[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day, from Pheba from the Farm:
Yes, there are a few of us living in Bugtussle, U.S.A. that read books. I had a difficult time with this book.
I read books in the bathtub. All of my books are wrinkled. This book is really wrinkled because I kept slamming it down on the edge of the bathtub.

First, if you are expecting a doomer book, do not purchase this book. If you are looking for an interesting view of the oil business around the world, then you will enjoy this book.
I have mantras; favorite sayings that I repeat over and over.
One of my favorite sayings is that all our problems truly stem from too many people. Another saying is that all religion is a form of schizophrenia.

Well, this book is schizophrenic. The author seems to be suffering
from schizophrenia. She says one thing, yet the information she is relaying says something totally opposite to her belief system.
To her benefit she does keep her belief system to a minimum in some chapters. In other chapters she gives full vent to her own opinion on what she sees. So the book vacillates back and forth.

I spent the entire book trying to figure out what is going on with this author. I thought that maybe she was suffering from cognitive dissonance like 99 percent of the rest of the population.

Then I did some research on her publishing record. Is she right wing, conservative? She has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Wired, Discover, Jane and Business 2.0. That information doesn't tell me much about her. I do not read those publications.

I began to wonder if perhaps she was writing to a specific audience, i.e., the other 99 percent suffering from cognitive dissonance. I never have figured it out. I just finished the book, and I am glad I am done with it. Her writing style is actually fun to read. She describes places and people very well. When she sticks to description I enjoy her style, but when she injects her own cornucopian views into a subject where her own descriptions depict total doom, she loses me.

the author starts at the local gas station. In chapter one she describes her gas station, what they sell, and the people who work there. Margonelli does a very good job of describing the politics involved in purchasing gasoline for resale, and the profit margins of the items in most gas stations. I was dissapointed to learn that the 9/10th of a cent tacked onto gas prices is just a gimmick to make a little more money.

Chapter two takes the author into the cab of a semi as she goes with gasoline jobbers to deliver gasoline. The gasoline distribution business is a crazy one, and in this chapter Margonelli does a good job of describing how crazy it can get.
There is an undercurrent in the book that is becoming apparent by now. The oil market is becoming tighter and tighter.
Yet, when Margonelli injects her own opinion she is eternally optimistic, almost eerily so. Already, this vacillating is getting on my nerves.
Chapter three takes us to the refinery. A very well written chapter. She is very observent, and reports very well on this subject. However, in spite of her excellent stats on global warming, and pollution from refineries, she ends with a note on how necessary it will be to "optimize the beast" that is the refinery to produce 20 years into the future. Her focus is on updating technology, not on depleting resources.
Chapter four takes the reader to a drilling rig in Texas. Her stats are very interesting in this chapter. Her quotations speak Peak Oil in volumes, yet her tone remains blatantly optimistic throughout the book. From this chapter: "Today, he says, (oil rig worker) most of the "easy" gas and oil has already been gotten from the United States. What remains in big quantities is "Unconventional" gas-- methane. ---"
Yet, later in the chapter she alludes that cost is the real reason we are importing oil from the Middle East, not depletion. Throughout the book Margonelli alludes to her belief system that there is plenty of oil in the world. We just need to change the way we are getting it.
Chapter 5 did not hold my interest very well. Mercifully, the chapter is a short one. Margonelli visits the strategic petroleum reserve. That is, she visits a field above where the reserve is suppossed to be. She sees a bunch of soldiers, and some weird birds. She speaks in great detail about the way the SPR affects the oil market. To her benefit, she does doubt the effectiveness of the SPR.
Chapter six is the best chapter in the book, in my opinion. Margonelli spends a day on the floor of NYMEX, the New York Mercantile Exchange, where oil is traded. This chapter is excellent descriptive journalism.
Then we go from the enlightenment of Chapter six to the dreariness of Chapter seven. The author goes to Venezuela, and details the poverty of the nation, and the ways that being a petrostate has contributed to the poverty. She blames a lot of the problems on Chavez, and his misuse of the petroleum revenues.
I did not like how she injected her own opinion on Chavez over and over and over.
Chapter eight finds us in Chad. A good chapter detailing how oil companies come into a poverty stricken area, take the oil, and leave the poverty stricken area worse than they found it, not better.
When I was reading Chapter Nine I had to put the book down, and walk away for a few days. From the chapter, Margonelli is speaking in secret with an Iranian dissident:
"My host worries that as oil fields around the world are depleted, leaving the bulk of supplies in the Middle East, the world's wrath will turn here. "Things will start to get crunchy." he says with a grin." "If I'm right, finding oil will be an enormous problem for the U.S. suburbia." he says. They are the most important socioeconomic community on this planet, and they are not going to take the destruction of their way of life lying down. They have an enormous power to change American politics--everything is possible. Maybe even an end to democracy. Forget about nuclear weapons and terrorism. I am very worried about the explosive power of panicked suburbia." "
Will the United States dissolve without oil?
This wacky idea has its mirror opposite in the American belief that a military assault will instantaneously unravel Iran's theocratic power structure."
This is where she lost me. Perhaps an afternoon with Kunstler would get her straightened out. She should have listened to her Iranian dissident friend, and not dismissed his thoughts as wacky.
By calling this man's ideals "wacky" without researching the possibility or validity of the ideals, she discredits herself as a journalist.
OKay, after fuming for a few days I finished the book. The next chapter on Nigeria kind of echoes the chapter on Chad, but with more politics.
China was an amazing chapter, making Chapter 11 my second favorite after NYMEX. Great detail and description of China's growing oil hunger.
Then, onto an epilogue where she returns to the oil station where she started. She speaks briefly on oil depletion, and relates the information as tighter supplies. She ends on an optimistic note with a call to coax many new Drake wells into existence. She asserts that we need to reinvent the wheel, and that technology will save us, but save us from what?
She states in her book, that with 77 billion barrels of oil, Venezuela has plenty of oil.
I kind of get the feeling that Margonelli really tried to do well on this book. but I also feel that Hubbert's Peak, and depletion curves are foreign to her. Nevermind exponential numbers. Understanding exponential math has taken me years so I can't fault another for not understanding. However, Margonelli is not just anybody. She is a journalist who undertook a huge project. She wrote a book on oil. Hubbert's Peak, Peak Oil, depletion curves, etc. are never mentioned in her book.
I lost all respect for her when she used the word wacky to describe another person's belief. And, this person did not believe in men in the moon. He just believed that oil depletion would bring American suburbia to its knees.
Not the best book I have ever read. Margonelli really needs to spend an afternoon with Kunstler.
Pheba

[Don35]

Excellent! Thanks for the review!

[FoxV]

well you can't really be too hard on her, she is a journalist after all.

But as a journalist, she is very well versed in American Culture, History , and Politics from the American Perspective. This means she has values ABC, but her research has shown her reality XYZ.

Her flipping back and forth comes from the fact that she can't deny the reality, however it does not make sense in relation to her values. Her final solution to this conflict is to dismiss the reality as inconsequential because dismissing her values would be too painful.

I'm overstating/over-reading things I'm sure, but in the end it would seem this writer has fallen into a classic paradigm conflict. For a new paradigm to be created the previous paradigm MUST be destroyed.

in order to understand what this writer has seen she must destroy the paradigm of American Superiority and Righteousness (and in so give up her own feelings of self worth) and create the new paradigm of American Vulnerability and Desperation.

The Blue Pill is always easier to swallow

[hull3551]

I finished the book tonight, although I read it over the course of six weeks. I thought it was informative and well written, giving tremendous insights into the many facets of the industry – from convenience store to its source.

I recommend reading this book, and am going to pass it on to a fellow PO’er.

[threadbear]

She sounds like a cross between Einstein and the village idiot. Think I'll skip the book. Thanks for the heads up.

[OnceFueled]

Oilismastery,

What is your problem? Pheba took the time to write a review... give her a break. You either have too much time or too much anger. Back off and send yourself to bed already.

[jedinvest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') lost all respect for her when she used the word wacky to describe another person's belief. And, this person did not believe in men in the moon. He just believed that oil depletion would bring American suburbia to its knees.
Not the best book I have ever read. Margonelli really needs to spend an afternoon with Kunstler.
Pheba