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Wall Street Stampedes To The Aid of the Oil Speculators!
Here we go again. The same Financial Class that brought us to the edge of economic meltdown is now pressing its well connected pals and cronies on Wall Street, in Congress as well as its allies in the press and our OPEC cheering oil industry, to lay hands off the continued stripping America's wealth through the gamed racket and egregiously profitable world of oil futures trading.
This week the Commodity Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC), responding to a national and international outcry that enough is enough, and in keeping with the Obama administration's goal of tougher oversight, has finally decided to act. Reacting to Congressional pressures, a struggling industrial landscape and a beleaguered public, the CFTC announced that a series of restrictions on energy trading would be set forth. And here the CFTC and the American public's outrage is not alone. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal printed an Op-ed Essay (July 8,2009) jointly written by Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Great Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France calling for "transparency and supervision of the oil futures market in order to reduce damaging speculation" (The WSJ, signaling its take on the issue placed the piece at the bottom of its pg.15 Opinion column).
To arrest the clear evidence of speculation driven trading by financial/non-commercial interests (by "non-commercial" meaning neither oil producers nor oil users) speculating heavily and erratically, pushing markets usually higher, the CFTC has committed itself to take the issue in hand. A glaring example of runaway speculation was reported as recently as July 3rd by the Financial Times(FT) that a rogue trader in London moved the market by over $2. a barrel , and according to the FT,"without apparent justification" (which please read as having had no commercial interest other than rank speculation).
The CFTC has announced it was ready to place volume limits on energy futures by pure financial traders/investors, tougher information requirements to identify the role of hedge funds and traders who swap contracts on the barely regulated nor visible over the counter markets.
Thereupon, almost immediately, the New York Times ("U.S. Weighs Curbs..." 07.08.09) cautioned "...proposals could encounter fierce opposition from big banks and Wall Street firms, which each are big traders in the commodity markets"
Who are these "big traders in the commodity markets"? They include Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, both colossi in the field. And both, once "Investment Banks" are now "Bank Holding Companies" having turned themselves into Bank Holding Companies with the Fed's blessing on September 22, 2008 in the wake of the chaos in the financial world following Lehman's demise.
As Bank Holding Companies they became eligible for Tarp funds and other emergency loan programs set up by the Fed and Treasury, an array of new Fed lending facilities including access to the Fed's discount window, as well as access to bank deposits that would be insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Both banks reported enormous gains from their trading activity over this second quarter, enough for Goldman, according to the WSJ ("Big Pay Packages Return to Wall Street" O7.02.09) to be on track to pay out $20 billion this year or $700,000 per employee nearly double the firm's $363,000 average last year! All this after it was reported that Goldman had received billions in counter party funds from AIG that the Fed had made available to AIG permitting AIG to bail out Goldman's speculative derivative positions of CDS' and similar toxic paper worth probably less than 30 cents on the dollar at the time, for 100 cents on the dollar. Thereby covering what otherwise would have been billions upon billions of dollars in Goldman losses (Talk about a "good ole boys" network. How many homeowners were as fortunate and escaped foreclosure, how many small business' could have made their payrolls had they had equally accommodative banking relationships?).
All this raises an even bigger question. What are these Bank Holding Companies doing using Fed monies and programs, with access to the Fed's discount window, and FDIC insured deposits, speculating in the commodity futures markets? The irony is that Fed monies, instead of going to business lending and real estate mortgage financing which is what the economy desperately needs, goes to provide exceedingly cheap and voluminous funding to play the commodities casino. Thereby the American public is hit twice.
-First, taking away funds that are desperately needed in the economy and making them available at practically no cost to the 'futures commodities market' gamblers who have virtually no commercial interest in the commodities being traded being neither consumers nor producers.
-Second, by enabling and fueling speculation by the likes of the Bank Holding Companies they are helping to drastically distort the market's pricing mechanism, driving the cost of commodities higher than they would be by large measure in many cases, placing enormous further strains on the general public and the economy through significantly higher commodity prices reflected in day to day cost of goods and gasoline.
Clearly given the prodigious profits they enjoy from the current construct the casino players will fight tooth and nail to turn back the CFTC initiatives. They will be allied with the oil industry espousing the need for a futures market as a tool to manage price risk, never whispering their delight in a market that assigns their product immeasurable more value than it should be. And our sad Congress, while giving lipservice to the best interests of the nation's citizens, will in too many cases abide by the influence and campaign largesse of K Street lobbyists.
But consider, at present Bank Holding Companies the likes of Citigroup, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley as well as such as Barclays are exercising their "banking responsibilities" to assist this difficult economy by playing what is termed the "contango" game. Misusing their access to cheap money, acting as principals (i.e. for their own account and risk) they are chartering supertankers for months to a year at a time, loading them with hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil and oil products, taking the oil and oil products off the market thus helping to sustain and propagate ever higher oil prices at vast additional cost and burden to the nation's consumers. The oil is held at sea for months, thereby tying up hundreds of millions of dollars, in anticipation of yet higher prices for the oil/oil products cargo at the end of the tanker charter period. What has this to do with banking as we had come to understand it, especially in this time of crisis?
There is too much at stake here, not least of which determining the role of banks, especially Bank Holding Companies, after the disasters of the past year. Are banks meant to help the economy or to go back to business as usual in helping to destroy it?!
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Raymond, i have to admit i agree with some of your outrage that banks, who neither use nor produce the commodity, get to use our money to speculate on oil. If they lose their bet(s) on contango, no big deal, it is just the taxpayer who foots the loss. This arrangement wears thin on me, and yes the government (us) should preclude them from being able to participate in futures markets. You'd think that things would have changed since last Fall, but here we are still dithering with these baz-tards.
On the other hand, speculation is the basis of participation in any commodities or equities market in our form of economic system, but taking the risks also means taking the losses. Tax payers do not reap the benefits and should not cover the losses either- ban the banks from this endeavor.
Bike, what about the AIG credit swaps that cover the downside, that we still end up paying for? Paulson and Bernanke let Lehman die, but saved AIG so that 13 billion of their bailout $ went straight to Goldman to pay them off 100% on every dollar they risked. If AIG had been sent the GM route through reorganization, Goldman would have gotten pennies on the dollar. The system is broken. I have no problem with conservation, higher taxes on gas, and wish to gawd we had an alternative energy program that would free us from the grasp of these creatures. But the primary bad actors in this crisis are the banks and we need some strict rules to return them to the service industry they were intended to be.
Agreed. The system is sooo broken. Unfortunately we abandoned Glass-Stegall and many problems can be traced to that moment.
As i stated previously, P.O. only makes it worse.
It is disheartening to see the government i voted for putz around the edges and we suspect that very little will change.
Yes, lets return the banks to the service industry they were intended to be!
Why are the federal regulators sitting on their hands?? These companies are not meeting the economic goals of the country. They are failures and their funds should be redirected towards responsible stewards who will spend their money wisely rebuilding the nation. These companies are just so arrogant and disassociated they cannot see beyond their own greed and need to survive. There really are too many included in the "collateral damage" of these companies survival. I really hope the government gets serious about its obligations to get the rest of us on the boats and the tide going in the right direction.
By definition companies are not working for the country. They are working for themselves. Please take a look at the definitions of government and industry. They are not the same.
Rule of Law, my man, being half right does'nt mean you win this argument with Leduck and KTM.
I believe where there is speculation there CAN be manipulation. This doesn't mean however, those two things are the same.
The fact that the big speculators have been dumping their long positions the last few weeks has pushed prices down a lot (and quickly) does prove market movements occur due to speculation, though i don't think that Leduck & Ktm are arguing that it doesn't. They dispute your's and Learsy's constant complaint of Man-ip-u-lation with no acknowledgment of the energy plateau we are riding on that makes this all the more possible and painful.
The speculators are currently bailing out and losing big bucks, so I wouldn't exactly call that manipulation!
(Remember Howard Hunt "cornering the silver market in the early 80's?- He lost his Azss!)
By your constantly poo-pooing Peak Oil, you negate one of the cornerstones that make speculation so intriguing and useful to gamblers and conservative hedgers alike- that scarcity= volatility= opportunity.
Mayhaps you should consider that the more scarce a resource becomes, the more volatile the market is AND the greater the speculations and hording such as the Chinese and US are doing with their SPRs.
Also consider that the gamblers and hedgers may be at counter purposes-
It is a tough pill to swallow but the times-they-are-a-changing and the recession is causing its own feed-back loop.
Thanks. Good post.
If Cap and Trade passes, the banks will do just fine on carbon trading.
Goldman wrote that bill. Nuff said!
It does not matter what bill you write. ANY scheme that is based on trading can be used by people with money to make money.
If you wanted a bill that does not have such a loophole, it would have had to be a serious energy tax bill, which we all know does not pass the muster of voters like you.
So in essence your own decade long denial of the necessity to do the right thing leads to the very loophole that enables others to create profits for themselves.
Please remember that I am the one who keeps saying we need to tax energy to begin with...
:-)
I am curious how this would affect agricultural output, given the amount of petrochemicals used in modern farming, Could this bill contribute to famine?
Famine is a matter of distribution, not agricultural production. The US produces several times more energy in form of plants than it needs to feed itself. We happen to feed it to animals, make ethanol for our cars from it, grow pumpkins to carve and turkeys to slaughter for religious holidays. We could greatly reduce the energy needs in agriculture and still live very well. Moreover, only on the order of 1% of the areas used for agriculture are enough to supply a farm with enough solar energy to satisfy all it's energy needs for chemicals, transportation, etc..
Not a big deal.
"The CFTC announced that a series of restrictions on energy trading would be set forth. And here the CFTC and the American public's outrage is not alone. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal printed an Op-ed Essay (July 8,2009) jointly written by Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Great Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France calling for "transparency and supervision of the oil futures market in order to reduce damaging speculation" (The WSJ, signaling its take on the issue placed the piece at the bottom of its pg.15 Opinion column)."
Still talking about manipulation....
That's all nice and fine... but how is that going to put more oil into the ground? How is it going to reduce the cost for deep offshore drilling? How will it turn peak oil around which happened in the US in 1970? Will they make a law against that, too?
And if oil is going to get cheaper (which, of course, it won't), would we be using more or less? Would that lower or increase our dependence on oil imports?
:-)
That's just the point---It's NOT nice and fine!!!
You keep your head looking down a hole in the ground and miss the big picture.
Every single time that his sort of manipulation is allowed, the effects are GLOBAL! Whether in oil, or food, or an industry like auto manufacturing, or orchids even. Allowing the precedent creates a ripple effect through human society and we all, ALL, pay.
You want to be right.
I want the truth.
Currently the cost of solar electricity is about 20 cents per kWh. Since a barrel of oil contains about 1000kWh worth of energy (if extracted at a really good 60% thermodynamic efficiency and without any drilling, transport and refinery losses), the max. value of a barrel of oil is about $200. In practice, the way we use it, it's probably worth no more than $20-$50... in equivalent energy value.
In other words... at the current price of oil we are already paying for it for its convenience value, not for its energy value.
As EROEI of oil will further decrease and that of solar energy and other renewable forms of energy will increase, oil will become increasingly more expensive in comparison to renewable forms of energy. At what point does the convenience become a secondary issue and real economics takes over?
That's really for the customer to decide. If they don't mind paying five times as much for the energy contained in oil than for the energy from solar or wind power, that will be a deliberate decision that has to be respected.
:-)
Its all about having high energy density in liquid format, that's what oil is all about.
I agree. And if your goal is flying at Mach 3, that's the main engineering parameter that counts for the selection of your fuel or energy source. But if cost is a deciding factor, oil, as it becomes more expensive to extract, begins to lose its luster for many ground transportation applications...
most people on this blog don't know that the net energy of oil has been going down
it used to be about 100 to 1
now maybe 10 or 15 to 1
and going down
Maybe we should show all our kids the difference between an oil drilling operation around the turn of the century and a modern deep offshore platform, just so they get an idea that things have gotten considerably harder?
Ktm and leduck are not geologists. They get their information from the same alphabet soup of industry and govt. insider sources as all the peak oyle conspiracists do.
Not one independent, unaligned, academic or other expert that doesn't have a vested interest in the oil industry for a paycheck has been referenced here. You know why? Because they can't or won't find one. They are more interested in living in the fantasy world of the EIEIO and the other Three Pigs fairy tale of peak and convincing everyone within the sound of their shrill voices that they are the holders of the Truth!
Can't prove it. But what you all to believe it without question.
NOW, at the same time they ignore the effects of some very sophisticated financial giants on the price of oil, energy in general, and most other commodities.
Does that make sense???
"Want," not what...
"Ktm and leduck are not geologists."
You are probably not a physicist, either. Still, if you wrote that in classical mechanics the force is proportional to both the acceleration of an object and its mass, it would still be true. Obviously the truth value of something does not depend on the professional education of the truth speaker.
:-)
Having said that, professionally educated people, especially those in hard sciences, tend to take the truth and facts in general a bit more seriously than lay people. We are used to fact checking and feel no need to make a case for things that are purely emotional.
:-)
"Not one independent, unaligned, academic or other expert that doesn't have a vested interest in the oil industry for a paycheck has been referenced here."
In other words... you would like your local baker (oh, no, wait, he depends on butter, which is mostly oil!) to be the expert of choice? Everybody who ever had anything to do with geology, which happens to be a practically useful science, does not need to apply. Engineers who worked for the oil industry do not need to apply. Basically... nobody but Rule of Law needs to apply? Is that what you are saying?
:-)
"Can't prove it."
Prove what? That if you keep subtracting elements from a finite set in finite tranches, there has to be one one tranche that has to be larger than any other (or is, at least, as large as some of the others?). Sure you can mathematically prove that. Please ask your local high school math teacher to go over the proof with you.
:-)
Now, if you want proof that peak oil was yesterday, that is impossible to prove because we can, if we really want to, stick some more straws into the lemonade today and suck harder. Which would move peak oil to today. We could do the same thing tomorrow.
The fact that we most likely won't do that has something to do with the cost structure for those straws, which are mighty expensive. So in the end, peak oil boils down to the wallet winning over the greed.
:-)
If you get your answers from a good physics book, chances are they'll be right.
If you get your answers re oil from the same old industry shills, there's no telling what you've really got. And since you are, admittedly, not a geophysicist, you are basically putting your faith in two things: 1. The unseen. 2. The word of people with a vested interest in a particular message.
Faith based knowledge strikes me as a little too "Creationist" for my taste.
NOW--back to the subject of market manipulation and the financial giants that make it happen. All apparent for anyone willing to look.
i'm not trying to convince you of anything rule o flaw
i think you're hopeless
i want to reach others who are not hopeless
i want people to think about energy realistically
you may only get it when the world's oil supply is in terminal decline
"you may only get it when the world's oil supply is in terminal decline"
It has been in terminal decline on the day someone drilled a twenty foot deep hole into the shallowest of oil reservoirs.
:-)
And I don't think Rule really cares about the ultimate reality of this. He just wants to dump some negative emotional energy on the world.
Ha ha ha--no, my friend--I don't need or want to dump negative energy into the world. You are already there. And I am on my land paying zero dollars per month for all the utilities I can use. Sweet.
STATE OF WORLD OIL
The following are examples of the state of Oil Producing regions:
NORTH SEA
Peak oil production: 1999
Decline rate in 2005: 12.8%
Peaked at about 6.4 million barrels of oil per day
MEXICO (CANTARELL)
Peak Oil Production: 2004
Decline Rate: 15%
Peaked at about 3.59 million barrels per day
U.S.
Peaked in oil production in: 1971
Decline Rate: about 4.2%
Peaked at: 11.6 million barrels per day
"Texas Tea"
Peaked in: early 1970s
Now producing about 1/3 as much oil as then
World Sweet Crude Production Peak: 2005
World Sour Crude Production Peak: hasn"t happened yet " that"s what"s keeping oil production on a plateau.
But world Peak Per Capita Oil Production occurred in the 1979
"But world Peak Per Capita Oil Production occurred in the 1979"
I love that fact... it shows how we can get (much) more out of less.
Jane Jacobs has defined an economy as a system of survival--a means for getting a living. Under that insight I've come to understand that the trees and flowers in my backyard are part of the economy that supports the bees, birds, worms, and slugs that visit them on a daily and nightly basis. It gives me pause.
I am aware that Hayek and others have posed the question what is an economy for. Clearly, for these bankers the answer is to make as much money as you possibly can. Money, it appears, is for them the whole point of the economy. Naturally, I disagree. I think most people, if they were to think about it, would probably agree that what goes on in my backyard is really what an economy is about.
Mankind does not need economy to survive. We have been just fine without anything that would be mistaken for economic activity for at least a couple of million years. We have been fine, that is, but not the least bit comfortable. Where economy comes into play is to raise the game ABOVE the level of mere survival. So I am not sure that Mrs. Jacobs knows what she is talking about... certainly your interpretation of it looks a bit odd when compared to facts of biology. Bees certainly do not trade with trees and, if you need a better example, predators certainly do not trade with their prey, which really does not need additional stalking to evolve... or be "happy".
An economy is a means to get a more desirable result out of activity... one can spend ones days hunting and scavenging OR one can spend ones days producing MP3 players and reinvest some of the proceeds into bus sized space probes circling Saturn... humans happen to need the same size brain for both activities since we lack the physical features that make other species expert hunters (or grazers) which can spend most of their time resting because they excel at supporting themselves.
Your back yard, by the way, is only a philosophically enjoyable place because it has been tamed by your front yard. Take all front yards away and the back yard becomes a place of desperate survival, not one of playful contemplation.
"Bees certainly do not trade with trees."
Unbelievable...you know absolutely NOTHING about pollenation, do you?
See--that's the point, isn't it? It's all about people first, and everything else a distant second. The motivations of the bankers is so vastly different from mine and yours as to be almost unrecognizable as even a human drive. It is counter productive to the good of the people, for sure, but in the long run, even to the bankers themselves. It may be the definition of insanity.
I happen to know a banker personally. You know what we talk about when we see each other? We talk about friendships and love life. We go into details about the preparation of good food and where to go on vacation. We do not talk about how to rip off Rule of Law at the pump.
Sorry, Rule. You keep saying it's all about humans... but then you need to depersonalize these people to be able to hate them. Bankers are people. And they are no different than most of us.
:-)
I'm waiting for a real geologist--an independent, without ties to either govt. or any of the major international producers, to come on one of these sites and show, without a doubt, that we have hit a point where supply and demand are driven by availability, and only availability, and that Manipulation plays no part in pricing. Perhaps an academic with the requisite degrees and international publishing to back up his theories.
I'd like --JUST ONCE--see that, and less of this squealing from the peak oyle acolytes that prices are not affected by banks and other vested interests.
A real independent expert in the field with recognized vitae. And not just more of these loons screaming.....
You can read plenty of that in the literature on peak oil. Why would these people come on Huffpo? Just so you don't have to look for the truth for yourself? Please.
In any case, your interpretation of peak oil is flawed. The point is not that we can not increase supply. Sure we can, but that would cost money AND (which is much worse) lead to even more rapid depletion of remaining reservoirs. One can trade the timing and the height of the peak for the shape of the curve post peak... at an enormous economic cost.
The world is not making a concerted effort to delay the peak. It's pretty much the market forces that are shaping the supply and demand situation. If, for instance, the US had taxed gasoline at the 100% level 30 years ago, we would be almost a decade away from peak oil. It would still come, but it would come later, it would be lower and, most importantly, we would have more of an arsenal to avoid the worst economic consequences (having based more of our transportation on means that will survive peak oil, e.g. electric freight rail).
Rule... if you are missing the information, it is because YOU failed to get it. Information is not something that can be (or should be) pounded into people. They have to want to get it for themselves.
:-)
While you merrily continue to spread you religion as though it were handed down from the mount? No thanks. I prefer to keep an open mind and question--especially those who will not--WILL not--confront any of the facts in this article, but prefer to continue blowing smoke in the hopes of clouding the discussion.
The issue today is Manipulation. Pretend you're on a game show and that's the topic. Think you can stick with it....
if that happened..., would you believe him?
I am a geophysicist working in the industry; production will decline in the next 10 years, this has been well documented and would take about 2 minutes on google to find the necessary information.
Businesses have no loyalty to country. Their only goal is to make money for themselves and their investors now. Nothing, repeat nothing, else matters.
So in answer to the question posed at the end of the article. They don't care if they destroy the economy or anyone one who suffers from that destruction. It's all about NOW, not the future. Investors expect results NOW, not 20-30-40 years down the road. And only they matter. You'll find very few that care about people. Just read some of the posts over at Politico.com. It's not about us, it's about them.
"Businesses have no loyalty to country."
And why should they? The loyalty thing is something that is expected from government, which is why we give government, not businesses, the ultimate sovereignty.
:-)
A sovereignty that has been usurped by business--more specifically the Banks, and THAT is the point of THIS article.
Many of these businesses are run by citizens of this country, One would expect dare say hope they would have some loyalty to this country, but alas, most do not,
I think that raising oil prices, and making the public come to grips with the cost of their oil addiction could be considered a public service.
But consider, at present Bank Holding Companies the likes of Citigroup, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley as well as such as Barclays are exercising their "banking responsibilities" to assist this difficult economy by playing what is termed the "contango" game. Misusing their access to cheap money, acting as principals (i.e. for their own account and risk) they are chartering supertankers for months to a year at a time, loading them with hundreds of millions of barrels of crude oil and oil products, taking the oil and oil products off the market thus helping to sustain and propagate ever higher oil prices at vast additional cost and burden to the nation's consumers. The oil is held at sea for months, thereby tying up hundreds of millions of dollars, in anticipation of yet higher prices for the oil/oil products cargo at the end of the tanker charter period. What has this to do with banking as we had come to understand it, especially in this time of crisis?
you must have me blocked
WORLD Discovery vs Consumption of Oil
YEAR DISCOVERIES CONSUMPTION
1930 10 billion barrels 1.5 billion barrels
1964 48 billion barrels 12 billion barrels*
1988 23 billion barrels 23 billion barrels
2005 ~6 billion barrels 30 billion barrels
World oil discoveries peaked in the 60's
Demand is currently growing by 2-3 million barrels a day per year
� World peaked in discoveries in 1960s
� The world now consumes four-six barrels of oil for every barrel we discover (the rate of discovery is in terminal decline)
Isn't that scary?
Only if one thinks about it... which the crowd that keeps crying for cheap oil does not.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwn! Same old drivel.
The markets have been manipulated. That's what this article is about.
Try dealing with reality, just once, friend.
And it doesn't just affect energy prices. Plastics, fertilizers, and numerous other products use petroleum, I am trying to find the stuff as fast as I can to buy time for a transition to other energy as opposed to a cataclysmic rate of decline in production.
Nuclear Energy, sorry about the volatility of the waste, but there is no way that green technology can compensate for the decline in production.
Green technology does not have to compensate for the decline in production. A typical ICE has an efficiency of less than 10% from well to mechanical energy output. Many American cars are more on the order of 5%.
Electric propulsion, OTOH, gives you 50-60% system efficiency (starting with solar or wind). So you have a factor of 6-10 or more in efficiency gains. And that can be easily covered with true renewable energy sources.
Nuclear is not necessary, but it could play a rule, of course. Sadly, history has shown that the US does not know how to do nuclear right. It's way too expensive and does not have the necessary political backing on both local and federal level. Moreover, it will be killed by NIMBY.
Discovery and reserves are not the same thing. While the rate of discovery may be declining rapidly, the more important question regards the rate of decline of known reserves.
Actually, peak oil is not mainly about reserves. It's about the rate at which oil can be produced from those reserves AT A GIVEN cost. The simple technical fact is that about half the oil in most reserves can not be produced at any reasonable cost, at all. So even after we will be done using oil as a major energy source, there will be plenty of "reserves" out there. What will be missing will be economically viable reserves.
Since oil has a finite amount of energy in it (and since other energy sources can deliver the same amount of energy at a fixed price!), it follows that at some point the limit set by oil prices imposes a limit on production rate, which has to peak and will then irreversibly decline. We are around the time in history when production cost and ultimately sustainable pricing of oil are quickly approaching the condition of the peak and the decline in production capacity is about to set in.
We could, of course, by agreeing to pay higher prices for oil, push the timing of the peak out by a decade, maybe two... at the cost of a total crash of reservoirs and ultimately our economy. That would be highly foolish on all levels, though.
Limits to Growth
� M. King Hubbert predicts in 1956 the U.S. oil production will peak in lower 48 states in around 1970 " it does.
� Most Energy (84%) is derived from burning Hydrocarbons (the rest is nuclear and renewable (mostly hydroelectric)
� Gas lines of 1973 and 1979 (Oil Embargo)
� We now produce 1/3 less oil in lower 48 United States then we did during "Peak."
� Oil discoveries in U.S. peaked in 1950s and have been in terminal decline for decades
� 80% of worlds oil supply comes from fields discovered before 1970
� finding another gharwar would extend peak by only ten years
� biofuels will only make a marginal difference
� major oil discoveries were zero in 2003
� Canadian govt. estimates tar sand production to be 3 million barrels of oil by 2025
� by 2015 exxon mobil will need to find develop and produce almost double todays production
� Regional bell curves can be observed in other locals besides the U.S.
� Iraq will be the last country in the world to Peak.
� 1/3 of Iraq has not been explored
� Iraq is one of the few locations left on Earth to search for oil (south china sea)
� Iraqi oil has a low sulfer content (high quality "sweet" crude)
� Campbell, Deffeyes say world will peak between 2004-2010
� U.S. Geological Survey (a govt. agency) says Peak will occurr by 2037
I can literally hear the sound of thumbs violently plugging ears, followed shortly by the chorus of
"Lalalalalalalalalala... I can't hear you! Lalalalalalal..."
Just what is it that makes people want to shut out the truth? Can you tell me leduck? I can't imagine...
i guess human nature makes them shut out the truth
ignorance is bliss
The truth is that you, and your alter ego--the duck man, are ignoring the greatest truth of all.
MEN are behind this manipulation. Try getting your fingers out of your own eyes and maybe you'll see that.
2037?, the USGS is spewing B$.
They are using the wrong models. There is no news there. Just like EIA. And if you keep looking at the EIA energy forecasts, they keep correcting themselves year after year after year. They never adjust the model to better reflect reality, though.
http://www-laog.obs.ujf-grenoble.fr/~henri/PEAKOIL/Mar07.gif
It's so ridiculously wrong, it's not even funny. Although... on some level it is.
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