Now it is my turn of being confused, Eclipse Now.

As I understood, a presence of oil at a planetary scale physically rather than ratio between already and might potentially be consumed volumes is the most.

And I feel rather oil consumption than CO2 is the beginning and the end of an existing civilization, of which climate change bell rings for.

Michael Lardelli:

Your chimerical quasi-pessimistic snap shot of the future of Oil - relevant to Oz covers nothing new. An earlier debate by Professor Fells, et al, failed to generate the expected ructions. People in general dont care a fig one way or another.

Silvertail, Peter Costello, in full pre-election mode sanctioned yet another inquiry into high prices at the petrol-bowser.His minders evidently forgot to mention it's ONLY the 48th attempt.

Aust only went banana's in the 50/60's when Caltex, Mobil, Shell & Ampol began Refineries in NSW, QLD, SA, VIC and WA. Of the eight Refineries in toto, we produce 32 mtpa, less then 1 % of Global capacity, compared to Singapore Island's 25% which caps excess production because of stagnant World demand - yet another OPEC furphy. 700,000 b/d when demand is only 650,000 b/d ( USA gas guzzler's notwithstanding )

The patronising Oil giants are mostly US owned. BP SHell being the exception. Despite AOG, Ampol, Boral, H C Sleigh professing to the contrary50 % is Exxon owned - lock, stock and barrel.

It was the post War discoveries of Moonie, Bass Strait and the Timor Gap that spurred Oil exploration and engendered the creation of wealth to the Lucky Country. Fortunately, we are 75% self supporting in oil production; our vast shale oil deposits guarantees we are well placed into the new millennium. Advances in Technology, and the Anzac spirit of entrepreneurship is a fait accompli.

Credulous Gerry Harvey recently announced if prices reached $ 2.00 he would be travelling by rickshaw ! CEO BP's John Brown also dispelled the myth " we have plenty of capacity not just for today but for the next decade ".APPEA Director Belinda Robertsson " peaked in 2000 ? No way. By 2015 we will see a 30% surplus capacity ". BMI Economic 5 year forecast predicts a growing surplus. More doomsday reporting, plain blame game or wishful thinking ?

Spruiker from Benelong, PM JWH recently injected a $25 B assistance plan to keep the Industry alive, spur innovation, employment, develop markets and hopefully consumer dissatisfaction at the bowser.

continued..

Previous largesse include Auto Giant Ford's Geelong Plant, GMH and Misubishi. All, stridently laying claim to a viable Industry ?Kidding, apparently Canberra lobbyist are much alive and thriving.

Non-efficacious Shell's Clyde Refinery is on notice. It cannot justify the Investment expense. New fuel Euro4 Standards, on low sulphur content, and structural reforms is squeezing margins. Poor returns over the past decade is generating margins of mere 50 cents a barrel @ 3.50 / $5.00 each. In perspective, profitibility is LOW and decreasing annually. Historically, Refineries are operating at only 86% capacity. It's no wonder Port Stanvac.SA. and Bulwer. QLD ( Ampol) areprepared to spend top dollar of between $ 250/ 100 M on infrastructure expansion despite the doom and gloom.

In the meantime, eye-picking Aust latest love de amour embracing climatic change, envioronmental issues, microeconomic reform, greenhouse gases and other Government/ Industry links is counter productive to Oil Industry aims. Intransigent Greenies want their proverbial cake and whinge all the way to the Polling booth for a larger slice of the pie ? Double standards has become a way of life.
Poor fella, my Country.
Et tu Brute ?

Is it just me, or was Dalma so flowery in his communications that he lost people as well?

Dalma, for all your words I'm not sure what you are pontificating about. Clearly... do you calculate that peak oil is upon us or not? What do you make of all the points I've made in the global search for conventional oil? You raised Australia's shale oil deposits... but I'm not sure how to read your tone, and whether or not you were being sarcastic?

The "Growing gap" chart is the one that convinced me, and then a little further reading about the difference between shale oil + tar sands with the sweet conventional oil that gushes up a pipe at you, and even with my non-technical background I can see that there's significant reason to believe there is a problem.

In late June 2007 Dr Roger Bezdek spoke at the "Smart Conference" think tank for Aussie CEO's as the co-author of the Hirsch report into peak oil. Federal Labor Candidate Maxine McKew introduced him (this was just 3 days after very briefly introduced Maxine to peak oil).

The 51 minute video available in Quicktime below, where Bezdek simply points out that the crisis occurs when conventional oil peaks because "oil's ain't oils" as the old add used to say.

So Dalma, if you were quoting shale oil as some kind of quick-fix, please watch this 50 minute mpeg. (If you get Firefox and the "Unplug" add on, you can download it to your hard drive and watch it repeatedly there.)

http://fundraisingconcepts.info/spo/bezdek_keynote.mov

What are you talking about, Dalma and Eclipse?

Since 1996, stitching Australia to an overseas crown balloons foreign debt in 4.5 times and a half of oil Australia needs is already being imported recently.

Have a nice day.

Let's leave the nit-picking and focus on what can be done. Given that there is consensus that oil is depleting and there is the potential for economic disaster and social chaos by mid-century, should concerned citizens be urging their governments (or maybe thru the UN) to implement some form of conservation similar to Richard Heinberg's oil depletion protocol ("The Oil Depletion Protocol: A plan to avert oil wars, terrorism and economic collapse")? In other words, do we want to leave a little oil in the ground so that future generations can access a very scare and valuable resource? Should part of that effort be the phasing out of the airline industry? Monbiot (in his book "Heat") indicates that air transport and air tourism probably cannot switch to a viable alternative within any kind of realistic time frame before huge quantaties of oil have been burned by aircraft and put huge amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere. Monbiot urges that we should stop building roads and airports, and stop encouraging industries that will progressively be out of time and step with the new directions that are urgently needed.

Is it useless to try to affect the future of oil depletion? Should we just go on debating the minutiae of "if and when"? Can anyone make a sensible comment on what should be done in the light of the known facts? Is it useless to try? Or is it better to try, even if it is unlikely to make any difference?