming from OPEC.

this is what convinced us mostly... not dieoff.org.

[gnm]

Too true Barbara - I have been "connecting the dots" and digging into non mainstream news for years. My investigation in to gas prices with relation to taxes on said gas eventually lead me to reearch production and that led me here... not dieoff.org or sites like that....

-G

[ConspiracyCassandra]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Barbara', 'j')ohn,
I want to answer about "peakoilists". no, we weren't convinced by dieoff.org or Simmons and Campbell. that's was just a start: from then on, we look carefully into any mainstream media news, looking for those news nobody pays attention. we read reports from many people and other experts. we look at what our govts are doing... expecially in the arab countries. we listen any word coming from OPEC.

this is what convinced us mostly... not dieoff.org.

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gnm', 'T')oo true Barbara - I have been "connecting the dots" and digging into non mainstream news for years. My investigation in to gas prices with relation to taxes on said gas eventually lead me to reearch production and that led me here... not dieoff.org or sites like that....

-G

[Guest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('trespam', 'T')here are several responses. I think one should be concerned. But think about this, as brought up by a previous poster:

1. The US government is doing its best to hide the implications of the $7.2 trillion in actual debt and $37 trillion in debt obligations. SS is a bankrupt system. Seen any big news comments about that? Greenspan does alude to problems.

2. Greenspan has already aluded to natural gas problems.

3. Jim Baker sent a report to Bush and company that indicates we are entering an era of energy capacity constraints.

4. Many of the people in the government buy into the myth of eternal growth. Why would they think otherwise.

5. They believe that investment will solve the problem and that the market will solve all problems. Therefore, why worry. It's against the ideology.

In 2000, stocks were way overpriced. I didn't see too many government people out telling people to pull their money out of the stock market. Greenspan alluded to irrational exhuberance. But that was it. Selling a negative message is not popular.

Your government has just invested over $100 billion to "secure" the oil production capabilities of Iraq. The plans were under development to secure them before 9/11. The WMD and democracy arguments are just a ruse. Iraq was about oil, and the US wouldn't have invested this effort if they didn't believe that oil supplies will become tight.

Is peak oil a conspiracy? There is a fringe. FTW, LATOC--if they didnt' have peak oil, they'd be off on some other conspiracy.

But Richard Smalley? T. Boone Pickens? David Goodstein? These are not conspiracy theorists. These are scientists and/or oil men who have looked at the evidence and are concerned.

[Soft_Landing]

To assist JD as to the difference between his position and the position of some of those who have disagreed, I suggest that your original post makes a bifurcation fallacy.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/eitheror.html

It is a mistake to say that either our leaders are evil/ignorant, or peak oil is mistaken. This disjunction excludes the possibilities of systemic failure to process the information efficiently (and the freedom to respond sufficiently)...

A number of the objections raised in this thread fall under this category.

[Barbara]

Sorry Cassandra,
my english is not that good so maybe you didn't understand my point.
I wrote that dieoff.org "was just a start": I've read their site and found it just great. But John Denver thinks we just believe dieoff.org like we have blinders, so I tries to demonstrate he's wrong. I personally read dieoff and much much more.

[Such]

Actually, I don't think we will see a single global production peak per se... more a long plataeu of several mini "peaks" and "valleys" as we approach the maximum capacity of the world. So, for instance supply disruptions due to events like Yukos, Venezuela, Iraq, hurricanes, etc. will temporarily spike oil prices until those events subside. Then, of course, demand can also be expected to fluctuate with economic activity, weather conditions, etc. Over the next couple of years, I fully expect to see the median price of a barrel continue to rise.
In my mind, the most likely scenario to occur at that point is that people will be able to adjust, on average. So maybe SUV sales will continue to decline in favor of smaller cars as people react to a steadily but manageable increase in oil prices. In industry, we can expect to see some substitution in the short term - Rubber companies, for instance will use more natural rubber instead of petroleum based synthetics... and polymer manufacturers will increase the recycle content of plastics... basically, demand may decrease a bit easing the price temporarily as well. Perhaps som of these 90 new coal plants in the US and some of the new 33 nuclear plants in China will come onstream as well.
At some point however, (i suspect around 2007) we will move into a period of a consistent decline since no new major oil projects are expected to begin that year. Weather or not this is will be manageable is concerning... I expect that it will be similar to the oil shocks of the 70's, which were bad but largely manageable. Demand will probably be cut further like the early 80s with a recessive economy. Also, that will probably spur a flurry of activity to begin the last of the major oil projects, which would probably come on stream a few years later and increase oil output one last time. Plus, I can imagine that the Saudis will be forced to open the floodgates completely, opening the last of the reserve fields - the lower quality stuff - and Iraq may be able to be the last swing producer by this time. This then will be the cusp of the cliff.

[DucknCover]

Conspiracy Cassandra

Your points are very well taken. Waiting until the obvious hits the mainstream press is just waiting until it's too late.

But one minor quibble:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')nce global oil peaks, and we need to start pumping Saddam's oil, I expect Americans to invade and occupy Iraq. Moreover, profits will flow to friends of George Bush – not some wild-eyed, gun-waving crackpot like Saddam. Obviously, once oil production peaks in a couple of years, the public will throw their total support behind an invasion of Iraq."

-Jay Hanson (1997)

[MonteQuest]

In simplistic terms, I think that if Peak-oil and it's ramifications were made broad mainstream media by well-known and credible personas, it would create wide-spread socio-economical turmoil, and perhaps panic hoarding. Perhaps they have been told to keep mum.

I ended up here at peak oil because of my investigation for my book on the Bush neo-cons and the directives they receive from the "powers that be" in their move towards a "new world order." If one group is effectively in control of national governments and multinational corporations; promotes world government through control of media, foundation grants, and education; and controls and guides the issues of the day; then they control most options available, don't they?

[EnviroEngr]

Bullseye!

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'I')n simplistic terms, I think that if Peak-oil and it's ramifications were made broad mainstream media by well-known and credible personas, it would create wide-spread socio-economical turmoil, and perhaps panic hoarding. Perhaps they have been told to keep mum.