I am not so sanguine about global supplies of quality oil (the stuff our civilisation is built on) - but you already knew that.

I dips me lid to people who are clever enough to understand and unravel the corporate and geopolitical machinations of the oil giants. But why is it always presented as an either-or situation? The end of easy oil is the perfect motive for them to behave in the way that they have.

As long as we believe there is still plenty of good oil left, they will continue to get away with it. It's a sticky trap, and well laid.

I have quoted Colin Campbell (the Ancient Mariner of the oilfields) before and feel compelled to do so again:

"The world now faces a discontinuity of historic proportions, as nature shows her hand by imposing a new energy reality. There are vested interests on all sides hoping somehow to evade the iron grip of oil depletion, or at least to put it off until after the next election or until they can develop some strategy for their personal or corporate survival. As the moment of truth approaches, so does the heat, the deceptions, the half-truth and the flat out lies."

If we can wean ourselves off the black stuff, they will be well and truly shafted.

*

Not wishing to derail the thread, I can't let the opportunity pass without pointing out that BushCo did a heap of lying about 9-11 as they have consistently done with everything else. The evidence for their guilt in that little caper is much more than merely circumstantial.

- means - method - motive -

The perfect trifecta....

Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot (bumper sticker)

Apparently during the 2000 run for the US presidency, it was not the oil companies that gave the Bush campaign the greatest amount of money; it was the pharmaceutical industry. And like the oil industry, the drug companies want to make mega-bucks at the expense of millions of sick people around the world. Those who need anti-virals and other drugs to keep them alive are milked for all they're worth or find they can't even get pharmaceuticals because generics are banned in their country because of WTO pressure (ie: thanks to drug companies lobbying efforts). Those companies are still unhappy with the existence of Australia's PBS - even though they got some concessions with the 2004 US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

At any rate, Bush has been a useful frontman for the big corporations - none of which will face a democratic ballot in 2008.

The invasion of Iraq was not simply a grab for oil(it was a necessary, not sufficient condition).I would place more emphasis on the global, geo-political strategic imperatives facing the single super power.And this focus on the Middle East diverts attention away from the undeclared war being waged between the US and Russia over the gas and oil reserves of the Central Asian Republics.Overt hostilities have been limited to Georgia and Kosovo, but much worse is in store.

It is to be hoped that after the USA presidential election, commonsense will prevail.

Should the USA reject reality, there status (what they think) as numero uno will be down graded.

Chris Shaw

As I've mentioned before I reject your 9/11 scenarios, HOWEVER, the fact that Osama bin Laden has not been killed by US forces and interests swarming all over Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to puzzle.

At Tora Bora (Afghanistan) US Special Forces and CIA types had him holed up however they were ordered to rely on Pakistan's Army to prevent him escaping across the imaginary border into Pakistan.

Why is that? Everyone knows Pakistani's are genuine believers and would consider Osama a brother. Why would us infidels trust them at such a critical tactical moment?

The answer appears to be the Ruling House of Saud (of Saudi Arabia) daren't not risk a prominent yet exiled son of the House of bin Laden to be killed - especially by us infidels. The Saudis warned the US/Bush family (notable for its oil interests) not to touch him.

Religious and political disunity in Saudi Arabia still isn't worth Osama bin Laden's death in the eyes of the Saudis or American quiet oil interests.

Why does corporate/Bush America care? It wants Saudi oil to flow without disruption.

Revenge or justice for 9/11 is secondary - hence bin Laden is still alive and putting out media statements.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

Dear Pete

Yes, we will have to agree to disagree about 9-11. I will never know as much as you about the inner workings of the secret team or the defence forces. But I can tell you from my lifetime experience that those towers could never have "dissolved" in the way they did without further assistance. It's just not physically possible.

Maybe you could slough off a big chunk, or even topple off the top few floors down into the street. But the structure below was designed to support all the weight of the structure above - no matter what - as it faithfully did until that surreal day.

That's basic structural engineering, the laws of which were magically violated three times in one day - never before nor since. What are the odds?

*

I remembered something about the unlikely "escape" of Bin Laden as reported by Seymour Hersch in the New Yorker, and found a snippet here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_BS83BmTIQ

This is a chunk from a documentary called "9-11 Press For Truth" in which the relatives of those killed that day are the principle narrators. It's worth watching because they never once stoop to the use of innuendo or any sort of theorising. It's out there as a download or as a torrent. Recommended vewing for level headed inquisitive truth-seekers.

That's my word count just about used up for tonight. Before I go, I thought you might like this rant from Wesley Clark back in 2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8aOiMmekGk

OK - time for me to catch up on my beauty sleep - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Goodnight Pete and All....

Will, you seem to have ommitted a few facts and succumbed to a few misperceptions of your own:

1. Peak oil is not about "running out of oil", rather it is the point at which oil production reaches its maximum rate then begins to decline. That's why it's called "peak oil" not "running out oil."

2. Yes, world reserves are estimated at almost 1.2 trillion barrels, but we have already used more than 1 trillion barrels. On this basis alone we are at about the half-way point upon which Hubbert based his thesis.

3. World oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s and have been trending downwards ever since. The rate of production has exceeded the rate of discovery since the 1980s. The current discovery rate is approximately one quarter of the production rate, i.e. we are burning oil at about four times the rate that we are discovering new reserves.

4. Production in at least 60 of the world’s 100 oil producing countries has already peaked, including the United States (1970), the United Kingdom (1999) and Australia (2000). Production in many of the world’s ‘super-giant’ oilfields has already peaked, including Prudhoe Bay (Alaska), the North Sea (UK/Norway), Cantarell (Mexico) and Burghan (Kuwait).

5. Official data from agencies such as the IEA and the US Department of Energy indicates that world oil production has been essentially flat since mid-2005. The combination of flat production with increasing demand is the underlying cause of rising prices.

6. 'Big oil' ain't so big any more. Their reserves account for only about 10-15% of world reserves.

7. There are almost 100 countries (generally 'third-world' countries) now reporting continuing energy shortages. Mostly this is in the form of electricity supplies, but in a growing number of cases there are liquid fuels shortages, because they have literally been priced out of the market.

You need to debunk these facts, and more, in order to debunk peak oil. Good luck.

Thank you Stuart for you voice of reason.

It's very unfortunate that peak oil is seen by most to be about "running out" of oil. That is not the case at all. As you stated, there's approximately half of the worlds original quota of oil still underneath her surface, however, she hides it well and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find and even harder to extract. The "low hanging fruit" has already been taken.

Those who show some concern for the oil situation are often easily placated by stories told of "massive oil fields" found in Brazil or some other place. What they don't understand is the difficulty of extracting that oil and oil that is increasingly of lower grades . Only a fraction of the oil in such fields may be recoverable anyway. Do these people even consider that it costs approx. $650,000 a day to hire an oil rig? Or the fact that it costs literally billions of dollars to develop an oil Field? Commodity prices are through the roof and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find the funding to develop these fields.

Too much of the peak oil equation has been weighed towards "running out" of oil. This is not the case. Oil will never "run out." What the peak oil educators need to do urgently is spread the word that PO is not about running out of oil, but rather that extraction rates, for various reasons, cannot possibly keep up to the demands of a world in which the population continues to spiral out of control.

"Peak Oil",if the present level of dependence continues,will involve escalating competition. Which is why the undeclared war over Central Asian oil and gas is potentially catastrophic. Leslie

Chris

Thanks for the youtube strings - especially the first one which was compelling.

About 9/11 - while I don't think Bush and Co actually did the deed they were criminally negligent in diregarding clear CIA presentations that al Qaeda was a rising danger and was planning increasingly specific hits in North America.

Bush's effort to fly out bin Laden family members in their private jets when all other airliners were grounded in the US in the days after 9/11 indicated where his priorities lay - bowing to Saudi pressure.

Thank Christ we'll be rid of this Bush - in early 2009. But then there are other Bushes in the litter (eg Jeb) and Cheney/Rumsfeld can still play McCain like a puppet if he gets in.

Pete

Pete

You might find this research tool handy. It started out as the 9-11 Timeline, but has expanded to include life, the universe and everything - all cross referenced and annotated. I'll drop you into the beginnings of CIA and Afghanistan here:

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=911timeline

- you could spend months in this website and come out threadbare, starving and bedraggled. You have been warned. But it's just the thing when your memory gets a bit intermittent - like mine.

Cheers....

Aime,

You might like to view/circulate some of these peak oil educational resources:

Audio of Ian Dunlop's recent appearance on ABC Ockham's Razor - http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2313512.htm#transcript

My recent presentation to Engineers Australia - http://eaq.mediavisionz.com.au/080520-P34/fHI.htm

A new Australian documentary "Australia Pumping Empty: The Looming Peak Oil Crisis" - http://www.aquilaproductions.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=27

Many more at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-Australia) website - http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/

ASPO-Australia members (whose contact details are available at the website) can be invited to conduct presentations almost anywhere in the country. All you need to do is ask.

Regards,

Stuart

COG - Part 1

Pete - in the Timeline, you will notice more recent additions to what is known as Continuity Of Government (COG).

Thanks to COG, People like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and his legal strongman David Addison have effectively NEVER BEEN OUT of government since the Ford administration.

We almost had a glimpse of COG during the interrogation of Oliver North (yes, he is a member) in the Iran Contra hearings, but the questions were instantly disallowed.

COG is at the heart of the surveillance network which now monitors vast amounts of domestic intelligence in America (the old KGB would die with envy). Worse, members of "the people's government" can't even take a dump in the Congressional Lavatories without being monitored (in a manner of speaking).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-368745798563225089

Maybe like me, you are dissatisfied with Democrat excuses for not moving more strongly against Cheney / Bush. There is obviously more to this than feeble excuses based on some sort of political chess game. I think the Obama team are trying to function within this pathological framework. I think any serious Presidential contender must make a play to inherit, or live with COG, without being burned by it. Not easy, because COG hold most of the cards where lethal dirty tricks are concerned.

COG - Part 2

I think 9-11 was a sort of coup by elements of COG. Having inserted the Vulcans into "the people's government" in the stolen US election of 2000, the knobs and levers of the whole judicial and legislative machinery fell fatally under their influence thanks to 9-11. Cui bono.

The anthrax threat came straight from the US military's own labs - and recalcitrant congresspeople were stampeded into submitting those levers - to pass the Patriot Act which had been waiting in readiness for years. Even as I write, one of the anthrax creeps has (been?) suicided, so he has joined the ranks of the "lone nutters" and the trail can be left to grow safely cold.

I would love to submit an article about this, if only I had the intellectual and journalistic talent required. But these boys are so bizarre, that the very act of trying to write about them puts one in the running for the Tinfoil Hat Award.

- as you can see - I rest my case - :)

*

Closer to home, the establishment spooks are still trying to make the world a better place for the energy corporations and entrenched financiers. Scan down this page and tell me what you see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakluyt_&_Company

- probably nothing, unless you are a Victorian with an eye on the future of public transport, given the limitations of future liquid energy supplies.

Cheers -

(BTW - Nice one Stuart)

I have appreciated the informative posts presented thus far by everyone here. Some of the best links I have seen on OLO.

Happened across this neat little video, which I personally call:

The Big Picture for Dummies

"If we're addicted to oil, our twelve-step program should begin with admitting that we have a problem. As the price of oil creeps higher, finding new energy sources is more important than ever. But the search for alternatives, combined with environmental disruptions, is putting new pressures on other essentials like food. There are some things that are going well in the world. Right now, the economy is not one of them."

http://littlurl.com/itwtv

Little G Junior sure has a lot of explaining to do.

Hi Chris

Thanks for those references.

Believe me they are not at all tinfoil or delusional compared to much of the Secret Men's Business [aka warped intelligence] that circulates around hallowed halls of Government. WMDs anyone?

It is interesting how concern about rendition/Guantanamo were considered nutcase, lefty stuff for years, but now the failings of the gaolers and US Government has been exposed.

Times change.

I think that oil scarcity/rising prices will make "Energy Security" a concept that we can again dare spaeak of (after Cheney suppressed it from official Western discourse in 1999).

If Obama gets in - US industry and the military will persuade hime that a sizable force (say 50 to 100,000) will need to remain in Iraq to protect America's hard won oil interests.

Rudd's declarations about Iraq can't hide the fact that around 1,000 Australians are still involved in defending that country one way or another (mainly to back our claim to some of its oil in future).

A little advert - on China's energy security see my OLO Article probably out today (Monday).

Regards

and

zzzzzzzzz time

Pete

Secrets, lies and big oil
By Will Hardiker - posted Thursday, 31 July 2008

DavidJS comment: re oil companies and including pharmaceuticals.

These industries, plus chemical industry are tied together.

Many pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, agriculture and chemical weapons derive from petro chemicals.

Each industry will support the other, fiercely lobbying governments to protect their interests, regardless of environmental or public health damage.

The Victorian government initially encouraged Community Consultation between industries. Both working together to seek alternatives to some of the chemicals produced, ensuring world best practices were used and ensuring the protection of the environment and public health.

Instead of enshrining this policy in legislation it chose to encourage it approved it as a voluntary agreement. When the public insisted on compliance with agreements, industry walked away, arguing that as a voluntary agreement there was no legal requirement to comply with any community agreement.

The Victorian EPA, I believe, due to heavy lobbying, has now backed away from the concept of community consultation. Even the Authority itself no longer holds community consultation meetings or limits to vested interests.

Government policy appears to be changing to a policy of denying the public the right to know; refusing to provide information that is in the interests of the public and modifying sections of its own Act in an attempt to deny third party appeals.

Instead it has chosen a path that appears to support Industry to the extent of breaching its own Act and regulations and SEPPs policies, e.g. changes that allow developers to bury toxic waste on site, possibly setting up a time bomb for future generations.

An example from the past shows how one manufacturing site with a high level of lead, was allowed to be developed for residential use. The effect on children of the families who lived there was disastrous.

Perhaps Government policy has chosen to consider it an acceptable risk in order to allow residential development as a means to reduce the demand on land.

Acceptable Risk to our children? I think not!

Alternatively is it to ensure more investment in the State?

professori_au

Dear Prof

Just letting you know that this thread is still active and your observations are appreciated.

I feel the urge to unburden myself, because there's no fool like an old fool.

I became a member of the Labor Party for a while, in order to join the fightback against the Kennett Government's excesses (as I saw them). Job done, I went back to sleep. With the wisdom of hindsight of course, I am beginning to realise that that regime change was effectively no more than a game of musical chairs.

Since so many of the (then) new Labor members were naive, possibly genuinely idealistic, how on earth were they so easily absorbed into the status quo? It's got me tossed.

I really needed Chavez, but all I got was Bracks and Brumby.

I wanted a little more common-wealth and the joy of new ideas, but all I got was more poker machines, bitumen super-highways, rule by entrenched financiers and planning by their entrenched vulture consultants.

I wanted the opportunity to contribute my experience, but all I got was commercial-in-confidence and PPPs and contractual secrets and GM crops - and "b---- off, because we know what's best for the money-men is what's best for you".

- so I have to admit that it's all the same And like I said at the start, there's no fool like an old fool.