Of course there is a finite supply of oil, but generally speaking the idea of "peak-oil" tends to help the oil companies.

Ta fish!

In reply to this comment by fissionchips:
*promote in light of what ought to be front page news:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Peak-Oil-in-T-11-Years-Straight-from-the-horse-s-mouth

*promote in light of what ought to be front page news:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Peak-Oil-in-T-11-Years-Straight-from-the-horse-s-mouth

I don't have a link, but I can give you an excerpt from David Strahan's book "The Last Oil Shock":

"In 1985 Kuwait's proved reserves - the most stringent definition - leapt by almost half, from 64 gigabarrels (billion barrels) to 90Gb, and in 1988 they rose again to 92Gb. That same year Abu Dhabi's proved reserves almost tripled to 92Gb, matching Kuwait exactly, and then Iran raised the bidding by one, increasing its proved reserves from 49 to 93Gb, while Iraq more than doubled, from 47Gb to a nice round 100, and Venezuela also jumped by over 100 per cent from 25 to 56Gb. Finally in 1990 Saudi Arabia raised its proved reserves by a whopping 88Gb, from 170 to 258Gb.

So in the space of five years OPEC reserves had risen by 305 billion barrels, despite the fact that no significant discoveries had been made. Most independent observers find this utterly incredible, not only because of the sheer enormity of the revisions, but also because of other suspicious coincidences.

It was Dr Colin Campbell, the grad old man of peak oil, who first spotted them. He noticed that in 1984, just before the game of leapfrog started, Kuwait's declared reserves were 64Gb, and by that year it had produced 21,5Gb, meaning that the total discovered was 85,5Gb. The following year Kuwait increased its 'reserves' to 90Gb, and the closeness of the two figures led Campbell to suspect that Kuwait had simply started declaring the total oil it had ever discovered - including all the oil it had already produced - rather than its remaining reserves.

What was even more suspicious to Campbell was the fact that Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Iran all declared nearly identical reserves, which he interprets purely as the result of quote competition. 'It is absolutely inconceivable that three separate countries should have exactly the same number!' [...] More suspicious yet, many of the new reserve figures subsequently remained unchanged for many years, despite the fact that OPEC countries were producing billions of barrels every year."

This "documentary" also sucks. There is lots of information available about the Tar Sands in Alberta, but the video doesn't present any of it. They just video tape themselves visiting a few sites and speculating about peak oil. Documentary's are supposed to present facts. Ideally facts that are important but not well known, this video doesn't present anything more than the existence of the Tar Sands in Alberta, and just how much oil they have in them(and no actual numbers, they just they have "a lot"). That's all common knowledge, high school students would be expected to come up with more for a school report.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'alberta, peak, oil, sands, vice, vbs, climate, environmental, destruction' to 'alberta, peak oil, oil sands, vice, vbs, climate, environmental, destruction' - edited by calvados

>> ^imstellar28:
Why not create incentives as a consumer? The consumer is infinitely more powerful than the government.

I agree, if I could call a do-over on American energy policy I'd have slowly cranked up gasoline tax over the last 3 decades so that it was something like $8-$9 dollars a gallon in 2000. The marketplace would've slowly adapted to that over the years, and we could have used the extra revenue for public transportation, or incentives for consumers and business to come up with alternatives (though high gas prices probably would've done the trick).

Right now there are incentives (in the form of tax breaks) for consumers to buy hybrid cars, and I'd love to see more things like that encouraging other conservationist behavior. However, the main problem with (positive) consumer incentives like those is that it doesn't help generate new product offerings. Disincentives like a gas tax would help with that, but right now that would only make things harder for regular people -- $4/gal seems to have finally made auto manufacturers change their tune, I just wish we'd gotten there before we'd hit peak oil because it would've saved a lot of environmental damage.

Why are you painting me as a recluse who knows nothing about society?

Because you're acting like one. Your rejoinder to a fairly mild statement of mine about government trying to put useful pressure on the market to solve economic strife caused by high gas prices was to essentially say "it's not a crisis, it's an excuse for more government control", and "figure it out yourself, try using a motorcycle instead of a car".

People don't need our permission to try to solve their own problems. That doesn't mean that rising food & gas prices are going to pose major problems for a lot of people. Making the case that it's somehow a simple fix for everyone is pretty ignorant (perhaps even pridefully ignorant, since you were describing how you solved it).

Besides, it's not as if you've been meticulously polite and respectful yourself.

I am all for free trade and mutual collaboration among people. It is ridiculous to expect everyone to be entirely self-sufficient, to make their own bread, food, clothes, goods, etc.

I'm with you so far...

I am merely renouncing physical violence and slavery--how does that make me out of touch?

Wha?

I understand the argument you make for this, but it seems an awfully long stretch. Have you been beaten for not paying taxes? Have you heard of someone who has? As for slavery, I think if there were someone around who'd been through the real deal, they'd beat you silly for trying to equate taxation with slavery. You don't get whipped for talking sass at your government, for example.

If taxation bothers you so much, think of it like membership dues in the country club called the United States of America. You're free to leave the club grounds anytime you like, renounce your citizenship, and stop paying taxes.

Why not advocate a social philosophy which encourages people to help those who aren't as capable? I never once argued against helping your neighbor, friend, or family member in a time of crisis.

Doesn't have to be an either/or thing, I encourage both a social and governmental philosophy that encourages people to help each other.

The wrong thing to take away from this is that McCain being an idiot neo-con automatically makes the Democrats being the right answer. The fact is, both parties have blocked nuclear for thirty years, and the bulk of Democrats voted AGAINST drilling for the past ten. If they HAD voted back then, we would be experiencing lower prices NOW. You can't perpetually use the "we only take seriously immediate answers" strategy with peak oil around the corner and no practical immediate solution. Last time I checked, we still need gas, deisel, and jet fuel in the interim. It's kind of impossible to run an airplane on solar panels. Government's best idea this whole time? Appropriate money from its citizens and give that money to big corn companies under idealist socialist subsidy bills for ethanol. That made people less able to afford investments in alternatives, it raised the price of corn and everything that eats corn negating fuel savings, and lastly did nothing to reduce emissions since it takes almost as much energy to create ethanol as you get from it. BRILLIANT! And you idiots keep electing these people to intervene in the market. Why? Elect a libertarian or something this time for christ's sake, neither of these parties knows how to do anything but collude with big businesses and sling mud at each other for political power.

And even though I freaking hate McCain, the stupid lady in this video has no idea how markets work. The market is very emotional, it prices in what it thinks politicians are going to do in the future. Just the ANNOUNCEMENT of drilling would be enough to alleviate prices a certain amount, you don't necessarily have to wait years for an effect. And yes, stupid woman, that oil shouldn't necessarily go to Americans. It's called free trade. We import 70% of our oil right now, how would we like it if other countries nationalized theirs you stupid bitch? We'd have chaos. The way you win the global bidding contest for this finite resource is to preserve the value of your currency. You can't do that with a central bank, no gold standard, and bunch of spendthrift socialists under any part name who can't resist the temptation to inflate. Even now, they're trying to prop up an artificially high market (created by the central bank, btw) that needs to collapse and reallocate to something that's actually exportable (unlike housing and services), because that's the only thing a weak currency is good for. It's the equivalent of giving someone who's high more shots instead of letting them go through withdrawal. We're going to kill the patient (the dollar) with either option. Pick your poison, they'll both do it.

this guy is categorically paranoid but he has done a great service introducing many to the concept of peak oil

^Actually many oil geologists believe we've now used more than half the ultimately recoverable conventional oil reserves. Peak oil. http://www.videosift.com/video/Peak-Oil-Gas-Prices-Supply-Depletion-Energy-Crisis

socialist policies on both sides are leading this country straight into bankruptcy.

Clinton balanced the budget. It's not socialist policies, it's war and tax cuts for the top 1% that are bankrupting the United States.


Let's look at how stupid and hypocritical this is:
1. Video implies that Democrats respect the constitution. Oh, really? Is that why Obama voted for the patriot act and gun bans, both violations of the Bill of Rights.

Since then both Obama and the Democratic Party have supported removing the most heinous parts of the Patriot Act. Obama also supported an effort against telecom immunity in the wiretapping scandal. Neither Obama nor the democratic party has attempted to ban all guns outright, just certain types of guns. Don't forget to read the first half of the sentence in the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment is about maintaining a militia, and does not say you have to let every mentally ill person buy an M-249

Or how about joint support for easily inflatable fiat currency, in violation of Article 1, Section 10 which mandates gold backing.

Bullshit. It says: "No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility."

The states are not allowed to make their own fiat money, but the federal government is allowed to make fiat money.


How about going to war without congressional declaration in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo and others? All illegal under the same Article and section and all started by the Democrats.

Once again, Article 1 Section 10 is about restrictions on state governments, not restrictions on the federal government. You fail.



2. Video says abortion is about respecting a woman's right to her own body. I'm not even religious and it seems rather obvious to me that abortion is murder of inconvenience. Didn't want the kid? Why did you have unprotected sex? Furthermore, why is a being one minute apart, from womb to exiting, the difference between having no rights and having rights. That makes no sense. Life has to be defined at conception.

Which would you rather save, a conscious adult or a single-celled fertilized egg? The brain of a fly has 200,000 cells. Until the fetus develops enough of a nervous system to become sentient, its only rights are with respect to preventing suffering that might happen to it in the future after it becomes sentient. I.E., causing birth defects should be illegal but early abortion should be allowable for any reason whatsoever. Birth is NOT the single point where rights are granted; the supreme court has previously upheld a ban on late-term abortions (minus a few exceptional circumstances like saving the life of the mother).



3. Video implies that allowing drugs to be chosen immediately is a bad thing because they haven't been tested. Dude, that's against freedom. If you're dying of cancer, and you want to try an experimental drug, who the fuck cares if it's unsafe? YOU'RE GOING TO DIE. Government has no right to restrict you that opportunity to research and get advice from your doctor about it. And what about all the people who die during the delays that the FDA imposes on new drugs. How can those deaths ever show up in statistics?


You can get non-FDA-approved drugs by participating in the human studies required for FDA approval, which is exactly what you would be doing if you got an experimental treatment.

We need the FDA to keep the snake oil salesmen at bay. Selling bad medicine is not just fraud, it's often manslaughter.


4. Video implies that we should continue to block domestic drilling to prevent potential harm to some wildlife. This isn't a cartoon, drilling doesn't leave an area in shambles. Have fun trying to fly planes with solar panels and meeting our power needs without emission-free nuclear, recyclable nuclear, which you've blocked for thirty years with fear-mongering campaigns about shitty soviet reactors from the 70s. Have fun watching Bush starting insane wars in the middle east and begging Saudi princes to increase production because we have to import 70% of our oil from abroad because of these insane energy policies. Say hello to peak oil and $300 a barrel oil in the coming years.

Pelosi, Clinton, Obama Favor More Nuclear Plants
The anti-nuclear fear mongering is lessening as people realize that it's better for the environment than coal. It won't do shit about dependence on foreign oil unless people buy plug-in electric cars, but it will reduce our dependence on domestic coal.


You can't lower the price by debasing your currency to pay for 60 trillion in unfunded ponzi scheme welfare promises started by FDR, blocking oil, and blocking nuclear.


Sweden's deficit is 0.01% of its GDP, and France's deficit is under 3% of its GDP, while the USA's deficit is 4% of its GDP, despite the fact that both France and Sweden have much broader welfare programs than the USA.

If Bush's tax cuts for millionaires were undone, and the Iraq war (and "homeland security" pork) never happened, the budget would be balanced. (do the math)

>> ^coolhund:
Sad thing is, theres people that will actually vote republican after seeing it because they are ignorant idiots and dont understand sarcasm.


No, the sad thing is that uneducated historically ignorant people like yourself are so mired in this two-party duopoly with petty antagonism with one another, that they fail to see how socialist policies on both sides are leading this country straight into bankruptcy.

Let's look at how stupid and hypocritical this is:

1. Video implies that Democrats respect the constitution. Oh, really? Is that why Obama voted for the patriot act and gun bans, both violations of the Bill of Rights. Or how about joint support for easily inflatable fiat currency, in violation of Article 1, Section 10 which mandates gold backing. How about going to war without congressional declaration in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo and others? All illegal under the same Article and section and all started by the Democrats.

2. Video says abortion is about respecting a woman's right to her own body. I'm not even religious and it seems rather obvious to me that abortion is murder of inconvenience. Didn't want the kid? Why did you have unprotected sex? Furthermore, why is a being one minute apart, from womb to exiting, the difference between having no rights and having rights. That makes no sense. Life has to be defined at conception.

3. Video implies that allowing drugs to be chosen immediately is a bad thing because they haven't been tested. Dude, that's against freedom. If you're dying of cancer, and you want to try an experimental drug, who the fuck cares if it's unsafe? YOU'RE GOING TO DIE. Government has no right to restrict you that opportunity to research and get advice from your doctor about it. And what about all the people who die during the delays that the FDA imposes on new drugs. How can those deaths ever show up in statistics?

4. Video implies that we should continue to block domestic drilling to prevent potential harm to some wildlife. This isn't a cartoon, drilling doesn't leave an area in shambles. Have fun trying to fly planes with solar panels and meeting our power needs without emission-free nuclear, recyclable nuclear, which you've blocked for thirty years with fear-mongering campaigns about shitty soviet reactors from the 70s. Have fun watching Bush starting insane wars in the middle east and begging Saudi princes to increase production because we have to import 70% of our oil from abroad because of these insane energy policies. Say hello to peak oil and $300 a barrel oil in the coming years. You can't lower the price by debasing your currency to pay for 60 trillion in unfunded ponzi scheme welfare promises started by FDR, blocking oil, and blocking nuclear.

>> ^Abel_Prisc:
Every time a video, an article, or a blog post comes out about the Americans having ridiculous gas prices, it's spammed by people from Europe saying how we have no reason to complain.
What kind of logic is that? We're all getting screwed.
I'll stop complaining when these companies stop breaking profit records.


This is something of a myth perpetuated by brainless politicians looking to posture and blame the market to make it look like they're doing something, appealing to your distress and total ignorance about how the market works, the incredible impact of government economic policy, etc. The truth is that nominal corporate profits have been going up alongside the price of just about everything else due to dollar debasement. The GOVERNMENT actually takes in more profit from the sale of gas than the companies who harvest and refine it do. Remember, it's not how many dollars you have, it's what those dollars are worth relative to the goods you buy with them. The Fed has inflated the dollar to lose 40% of its value in the last eight years, by definition causing the price of everything, including oil, to go up in nominal terms relative to it, because it now takes 40% more of them to buy what you could eight years ago.

But that isn't the only reason for oil's surge domestically. Now let me point out that the bulk of our oil doesn't even COME from domestic oil companies. It comes from foreigners. Domestic oil is only 30% of our consumption, we import 70%. So explain how an even larger tax applied to 30% of current producers is going to do anything. That will cause prices to go UP.

Nobody "sets" a price for oil. It's a giant worldwide bidding contest for a finite resource, and those demanding who can pay the most get it, just like every other commodity. As our currency loses value relative to manufacturing-based, creditor nations with actual savings rates like India and China, we are having to bid higher to keep pace with the consumption to which we've grown accustomed.

Research peak oil, note how our politicians continue to block domestic drilling which would raise production and lower the price, research how France is 79% nuclear while the environmentalist movement (ironically) has blocked the building of a new plant for thirty years, stifling any legitimate hope of becoming less dependent on imported oil and making idiots like Bush think that they can get more oil with psychotic wars and begging Saudi princes. We have waited until our face is smashed in before dodging the punch.

As you continue to live and research how both liberals and neo-cons are pandering and posturing and lying and being stupid and cooking up any scheme necessary to convince you that they need to inflate and tax and provide welfare and health care and education with your money, etc, the more you will understand the libertarian position and how important supreme law is. If we had followed supreme law and never abandoned the gold standard or handed off congressional powers to the banks, this would NEVER have been possible. Identify the enablement, see the inevitable consequence, AND LEARN.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^Payback:
Milk is cheaper.
Okay, this is the crux of the problem.
WHY do people seem to think a renewable product, like milk, which can be produced as long as we can manage to keep cows alive and breeding, should be more expensive than petrol, which is not only a finite resource, but must be drilled out of the ground and processed heavily?
As peak oil comes and goes petrol will pass $20/gal, and then it will, poorly, and at much added cost, be replaces by something which is cheaper. Markets fix things, as late as possible, and at the greatest possible expense, but they do find solutions to problems of cost.
This will not go away, get yourself a job nearby and a fuel efficient car.


What I find baffling is when I find water that's MORE EXPENSIVE than oil.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^Payback:
Milk is cheaper.
Okay, this is the crux of the problem.
WHY do people seem to think a renewable product, like milk, which can be produced as long as we can manage to keep cows alive and breeding, should be more expensive than petrol, which is not only a finite resource, but must be drilled out of the ground and processed heavily?
As peak oil comes and goes petrol will pass $20/gal, and then it will, poorly, and at much added cost, be replaces by something which is cheaper. Markets fix things, as late as possible, and at the greatest possible expense, but they do find solutions to problems of cost.
This will not go away, get yourself a job nearby and a fuel efficient car.



As the cost of one has the other as a cost of production, yes, it should be more expensive, and it will be.