[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven those who might stretch to argue that even if no dinosaurs ever died in sedimentary rock that today lies 30,000 feet below the surface, might still argue that those levels contain some type of biological debris that has transformed into natural gas.

[DantesPeak]

I almost forgot about this prior review of Corsi on The Oil Drum. Kudos to Stuart:


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he swift-boating of peak oil
Stuart Staniford, The Oil Drum
Published on 16 Nov 2005 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 16 Nov 2005.


Browsing peakoil.com late at night, I came across the following interesting specimen at Rigzone, of all places. Dr Jerome Corsi writes:...

Several interesting questions arise. Firstly, as a political science major, Dr Corsi can perhaps be forgiven for his inability to judge relative sizes very well, and for his allegiance to the abiotic theory which has roughly zero support amongst working exploration geologists (who need to be good at identifying source rocks, etc, in order to find oil). But what on earth are the editors of Rigzone thinking?

Secondly, given Dr Corsi's recent history of involvement with well-funded extreme right-wing causes, are we seeing the start of a comparable campaign against peak oil? I wonder is he acting alone here? Besides the Swift-boat attacks on Senator Kerry, the Asia Times reports on his work attempting to undermine the Iranian government (not that I'm any fan of that regime), for which he was thanked by both President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Part of Dr Corsi's agenda seems to be to suggest that Peak Oil is a left wing movement (a point he expanded on last night). This simply is not the case. While there certainly are left wing peak oilers such as Richard Heinberg, believers in peak oil include the conservative republican Roscoe Bartlett, good capitalist economists such as James Hamilton, republican investment banker Matt Simmons, and that's not to even start on the neofascists. Peak Oil totally crosses the political spectrum, and I don't think Dr Corsi is going to make that particular framing of the debate stick, though I think we can expect him and whoever his allies turn out to be to make a vigorous effort.