[ColossalContrarian]

It would be better to put the money into rail development. I don't see consumption dropping with fuel economy standards for cars because the cars will be too expensive and a lot of people don't want the hassle of a car(s). One car for an entire family should be enough.

[perderabo]

Why does anyone trust the IEA anymore as over the last decade they have time and time again showed that their reports are based upon politics and not hard science
http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/05/ ... ission-13/

But lets just look at some simple facts here. from 1998 to 2008 the price of crude went up by about 1400% (10 dollars a barrel in 1998 around 140 in 2008). a robust economy and some very clever financial smoke and mirrors hid this problem for a while ,but eventually caved in under its own weight to send us into recession in 2008 . Since then we have thrown countless trillions of dollars at bank and nation bailouts. We have drastically lowered lending rates to banks to encourage more people to take out debts. We have printed truck loads of money, are cutting public services left right and center , have enabled austerity measures and lowered fuel tax and yet in 2012 every countries economy has slowed to a crawl, come to a stand still or is in recession. every country is now upto its eyeballs in debt which is increasing every single month while the basic cost of living is rising across the board , and yet even in this climate crude is trading for around 100 dollars a barrel with no sign of any real long term decrease.

It is becoming patently obvious that all the clever financial magic in the world will not be able to conceal this problem for much longer and when this bubble pops we we will consider 2008 a good year in comparison. And yet we have the IEA and nearly every major news service in the world telling us there is no problem and peak oil is still a long way off , if not a complete myth. I would actually find this situation funny if it was not so damn depressing.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilFinder2', '^')
As Pops pointed out on the previous page, according to Birol at the IEA, they're assuming a dramatic reduction in US oil consumption in addition to increased domestic production. Have no idea if that'll actually come to pass, but with the new CAFE standards coming online the next 10+ years I wouldn't be too surprised.

NY Times
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')r. Birol said the agency’s prediction of increasing American self-sufficiency was 55 percent a reflection of more oil production and 45 percent a reflection of improving energy efficiency in the United States, primarily from the Obama administration’s new fuel economy standards for cars.

[AirlinePilot]

I believe the IEA just had a minor "regime" change and this probably reflects a return to a more politically motivated reporting stance, vice the tack they had begun to take a few years back. They looked like they were moving a bit closer to reality and with the new admin there, that seems to have been thwarted. Cant have clear or realistic energy statistics. Wouldnt want to frighten anyone.

Governments and corporations need a credible long standing agency to convince everyone things will be just fine. BAU will continue along its merry path forever. The idea that we will have true, realistic energy reporting and statistical transparency is completely dead.

The latest round of "the fracking miracle" articles is fraught with BS.

[ralfy]

Energy efficiency does not lead to conservation in a capitalist system, as unused resources will be used to ensure continuous economic growth. That is why the same economist--Birol--also argued that in order to maintain global growth we will need the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia every seven years. That is also why the NY Times article also refers to various resources that will be exported to countries like China and India. What is saved by one may be consumed by another. See also the fourth paragraph of the article.

Ultimately, the IEA also states that with all oil and gas resources put online we will increase energy production by only 9 pct for the next two decades. But energy demand, according to the article, will grow by up to 46 pct during the same time.

[Poordogabone]

What is the purpose of increasing outputs at this point? It's a game for fools. Can't people see that we are only accelerating depletion. This is not the way that we are going to achieve a controlled descent. The higher we push the peak the steeper the downward slope will be.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Poordogabone', ' ')Can't people see that we are only accelerating depletion.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'W')hatever happened to the 60s adage "Question Authority"?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', ' ')the progressive wing of the far left. They were, and still are, the only folks truly willing to question authority.

[perderabo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', ' ')the progressive wing of the far left. They were, and still are, the only folks truly willing to question authority.

[Cloud9]

It is impossible to sell the next scheme if we recognize the end of growth. Why vote for a guy who cannot make it better?

[Ibon]

After 8 years we still speculate on the motives of the IEA or oil companies or Cera or governments to distort the inevitable truth about depletion as if there is a mindful calculation and strategy going on regarding what is reported to the public at large.

I have come to suspect that there is no such thing going on. No real agenda here. Just normal low level denial. And in the end this may very well be the most adaptive. Stupid blind optimism in the face of the inevitable limits to growth passing through whatever bottleneck presents itself. And on the other side some stasis, some equilibrium where humans, in whatever degraded resource base and number, remain perservering seeing the glass perpetually half full while a certain percentage perpetually questioning the viability of the status quo seeing the glass half empty.

Had two glasses or red wine tonight..... in vino veritas?

[perderabo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'I')t is impossible to sell the next scheme if we recognize the end of growth. Why vote for a guy who cannot make it better?

[perderabo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'A')fter 8 years we still speculate on the motives of the IEA or oil companies or Cera or governments to distort the inevitable truth about depletion as if there is a mindful calculation and strategy going on regarding what is reported to the public at large.

I have come to suspect that there is no such thing going on. No real agenda here. Just normal low level denial. And in the end this may very well be the most adaptive. Stupid blind optimism in the face of the inevitable limits to growth passing through whatever bottleneck presents itself. And on the other side some stasis, some equilibrium where humans, in whatever degraded resource base and number, remain perservering seeing the glass perpetually half full while a certain percentage perpetually questioning the viability of the status quo seeing the glass half empty.

Had two glasses or red wine tonight..... in vino veritas?

[SilentRunning]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'N')ow the venerable leftist GUARDIAN newspaper in England is bashing peak oil---their environment editor just wrote "PEAK OIL HAS GONE UP IN FLAMES".....and........"the problem isn't that we have too little oil-the problem is that we have too much."

[SilentRunning]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'T')he International Energy Agency (IEA) just released a report projecting that the USA will be the world's top oil producer in five years.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SilentRunning', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'N')ow the venerable leftist GUARDIAN newspaper in England is bashing peak oil---their environment editor just wrote "PEAK OIL HAS GONE UP IN FLAMES".....and........"the problem isn't that we have too little oil-the problem is that we have too much."

[Pops]

Tverberg: IEA Oil Forecast Unrealistically High; Misses Diminishing Returns
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne reason the WEO 2012 estimates are unreasonable is because the oil prices shown are unrealistically low relative to the production amounts forecast in the report. This seems to occur because the IEA misses the problem of diminishing returns. As the easy-to-produce oil becomes more depleted, and we need to move to more difficult reservoirs, the cost of extraction increases.

In fact, there is evidence that the “tight” oil referenced in Exhibit 1 is already starting to reach production limits, at current prices. The only way these production limits might be reasonably overcome is with higher oil prices–much higher than the IEA is assuming in any of its forecasts.

[Timo]

EROEI

Simple as that. As ME oil production drops, that raises the costs for oil on a global scale, thus making it more economically feasible to scrape the bottom of the barrel here at home. We don't have more oil here now than we ever did have in the past, but now that the prices have gone up, there's actually a slight profit in making the effort to get it. Sure, we'll be producing more oil domestically for a short period of time than we ever have in the past, but that still doens't mean that we've become a new Saudi Arabia of oil reserves. It just means that we're now willing to burn down the house, just to keep warm. Consumer prices, meanwhile, keep going up, up, up....... Nothing is getting any easier. Getting anything is just getting more expensive.