Never pass up a chance to sit down or relieve yourself. -old Apache saying

Monday, November 29, 2010

Peak Oil fallacy

No doubt you have probably heard about our "Peak Oil" dilemma. "We are quickly running out of oil," they chant, almost in unison. "We have passed the height of oil production, and supplies are now dwindling and the price is going to skyrocket!" they warn.

As is often the case, if everyone is on the same page, you should be wary. I can smell a heavy dose of bullshit in the air.

While it is true that we have apparently discovered and exploited most of the "light, sweet crude" (as if oil is ever 'sweet'), there are decades, perhaps hundreds of years, of supply of heavy oil and/or unconventional oils available. They will, in fact, be a bit harder and more expensive to extract and refine, but it is entirely doable.

Peak Oil proponents claim that the current high price of oil is due to their Peak Oil hypothesis. After all, "supply goes down, price goes up," is the old saw. Yeah, well, that is usually true, but the supply is NOT down. The price IS up, but that is largely because the majors are INTENTIONALLY RESTRICTING SUPPLY. How convenient for the oil majors. The culture at large believes the price is so high because of Peal Oil and diminishing supply. How convenient, indeed.

Why did we go into Iraq? To grab their oil? Or to RESTRICT the production to keep the price high? You may recall that Saddam was talking about flooding the world with his cheap oil. Can't have that.

Venezuela, Canada, Russia and some smaller countries have as much heavy oil as the entire world needs to keep the pipes flowing for years and years to come. Venezuela poses a problem, however, with Hugo Chavez in power. We've already tried to depose him once. Probably more than once. He actually wants to profit from his own oil. Imagine the gall! This is why the U.S. has been trying to kill him.

I point you to the link here. There are many others, but this one is about as good as any. You could also look into Greg Palast's website here, but again, there are others.

We have been bamboozled and lied to for so long that we regard bullshit as fact.

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He's always watching

He's always watching