http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/368081/russian-gas-exports-
Showing posts with label Oil Prices. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oil Prices. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Oil Limits and Economic Growth | The Energy Collective
Even if we sail through our current set of problems, we can count on meeting them again in a few years, as the cost of oil extraction keeps increasing. If oil prices rise again, importers will see an increase in unemployment, and a squeeze on profit margins.
http://theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/257321/oil-limits-reduce-
http://theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/257321/oil-limits-reduce-
Friday, April 10, 2009
Economic woes causing falling oil demand... how does this affect the peak of oil?
The economy in a bad shape right now. That's caused a global economic slowdown and.. it has resulted in lower demand for oil. While it's not quite good for the oil companies (not that I care about their wellbeing) it offers us a breather in the peak oil scenario and offers an illustration of some economic facts related to oil. If nothing else this demonstrates a statement by Peter Wells at the 2008 ASPO conference. He described the oil producing countries, especially Saudi Arabia, as knowing very well there's a fine line to tread in setting the oil price, make it too low and the oil gets used up rapidly (and their income is low), set it too high and the customers either go out of business or start looking for alternatives, and therefore they look for a middle ground in pricing oil to make enough profit to keep themselves happy while keeping it low enough to keep their customers from looking for alternatives.
One thing this means is that with lower current demand for oil indicates a possible "plateau peak". In The Shape of Oil to come I discussed the shape of the peak of oil production. Some people are "sharp peak" thinkers, saying the peak of oil production will be followed by a drastic reduction in oil production, whereas others are "plateau peak" thinkers saying the decline in production will be gradual. If the peak which occurred a couple years ago is truly the peak of oil production, a decline in oil demand due to economic woes will contribute to a gradual decline hence put us in a plateau peak scenario.
Having a decrease in oil production because of lower demand is preferable to a production decrease because the oil fields are physically incapable of producing more oil. It means there is still spare capacity in the oil fields in case the economy recovers and again increases demand for oil.
Demand for oil drops as outlook for G7 remains grim
Quote:
The global crisis is sharply reducing demand for oil, and oil consumption is reaching levels last seen in the early 80s, a report from the International Energy Agency showed. The agency slashed its economic forecasts for the fourth time since October and now expects the world economy to contract by 1.4% this year, a sharp reversal from its previous forecast of modest growth.... The IEA is now forecasting that oil demand will fall by 2.4m barrels a day this year from 2008. The agency estimates that the world economy will need 83.4m of oil a day, 1m less than its previous forecast and the lowest level since 2004.... Oil inventories have built up to cover a "giddy 61.6 days" of consumption, the highest level since 1993. In response, producers have cut back output...The IEA expects producers outside Opec to pump about 50.3m barrels a day this year, down 300,000 from 2008.
Oil Prices: Is Crude Demand Collapsing or Not?
Quote:
But do the new IEA numbers really mean that the global oil-demand picture is getting worse? ... In the IEA’s view, oil demand is collapsing a lot faster than supply, setting the stage for lower oil prices in coming months. ... weaker demand is partially offset by a big slump in crude production. The more that supply picture tightens—as oil companies postpone expensive new investments, for example—the likelier it is that oil prices will rebound, recession or not. ...
Quote:
Believe it or not, there may be one compelling reason why we'd rather not crawl out too quickly from the economic crevasse into which we've fallen. Remember less than a year ago when crude was flirting with $150 a barrel? A sudden solution to our mounting economic difficulties in the face of declining oil production just might slingshot prices higher than we'd like to have them.
World is awash with oil as demand sinks: IEA
Quote:
The world is awash with oil despite a price rally but the glut is hampering investment in fields which will be needed when demand pulls out of a "relentless" plunge the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.... Oil producers were "scrambling" to cut back on deliveries to limit a build up of inventories which were "now at a giddy 61.6 days (of consumption) for February", the highest level since 1993. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had cut its output overall by "an unprecedented" actual 3.36 million bpd since September to below 28 million bpd, the lowest level since just after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. While the prospects for lower demand have muted concerns about a "supply crunch," the IEA warned that resulting low oil prices could undercut investment in future production.
Monday, April 6, 2009
OPEC's "Who Gets What"
I've been browsing the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) website and came across a pamphlet they publish every year titled "Who Gets What from Imported Oil". This turns out to be a breakdown of which country gets what revenue from importing oil produced by OPEC countries.
Since "There are still many misconceptions surrounding crude oil prices and the prices of products made from oil, such as gasoline" the kindness and generosity of their hearts leads OPEC to give us this pamphlet to make it clear.
It's a short pamphlet and the key statement is this: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the USA) made a total of $2,585 billion from oil taxation. This compares with the revenue of just $2,539 billion for the OPEC Members over the same period. In addition, while the $2,585 billion in oil taxation by the G7 is pure profit, this is not the case for the OPEC nations, who must meet the cost of finding, producing and transporting that oil from their $2,539 billion income.
This shows the breakdown of the final cost going to the various countries (or companies) along the delivery channels. Their point being that a large portion goes to taxes in the destination country.
Those poor countries of OPEC, they only see a portion of the final cost. One must feel sorry for them.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
A look at Oil Change International
"Oil Change International campaigns to expose the true costs of oil and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy. We are dedicated to identifying and overcoming political barriers to that transition." That's what they're saying about themselves. This is a worthy goal as I think most people just fill up their tanks and don't think a thing about what they're doing. Just like how clean water running out of a tap allows people to forget the true cost of getting clean water, having a magical fuel easily available at every corner gas station gives the people an opportunity to not see the true cost of it all.
How does Oil Change go about this? "Oil Change was founded in order to network together, encourage, and compliment a diversity of strategies and tactics around the oil industry. We are a research and advocacy organization that exists to force progress in the energy industry towards an environmentally and socially sustainable energy future."
They are running three advocacy 'campaigns' ...
Separate Oil & State is a US campaign to get oil money out of politics. The greatest barriers to clean energy are political, not technical—and these barriers are largely fueled by the oil industry. We know that in order to achieve a clean energy future, we have to expose and eradicate the political influence of the oil industry; we have to achieve a separation of oil & state. Clearly there is an issue with Oil industry's influence over the political scene, for example President Enron (G.W.Bush), Vice President Halliburton (D.Cheney) and Secretary of State Chevron (C.Rice).
Follow the Oil Money is an interactive tool that tracks the flow of oil money in US politics. Click on one of the search tools on the right to find out which companies are pumping their dirty oil money into politics, who is receiving it, and how it correlates to key climate, energy and war votes. Using this resource you can search the network of funding between the oil companies and Congress. You can look at data on specific congress critters by zip code. You can track votes by each congress critter. etc
End Oil Aid is a diverse coalition of organizations working together to end oil aid and address the issues at the intersection of oil dependence, climate change, and international debt. The individual organizations within this coalition work with a wide variety of national and international networks to: influence public policy with an eye towards third world debt cancellation; identify and overcome the political barriers to transitioning away from oil dependence; and hold private and public financial institutions accountable for bankrolling deforestation and climate destabilization. The partners are FRIENDS OF THE EARTH INTERNATIONAL, JUBILEE USA NETWORK, OIL CHANGE INTERNATIONAL and PEOPLE & PLANET.
Their Oil Aid: tracking subsidies to the international oil industry website "is an interactive tool for tracking subsidies to the international oil industry. You can search for oil aid by donor country, recipient country, donor financial institution, and other fields." It's a truism that the price of oil doesn't include a bunch of subsidies some of which are indirect. But I have never seen a clear description of just what those hidden subsidies really are.
A Climate of War is a new report from Oil Change International that quantifies both the greenhouse gas emissions of the Iraq War and the opportunity costs involved in fighting war rather than climate change. Such as: Projected total US spending on the Iraq war could cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends.
They have several ways to get involved with Oil Change International.
An interesting group...
Links:
http://priceofoil.org/
Links:
http://www.endoilaid.org/
Links:
http://www.jubileeusa.org/
Links:
http://www.jubileeusa.org/
Links:
http://peopleandplanet.org/
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Technosanity #14: Petroleum & Peak Oil 101
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Petroleum 101
Mr. Ken Verosub, Geology Professor, University of California, Davis
http://www.aspo-usa.com/aspousa4/ConfirmedSpeakers.cfm?bid=522
slides: http://www.aspo-usa.org/aspousa4/proceedings/Verosub_Ken_Petro_101_ASPOUSA2008.pdf
Specialist in paleomagnetism of sediments, the history of the geomagnetic field. He presents an introductory lecture in Petroleum Geology giving an overview of how geology & biology came together to create the gift of oil.
For the planet to create oil requires that a quantity of dead sea organisms get trapped beneath a sandy "reservoir rock" by a solid "cap rock". The decay of those sea organisms becomes oil. It takes special conditions to do this and geologists have pretty much mapped out the planet for these resources.
A salt dome is one common trap for oil to form in. And it's the easiest to find. Salt domes produce localized gravity or magnetic deviations and in some cases you can simply fly over them and see them.
Generally geologists study the subsurface conditions using "Reflector Seismology". The modern technique uses a 'thumper truck' which bang the ground real hard, and then "geophones" are used to pick up reflected sound. The pattern of reflections tells them a lot about subsurface conditions. A similar method is used at sea, with a ship towing geophones through the water.
They're able to gather 2-D and 3-D pictures of subsurface conditions which make for interesting maps of what had previously been mountain ranges, coastal planes, ocean floors, etc.
The history of an individual well is a play in three acts. Act one is the initial discovery, drilling, and development of the oil field. Act 2 is a long plateau of extracting oil. Act three is a diminishment with an inevitable decline in oil extraction.
The model behind peak oil comes from taking the production curves of a group of oil fields .. and summing them together. For example take all the fields in a given region or country, sum their production curves, and it comes close to a bell curve. M. King Hubbert put this model together.
Hubbert's prediction for U.S. oil production was made in 1956. He had the distinction of being very close to the actual results.
Discoveries lead production. Because it takes 10 or more years to develop an oil field into production, the rate of discoveries is a predictor for future oil availability. The rate of oil discoveries peaked in the early 1960's and new oil field discoveries has been in a decline ever since. If there are little or no new oil field discoveries then ultimately oil production has to decline as the existing fields peter out.
Newt Gingrich's "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" plan is shown as an example of poppycock solutions being pushed.
Finding or getting to the new oil is not easy or cheap. Offshore oil rigs cost over $1 billion apiece.
Finding big fields is unlikely. Oil company geologists have been all over the planet and their continual quest for new oil still hasn't reversed the decline in oil discoveries.
Even if new fields were to be drilled it takes 10-20 or more years to bring a field online. If we enter a decline in oil production soon, then new fields will only help in 2020 or further into the future.
The U.S. has 20 billion bbl of oil reserves. Total U.S. daily consumption in 2005 was 20.7 million per day, and we import 11.7 per day. That's approx 7 years of supply.
Major crisis due in 2015ish perhaps. 2008+7=2015. The U.S. oil production is going to be declining and the ratio of imports to usage will simply be ever-increasing. As the ratio becomes higher it makes the U.S. economy weaker and weaker, and the U.S. ever more desparate for oil.
But this guys presentation is only one set of figures. The USGS and others have different projections of future oil. They're claiming a peak further out into the future than ASPO projections say.
Another aspect is it isn't just a U.S. problem. Other countries are in on this. In particular the former-3rd-world countries which are industrializing mainly China and India are increasing their ratio of energy use. Globalization of production makes for higher transportation costs, and higher fuel usage. From that viewpoint also, in about 7 years demand for oil will exceed maximum total oil production.
What happens then?
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Big Vehicles Stagger Under the Weight of $4 Gas -- Total Cost of Ownership
To consider a vehicle just by its up-front cost might be misleading as to which vehicle is the more expensive. The Tesla Roadster has an eye-popping price of nearly $100,000 but a big pickup truck like an F250 has a more normal price of $50,000. However what about the total cost of ownership? Add up all the costs over the life of the vehicle, the fuel, the maintenance, the insurance, the license fees, etc. This NY Times article claims that the rising cost of fuel is a hidden cost which is what's driving people towards more efficient vehicles.
If gas remains near $4 a gallon, as many analysts expect, a big vehicle like the F-250 will cost $100,000 for an owner who keeps it for a typical amount of time (five years) and drives it a typical amount (15,000 miles a year). The gas alone would cost about $30,000, up from about $10,000 in the 1990s.
This kind of analysis has to do a projection of what the future price of gasoline will be. Since it's difficult (folly) to predict the future what they're doing is guessing, educated, sure, but still a guess. In any case it's interesting to think of the total cost versus the up-front cost. What's required is to construct a model for the total cost, it's the purchase price, plus the cost for the interest on the loan, plus the cost of insurance, the cost of maintanence, the cost of gasoline, etc. You can see if there is a rise in one of those factors in the model then the total cost of ownership will rise. And of course the cost of gasoline has risen dramatically over the last two years.
Just a few years ago when gasoline was a lot cheaper this total cost was lower. The gasoline portion of this model was minuscule enough that most people ignored its effect on the total cost of the vehicle.
But this focus on cost misses a very important point. Namely: the use of oil produces carbon dioxide, which is heating up the planet and could eventually cause all sorts of problems. Those problems are not accounted for when you look solely at the cost of ownership. The environmental cost is not measured by anybody anywhere, yet it is a cost that effects all of us.
Our environment is filled with poisons that result from the use of gasoline, for example. This causes a greater incidence of disease. There is a real cost to us to treat those diseases but that cost is not attached to the cost of oil.
To the extent that the use of oil produces carbon dioxide which causes a heating of the planet, this too is not accounted for in the cost of oil. And to put a dollar cost on the environment would presume that you could buy another planet if you only had enough money. Uh...
Article Reference:
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Coming Energy Wars
Hmm... "Oil prices could hit $200 a barrel in the next few months. How the spike changes everything." ... Oh, really? Yeah, this is a big problem alright. The article starts off with the average gas price "edging towards $4 per gallon"... er, in California it's been over $4 per gallon for quite awhile ... in any case it's obvious that the higher price is going to cause the populace to make some changes. This happened in the 1970's during the prior oil price shock, as that was the previous time in which efficient cars were popular. It's happening again.
Perhaps this is a result of the outsourcing of industry to places like India and China. The overall story is that industrialization of India and China is a huge factor in the price increases. That these countries are increasing their oil demand as they industrialize, and as a consequence the developed countries have less need for oil because less industrial activity is happening in the developed countries.
The price for oil has recently risen to $130+ per barrel, last year it was $95 per barrel and in 1999 it was $10 per barrel. This is quite a price increase. The article doesn't directly say this but the cost of doing business is greatly affected by the price for oil. The most direct example of this is the airline industry and there's huge turmoil in the airline industry right now because of high fuel prices. There have also been protests in France by fishermen and truckers, etc.
I am one of those the article mention who welcome high oil prices. The higher the oil prices go the more attractive do the alternatives appear to be. The best way to get investment in alternative fuels, vehicles, etc, is for high oil prices to give people incentive for the investment.
...Oil drives so much of the global economy, it's almost impossible to fully imagine the world of $200 oil....force nations to go greener much faster...by conserving energy and developing and adopting new non-fossil fuels. But none of this can happen full stop in six to 24 months... Since it will be difficult to do this quickly we may see a shift to more regional trade and a reversal of globalization. Globalization depends on cheap energy to make it feasible to ship products around the world. But with higher shipping costs it's less cost effective to produce in China and sell in Omaha, the relative shipping costs would tip the equation to a U.S. based producer who doesn't have as high a shipping cost.
"...In the United States, consumer confidence is now at a 15-year low...." This phrase 'consumer confidence' always seems to derive from sales figures as if the only way to gauge how 'confident' people are is by how much they're spending. Anyway in this case ... Energy Department data show that $4-a-gallon gas is finally forcing Americans to cut back on driving; this year gas consumption in the country is expected to drop for the first time since 1991 ... and economic "fiscal stimulus" looks to be unlikely to "help". Um, the talking here is in form presenting as a problem that a decrease in oil use is a problem that has to be solved.
"At $200, GM tanks," says energy expert Philip Verleger. "They just don't have time to fix their fleet." ... That is, high oil prices are hurting the U.S. carmakers because the U.S. carmakers focused on selling SUV's. SUVitis has put the U.S. carmakers in a position of selling vehicles that are absolutely bad for the current market, since there is a shift to efficient cars. This is short sighted thinking on the part of U.S. carmakers and they will get what they deserve. Insofar as it is a free market then the result of making a bad choice in product mix is for the company in question to be hurt or even die.
Article Reference:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Gas prices keep climbing even as oil prices drop
AAA puts the national average for a gallon of regular at a record $3.95. It's jumped 35 cents in the past month and is 76-cents-a-gallon higher than a year ago....in Europe, light, sweet crude contract for July delivery was down 65 cents at $130.38..."Fears that soaring oil prices could damage demand continue to weigh on sentiment," said a report from research firm JBC Energy in Vienna, Austria....On Wednesday, the Nigerian rebel group The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta threatened new attacks on oil installations to mark the one-year anniversary of President Umaru Yar'Adua's inauguration....
Article Reference:
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Impact Of Rising Oil Prices On Sydney Suburbs
A study published in an Australian newspaper looks into the effect of rising oil prices in Sydney. They showed a rather obvious result - that those who live in the suburbs have higher fuel costs than those who live in city centers. If the Australian suburbs are anywhere near as badly laid out as American suburbs, they are arranged to the convenience of the all-important car, there is little allowance for walkability, and as a result people are driving everywhere.
The article places fuel costs as a percentage of income and due to rising fuel costs they identify suburban residents as beginning to spend 6% or more of their income on fuel. Astonishing!
This rising percentage for fuel cost will clearly lead these people to agitate, or to look for solutions.
Saudi production laid bare
The OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin provides much grist for exploring the question: "So is Saudi production about to nosedive"? If Saudi production were to nosedive it would indicate the world oil peak having been reached.
Maybe Saudi production nosedived in late 2005. Maybe the Saudi's are voluntarily holding back production so they can manipulate the market.
Summary
1. Cross checking OPEC production and rig count data with International Energy Agency (IEA) and Baker Hughes data shows excellent agreement suggesting there is no reason to doubt the reliability of the OPEC data source.
2. In 2005, Saudi Arabia had 1923 producing wells that on average produced 5740 barrels oil per day per well. This is astonishing high well productivity for an area that has been producing oil for over 50 years.
3. The average well productivity has drifted down from just above 6000 bpd in 1991 to just below 6000 bpd in 2005 (Figure 1). There is no sign of a looming productivity crisis in these data and it would appear that increasing production may be achieved quite simply by drilling more wells.
4. The data provide insight into Saudi Aramco reservoir and resource management in relation to their roll as swing producer. In the past, production has been reduced by retiring production wells and raised again by bringing wells out of retirement. All the while, Aramco have a rolling program of drilling new wells thereby increasing the total number of wells that are available for production.
5. In my post of 7th March I suggested that the most likely explanation for falling Saudi production since April 2006 was voluntary restraint executed through a program of resting wells with high water cut or low pressure. The data presented here contain no evidence of a pending production crisis and voluntary restraint is still considered to be the most likely explanation for recent falls in Saudi production.
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Oil Nonbubble
In the 1970's there was a fake oil crisis which caught everybody's attention. At least for awhile, until the easily distracted Americans forgot and Reagan was elected, and we went back to driving SUV's as if there were no limit to the oil.
NY Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a column delving into the current high oil prices to ponder whether the current situation is another fake oil crisis. He seems to think it isn't a fake crisis. The clue is that it isn't acting like a situation where commodity speculators are forcing the price upward. Therefore, he concludes, this is a real shortage of some sort.
Such as... peak oil. The peak oil situation says we will reach a point where oil supplies cannot in any way keep up with rising demand, and Economics 101 states such a situation inevitably means higher prices.
Article Reference:
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
How $100 Oil Could Help
How $100 Oil Could Help "As speculative fervor continues to test the $100 mark, fears that expensive oil could spur inflation and cripple consumer spending is spreading. Pricey oil—coupled with the subprime crash, shaky credit markets, Wall Street turbulence, tensions with Iran and a feeble dollar—could be the catalyst that topples the U.S. economy into recession." Okay... and I do hear a lot of people complaining about high gasoline prices. So the title of this article might seem astonishing.
"But doom and gloom is not the only upshot of $100 oil. In fact, many analysts see pricey oil as the jolt the economy needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions and foster more energy efficiency. That's because as oil gets costlier, the incentives rise for new investments in energy efficiency and renewable options." If you remember from high school economics there is this 'law' about supply and demand. A product with high demand but low supply like, say, Diamonds, will fetch a high price. A product with high demand but high supply like, say, Oil, will fetch a low price. But the picture of Oil as having a high supply is rapidly becoming false.
Supposedly, however, The Market offers us self corrective processes. Automatically as prices for a given product rise the people will find alternatives to that product. Hence expensive oil will, as the article says, be its own incentive for customers and businesses to seek alternatives whether it's greater efficiency or alternative fuels.
But the Market does not take into account all aspects of the problem. That is the price of Oil does not reflect the issues of environmental degradation or global warming or the mutual poisoning we are all experiencing. The Market only takes into account the price required to explore for oil, pump oil out of the ground, refine oil, ship refined products around the world, deliver it to refueling stations, etc. The price for oil doesn't even include the cost of the War On Terror which itself is most obviously a War to Secure Oil Supplies.
While I applaud high oil prices - because I know it's incentivizing my neighbors to begin thinking along the lines I've been pondering for years - I recognize that addressing the issue of high oil price is not going to address the entire problem.
Article Reference:
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Refining 101: Summer Gasoline
Just what is summer gasoline? Twice a year, in the fall and in the spring, you hear about the seasonal gasoline transition. The article goes into great depth explaining what this is.
Article Reference:
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Clueless about the real oil situation?
Route 50 Conversations: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio is part of a goofy series of stories on NPR this week. Their idea is that as the New Congress is heading towards Washington DC, they're calling regular folks from across the U.S. For this story they're following U.S. Highway 50 calling people in small towns along the highway. The series of stories is largely fluff, but this particular one has several people saying stupid things about the Oil situation.
The idea they present is that the U.S. is not utilizing its own oil supplies very well, and that's why the oil prices are high. They seem to think that all we have to do is drill for oil, and we'll have plenty of oil again, and the gasoline prices will fall again.
This shows the people who said that are clueless about the real situation.
The U.S. had its oil peak in 1970-71.
The "oil peak" model describes the capacity to deliver oil. There's a lot of mathematics and whatnot involved, and the book Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak is a really good introduction to the phenomena. I also have links to Peak Oil web sites which will help educate you.
Essentially the oil peak model describes the delivery capacity for a set of oil fields. Such as the oil fields in the U.S. The capacity to deliver oil will grow over time until it reaches a maximum capacity, and once the fields reach that maximum capacity they go into an inexorable decline.
The U.S. had its oil peak in 1970-71. That means the capacity to deliver oil from U.S. oil fields has been in decline since 1970. That does not mean the U.S. has run out of oil, it means our capacity to deliver oil has been declining and cannot increase.
In 1973 during the first oil crisis the U.S. imported only 35% of the oil we used. Today the percentage of oil imports is close to, if not beyond, 70%. This is due in part to the decline in delivery capacity from U.S. oil fields, and due in part to the increase in oil demand.
Because the U.S. is past its oil peak we cannot increase the capacity to deliver oil from U.S. fields. That does not mean we cannot do more drilling for oil. It means that new fields that are found will not replace the exhausted fields.
WAKE UP!!!! DRILLING FOR NEW OIL IS NOT A SOLUTION!!!!
The game has to change and cause the U.S. people to leave behind their addiction to fossil fuel oil.
Not only has the U.S. gone past our oil peak, it's possible that the world went past its oil peak a year ago. If true it means the world capacity to deliver oil cannot increase beyond the amount that was delivered over the last year. Given that demand for oil has consistently grown over the years, the growing demand will conflict with the inability of the market to deliver more oil. And, what will result from that conflict?
Economists suggest that Market Forces will take care of it. The rising oil price will cause people to decrease their oil usage. Simple enough. In fact one of the speakers in the NPR peace linked above suggested the same, that the rising price for oil would cause people to do less recreational stuff.
But will it be that simple? Consider The Road Warrior as an alternate scenario. It depicted a crumbling society falling apart from the heights of high-tech wonders, all due to their inability to have oil to drive the machines they've come to depend on.
One thing that's for sure is that if The People continue being as clueless about the real situation as those interviewed by NPR, the U.S. will continue to be unprepared for the real problem that's looming in front of us.
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