Peak Oil is Here : Melbourne Indymedia

It's easy to get confused with all the mad news stories going around nowadays, especially given the overwhelming criminal compliance of our corporate and public media and the government propaganda it pedals, you'd hardly think we're all actually involved in a global war, an illegal attack on Iraq, in extra-legal detention and torture, and in the ongoing mass murder of 10 000+ innocents while our world plummets on towards a global warming catastrophe. The biggest news in the world at the moment however is also the most suppressed, and it is actually quite frightening. It's suppressed because it completely obliterates all the ludicrous reasons we've been fed about why we're in Iraq and Afghanistan, and because once it becomes self-evident the global stock markets will panic and crash.

Obviously it's all about the neo-colonial theft of Iraqi oil but the motivation driving this theft is rather more urgent than just funnelling oil into Haliburton's maw. Apparently, according to oil industry people and independent geologists, Hubbert's Peak has possibly already arrived with a plateau in global oil production this very year, midpoint peak by 2008 and terminal decline setting in from 2010. You may have noticed a growing number of stories about it but for those of you who don't know, peak oil occurs when half the oil in the ground around the world has been pumped out. From that moment on the remaining oil is harder to extract, so they pump water and natural gas into the oil field to maintain pressure as the production in barrels per day declines. Using more energy to pump it out and less of a flow means oil is more expensive to produce and there's increasingly less of it to go around. Or in other words, and it's just a simple geological fact, there's no more cheap oil.

The notion of 'peak oil' has been around for a while ever since Hubbert predicted it for the year 2000 back in the late 50's. The recent predictions are based on geological data from the 2000 US Geological Survey and after the latest Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO http://www.peakoil.net ) conference in Berlin in late May attended by oil company geologists, market analysts, members of the European Parliament and international media this story is starting to break all over the internet just this last few weeks. It's not a conspiracy myth, it's not the ravings of disaffected lefties, it's science. Dr Colin Campbell has recently revised the ASPO estimate for peak oil and gas production to just 4 years from now:

"The present model departs from earlier ones in recognition that the Middle East no longer has sufficient spare capacity to discharge a swing role. A volatile epoch of recurring price shocks and consequential recessions dampening demand and price is now regarded as more likely, with terminal decline setting in and becoming self-evident by about 2010".

There are lots of recent 2004 reports speculating about the Saudi's ability to increase production suggesting that the peak plateau may already have arrived with midpoint by 2008. OPEC is apparently pumping at its full rate, while everyone else from the Russians, US, North Sea to our own oil fields are apparently depleting already. The first major oil shock could be as early as the fourth quarter of this year and some analysts suggest that the Saudi's are on the verge of a collapse in their major Gawar oil field, the largest in the world.

According to what I've read, if this all turns out to be true then we're currently on the threshold of a gigantic transition in the structure of our modern globalised industrial civilization, a transition that humanity seems completely unprepared for. More than just the price of petrol at your local bowser, cheap oil means cheap road/rail haulage and international shipping as well as air travel, it means cheap food produced by mechanised industrial agriculture with its petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers, more than just underwriting the value of the US dollar and their domestic economy it upholds the global stock markets and banking system. Cheap oil has paid for our modern lifestyles since WW2. The end of cheap oil will mean a lot more than $4 per litre and rising, just to drive a car around.

Beyond the current oil wars and the short term economic effects of unstable oil supply and prices over the next 5 years, peak oil threatens an irreversible global economic decline that will force a massive, radical and sustained change in our way of life as we transition to alternative energy sources and the economic/political order they support.

The cost of everything will rise and rise with the poorest of us the first to start suffering. A terminal economic decline will begin with a recession in Australia the size of the one that occurred in WW2, and this possibility is already being discussed in our mainstream media. Think an end to public welfare across the board, food stamps and eventually food riots, massive rising unemployment, the collapse of Medicare and public hospitals, a severe crisis in the cost and delivery of water ... but at least the roads will be less congested, more room for the ultra wealthy and their gas guzzling limousines.

At worst peak oil could mean a complete global economic collapse sometime after 2010, middle class poverty and the breakdown of law and order, truly gigantic starvation in the third world and the unrestrained outbreak of global warfare with the risk of numerous 'limited' nuclear conflagrations. It could ultimately mean the extinction of the human species through global nuclear war and its companions famine and pestilence.

If you're a radical anarchist then quite possibly your time in the sun is coming very soon.

We need a government of the day that can honestly face this global energy crisis and work towards a coordinated international transition to alternative and sustainable energy sources apart from coal and nuclear energy as soon as possible.

Unfortunately it appears that current political and corporate leaders around the world are incapable of an honest and open response to the problem of peak oil, let alone global warming and other related ecological disasters in waiting that are fueled by our exponentially growing consumption of fossil energy. Far from facing the inevitable threat of peak oil, our current government's oil friendly energy policy, theft of East Timorese oil and participation in the illegal war in Iraq keeps us in lock step with the Bush administration's militarist regime.

Responding to this looming terminal oil crisis by collaborating in the mass murder of upwards of 50 000 Iraqi civilians and soldiers in order to gain strategic control of the Persian Gulf oil fields is probably the most criminally dangerous act imaginable in the circumstances. And it's us liberal Anglo democracies that have done it.

My question to the Indymedia network is what potential exists here to organise around this global problem and help get this 'Peak Oil' message out? With the likelihood that oil prices will never again fall much below $US40 a barrel but on the contrary will inevitably keep rising as peak sets in the time is right for the truth to start making a whole lot of awful sense to a lot more people.

An Australian federal election is imminent, perhaps as early as August, in which Howard stands to win an implicit mandate for our involvement in a global oil war with no end. The real election issue is do we want global total warfare as a way of life or international cooperation in dealing with the impending collapse of our modern industrial civilisation?

Perhaps now is the time for all anti-globalisation activists to come together and fight the propaganda war currently being waged on us by the corporate media and mainstream political parties, using the new media weapons at the disposal of Indymedia. There is an editorial policy but is there any sort of consensus of opinion nationally and internationally amongst the Indymedia crews about the threat of peak oil and can Indymedia coordinate its activities and agenda on a national and international level?

What sort of relations can be built with local youth and student groups and other fringe dwellers focusing on an information campaign about peak oil as the underlying problem fuelling globalisation, oil wars and the disaster of global warming?

Some possibilities for action are: Encourage people to vote against Howard's response to peak oil; encourage the stencil and graffiti artists to go political about it; organise ongoing poster/leaflet campaigns; form letters to government, corporate and union functionaries; online petitions; letters to the editor; indie 'end time' gigs; sit ins; rallies and whatever else comes to mind.

The central message is simple - Peak Oil is Here - everything else from corporate and governmental interference in our daily lives and the rape of the environment, to Howard's use of concentration camps for 'illegal aliens' and the prosecution of an international war crime in Iraq, is a consequence of that simple geological fact and the end of the cheap energy that fuels globalisation. If 60's activism revolved around 'make love not war' and the atrocity of Vietnam this generation is faced with nothing less than the possibility of the end of our modern industrial civilisation, a global apocalypse.

Ideas can be powerful, especially if they're true and most especially if they involve an overwhelming threat to a peoples well being. That's how the government's propaganda campaign on 'terror' works, and its principles are based on Goebbels Nazi propaganda machine. Instead of spin and machination though what you have on your side is scientific truth.

Thanks for writing the article, Strangelove

A good starting point for awarness raising is the film The END of SUBURBIA - showing on Tuesday 29th at Kaleide Theatre at 7:30pm
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/calendar/event_display_detail.php?event_id=469

There will also be an interview with permaculture co-orginator David Holmgen on Peak Oil and suburbia, which is also online here:
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/INTERVIEWS/DAVID.HOLMGREN/

There are a number of ways where the green and anti-corporate-globalisation movements already intersect with what are necessary politics to adopt in light of peak oil - but there are many areas where, as you suggest, the movements' hopes and aspirations become less relevant, as new threats and possibilities to dignified existence will emerge.

A good place to start that discussion might be after the movie.

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On a technical note, it's probably better not to over-simplify the science down to "peak oil occurs when half the oil in the ground around the world has been pumped out. From that moment on the remaining oil is harder to extract." As a general rule, ever since we first discovered oil the tendency has been for it to become harder to extract as we use up all the easy to access oil first for obvious reasons. It's not something which suddenly happens half way through a field or region. The peak of production can be drawn out and extended past the midway point of a particular field region through technologies like horizontal drilling and steam injection, but that tends to make the final drop off far more sudden and sharp.

Australia is in a particularly dire situation considering the the alarming decline in Australia's self-sufficiency in crude oil, which forecasters say means we will have to import most of our crude oil and petroleum products from overseas by 2008. Which corresponds with ASPO's predicted global peak.

--
http://www.energybulletin.net

Hi Mr Fenderson,

who's distributing 'The End of Suburbia' in Aus?

"On a technical note, it's probably better not to over-simplify the science"

Perhaps, although while we can get as technical as you like I think it would obscure the public message which I'd say has to be as simple and direct as possible. Here's some quick suggestions:

1 - oil is not itself running out but imminent peak production means the end of cheap oil which is where the catastrophe starts as global demand keeps growing exponentially.

2 - The push to maintain and grow production in the context of a global oil war may also, as you point out, lead to a much steeper decline which just makes things worse even if it means oil stays around the $US40-50 range for a while as the global economy enters stagflation. Simmons suggests oil should be priced at $182 a barrel just to start getting serious about the problem, and the longer it stays relatively cheap the less people are going to listen to us chicken littles.

3 - The problem is geological in origin not political. It's a terminal decline and not a short term product of terrorist attacks on Middle Eastern oil workers and facilities.

4 - It means a lot more than just $4/litre at the bowser.

5 - Maintain an optimistic outlook so long as international cooperation can be organised to face the problem as soon as possible. This means getting the public to understand the current oil wars and thus forcing the political parties to follow their lead. There's a dreadful sense of 'end times' hopeless doom spreading in the various email lists I've checked out, which might be perfectly reasonable but it doesn't lend itself to activism.

Any other sound bytes to add? Is there a peak oil advocacy group in Aus lobbying for change? What is Melbourne Indymedia up to apart from your RMIT screening?

"who's distributing 'The End of Suburbia' in Aus?"

There's no Australian distributor as far as I know, but you can order the dvd through the producer at the website http://www.endofsuburbia.org

"Is there a peak oil advocacy group in Aus lobbying for change?"

Not specifically unfortunately. Some of the Greens are starting to talk about it, although no environmental NGOs have done anything that I'm aware of. I approaced FoE melbourne but they weren't very receptive. Sheila Newman, a contibutor here, does some lobbying on the issue through Sustainable Population Australia, although her focus is primarily on immigration. I'm not convinced of the value of lobbying. For one it assumes that the issue is not well understood in government already. I think the US government understands it pretty well at least as they are full of oil men. John Anderson has also said something to suggest some kind of understanding. But their tactics are ones of war, eroding civil rights and obuscation.

Many of the positive reactions will have to be made in a decentralised, organic and incremental way.

"What is Melbourne Indymedia up to apart from your RMIT screening?"
The screening is not affiliated with Melbourne Indymedia. I've helped do a seminar at an autonomous conference but consciousness of the issue in autonomous activist circles is just beginning.

"although while we can get as technical as you like I think it would obscure the public message which I'd say has to be as simple and direct as possible."

That's true, but certain over simplified statements might make people think they see some error in your reasoning, so dismiss it. Anyway, I thought your article was good overall.

"3 - The problem is geological in origin not political. It's a terminal decline and not a short term product of terrorist attacks on Middle Eastern oil workers and facilities."

True with the caution that as we go over the peak (now?) the vulnerability to 'terrorist' attacks is increased, and the impact of such attacks on energy supply becomes inevitable. So politicians will be able to blame terrorists for energy woes with a certain plausibility for a long time to come. For this and other reasons there is the potential for further political movement towards facism in the post peak depression, especially if the root cause is not well understood and terrorist or other scapegoats are blamed. All the more reason for progressive types to consider this issue.

Not bad, Dr Strangelove, agree with your gist tho IMHO you went a bit overboard once or twice ("..more room for the ultrawealthy..").

The oil production/supply peak may well have arrived, but I'm not so sure the price/barrel wont go down again. Given the massive & increasing credit (M3 money) injections by the US Reserve, & US$ support from the Chinese & Japanese banks, Bush may well engineer the price drop he needs for election. Anyone who 'gets' the fundamental resource-depletion point knows thats not good news, but its important if planning a public advocacy/awareness campaign.

I wonder too about launching such a campaign without some very clear 'where to from here?'. This is pretty confronting stuff once you actually think about it, and leaving ppl with just the bad news would be stupid. I'm not requiring a universally accepted 10 point plan, but at least a few plausible actions at various scales, e.g. Join local oil-awareness meetups, lobby Gov to adopt Uppsala Protocol, buy renewable electricity, plan personal/family food security, etc.

I support the prominence given to 'messages':
1 - 'the end of cheap oil' is best 1st/single msg, because it is sufficient (in that is true & demonstrable), relevant to all, & still soundbite sized.
2 - that decline has geological not political causes. The blame-game will be very popular with populist leaders, and may be used to rationalise an even more coercive State, more wars, etc. Fixing blame onto 'natural causes'/'act of god' will help avoid that danger, which may be the most significant we face.

Why? Because if cheap oil not possible b4 US election, the Whitehouse's constant 'predictions' of terrorism interrupting oil supply will probably be fulfilled (e.g 'warnings' of unrest in Venezuela, pre-coup), which will provide excellent cover for the fact of depletion itself. "Decline in supply? of course, those terrorists blew up the refineries/pipelines in Saudia Arabia. All be back to normal next year.. or the next.. or the next.. until it eventually dawns on the much impoverished and weaker ordinary people that cheap oil is never coming back.

Personally I think radical relocalisation is our only road out of our societal addiction to oil, in the form of new localised currencies for the exchange of labour (via LETS) and materials (first food, then energy, etc). Few ppl however will make the leap from the mainstream until its under much more stress, i believe, but thats no reason not to build the framework now.
See yez after the film .

Thanks for the comments, will amend the peak oil description, probably just make it simpler. Good to see there's at least a couple of Indymedia people onto the problem.

I'm in Perth so won't make it to your RMIT screening but will pass the info on to the Perth crew.

I'm a philosopher by profession, researching Heidegger's critique of Nazism, globalisation and their relation to the present US admin. There are a lot of very disturbing parallels today including the use of 'terror' as a propaganda tool, the neocon's ideology of amoral power, US defense spending (they're betting the house), the collapse of internationalism and the calls for 'total war' coming from the PNAC.

Lebensraum was all about German expansion to rival the US as a super power and revolved around the capture of Caucasus oil and from there down into British Iraq. The US is following Goebbels script quite closely and Cheney was fully aware of the approaching oil crisis since at least 1999. Peak oil is a radical, world changing motivation to follow the path of imperialsim quite literally, and the illegal attack on Iraq has lit a fuse that could ignite total war and quite possibly nuclear armageddon. I imagine Howard knows full well what he's let us in for and he's following Bush's lead remarkably closely.

The die off scenario isn't at all far fetched in my opinion, especially once depletion sets in after 2010. Peak oil could be the trigger to set off a war that will render global starvation due to oil dependency an academic concern for those of us left to worry about it after 2020. Our historical precedent is Hitler's Vernichtungskrieg or war of extermination in the east and the catastrophe of WW2, except now a lot of us are playing the great game armed with nukes, and we're already engaged in a global oil war dressed up as a war on terror.

So my main concern at the moment is to do with how we respond to and communicate the threat of peak oil. Howard is dragging us down the path to global total war which is why I think the imminent federal election is historically important. Labor is committed to a troop withdrawal that will at least give us a breathing space and help undermine Bush's legitimacy in his November election, and every little bit helps. There is a full scale mutiny within the US conservatives, military and intelligence forces against the neocons at the moment and while Kerry will be under the same constraints as Bush, the former's election will at least put a brake on the neocon extremists.

As for 'terror', it's a remarkably versatile propaganda tool especially given that wars declared in its name motivate the spread of terror. So it fulfills Goebbel's first rule of propaganda in actually being true as it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The recent terror campaign in Saudi Arabia is also perfect cover for their apparent lack of spare oil capacity.

The second rule is to keep the message simple.

The third rule is to repeat it endlessly and never correct yourself (if you're a fascist then public 'truth' is merely what you assert it to be).

The overriding rule is that it must represent a threat to the well being of the people as a whole.

'Peak oil' fulfills these criteria and has the added advantage of being the underlying motivation for all the terror propaganda. It completely undermines all political 'terror' machination. So I agree it's not a matter of lobbying governments for change but of putting them on notice and taking the message to the people as soon as possible in as many ways as possible. At least, that's what I reckon.

How about a mass email campaign targetting the federal Greens for starters? Indymedia could set up email form letters and let people post at will with just the click of the send button.

Hi Adam, Strangelove,

Although I do lobby against high immigration, folks, I also lobby for and write on family planning, land-use planning, energy and environment. And my primary motivator is biodiversity and wild places, preservation of natural ammentity, the commons etc. They go altogether in a package.

In response to your article, Strangelove, I posted a separate article about the history of Australia's energy & oil policies and economics since 1974 here at
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/72079.php

It isn't very long but it is part of a very long thesis. You will see that I have been into this issue for a long time and in depth. I am right behind you guys.

Furthermore, SPA Vic will be bringing out a petroleum depletion CD for its next electronic publication.

I agree with the others regarding the oversimplification of the peak which some interpret as the trough, but I also agree that the appearance of plenty and low prices might be maintained politically in the first world countries simply by holding the oil producers to ransome. After all, they depend as much on the money that comes to them through supply as the buyers depend on the oil. I think that one of the ways the first world got through the last forty years was by various ways of diverting oil supply from the third world to the first and by contracting the number of beneficiaries in the first world, so that more of the first world populations became poorer, whils the rich retained their lifestyles at the expense of the rest, often leading their countries into debt.

But, whatever, great to see your article. I read it with enthousiasm and I will post it on to the Population Forum and cc you.

Regarding the End of Suburbia, Brian Bucktin in West Australia is right on to it and I wll cc him your article and my reply. He is at buckos@southwest.com.au

Also, I am running for the Senate this year for the Republican Party of Australia, (Not the Malcolm Turnbull model) and we are looking for candidates in the West. I write the energy policy and most of the population and llanduse policy.

Vote for me if you are in Victoria.

Cheers,

Sheila Newman
Sustainable Population Australia Victorian Branch
http://www.population.org.au
http://www.vicnet.net.au/~aespop/

The energy profit ratio (EPR) is the ratio of the amount of energy invested into oil extraction compared to the energy contained in the extracted oil.

100 years ago, this ratio was 1:100. By 1950, it had dropped to 1:50, and today it's barely 1:5.

Soon, as your article points out, it will drop to break even (1:1), after which it will be a waste of time, energetically speaking. And it will happen faster than anyone is willing to admit.....

It might come as a shock to your readers that in the US, which peaked over 30 years ago, THOUSANDS of oil wells already produce oil at an energy loss. They pump all day for 1, 2 or maybe 3 barrels of oil. One famous oil pump in a Pennsylvanian museum pumps all day for a couple of CUPFULS of oil! probably using nuclear energy to boot. Let's not forget, the American way of life is not negotiable.

So what does our PM do to tackle the problem? Why he cuts excise on fuel to make sure we all use less and spend the energy left to build the renewable energy infrastructure needed to continue a modicum of civilisation, that's what.

It's so nice to know we're led by intelligent people.....

Strangelove has got on the Peak Oil wagon and ends with the comment that it is a scientific fact. The fact is that the foundations of modern society have been built on the use of a huge number of irreplaceable natural resources and devastation of the enviroment with the wastes produced. Oil has had been the major one in recent decades and has fostered the exponential growth of population and consumerism, but it is not the only one. Just think of the resources that will be used in trying to restore the Murray Darling or battling algae in the Gippsland Lakes or covering the irrigation channels in the Wimmera or combatting the rise of asthama due to air pollution or trying to improve the health of the Great Barrier Reef. The coming problem with decreasing supply of oil, the so-called Peak Oil, is just one element in the holistic problem of the consequences of human activities on the operation of Planet Earth. Focussing on that problem stretches credibility. Ecologists, environmentalists, climatologists, hyrologists, those concerned with the explosive global population, the influence of population on health should combine with those concerned about the irrevocable use of energy to rouse the nation. We need this combned effort.

peak oil comic:
http://www.no19bus.org.uk/5M_OilGas.htm

anti-zIonMC - next time just provide a some links if you can't come up with a comment of your own.

Some of the points are worth addressing though.

Hi Denis,

"Strangelove has got on the Peak Oil wagon and ends with the comment that it is a scientific fact.... The coming problem with decreasing supply of oil, the so-called Peak Oil, is just one element in the holistic problem of the consequences of human activities on the operation of Planet Earth. Focussing on that problem stretches credibility".

Whose credibility are you speaking for? I think it's obvious that there are any number of possible disasters we might concentrate on, global warming is one that has at least received a degree of public acceptance and even governmental and corporate attention. Global overpopulation is another, pollution, the collapse of fisheries, mass extinctions, I guess it really depends on your priorities about which wagon you want to push. Where do your priorities lie?

Oil seems to me to be the main driver for much of our modern geopolitics going back over the last century as well as fuelling the exponential growth of industrial civilisation and the massive populations fossil energy supports with all its subsequent problems.

My wagon isn't even peak oil, it's the current political situation we find ourselves in as a result of the mere threat of peak oil production. If you haven't noticed, the Anglo democracies apart from Canada are involved in the prosecution of a supreme crime of aggression in Iraq, led by the current leaders of the lone economic and military superpower. We have already embarked on a new world order defined by the ancient right of conquest with Iraq as the test case, and are trampling over the corpses of the previous order set up after the defeat of Nazism and defined by the illegality of state aggression and the rule of international law.

The pornographic torture scandals, illegal military adventurism, extralegal assassinations and incarceration, unilateral collapse of international law, mass murder of innocents, attacks on constitutionally guaranteed US civil rights, the bankrupting of the New Deal, the theft of the year 2000 election and the overwhelming regulation of corporate media as a propaganda tool are all merely effects of the urgent geo-strategic necessity for our democratic leaders to think solely in terms of power: and all because of the threat of peak oil.

From the perspective of one particular philosophical interpretation, Bush and Blair are merely fulfilling their respective roles mediated by the play of global power and the historical logic of nationalist domination. Following this extremist, amoral logic the current quest for unconditional domination, driven by the collapse of cheap energy, must eventually lead to the most base Darwinian form of competition for dwindling resources: global total war along with its companions famine and pestilence.

Neocon ideology, fed by Straussian philosophy and real-politik, espouses the notion of 'total war' which means the total subjugation of one's people in the service of the total domination of all other powers. It requires the total mobilisation of all national resources, both human and material, in a war with no moral or legal bounds, or what the Nazi's called Vernichtungskrieg.

Nowadays we seem to be confronted with a frighteningly familiar power scenario but one that threatens the fundamentals of global growth, stability and order with terminal decline. The material threat is geological in origin, fossil fuels are apparently depleting, the ideological threat is that we blindly follow the logic of domination in response to this terminal energy crisis.

So for me the most urgent concern is not itself peak oil and all the other disasters in waiting that are consequences of post WW2 globalisation fed by fossil fuels. The most urgent concern is that we are already involved in a global oil war and this time there is no democratic leader of the 'free world' to oppose the aggressors. We are the enemy already and we are plummetting towards WW3.

The only hope I can see in even starting to come to terms with peak oil and your other urgent environmental concerns is in the defeat of the neoconservative hold on US power that will at least open up the possibility of some sort of international cooperation as opposed to our current suicidal, unilateralist course that threatens nothing short of constant war as a way of life and a nuclear apocalypse.

That's my wagon, or more a ship of fools, and we're rudderless with a gigantic storm brewing on the horizon while the skipper is drunk on power and sailing us into the rocks.

Dr Strangelove writes:

" That's my wagon, or more a ship of fools, and we're rudderless with a gigantic storm brewing on the horizon while the skipper is drunk on power and sailing us into the rocks."

And the captain and his mate are lulled by the siren song of economists, so stupid that they teach that humans invented oil and when it runs out they will invent something else and that big populations CAUSE wealth rather than that wealth causes big populations. (Wealth being fossil fuel.)

This is the religion of our time. Thermodynamic law deniers are the high priests of economics.

Sheila N

Oil is created through decomposing biomass and it was natures way of storing CO2.
When we released it an chopped down every tree we could find, the world began to end.
In two hundred years we have lain waste to 80% of the worlds forests and burnt 80% of the world oil. Because we are all going to Mars, why else would we be so stupid? so its ok, spend up big and don't worry about it, they know what there doing, thats why we have leaders, you and I coyuld never have come up with such a plan, they are so smart!.

I completely disagree with your throwaway comment If you're a radical anarchist then quite possibly your time in the sun is coming very soon. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist, but I think this is woefully optimistic and what is far more likely, in the bitterness that will follow economic collapse (and this time it will happen), is a lurch to the extreme right. In fact it's happening in various places already. So how can we stop that from happening boys and girls? Any ideas? Perhaps, instead of trying to imagine and build the revolution, we should be thinking about how to be more effective in the inevitable rearguard action we are much more likely to have to undertake.

These theories that we are about to reach ecconomic melt-down or run out of oil and so on are nothing but the lefts version of religious judgement day prophecies. The theories themselves and particularly the attitudes that go with them are extremely nihilistic with undertones of elitism with only the chosen surviving. They also ignore the living hell that most people on this planet already face (tell the Iraqis that the end of the world is NIGH!).

I am not at all convinced of the evidence that we are running out of oil (infact there is a lot more evidence to say this is extremely unlikely because oil is not even created through decomposing biomass) either.

My belief is that the real reason for the reluctance to switch to more sustainable energy is that these are generally decentralised. The power companies are not so much waiting till we run out of oil, but for more centralised technology to be developed.

The last thing they want is to be made redundant because people are all buying and selling energy produced by their own solar, wind etc panells on a free market. This is already beginning in places such as canberra where people with solar panells on their roofs sell power to the grid. The problem at the moment is that while they sell it at wholesale price, they have to buy electricity at much higher retail prices.

The move to centralised sustainable fuel can already be seen with large-scale hydro, wind and other power plants. Hydro power is an other one wich can be done on a decentralised small scale with far less environmental problems.

The real threat is the possibility of decentralised efficient technology that can break the monopoly (ecconomic and political) of government and the power industries.

THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO COME CRASHING DOWN AROUND OUR EARS THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. WHAT WE ARE SEEING IS THE SLOW AND PAINFULL DEGENERATION THAT COMES WHEN SOCIETY STOPS PROGRESSING.

That is the slow errosion of our rights, the increasingly destructive wars agianst our societies, supression of human potential and spirit.

We cant just sit around preparing for catastrophy. Voting Labor and stocking up on baked beans and ammo will not save you. We have to bring down the Empire BEFORE it has collapsed too far - or there will be nothing left for us.

WHEN THE END COMES IT WILL ALREADY BE TOO LATE.

I hope Lewis you wont take it personally if I dissect some of your comment for its goldmine of myths and spins. Since I think you made so many unfounded assertions, I don't think you can protest too much.

"nothing but the lefts version of religious judgement day prophecies.." - few of the those pushing the issue of peakoil (and other natural resource limits) are of the 'left'. ASPO certainly isn't, & neither are/were Leherrere, Campbell, Youngquist, Hubbert or M.Simmons. R.Heinberg & Kuntsler may be Green, but if you cant tell the difference i should stop now.

"The theories themselves and particularly the attitudes that go with them are extremely nihilistic" - We're not talking theories, the decline in oil discovery since at least 70's is a fact. Your impression of other ppls attitudes (unevidenced) is irrelevant to the facts.

"They also ignore the living hell that most people on this planet already face (tell the Iraqis that the end of the world is NIGH!)." - Nonsense, a glance at energybulletin.net, or the energyresources or ROE elists would show. That most global conflict occurs where capitalism is busy dispossessing the locals while extracting oil or other natural resources (mostly for us whiteys) is obvious and widely commented upon.

"because oil is not even created through decomposing biomass" - ah now, either you've got a great secret geology would love to hear about, or you've been smoking wacky 'baccy, & on a Monday too!

Your (unevidenced) theory about conspiracy by the power companies is possible, but so is the one about Bert Newton being Elvis. Either way, it doesn't change the material facts of energy reserve depletion. There are real questions about whether many 'renewable' energy techs actaully pay their way. But from where we are now, I (as would prob. many oil-limits proponents) support your enthusiasm for distributed generation, and agree theres little gain in swapping Howard for Latham.

"THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO COME CRASHING DOWN AROUND OUR EARS THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW." Only a very few say disaster is imminent. Exagerating the peak oil case is deliberate misinformation.

"WHAT WE ARE SEEING IS THE SLOW AND PAINFULL DEGENERATION THAT COMES WHEN SOCIETY STOPS PROGRESSING." Yes, because we have less cheaply available energy (energy per person peaked in the West in early 1980's).

"WHEN THE END COMES IT WILL ALREADY BE TOO LATE." - This must be a koan, or is Lewis guilty of the very end-of-days thinking-feeling s/he accuses other of?

-----------------
"Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored." A.Huxley
"When I get new information, I change my position. What, sir, do you do with new information?" - John Maynard Keynes

energybulletin.net
peakoil.net

JUDGEMENT DAY PROPHESIES:

"I don't care about the state, it will do what it does. I care about my family and close friends having to deal with an extreme, terminal energy crisis within the next 10 years while the leaders have thrown caution and common sense to the winds and are dragging us into a nuclear apocalypse in a naked grab for the world's remaining oil reserves."
- Dr Strangelove
http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/72447_comment.php#72506

Yes you do ignore the fact that most of the world is already in crisis because you go on about "peak oil" like it is the fucking Millenium. Like running out of petroll for your car is somehow more terrible than having your entire country annihilated by bombs and then looted.

OIL CREATION:

"The original creation of oil or petroleum is not well understood. There are several theories, but the matter is still one of scientific controversy. It is generally accepted however that the origin of oil begins with plant fossils, just as with coal."
http://www.bydesign.com/fossilfuels/links/html/oil/oil_create.html

As the quote points out, oil creation is not well understood. Many theories suggest that it is created in the earths crust continually and has little to do with fossils. Im not saying that this theory is correct, but it is a fact that we really dont know. These "peak oil" theories have been pushed since the 70s and the people who originally came up with it were discredited by the fact that we havent run out of oil as they claimed. Infact oil reserves are much larger than even the oil companies thought back then. The actual reason for the high price of oil is the same as with diamonds - they create shortages through tight market controll and destruction such as the gulf war in order to keep the price up.

ECCONOMIC FACT:

"Your (unevidenced) theory about conspiracy by the power companies is possible"

NO! Its bloody obvious. Its not a conspiracy theory either, its just how monopolies work. They need centralised infrastructure retain controll of the market. How could they compete with a million people selling solar power off their roofs on a free electricity market. I am not the first person who has said this either. Infact it is commonly accepted as one of the reasons why the transition to environmentally sustainable fuels has been so slow. Though I may have to put a little more effort into writing more about it later.

Also the reason I bring that up is that I am not for oil. It does foul up the environment we live in too. Its just that I think that some of the theories being put forward are so silly they are counter-productive to the movement.

"This must be a koan, or is Lewis guilty of the very end-of-days thinking-feeling s/he accuses other of?"

Firstly, I was replying to Richard Simpson when I said that once the end comes it will be too late. "Nihilism" means wanting destruction. I dont want to see the destruction of society. I want to see the destruction of those things that are destroying it and holding it back like the state and monopoly capitalism.

Maybe your group does not have these attitudes Liam, but all too many of the posts and articles about this issues here have.

Malthus was totally discredited a long time ago, but people keep rehashing his hatefull ideology in all sorts of new and sophisticated ways. In the end it always boils down to a hatred and fear of the victims of this society and a desire to blame them for the original problem. Rather than talking about lowering population and so on, we should be trying to channell the massive potential created by 7 billion intelligent and creative human beings to solve the problem. Our greatest weakness can easily become our greatest strength.

"World Areas To Watch" from energy information centre:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/hot.html

Also does anybody here know where to find stats on energy companies and their share of the market? I can find very little.

Thanks for civil reply, Lewis.

"Like running out of petroll for your car is somehow more terrible than having your entire country annihilated by bombs and then looted."
Oil (& gas) depletion is about much more than cars. Think fertilisers, plastics, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, pesticides. Think air travel, international shipping, trucking, food miles and supply chains.

OF course its terrible to have your country bombed & looted, but don't you think WHY is an significant question, particularly if you want to stop it happening again?
Is it just coincidence that most global conflict happens where States &/or Corporations are busy dispossessing locals to supply 1st world consumers with, e.g. oil in Columbia, Iraq, Nigeria, Algeria. Gold in Papua & Indonesia, timber in the Styx Valley, water & land in Palestine, yada yada yada.

Wars are the symptom or means to ends, resources are the prize we buy daily. If you cant see a correspondence between conflict & resource extraction, i despair. Far too much attention has been paid by 'progressives' to ideas and far too little to material facts.

Oil creation - "the fact is we really dont know". Maybe you dont, me - i take science & industries word for it: oil is biogenic and takes at least 10s of millions of years to form. Therefore there can only ever be a finite amount available to us.
Journal of Nature on abiogenisis: "I don't know anyone in the petroleum community who really takes this prospect seriously," says Walter Michaelis a geochemist at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
: http://www.nature.com/nsu/020812/020812-3.html
or see
http://www.geotimes.org/nov02/NN_oil.html
http://people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html
http://www.technocarb.com/natgasorigin.htm

"Infact it is commonly accepted as one of the reasons why the transition to environmentally sustainable fuels has been so slow" By who? Where? When? I thought it was cos very few choose to pay more.

"Malthus was totally discredited a long time ago" People keep saying that, but very few can say how or why. He was perfectly correct about human population increasing with available food, but his calculations on overpopulation pre-dated the integration of v.cheap & abundant energy (e.g. oil) into food production, and so were well wide of the mark.
Your dismissing current concerns because past media distortions weren't justified makes me think you're a bad cook. Just cos the pot ain't burnt now, that means it never will? Just cos we haven't run out before (in our limited experience), we never will?

"In the end it always boils down to a hatred and fear of the victims of this society and a desire to blame them for the original problem." Nothing in Dr Strangeloves article like that, or in most peak oil related content. Humbly suggest you concentrate on the facts rather than your (or other ppls) reactions to them.

"Infact it is commonly accepted as one of the reasons why the transition to environmentally sustainable fuels has been so slow" By who? Where? When? I thought it was cos very few choose to pay more.

How does power work where you live? Down here in Siberia there is the Hydroelectric which has renamed itself "Aurora" (renamed after it was semi-privatised because the word HEC had such bad associations from when they used to send round debt collectors). It is a half government half privatised corporation. It has full monopoly over all electricity in the state.

They are nasty as fuck. We actually have an oversupply of electricity here and about 1/3 gets practically given away to Comalco. Yet the price of electricity for houses is very high (especially in winter). How can they get away with it?

Because they have monopoly controll. Not only that but because they raise revenue for the government and corrupt private industry, the government will NEVER do anything about it. After all it is THEIR company.

Hydro power doesnt have to be large scale and centralised. Modells have been around for many years which involve several small scale plants spaced out along rivers. These are more efficient as far as electricity production goes and WAY less destructive to the river systems (sometimes even beneficial).

ANyway, the point is that the fossil fuels industries are by their nature going to become monopolies. The infrastructure needed to extract oil, coal and gass is just to large scale.

But if smaller scale, diversified power generation were to be used this would allow for competition and break the monopoly. Technologies such as solar power would go even farther. If you put a solar panell on a house you can no longer sell electricity to them because they start producing electricity. It is just a one off sale of the device and sooner or later cheaper, competing versions will come on the market (just like with computers and all other appliances).

In the ACT already there are many houses that actually sell electricity to the grid. For example if they have solar panells they sell when it is sunny and buy at night. The problem there is that the power companie has it rigged so that houses sell at wholesale prices and buy at retail. However, this still means that many houses end up buying very little electricity overall.

The problem is that the agencies and companies who have the resources to develope sustainable technologies also have an interest in retaining their monopolies. So a lot of research has gone in to developing large-scale and centralised plants which are actually way less efficient and reliable than small-scale decentralised technology would be.

"How does power work where you live? Down here in Siberia there is the Hydroelectric which has renamed itself "Aurora" (renamed after it was semi-privatised because the word HEC had such bad associations from when they used to send round debt collectors). It is a half government half privatised corporation. It has full monopoly over all electricity in the state.

They are nasty as fuck. We actually have an oversupply of electricity here and about 1/3 gets practically given away to Comalco. Yet the price of electricity for houses is very high (especially in winter). How can they get away with it? "

LOL! Funny how somethings never change with the dear 'ol Hydro. Don't forget, they were nasty as fuck to work for as well in the good old dazes in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's........BRINGING PROGRESS TO THE WILDERNESS!!!

Bizarre side story concerning oversupply issues, in the 80's the Hydro kept threatening to fire up stinky Bell Bay when water levels fell in the dams.

Does hell still break loose in the media and the corridors of power when Comalco or the EZ make noises to leave the state?

Now if VicRoads (which has the same hold on the Victorian Government as the Hydro had on the Tasmanian Government), can undergo the same PR bullshit transformation....

They keep talking about putting lines to the mainland to sell them electricity (which is I think the real reason for wanting more dams all the time).

The good ol boys from the HEC have been talking about that side project for at LEAST 25+ years.

The self published "Damania" is well out of print, but please get yourself a copy. Try hanging around the TWS shoppe and ask nicely.....

Yes, it's part of thier long term plans for world domination. I think that they are waiting to put them in along with the gass pipelines.

Hi guys, great article above - succinctly put. In my experience of explaining peak oil to family and friends I'd probably recommend to watch End of Suburbia - and leave the talking until after. People will always blame you for the end of the world if you tell them without preparation.

This goes against copyrights and stuff but there is a link to the excellent EoS movie on http://suprnova.org/ under movies---> documentaries. It's a bit torrent link so you'll need to download a client if you don't have one.

Good luck everyone.

Dr Strangelove
My wagon is quite simple. I believe that it will be useful to present a sound discourse on the consequences of human activities on the operation of the biosphere. A holistic view, not one concentrating on one specific area because I believe that will have the most impact. I expect that people who are prepared to think through this view of the foundations of modern industrialized society will be in a better position to make good decisions in the difficult times emerging. I do not expect to have any influence on what happens. Also, I see little reason to analyse why we have gone down this path. There are many others doing this in a mauch better fashion than I can ever expect to aspire to. Basically, I agree with what you have to say. However, the post I commented on stretches your credibility, in my opinion, by being selective about which problem is going to cause the most trouble. It actually can exacerbate the situation by encouraging, say alternative sources of energy, rather than recognising the fundamental issue. We are destroying the carrying capacity of Planet Earth even as we are encouraging the growth in population - the double whammy.
Denis Frith

There is a limited amount of the irreplaceable natural stored resources (fossil fuels, metallic ores, minerals and other raw materials) and society has used a significant proportion of those already in a relatively short period of time. That is a fact. The use of these resources to build the material foundations of modern society has resulted in the depositing of vast amounts of wastes in our environment, so irreversibly degrading it. That is fact too. No amount of rhetoric can alter this irrevocable decline in the carrying capacity of Mother Earth. Those who believe otherwise would help themselves and others by looking at the evidence - and thinking.

Denis Frith
Melbourne

It is interesting how often people talk about 'theories' as a prelude to attempting to refute them because theories have a certain amount of doubt associated with them. There is an irreplaceable amount of oil in the Earth's crust. That is a statement of geophysical fact based on a copious amount of scientific evidence. Anyone who attempts to deny that fact shuld support their assertion with strong evidence. That store of oil was generated over eons. We have used a high proportion of that oil in a relatively short period of time. We can only estimate how much will eventually be extracted but we know (a term I use very carefully here) that the declining supply of oil is causing major problems (the invasion of Iraq is only one example of the conflict to get access to the remainder).
Unfortunately, the so-called Peak Oil is not the only irreversible problem global society is having to come to terms with. The population explosion, the depletion of other irreplaceable natural resources and the irrevocable degradation of our environment (including the devastating consequence of climate change). Recognition of these facts would help molbilise global intellectual energy to devise means of ameliorating the inexorable decline in the carrying capacity of Planet Earth.

Denis Frith
Melbourne

You said
<<intelligent and creative human beings to solve the problem>>

There are three major problems. There are too many humans for the natural resources provided. Secondly, the major resource contributors to teh foundations of society are irreplaceable. Thirdly, out use of these resources has irreversibly degraded the environment.

Tackling the first problem in a humanitarian manner is a major challeng to our intelligence and creativity.

There is nothing we can do about replacing the fossil fuels, metallic ores, minerals and other raw materials we yhave used up so rapidly. We can make better use of the remainder. We can, in some cases, partially substitute for depleted matter, including sources of energy like oil. But we cannot solve the problem of the continuing deplation of stored resources.

We cannot solve the problem of the degradation of the environment. We can use some of the remaing resources to remedy some of the damage already done but that is only a 'band aid'. Current plans to restore the Murray to some extent have much to be said for them. Better to use those resources for this purpose than build more freeways (to encourage car growth). but these plans are not solving the problem.

Denis Frith
Melbourne

I'm not the best with words but I'll see how I go.

If I recall I read on lifeaftertheoilcrash.net (or one of the many sites linked from it) that the planet can only sustain approximately 2 billion people (not the 6 / near 7 or so we have?)

Therefore unfortunately the only logical conclusion is literally 2/3 of us to "go" - it's not going to be too pleasant at all.

We would need to recycle so much more than we do now.
Life would be different - almost beyond my imagination.

All humans together looking after each other and themselves - farming / trading - whatever is needed - living within our own AND natures own means, bettering ourselves but without continual expansion and greed. I actually like this concept - it fascinates me.

People advancing society through technology but living within our means - respect for resources pounded in to the populace.

I'm not a religious man - at all,... infact during my life I've always thought of myself as quite unpleasant and negative and yet finally now I don't feel so bad.
I've realised about myself and how much this worries me and how I see society now that perhaps I'm not so bad - the greed and lies and lazyness that abounds us humans in general is appauling.

I can see what needs to be done in my head (to an extent) but I can't change the way we are.
I do finally see that so many things I beleived to be "bullshit" in life actually ARE bullshit in life.

Such things as marketing / human resources / reality show inventors / formula 1 organisers / AFL tribunals - and of couse consumers (yes this includes me) - these things are not important, not even remotely.
Does it really matter if you got the 90cm widescreen because Joe next door only has the 80cm? - what about the old tv you threw out.
What about the extention on the house - I'm betting many didn't need to do it, beyond wanting things nice and possibly increasing the value of the property - focus on money.
How about the cooler sports car, the "dvd box set" the yin and yang coffee table?
That new jacket - despite the old one being fine.
The second holiday home - god knows what other examples there are, no doubt millions of things in our lives need change.

So many things that are ultimately very un-important but we made them important to us, because really,.. we didn't have to deal with bigger issues at hand.

I've never "fit in" in todays society - I'm one of the more "depressed" or "quiet" people in a workplace - I'm not always positive - yet sadly the future I see coming I look forward to. I would love to try my best - possibly for the first time in my life to support myself - perhaps a wife - live within my means and be happy, to better myself and others.

I'm thinking that Tyler (Fight club) might just be more right than even the original author knew

"Advertising has its taste in cars and clothes, [we’re] working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.
We’re the middle children of history. No purpose, no place.
We’ve all been raised on television to believe one day we’d be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t."

I do beleive life will go on after this, infact I'm a pessimist and I still beleive it.
While I beleive I will miss out unfortunately - I really do beleive it somewhere some people will avoid the wars, the riots, the looting, the draft - the slave labour (?) the false incarceration (kill off from the government - I'm stretching here but who knows in 40 years?)
Some small villages - some tribal like people - possibly even just like us who have packed up and moved to a safe place (if any still exist) will go on - and hopefully with them will be the knowledge of the mistakes humanity has made.
Ever expanding is completely illogical - it's not possible and it needs to be stopped.
It simply defies the laws of science and maths.

One last interesting movie quote.

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague"
(Agent smith, original Matrix)

- Scott

Slowly but surly we begin to understand the consequences of the massive expansion of Homo sapiens and the unlimited exploitation of irreplaceable resources.

These are the following consequences, like it or not.
1. The collapse of stocks exchanges
2. The collapse of monetary systems
3. The collapse of transport systems
4. The collapse of mass agriculture
5. The collapse of industry
6. The collapse of democracy
7. The collapse of law and order
8. The collapse of electricity and water supplies
9. The collapse of all major cities
10. The collapse of civilization

The only survivors will be in highly organized well-armed groups or small isolated groups with a deep working knowledge of primitive techniques for everything from fire making to childbirth. Panic will affect the rest of us so badly that we will be unable to organize anything. And unfortunately we no longer have the required skills to live unaided in this Garden of Eden. No species every forgot how to survive before.

The only comfort is the fact that we can enjoy the last few years of Atlantis before it sinks into the mythical realms of dragons and other unlikely beasts.

any attempt to refute the prolix of desultory lies posted on this page by peakoil frauds will be promptly removed, as has occured thrice on this thread alone.

Threads intended to demonstrate the abiogenic origin of hydrocarbon-fuels will also be promptly censored, as has occurred in the past without explanation.

That's how zIonMC Works - Get Used To It!

Perhaps, 'Peak soil', if you could restrain yourself from abuse, misrepresentation, and nonsense, your posts might stick.

I challenge you to post 1 (thats right, just one, more if you like) reference to a peer reviewed journal paper or research study supporting abiogenic origin for oil. You wont, cos you can't, cos its nonsense.

Incidentally, 'peak soil' for Australia passed millenia ago. Since the abo's started burning, and particularly since the whiteys started clearing the continent, we've been losing topsoil (via water erosion mostly) thousands of times faster than it is created. Refs?

Lu, H., Gallant, J., Prosser, I.P., Moran, C. and Priestley, G., 2001. Prediction of sheet and rill erosion over the Australian continent, incorporating monthly soil loss distribution. Technical report 13/01, CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra.

Drake, N.A. et al., 1999. Modelling soil erosion at global and regional scales using remote sensing and GIS techniques. In: P.M. Atkinson and N.J. Tate (Editors), Advances in remote sensing and GIS analysis. Wiley, London, pp. 273.

About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.

Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil.

Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?

An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates.

The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:

There are a number of observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory, and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr.Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.

In his 1999 book, "The Deep Hot Biosphere," Dr. Gold presents compelling evidence for inorganic oil formation. He notes that geologic structures where oil is found all correspond to "deep earth" formations, not the haphazard depositions we find with sedimentary rock, associated fossils or even current surface life.

He also notes that oil extracted from varying depths from the same oil field have the same chemistry – oil chemistry does not vary as fossils vary with increasing depth. Also interesting is the fact that oil is found in huge quantities among geographic formations where assays of prehistoric life are not sufficient to produce the existing reservoirs of oil. Where then did it come from?

Another interesting fact is that every oil field throughout the world has outgassing helium. Helium is so often present in oil fields that helium detectors are used as oil-prospecting tools. Helium is an inert gas known to be a fundamental product of the radiological decay or uranium and thorium, identified in quantity at great depths below the surface of the earth, 200 and more miles below. It is not found in meaningful quantities in areas that are not producing methane, oil or natural gas. It is not a member of the dozen or so common elements associated with life. It is found throughout the solar system as a thoroughly inorganic product.

Even more intriguing is evidence that several oil reservoirs around the globe are refilling themselves, such as the Eugene Island reservoir – not from the sides, as would be expected from cocurrent organic reservoirs, but from the bottom up.

Dr. Gold strongly believes that oil is a "renewable, primordial soup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attached by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs."

Smaller oil companies and innovative teams are using this theory to justify deep oil drilling in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, among other locations, with some success. Dr. Kenney is on record predicting that parts of Siberia contain a deep reservoir of oil equal to or exceeding that already discovered in the Middle East.

In August 2002, in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US)," Dr. Kenney published a paper, which had a partial title of "The genesis of hydrocarbons and the origin of petroleum." Dr. Kenney and three Russian coauthors conclude:

He was quoted as stating that "competent physicists, chemists, chemical engineers and men knowledgeable of thermodynamics have known that natural petroleum does not evolve from biological materials since the last quarter of the 19th century."

Deeply entrenched in our culture is the belief that at some point in the relatively near future we will see the last working pump on the last functioning oil well screech and rattle, and that will be that. The end of the Age of Oil. And unless we find another source of cheap energy, the world will rapidly become a much darker and dangerous place.

If Dr. Gold and Dr. Kenney are correct, this "the end of the world as we know it" scenario simply won't happen. Think about it ... while not inexhaustible, deep Earth reserves of inorganic crude oil and commercially feasible extraction would provide the world with generations of low-cost fuel. Dr. Gold has been quoted saying that current worldwide reserves of crude oil could be off by a factor of over 100.

A Hedberg Conference, sponsored by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, was scheduled to discuss and publicly debate this issue. Papers were solicited from interested academics and professionals. The conference was scheduled to begin June 9, 2003, but was canceled at the last minute. A new date has yet to be set.

Chris Bennett manages an environmental engineering division for a West Coast technology firm. He and his wife of 26 years make their home on the San Francisco Bay.

Yes, there's some truth to it. As time goes by, oil and natural gas are going to get harder and harder to find, and they're going to get more expensive. But "Chicken Little" is paranoid and delusional, and the sky is not falling any time soon. Figures indicating that production is going to peak in 2004 or 2007, or that it may have peaked already, are based on incomplete evidence and bad science.

Oil is not made of dinosaurs & old lettuce. The origins of oil are abiotic. Other planets in the Solar System, like Saturn and Jupiter, contain significant amounts of methane. Many near-earth asteroids also contain large proportions of carbon. Just like the rest of our solar system, the primordial matter of Earth itself also undoubtedly contains a significant percentage of carbon -- and petroleum can be formed only in conditions of very high temperature and pressure deep within the earth.

Thus, the availability of oil is ultimately limited by our skills in exploration and drilling, and there are no fundamental limits posed by the number of dinosaurs that lived a hundred million years ago.

There may well be plenty of oil to make Global Warming a reality and make the earth into an overheated, living hell. Or for that matter, to disrupt the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Current, and trigger the next Ice Age. We are playing with forces we don't understand, but not only with fire!

"Peak Oil" is being used to push environmentally destructive drilling of American wilderness preserves. Don't let an artificially created panic shortage, become the instrument for the destruction of the heritage that past environmentalists have been able to save.

Solar and Wind Energy are Viable Alternatives

Giant wind turbines have already made a massive contribution to Europe's energy independence. Wind energy costs can be as low as three cents a kilowatt hour -- that's a bit cheaper than natural gas, oil or nuclear power plants.

Huge strides are being made in solar photovoltaic research. Bulky, expensive crystalline silicon cells will soon be obsolete. The future belongs to artificial photosynthesis technology, based in thin-film plastics and built with nanotechnology. This is not science fiction, it is a Venture Capital Reality. The European semiconductor giant ST Microelectronics is aggressively pursuing this technology, and in Silicon Valley, the founders of Google are major funding partners of Nanosolar. When these new solar panels are available on the market, solar power will be cheaper than coal.

Electricity on the grid can't be used to power automobiles directly, but it can be used to make hydrogen, and hydrogen can easily be stored as lithium hydride, and burned directly in internal-combustion engines. Critics of the hydrogen technology complain about expensive cryogenic storage, and unreliable fuel-cell technology -- but they don't tell you about these simple alternatives that work.

Unless this technology can be suppressed by the entrenched elitist oil interests of Skull & Bones and the CIA, the "Fossil Fuel" industry will soon live up to its name -- it will be extinct.

The War in Iraq is not about preserving the American Way of Life in an age of scarcity, and the crimes of September 11 (if indeed it was an "inside job") will not in any way contribute to maintaining a high standard of living for the American people. Americans are not silent benefactors or partners in the theft of Iraqi oil. The only beneficiaries are the likes of Halliburton, Dynergy, Carlysle Group and the family fortunes of the Bushes, Cheneys and Bin Ladens.

Mike Ruppert's $1000 bet

Investigator Mike Ruppert of http://www.fromthewilderness.com/ recently posted the following challenge to the 911 truth alliance mailing list:

I have accepted Ruppert's challenge, and provided him with the following information:

Abiotic oil is being produced today from the Dnieper-Donets Basin in Russia, according to this article

The Exploration and Development of the Twelve Major and one Giant Oil and Gas Fields on the Northern Flank of the Dnieper-Donets Basin. V. A. Krayushkin, T. I. Tchebanenko, V. P. Klochko, Ye. S. Dvoyanin, J. F. Kenney, (2001), Energia, 22/3, 44-47.

I don't know much about the journal Energia, but I believe it is the one published by the University of Twente in the Netherlands ( http://www.sms.utwente.nl/energia/home.html ; not available without a subscription.)

JF Kenney (the senior author of the Energia paper) has made a major theoretical contribution to what he calls "The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins" with his discovery that petroleum can be synthesized from iron, calcium carbonate and water at conditions of temperature and pressure similar to those found in the earth's mantle. His experiment is discussed in this paper from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

The Evolution of Multicomponent Systems at High Pressures VI. The Thermodynamic Stability of the Hydrogen-Carbon System The Genesis of Hydrocarbons and the Origin of Petroleum. J. F. Kenney, V. G. Kutcherov, N. A. Bendeliani, V. A. Alekseev, (2002), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), 99/17, 10976-10981.

Again, this article is available on the Web at http://www.gasresources.net/AlkaneGenesis.htm . As you may be aware, the PNAS is not (strictly speaking) a peer-reviewed academic journal, but submissions must be recommended and endorsed by a member of the very prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

A very interesting analysis of the pros and cons of the abiotic theory may be found at the Association of American Petroleum Geologists website

In this article, research geochemist Michael Lewan is quoted as one of the most knowledgeable advocates of the opposing theory, that petroleum is a "fossil fuel". Yet even Lewan admits "I don't think anybody has ever doubted that there is an inorganic source of hydrocarbons. The key question is, 'Do they exist in commercial quantities?'"

The AAPG article also mentions a letter published in Nature, April 2002, "Abiogenic formation of alkanes in the Earth's crust as a minor source for global hydrocarbon reservoirs" which discusses evidence that methane gas from the Kidd Creek Mine in Ontario is of abiogenic origin.

The AAPG is organizing a conference in Vienna this July 11-14, 2004, Origin of Petroleum -- Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Productions

"For half a century, scientists from the former Soviet Union (FSU) have recognized that the petroleum produced from fields in the FSU have been generated by abiogenic processes. This is not a new concept, being first reported in 1951. The Russians have used this concept as an exploration strategy and have successfully discovered petroleum fields of which a number of these fields produce either partly and entirely from crystalline basement."

Note that the organizers of the conference include Michel Halbouty, recipient of a "Legendary Geoscientist" award http://www.agiweb.org/news/spot_01mar02_Halbouty.html as well as Ernest Mancini of the University of Alabama, and the cornucopian author Peter Odell of Erasmus University. Evidently they are taking the abiogenic theory seriously, at least to the extent of organizing this conference.

Ruppert modus operandi

Ruppert's energy editor, Dale Pfeiffer, promptly posted my information to the EnergyResources Yahoo group, moderated by Tom Robertson. This was a breach of etiquette in terms of the policies of the 911truthalliance mailing list (moderated by Lori Price of CLG), and when I complained to the list about this, I received the following response from Mike Ruppert:

So Mike is admitting that he hasn't even finished "reading the Russian piece thoroughly" but he's already sure I'm an "asshole". Well, I would be the first to admit that I have absolutely no qualifications as a petroleum geologist, and if I'm wrong, I'm out fifty bucks and a little embarrassment among friends. If Ruppert is wrong, he's taking part in a massive disinformation campaign, under the auspices of KPFK Radio of Los Angeles.

But I am not expecting that collecting on this bet is going to be easy. As you can see from the following post by Ron Anicich, Ruppert does not react well to criticism:

This response speaks volumes about Ruppert. This collection of holier-than-thou unsupported accusations, childish insults and self-righteousness sums up his attitude toward being questioned perfectly. Even when the questions are quite inoffensive and reasonable.

It is also interesting to note that Ruppert admits to making the assertion that Rocco Galati had been poisoned before receiving any confirmation of the fact whatsoever. Even stranger when you consider that Galati was a phone call away the entire time.

Unfortunately the bulk of his reply was in an attachment, and as far as I can tell, the contents are not available through the Yahoo system.

I made a post to Energy Resources at message 53542, which was simply a link back to this page. Pfeiffer's replies appear at:

At message 53562, Pfeiffer apparently re-posts the information that may have been originally contained in Laherrere's attachment (also mirrored here). The information seems to be largely based on USGS figures, which the "dissident" petroleum geologists are readily willing to dismiss when it suits their purposes. Furthermore, with all due respect to Dr. Laherrere, the material has not been published in peer-reviewed journals for the most part.

As you will see if you page through the energyresources links, Pfeiffer has apparently been taking debating style tips from Mike Ruppert.

Dave McGowan of Center for an Informed America also received Ruppert's $1000 debate challenge! See his response at:

UPDATE 3/15/04: A reply from Ruppert has arrived. Serving as judge, jury and executioner, Mike Ruppert has denied my $1000 claim. No surprise about that. His reply is posted here:

Nothing in Ruppert's reply has changed my mind in the slightest. I say that Ruppert owes me $1000.

Stay tuned as I try to collect! Closed Coffin: Ending the Debate on "The End of Cheap Oil" A commentary Michael C. Lynch, Chief Energy Economist, DRI-WEFA, Inc.

The past five years have seen a renewed debate on the issue of oil supply and the possibility of a near-term peak in production and the concomitant adverse economic consequences. A number of articles have stated that discoveries over the past thirty years have been only a fraction of consumption and that according to the Hubbert Curve method, world oil production is close to a peak. What few people realize is that these arguments are based entirely on a very particular technical argument, and recent evidence has highlighted its fallacy.

The greatest attention was achieved by the March 1998 Scientific American article "The End of Cheap Oil" by Jean Laherrere and Colin Campbell, largely due to the extreme nature of their warning -- production peaking within a few years -- and the alle