michael_in_adelaide - no, in fact, the fields are very significant. What is going on? Fields of that size have not been discovered for decades. Those fields are also far deeper than current theory says they should be.. The whole oil industry is being turned upside down and the author is burbling about peak oil. In any case there is still the Canadian oil sands breakthroughs and other discoveries in the middle east - and still the problem that no-one really bothers to define reserves out beyond 40 years or so. And the bit about coal still doesn't make sense. If he's talking about consumption then the list is wrong. Australia is the largest coal exporter - most of it going to Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea. He talks of it being a national problem. It simply isn't.

Kjell tells it as it is, with one exception - that being “No single issue is as fundamental to our future as energy” (quoting President Obama).

There are numerous fundamental issues and none of them can be treated like silos, insulated from the others. Our problem is the integral of all of them – resulting in an inability to live compatibly with this planet.

We are indeed currently in crisis, one of just such incompatibility. It has been brought on, over the past two centuries, by growth.

Growth, at an exponential rate enabled by ready access to energy. Hydrocarbons have provided virtually all of this, but crisis would arise regardless of the energy source.

If there is no change in the currently dominant mindset of encouraging growth, we will exit our species’ term on this planet much quicker than would otherwise be the case.

If Investor Growth concentrates its wisdom on growth in quantity rather than that of quality, as the present economic paradigm does, it will be doing no more than fostering faster degradation of society. The luminaries holding the whip-hand on society during the lead-up to current state of affairs stated their preference for an exponential growth of the economy at a rate of 4 per cent (an accrued doubling time less than that of a human generation).

Such growth incorporates both individual needs and numbers. Already in crisis, especially in the less developed parts, the world as a whole continues to increase its numbers by about 1.2 per cent per year. Australia, in crisis regarding water and facing deteriorating social problems, actively encourages population increase at roughly 1.9 per cent – what mortal fools we Aussies be!

Pertinent to “No single issue” is the question – is Investor Growth fostering cancerous growth

Don't worry Curmudgeon - I wont bother you again.

michael_in_adelaide: "The Shell discover amounts to about 6 weeks of world oil consumption. The Brazilian discovery is less than 4 months of oil."

curmudgeonathome, in reply: "no, in fact, the fields are very significant."

Even by your usual high standards curmudgeon, that must set some new record in denial.

curmudgeonathome: "Fields of that size have not been discovered for decades."

Amazing. You then go on to ram home michael_in_adelaide's point, just in case there was any doubt left.

Well Curmudgeon is not on his own.
Notice how as soon as a large field is found the press tv etc
jump on it as our salvation.
The sad part is all they will do in another 10 years is slow the
depletion rate by a percent or two at the very best.
By that time the depletion rate will be around 6 to 9 percent. (IEA)
As they say , it is not the size of the tank but the size of the tap !

Taswegian is spot on, the pollies are in denial, and I know this
having spoken to one or two. They should be planning for it.
However they are all hopeless and we should start doing our own
planning and ignore them.

I hate to mention conspiracy theories but gee, its hard to find
any other explanation for the total international silence on the matter.
Note, they never deny peak oil, they just change the subject by
sliding away onto global warming & fossil fuel usage and when really
pressed will use the term energy security.

Now the interesting thing is this term has become an international
pollie term. They all use the same phraseology.
It can mean anything such as political or military threats to supply.
They certainly don't mean a peak in supply of oil and then depletion.