[Leanan]

The Coming Energy Wars

Holy crap. Pretty doomerish stuff for a Newsweek cover story.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')il prices could hit $200 a barrel in the next few months. How the spike changes everything.

[killJOY]

And yet not a goddamn word about peak oil.

Let them burn.

[vetusfirma]

finally we get to talk about war, gotta love Newsweek.

[Ludi]

" No question, the shock will force nations to go greener much faster than now, particularly by conserving energy and developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels. "


"No question." No question is right.


"developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels."


Good luck with that!

[Ludi]

Oh man, it just keeps getting better!

"The individual decisions about what we'll drive, how often we'll fly and whether we'll upgrade our televisions as quickly are only part of the larger macroeconomic threat of higher oil prices. "


"Whether we'll upgrade our televisions"? What about whether we'll be able to afford food to eat?

[DantesPeak]

They've seen the dark side of PO, but how did they find out? Or do they have some inkling or advance knowledge of something to come that we don't know about (outside the realm of oil production statistics).

It seems to be an article about the effects of PO, without getting at its root causes.

Anyway a lot more doomerish than what the public is used to.

[Ludi]

They sort of brush past it here:

"the new reality—oil is a finite resource, more people want more of it, and the profligacy with which we've used it is going to change."

[vetusfirma]

probably just the setup to justify taking something away.

The media has never been 'on top' of anything.

[vetusfirma]

But here is the real question. If your were King, what would you do with your world now. How would you address the problem. Do you just .......

is there an answer.

[idomar]

The way I read the article was like this,

You, dear reader are getting screwed, 2 pages of drivel, followed by, it is the fault of foreigners that have our oil. Add in the title, Energy Wars and there you have it.

Your cost of living increase + problems in other countries = War for our oil.

[Homesteader]

gotta give them credit for writing good propaganda.

snip: "A year ago no one was talking about $200 oil, and now everyone in the markets is, for scary reasons."


Actually lots of people were but were derided and cast into the fringe element. Books were published, presentations given etc. . . .


snip: "No question, the shock will force nations to go greener much faster than now, particularly by conserving energy and developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels."


Yup, just run right out to the "new non-fossil fuel" adoption agency and pick one up. Good luck with that.


snip: "Already many small states are struggling to wisely invest their oil windfall to date, and the corrupting curse of oil wealth is well known."


Yeah, just look at Enron. Best not let them get the profits, for their own good of course.


snip: "While American automakers were moving slowly toward smaller cars before the spike, sales of SUVs and pickups are now falling so fast, they appear to be caught flat-footed."


I sure feel sorry for them, caught totally unaware and all. Other than M. King Hubbert sounding the first warning by giving his seminal presentation on Peak Oil in 1956 and the many warning shots across their bows since then, who could have known?

snip: "The individual decisions about what we'll drive, how often we'll fly and whether we'll upgrade our televisions as quickly are only part of the larger macroeconomic threat of higher oil prices."


Loud retching sound from Homesteader's office


snip: "The political ramifications of this (which already include moves away from free trade)"


One of the bigger oxymorons of all time that was sold to the general public was "free trade". Might as well keep selling it as long as people are buying.


snip: "Worse conflicts are possible. "As areas like the Mideast and Africa, Russia and Venezuela continue to rise, you're going to see increasing energy greed, aggressive behaviors and neocolonial actions on the part of various countries,"


Whew! Good thing that hasn't happened yet, Iraq and Afghanistan aside.


snip: "More blood will almost certainly be spilled. Oil wealth tends to wreak havoc on a nation's economy and politics, discouraging diversity, aggravating ethnic grievances and making it easier to fund insurgencies."


See above comment. Besides, since oil wealth is so destabilizing western countries are actually doing them a favor by stealing their resources. They better thank us for it or we will force them to pay us back for invading them. Oh, we already are.


snip: "Higher prices fuel the growing tendency of oil states like Russia and Venezuela to re-nationalize fields. That often leads to lower output, due to the inefficiency of most state oil companies,"


How dare they control their sovereign resources and not sell us our oil as fast as we need it. Obviously the solution to peak oil is to use it up as fast as technology allows.


snip: "Meanwhile, though numerous green technologies hold plenty of promise, none of them are going to save the day any time soon. "It's a false god," says Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy. "There will be step changes in technology, but people forget the scale of the oil business. Ethanol production was 5 billion gallons last year, with huge subsidies to farmers and rising food prices. But that's the size of one production platform off the coast of West Africa."


Wow! They let a snippet of truth in there after all.


snip: "So, what's to be done? For starters, policy makers might stop grilling big oil companies about why prices are so high (since they now control only a small percent of known reserves, it's largely out of their hands), support smarter green initiatives (wind and solar credits rather than ethanol boondoggles) and stop pandering to voters with subsidies and gas-tax cuts that ignore the new reality—oil is a finite resource, more people want more of it, and the profligacy with which we've used it is going to change. "There's a fuel that's cheap, clean and readily available, and it's called conservation," says West."


Yup, good point, stop wasting time bitching and burning fuel to get to a useless protest and start adapting.

[seahorse]

Sorry, haven't read the article yet, but Michael Klare predicted resouces for a long time now in his books "Resource Wars" and "Blood and Oil."

On the heels of this Newsweek article are these reports from Russia (Putin), which come as no surprise:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��Energy security in Europe depends on calm relations with Russia,” he said, referring to concern in western Europe that Russia might try to exploit its gas and oil supplies to western Europe for political purposes.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Homesteader', 'g')otta give them credit for writing good propaganda.

snip: "A year ago no one was talking about $200 oil, and now everyone in the markets is, for scary reasons."


Actually lots of people were but were derided and cast into the fringe element. Books were published, presentations given etc. . . .


snip: "No question, the shock will force nations to go greener much faster than now, particularly by conserving energy and developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels."


Yup, just run right out to the "new non-fossil fuel" adoption agency and pick one up. Good luck with that.


snip: "Already many small states are struggling to wisely invest their oil windfall to date, and the corrupting curse of oil wealth is well known."


Yeah, just look at Enron. Best not let them get the profits, for their own good of course.


snip: "While American automakers were moving slowly toward smaller cars before the spike, sales of SUVs and pickups are now falling so fast, they appear to be caught flat-footed."


I sure feel sorry for them, caught totally unaware and all. Other than M. King Hubbert sounding the first warning by giving his seminal presentation on Peak Oil in 1956 and the many warning shots across their bows since then, who could have known?

snip: "The individual decisions about what we'll drive, how often we'll fly and whether we'll upgrade our televisions as quickly are only part of the larger macroeconomic threat of higher oil prices."


Loud retching sound from Homesteader's office


snip: "The political ramifications of this (which already include moves away from free trade)"


One of the bigger oxymorons of all time that was sold to the general public was "free trade". Might as well keep selling it as long as people are buying.


snip: "Worse conflicts are possible. "As areas like the Mideast and Africa, Russia and Venezuela continue to rise, you're going to see increasing energy greed, aggressive behaviors and neocolonial actions on the part of various countries,"


Whew! Good thing that hasn't happened yet, Iraq and Afghanistan aside.


snip: "More blood will almost certainly be spilled. Oil wealth tends to wreak havoc on a nation's economy and politics, discouraging diversity, aggravating ethnic grievances and making it easier to fund insurgencies."


See above comment. Besides, since oil wealth is so destabilizing western countries are actually doing them a favor by stealing their resources. They better thank us for it or we will force them to pay us back for invading them. Oh, we already are.


snip: "Higher prices fuel the growing tendency of oil states like Russia and Venezuela to re-nationalize fields. That often leads to lower output, due to the inefficiency of most state oil companies,"


How dare they control their sovereign resources and not sell us our oil as fast as we need it. Obviously the solution to peak oil is to use it up as fast as technology allows.


snip: "Meanwhile, though numerous green technologies hold plenty of promise, none of them are going to save the day any time soon. "It's a false god," says Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy. "There will be step changes in technology, but people forget the scale of the oil business. Ethanol production was 5 billion gallons last year, with huge subsidies to farmers and rising food prices. But that's the size of one production platform off the coast of West Africa."


Wow! They let a snippet of truth in there after all.


snip: "So, what's to be done? For starters, policy makers might stop grilling big oil companies about why prices are so high (since they now control only a small percent of known reserves, it's largely out of their hands), support smarter green initiatives (wind and solar credits rather than ethanol boondoggles) and stop pandering to voters with subsidies and gas-tax cuts that ignore the new reality—oil is a finite resource, more people want more of it, and the profligacy with which we've used it is going to change. "There's a fuel that's cheap, clean and readily available, and it's called conservation," says West."


Yup, good point, stop wasting time bitching and burning fuel to get to a useless protest and start adapting.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')"developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels."


Good luck with that!

[americandream]

Lol....you're good Homesteader.

[TheDude]

Most interesting thing about this piece to me was that it had little to do with bombs and tanks; instead things like:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hile American automakers were moving slowly toward smaller cars before the spike, sales of SUVs and pickups are now falling so fast, they appear to be caught flat-footed. "At $200, GM tanks," says energy expert Philip Verleger. "They just don't have time to fix their fleet."

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')hey sort of brush past it here:

"the new reality—oil is a finite resource, more people want more of it, and the profligacy with which we've used it is going to change."

[Vegas]

I dunno, other than the desert camo, alot of the tanks I've seen are green. I guess going green means moving the tanks into wooded areas, invade canada.