[Rambo]

The price of oil has dropped by nearly 2/3 and no matter how people try and rationalize it you have to admit peak oil is now a hard sell.

Moved to Open forum. The Current Events forum is for Discussions on energy-related breaking news.-FL

[vtsnowedin]

It always was to the SUV driving public.
At least the price of bunker supplies will stay low for a while so the wise can stock up without going in debt or depriving family members of what they see as essentials.

Will it matter if we run out of oil before or after we run out of money to buy it. Is not one just as bad as the other? And will not a bunker full of food taste as good in a depression winter as it will in an oil deprived winter?

[Blueberry]

Not really.

[seahorse]

It only looks silly to those that don't understand peak oil. Oil prices dropped because demand was crushed by high oil prices, not because we found more oil. So, to those who are aware of the economic cycles predicted by PO theorist, this was predictable. Try reading Colin Campbell's book "The Coming Oil Crisis" published in 1999 where he discusses this very cycle. You'll find it elsewhere as well.

[bratticus]

One of the problems is that "Peak Oil" is misunderstood to be short for "Peak Oil Prices" when that is not and has never been the case. The correct expansion for "Peak Oil" is "Peak Oil Production Rates" and even with the economy in flames and you know it's a depression once the news starts using the term "recession" openly just as it will be a great depression if they ever get around to calling it a depression or "slight depression", yes even with the economy burning like a house on fire that people sit around in and watch TV in rather than acting like this is somehow a problem, the production rates of oil are still in decline which is what Peak Oil Production Rates is about, OK?

The fall of the economy with the collapse of industry means that industry is not using oil the way it used to and therefor demand and purchasing power are both falling. This will put a crimp in oil production rates that operates alongside the geophysical crimp in oil production that has been going on since about 2005 or so. The new crimp will be composed of lower motivation to produce oil since the price is not so good and less ability to raise capital to build rigs, offshore equipment, ANWR/polar oil extraction facilities, etc.

The price of oil is not collapsing because an upturn in oil production rates. It's the dwindling buying power that is forcing sellers to try lower prices in order to keep moving oil inventory rather than become the owners of a product that never sells a drop.

In other words, Rambo, G. S. Y. H. in a P.

[outcast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', 'I')t only looks silly to those that don't understand peak oil. Oil prices dropped because demand was crushed by high oil prices, not because we found more oil. So, to those who are aware of the economic cycles predicted by PO theorist, this was predictable. Try reading Colin Campbell's book "The Coming Oil Crisis" published in 1999 where he discusses this very cycle. You'll find it elsewhere as well.

[TheDude]

The economic unwind is doing quite a job on E&P and downstream: Refiners pinched as gas price falls faster than oil

What interests me lately is how domestic US production is slowly going down the drain, and where we on the West Coast will have to turn to to take up the slack. Our two primary domestic sources:
Chart (large)

Chart (large)

Couldn't care less about "selling" the message, or wasting time debating anymore either. You don't get it, think we're in BAU for the foreseeable eon, fine. You've got billions of others for company and attempting to make a difference winning over people through internet arguments is really a futile venture.

Edit: Converted [img] to [url] per COC 3.1.2 "Graphic content" -FL

[Leanan]

Yes, it's a hard sell. But this was not unexpected. Many peak oilers predicted a "Greater Depression" or "Grand Depression" that would lower oil prices and hide the peak.

And it's not unrelated to peak oil. An Overlooked Detail - Finite Resources Explain the Financial Crisis

[RSFB]

As far as I know, economic crises don't result in the formation of oil. In fact, the crisis will probably exacerbate peak oil, with low investment in discovery and drilling. I'd say we'll never produce more oil than we have recently produced, meaning peak oil has been reached. We're just not feeling the effects due to the drop in demand.

[Hermes]

1909 man standing on the corner, talking to another man:

"I read an article in the newspaper saying that we've passed 'peak horse', meaning that every year fewer and fewer people are going to be using horses, and therefore there are going to be less horses around. But I don't believe it a bit! How could that possibly be the case, what with the price of a horse going lower and lower?"

[DaleFromCalgary]

I tell people that the good news is that the price of oil is in the toilet. The bad news is that so is the economy.

[frankthetank]

Rambo- Hell of an argument. Nice of you to explain your comments so well PO has gone nowhere. Oil production is still heading off a cliff and sooner or later we'll have an entirely new crisis which involves massive shortages and higher prices.
Oil has been following the DOW right down the gutter...You've got cheap gasoline, but no longer have a retirement

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', 'S')o, to those who are aware of the economic cycles predicted by PO theorist, this was predictable.

[RSFB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DaleFromCalgary', 'I') tell people that the good news is that the price of oil is in the toilet. The bad news is that so is the economy.

[Crazy_Dad]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RSFB', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DaleFromCalgary', 'I') tell people that the good news is that the price of oil is in the toilet. The bad news is that so is the economy.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'M')any peak oilers predicted a "Greater Depression" or "Grand Depression" that would lower oil prices and hide the peak.

[Armageddon]

I have said numerous times that PO will not be known to the masses because the entire world's economy will collapse first. I will take this prediction to my grave. There will NEVER be a rebound from this collapse and we will NEVER use 88 mbpd again.

[virgincrude]

I don't think Peak Oil looks silly now. You might feel silly, because you can't make a direct connection between the current 'melt-down' causing demand destruction, and Peak Oil.

It actually doesn't matter, as far as trying to explain it to people, since they can see with their own eyes and feel with their own pockets, the results of 'Peak Economy'. If you, or anybody else can coherently explain how the U.S, for example, is going to rebound from the recession/depression WITHOUT factoring in the lack of investment into future oil supplies the IEA recently called for: you should be explaining things to Congress. If, you can coherently explain from where the necessary investment is going to come from, then indeed we might be able to agree that Peak Oil looks silly.

Now, believing the world, or one individual country is going to get itself back up to the same levels of production/living standards as pre-U.S/global economic crisis THAT'S silly.

(Especially if you had paid attention to the economics forums and filtered the more alarmist/doomer porn posters who rarely back up their fears.)

[Chuckmak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'a')s a ridiculous idiot

[mos6507]

If in one year's time oil prices remain this low or lower then I think there is a good chance that the dawn of the dead for peak oil zombies has been pushed pretty far in the future. But we may just be exchanging one doom with another. Personally I'll take a depression with cheap energy over a die off anyday. Still nothing to cheer about.