[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DantesPeak', '
')Iran is going to blamed for anything and everything, whether or not it is their fault.

[Ibon]

Let's face it. The new realist republican faction that is emerging to challenge the neoconservatives were silent during the war in Iraq and have been silent up until now in protesting the neoconservative agenda. We should be clear that the criticism emerging now is only because the neoconservatives have failed to deliver on their promise and are now perceived as losers. But as long as they were beleived they would succeed they were supported and given a chance. What does that really tell you about the opposition? I wouldn't have great expectations that this opposition represents some emerging enlightened crowd that will be more humanist or environmentally aware. They are exactly the same supporters of the vast consumer culture and they basically adhere to American dominance and acceptionalism. They are only realists that the way to get there is not through the overt blatant force, breaking the law and ignoring your allies etc. Otherwise it's more of the same. There is absolutely no real fundamental change that is emerging in this opposition to the neoconservatives.

[pea-jay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rwwff', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pea-jay', '
')5. Texas: The texas redistricting case has been taken up by the court. Supreme court I think. If the supremes toss the 2002 plan, the original plan would go into effect. No guarentee this will occur but if the repubs lose this one, it will hurt.

[Carlhole]

Confessions of an “ex” Peak Oil Believer
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geopolitics - Geoeconomics', 'T')he good news is that panic scenarios about the world running out of oil anytime soon are wrong. The bad news is that the price of oil is going to continue to rise. Peak Oil is not our problem. Politics is. Big Oil wants to sustain high oil prices. Dick Cheney and friends are all too willing to assist.
On a personal note, I’ve researched questions of petroleum, since the first oil shocks of the 1970’s. I was intrigued in 2003 with something called Peak Oil theory. It seemed to explain the otherwise inexplicable decision by Washington to risk all in a military move on Iraq.

Peak Oil advocates, led by former BP geologist Colin Campbell, and Texas banker Matt Simmons, argued that the world faced a new crisis, an end to cheap oil, or Absolute Peak Oil, perhaps by 2012, perhaps by 2007. Oil was supposedly on its last drops. They pointed to our soaring gasoline and oil prices, to the declines in output of North Sea and Alaska and other fields as proof they were right.
According to Campbell, the fact that no new North Sea-size fields had been discovered since the North Sea in the late 1960’s was proof. He reportedly managed to convince the International Energy Agency and the Swedish government. That, however, does not prove him correct...

[americandream]

Huh! Quick...get the shovel out ma! There's oil in the backyard!

[aldente]

This comes as a surprise indeed. I enjoyed Engdahl a lot myself for his mix of conspiracy read and built in Peak Oil element.
I guess he got too close with the Russians (which is where biogenic 'abiotic' oil theory originated).

Too bad, another intellectual soldier lost, this time a high ranking one.

[Carlhole]

Well, this is truly perplexing because Russian science is neither backward nor foolish. They are well-organized, capable and competitive buggers. And I certainly don't think that people like William Engdahl are half-wits either.

The reaction to news like this at PO.com is invariably, "They are all whack-jobs" - which is close-minded and hard to respect also. I mean, you have a bunch of internet, armchair oil theorists calling all of Russian petroleum science nutty.

If these Russian scientists are so credible, I would hope that Engdahl delves more deeply into their scientific literature to summarize/translate what they have to say for us in layman's terms. I'm always open to looking at evidence systematically presented. But it seems hard to argue with the generally recognized observations that oil is formed no deeper than around 15,000 feet. Or does the theory go that gas somehow condenses into oil at depth?

If that is the only fact standing in the way of wider curiosity about abiotic oil, then it surely must be a simple proof one way or the other. I surely don't buy the rationale that the Fossil Theory is a conspiracy to create false shortages. If there is money to be made by drilling deeper, then that's what people will do.

If the Russians were so scientifically convinced that the abiotic oil theory were correct, then there's nothing stopping them from drilling here in the US or anywhere else in the world accordingly.
It seems ridiculous that such an understanding of nature is known yet not exploited.

Anyway, I wish I had a more detailed knowledge of what the Russian science says on the matter.

[aldente]

Mendeleev probably created the periodic table of elements for all we know.

Then again the medieval concept of 'ether' is not dead in the water either:
http://evert.de/eft00e.htm

After all we all live 'through' times rather than 'in' a particular time, (which makes the matter less static on a positive note).

[Carlhole]

Recent Engdahl interview:

http://www.ecoshock.org/downloads/energ ... ofuels.mp3

[aldente]

An interview with the Wise Investor down there in San Diego does only prove that William Engdahl is still with the living...

It is not that one changes course over time by accident but rather by being exposed to the monetary current.

[Oilbird]

I followed the link to Wikipedia and read the article with interest. Maybe hydrocarbons do have an abiotic origin ... or maybe they don't. But none of this negates the fact that we are using hydrocarbons faster than we are discovering them. The origins of oil and gas are irrelevant. How fast we find it and get it out of the ground in to our ever-energy-hungry machines IS relevant. So oil is abiotic (...possibly.) It's still running out faster than we can find new supplies.

[aldente]

Considering your icon milk supply is a potential political 'supply' application.

[Oilbird]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('albente', 'C')onsidering your icon milk supply is a potential political 'supply' application.

[aldente]

deleted

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only problem was, it peaked not because of resource depletion in the US fields. It “peaked” because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, at prices so low California and many Texas domestic producers could not compete and were forced to shut their wells in.

[jbeckton]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he only problem was, it peaked not because of resource depletion in the US fields. It “peaked” because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, at prices so low California and many Texas domestic producers could not compete and were forced to shut their wells in.

[DantesPeak]

Most scientists currently do not believe that fossilized dinosaur detritus has much if anything to do with the creation of oil.

That's a really big hole in Engdahl's theory.

[jbeckton]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DantesPeak', 'M')ost scientists currently do not believe that fossilized dinosaur detritus has much if anything to do with the creation of oil.

That's a really big hole in Engdahl's theory.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Biological origin is central to Peak Oil theory, used to explain why oil is only found in certain parts of the world where it was geologically trapped millions of years ago. ...

An entirely alternative theory of oil formation has existed since the early 1950’s in Russia, almost unknown to the West. It claims conventional American biological origins theory is an unscientific absurdity that is un-provable. They point to the fact that western geologists have repeatedly predicted finite oil over the past century, only to then find more, lots more.[/