A nice summary of the "oil question", but ...

Gerald Cecil — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:34:29 -0500

the sidebar "What the Experts are Saying" ends with the usual non-sequitor

Reason for Hope ... "I can assure people that we are not going to run out of oil any time soon."

which is totally irrelevant, and a false upbeat endnote to otherwise sobering questions on how the oil supply can meet existing demand let alone grow to add new consumers in China and India. "Peak Oil" proponents quoted in the column do not advocate that we are "running out" (the Earth has vast hydrocarbon resources from which to synthesize expensive oil). But they document that the volume of cheap, easy to pump oil flowing through the world economy that has hitherto powered our prosperity has not grown for over 2.5 years and is projected -- based on a tabulation of all new projects scheduled to come online -- to decline by ~2012 unless, as stated by PFC, there is a very deep recession (depression?) to kill demand by big consumers like US motorists. Even the IEA, the OECD energy watchdog and as official as you can get, is quoted in the main article as saying

New capacity additions ... are expected to increase over the next five years. But it is far from clear whether they will be sufficient to compensate for the decline in output at existing fields.

THAT is the big picture to absorb. There is good introductory material and active discussions at the www.theoildrum.com

Gas prices - how much is too much?

ctmiller — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:00:22 -0500

Are the days of inexpensive gas over? Will oil supplies from other countries eventually dwindle? How should leaders respond to rising prices and demand?

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A nice summary of the "oil question", but ...

Gas prices - how much is too much?