'Peak Oil' Scam Unravels, Oil Reserves Increasing

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'Peak Oil' Scam Unravels, Oil Reserves Increasing
by GEORGE CRISPIN

'Peak Oil' Scam Unravels, Oil Reserves Increasing (EDITOR'S NOTE: Could this be the beginning of the end of the so-called "Peak Oil Scare Scam"? You know - the one where they say, "Help, help, we're running out of oil.That's why the price of gas is going up. That's why the US invaded Iraq. That's why... blah blah blah." Don't hold your breath. As long as well-paid disinfo guys like Mike Ruppert are doing speaking engagements, all bets are off, pal.)

Eugene Island is an underwater mountain located about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1973 oil was struck and off-shore platform Eugene 330 erected. The field began production at 15,000 barrels a day, then gradually fell off, as is normal, to 4,000 barrels a day in 1989.

Then came the surprise; it reversed itself and increased production to 13,000 barrels a day. Probable reserves have been increased to 400 million barrels from 60 million.

The field appears to be filling from below and the crude coming up today is from a geological age different from the original crude, which leads to the speculation that the world has limitless supplies of petroleum.

This really interested some scientists.

Thomas Gold, astronomer and professor emeritus of Cornell held for years that oil is actually renewable primordial syrup continually manufactured by the earth under ultra hot conditions and tremendous pressures...

(continued)

http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=63&contentid=2097

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Haha. At first glance, this article seems it could have come from the National Inquirer (maybe close, it comes froom a conspiracy website). But at the same time, it does kind of make you think. At least it sounds somewhat more believable than Martians coming to invade the earth. I wouldn't be too surprised if it actually does reveal the truth behind 'peak oil,' despite its questionable source (Conspiracy Planet).

[Texifornia]

1. Abiotic oil

...next thing will be the perpetual motion machine.

Peak oil is no scam. It is only a matter of when, not if.

[Richard D]

3. One has to hope that the abiotic oil theory is false . . .

. . . imagine a world with limitless amounts of C02 being pumped into the atmosphere.

[kestrel91316]

20. Nobody seems to have noticed that the engine is running and the

garage door is still closed. Indeed, there IS no door to the garage.

Oh yeah.........just keep burning that stuff all you want. The greenhouse effect doesn't exist. Global warming can't happen, or if it does man had nothing to do with it. Actions have no consequences.

Right.

[depakid]

32. The problem here is science education

and Americans' profound LACK of it. I see things like this- or some of the influenza pandemic deniers- and what I see is a reflection of 25 years of divestment in education. Particularly science education.

A large majority of Americans- including (as we see all too often at DU) a considerable number of otherwise thoughtful progressives- simply lack (or lost) the ability to reason scientifically- to look at the evidence (which may require competency in mathematics) and make determinations about what credible and what's not.

Natural laws like thermodynamics- they don't care what people think. They don't care about opinions. They just are- and they have their effects.

Probabilities are what they are- and they have their effects, and sensible people (those with the ability to reason scientifically) don't make foolish bets- nor do they base their opinions on the demonstrably improbable (or the empirically disproven).

Does that mean everyone needs to master the hard sciences? No- not everyone can. But people can look for and learn from credible (which often means published and peer-reviewed) experts- and have some respect for their findings and policy recommendations when they see them.

Scientists like Kenneth Deffeys http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/

and Colin Campbell http://www.oilcrisis.com/campbell/

aren't playing games with people, any more than the epidemiologists at the World Health Organization are.

[Greyhound]

2. I thought peak oil was when production levels off due to existing

supplies dwindling faster than new sources are found. In other words we have hit the maximum production capacity and the decline is beginning. Not that we are running out now.

[No Exit]

4. Thanks for the info

Whether or not petroleum is a finite resource, the fact remains that mankind has spent most of its existence without using oil (the type we use now) for fuel. If we did without it before, we can do without it again. (Let's start now! I would dearly love to see the oil companies go bust.)

[adubadee]

12. too many people

"Whether or not petroleum is a finite resource, the fact remains that mankind has spent most of its existence without using oil (the type we use now) for fuel. If we did without it before, we can do without it again. (Let's start now! I would dearly love to see the oil companies go bust.)"

Unfortunately the fuel sources of the past can not sustain the huge population of America and the globe today. I hate to think it, but there are too many people on this earth right now. This impending bird-flu pandemic could be mother nature's way of thinning the herd. ("and telling you somethings wrong")

[kestrel91316]

21. Global climate change, peak oil, emerging diseases: The Trifecta?

[No Exit]

27. I dunno...

I try to keep an open mind. Where is it written that we must always live as we live today? Other ways of life have been tried; some of them were successful.

I wouldn't put too much credence into this bird flu stuff. Until someone other than the Bush-controlled media says it's time to get serious about it, I'll wait.

[Tace]

5. Most Geologists Are Part Of The "Peak Oil Conspiracy"

Ask just about any geologist... they'll tell you that Peak Oil is very real, and we're there, looking down a very scary slope.

[arikara]

6. They are using the disasters and "peak oil"

to their greatest advantage. Record profits and price gouging. And of course the governments are letting them get away with it.

[KittyWampus]

7. Thermal Depolyermization = Limitless Oil

[TomClash]

15. Maybe

we'll see.

[kestrel91316]

23. Yep, sounds nice. But what is the energy return on investment?

Do you get more out than it took to do the process?

[Massacure]

29. Yes it is an energy surplus.

However it is expensive. It only is a novel way of collecting excess solar energy from the waste we throw away.

[kestrel91316]

30. Eventually the more expensive thing will be to pump oil.

(waiting for that day with bated breath)

[KittyWampus]

31. Yes, quite a bit more. The catch is getting really cheap waste. They were

using turkey offal but the turkey plants ended up selling the offal to TURKEY FEED manufacturers... kind of like what lead to mad cow disease.

The process, however, can use just about ANY waste. Plastics etc. so if the plants were built in locales and used local waste, it'd pay off.

[norml]

8. From the Archives: "Am I Wrong To Argue Against Peak Oil Hysteria?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3545478

[norml]

16. Inside Industry Publications Fear Oil Glut

Inside Industry Publications Fear Oil Glut
African oil export cartel in the offing?
By Cyril Widdershoven

As the last OPEC meeting, December 4, has not really shaken international markets, traders and financial analysts, the latter are still keeping an eye on developments within and especially around the international oil cartel. The possible rift between leading members of OPEC, especially Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait on one side and Nigeria, Algeria, Libya and possibly Venezuela on the other, seems to be widening. Still no real threats are looming on the horizon in the coming weeks, but it has become clear that the internal powers of OPEC are waning.

Most analysts agree that the next meeting could be the first step to a possible oil glut in the years to come, largely due to the unwill of non-OPEC producers to control their production and export increase and the growing pressure inside of OPEC to renegotiate their respective export quota. Nigeria, Algeria en Libya could become the powerbrokers in a new OPEC scheme, to be devised after December 2003. The exponential growth of their crude oil production in the coming years cannot be sustained within the current export quota of OPEC. To counter this internal dissent, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, the leading member countries that have set the latest quota system and price-band of the cartel, are at present trying to find external support for their control of the international crude oil markets.

To compensate for possible internal dissent, both leading members are setting up meetings with countries such as Russia, Norway and Mexico. With the latter a meeting is scheduled in the coming days, just after the end of Ramadan (after November 28/29), to discuss the stability of the global market. Additionally, international politics will be discussed, such as the attacks in Turkey and Iraq, which are both having a direct influence on international oil price levels as we have seen. The same negotiations have been conducted officially, and unofficially with other major producers. The success story of OPEC since 1999 has partly been built upon the support of leading non-OPEC members for the price-band tactics and export quota scheme of the cartel. Time will show if this can be repeated indefinitely.

Most factors that are currently forming international energy markets are not anymore purely related to the price of crude oil or the overall export levels of producing countries. External factors have taken over the primacy of supply and demand factors in the oil market. Diversification of energy sources and supply routes have caused a decrease in the importance of the oil factor, not only in the economy but also in the financial and political- strategic sectors. The emergence of natural gas, and the widespread production and usage worldwide of the this commodity is changing the market place forever. OPEC’s (perceived) stranglehold on American and European consumers is decreasing rapidly. In stark contrast to the fact that more 60% of the world’s crude oil reserves are in the Arab (Persian Gulf) countries, natural gas has been more evenly spread, with most reserves being found in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries, such as Russia or in the Caspian, or in Iran, Norway, Canada and Egypt. West Africa will play a major role in the new natural gas markets worldwide.



snip



http://www.meprc.com/publications/gesa1356.shtm

[mike_c]

9. this is unbelievably dumb....

Today's fossil fuels are derived from a narrow era-- geologically speaking-- when carbon fixation by abundant vegetation coverage greatly exceeded the rate of decomposition, partly because the evolution of decomposer organisms lagged behind the peak production of lignocellulosic-- woody-- vegetation.

This is from a paper that focuses on the role of termites in ending the era of petroleum deposition, but the basic principle is that eventually the decomposer community diversified sufficiently to process most woody debris before it could be deposited in anaerobic sediments and eventually undergo conversion to petroleum:

....An enormous amount of the earth's biomass is stored in the arboresent lignocellulosic superstructure evolved in forests to adaptively intercept solar energy. About 90% of the earth's living and stored biomass is represented by trees (xylem) and other lignocellulosic matter (Hall and De Groot, 1987).

A state of the world in which lignocellulosics represented the most abundant nutrient base for the biosphere apparently came to exist very soon (in geological time) after plants invaded the terrestrial world. Psilopsids, lycopods, and sphenopsids where the predominant plants of the Devoninan 400-355 MYA and were neither very tall, woody or leafy. However by the Carboniferous 355-265 MYA giant tree ferns, cycads and conifers were present....

One of the interesting features of the late Paleozoic era is that carbon sinks existed in warm regions of the world. It seems evident therefore that decomposer communities had not yet evolved the capacity to keeping up with productivity. Consequently this was the period during which lignocellulosic materials accumulated as fossil fuels in coal, shale, and petroleum deposits. Approximately by the end of the Paleozoic, and coincidentally when termites or their xylophagous proto-termite ancestors came onto the scene, the process of fossil fuel deposition ceased.

--more at http://www.utoronto.ca/forest/termite/dec-lig.htm

It is entirely possible that some new petroleum deposits might be located, perhaps even some significant ones. But petroleum is a finite resource nontheless-- since the end of the paleozoic era biomass has decomposed rather than accumulated (except, ironically, in boreal forests).

[kestrel91316]

26. None of what you posted is true. Don't you know the earth is only

6000 years old??

:crazy: :hi:

[mike_c]

28. ROTFL....

:rofl:

Good one.

[TomClash]

10. What an idiot

400 million barrels? Even if true, the US goes through that in less than three weeks.

[SupplyConcerns]

11. Reserves will increase every year... until we peak.

The Peak Oil aware are for the most part NOT claiming that we are currently at or past peak. The issue is that we will likely hit it very soon (within a decade or so). Either way, it's coming soon enough that it will seriously debase the "easy motoring" way of life we're used to.

[Neil Lisst]

13. Oil is a commodity, and as such, subject to great speculation.

Oil is a commodity, a product that people need and buy because they need it for industrial and consumer purposes. Assuring that one has petrol in some form for the forseeable future is a key for all developed countries. No one can afford to fall short.

This leads to much speculation in the oil market, by countries as well as large investment and hedge funds. If you think the market is rising, you buy futures and lock in prices. If you think the market is declining, you start to unload the reserves you've bought or accumulated.

This action leads to swells and declines in the price of oil, as perceptions of availability control the price within a 10% or so framework.

Make no mistake. Oil is twice as much per barrel as it should be right now, and most of the overrage is caused by speculaton and fear. In late 2002, oil was still around $30 a barrel, before the invasion of Iraq. If you will check the price of oil, it began this climb not after 9/11, but after the invasion of Iraq.


http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst

[Neil Lisst]

17. Here is the chart you must see!!

Take a look at this chart, and you'll see the rise of oil since the invasion of Iraw, the seminal event in causing prices to rise.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

22. I agree...

The irony is delicious....

[depakid]

33. Yep- which is why you watch the moving average

which accounts for price fluctuations due to speculation. Over time, the moving average is going to show a steady rise. With production peaking and demand rising globally at 3% or more, there's no way around that.

How steep the curve will be over the next decade is anyone's guess- but we can be sure that there will be tipping points along the rise that will lead to economic disturbances, some of which will likely be quite severe.

[Emit]

14. I don't know enough about all of the technical arguments

for and against the "peak oil" thing to have a solid opinion, although I'm inclined to think there really is something to the argument of peak oil.

But, I tell you, the issue of peak oil is really one of the most compelling theories that can account for why the Bush & Co. totalitarian regime is usurping our democratic Republic and positioning itself for grabbing up the last drops of oil in the future. I just don't buy the theory that they're in it only for power. I think there's much more to the drastic measures they've employed and to their sinister plans, which have been in the making for 30 or more years.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. There 's A Lot Of Debate

I tend to abhor the mixing of politics and science....



I think the era of cheap oil is over.....

[drduffy]

18. lah dee dah, oh lah dee dah

articles debunking abiotic oil are at www.fromthewilderness.com. articles describing what is going on with respect to peak oil are at the same site and www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.com and others (visit www.peakoil.com as well.)

the political, economy and military behaviors of countries indicates the reality of peak oil and the immediacy of peak oil. You should also read:http://www.kunstler.com/spch_petrocollapse.html the speech by Kunstler at the 2005 petrocollapse conference.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. Michael C Ruppert Is A Clown

He said Hurricane Katrina would mark the end of the United States as a unified nation....


I am trying to find the article but it seems unlike most websites his isn't archived....


Right after Hurricane Katrina I said the price of unleaded regular gas would be closer to #2.50 than $3.00 by Christmas and I'm sticking to it....


Oh, and adjusted for inflation the price of gas will be less ten years from now than it is now...


Come up with a mechanism and I'll make a small wager on both....

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

25. Isn't there oil in outer space?

The European Space Agency's Casini probe to Saturn's moon Titan supposedly discovered oceans of liquid hydrocarbons on that sphere, which are made up of complexes of methane and ethane. The article referenced in this post seems to engage in a high degree of speculation. But there just might be something to the idea that oil could form through non-organic means.