LA Times - Dancing Around Peak Oil

cipi604

Too many clueless commenters on every bit of peak-oil news out there.
Even if you feed them tons of information that doesn't necessarily mean that they will ever understand the implications of the phenomenon.

JoeW

CarlosFerreira

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 893

Sure, they all but spelled PO out for Bush in one interview. All he could say was drill in Alaska.

But PO is making head way, they mentioned PO on the History channel at 7:30 PM the other day. Before that they had it on at 11PM and 3 AM, so they are making progress with coming clean in prime time.

In 2007 I wrote to 15 of the largest newspapers in the US and a half dozen news magazines and the largest TV stations, 60 minutes, many politicians, etc about Peak Oil. Not one publication or TV broadcaster was interested in discussing PO. NO ONE even responded to my letters

"There is no upside in PO" - that is what they think, since PO can't be fixed. But the upside is in the preparation for the transition to a post carbon society. and the worst we have prepared the more people will die off.

CarlosFerreira

AgentR

ROCKMAN

Your comments reminded me of a true story I hear years ago. A famous heart surgeon in Texas always got the worse cases to deal with since he was the best. But that also meant he lost a lot of patients on the operating table. After years of dealing with the families of the dead patient he had developed an approach to talking with them after he lost a patient. He would just walk into the waiting room and tell them their loved one died on the operating table and he would then turn away and walk out. He explained his approach this way: at that point there is nothing he can say to make the family feel better. Dead is dead and there is no cure. But he said there were a lot of wrong things he could say at that moment. So he leaves to avoid that possibility.

Consider the politician who truly understands the situation of PO. Can he stand in front of his constituents and say things will be as bad as this or that and then just walk away. He’s going to want to say something positive that can offer them hope for an immediate fix. But as the doc said: dead is dead. So the politicians have two choices as I see it: avoid the conversation all together or offer false hope for a quick fix. In the meantime let’s hold our breaths waiting for the first national politician to tell the public the whole ugly truth.

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 3076 Location: UK

Whether Bush or anyone else in power understands peak oil or not is irrelevant at this point. He will do his thing, you have to do yours.
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Jenab6

pstarr

That's quite an image ROCKMAN.

But there is no upside. There's nothing to be gained for the politician, pundit or even average middle-class suburbanite in thinking about, much less discussing, PO. Once you do consider it you usually have to shut up and that's difficult for people trained by success to equate blather with advancement.

Now me, I equate blather with entertainment. Hey I'm a comedian Smile

Peak oil makes you think about the hollowness of everything else you know. It calls into question the foundation of your home, your car and commute, financial investments, the possibility and value of travel and tourism, progress, the future. It's not like knowing about iPods or markets. Knowing about po does you no good. It's a bitter education.
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pstarr

ROCKMAN

So true Pstarr,

Not to sound patronizing but the main reason I also hang around here is for the entertainment in addition to occasionally showing off. I've worked in the oil patch for 33 years and am hip deep in geologists and engineers as I type. No one here discusses PO. It would like specualting on the sun coming up tomorrow morning: what's the point?

It my more optimistics moments I wonder if all this chatted might educated/motivate enough folks to apply appropriate pressure on the political strutcure. But those moments pass quickly. At least that simmering optimism keeps me from making as many smartass comments as I might otherwise.

pstarr

ROCKMAN

pstarr,

We've been keenly aware of PO for well over 20 years. But we've never used the term PO. For us it's always been a "reserve replacement issue". For us it's like chatting about the prom dance 30 years ago. There's just not much sizzle left to the story. I've posted elsewhere regarding the industry response to PO reality. Individual companies, when they get large enough, run smack into there own personal PO wall. As their reserves deplete they are unable to drill and discover fast enough to replace that production. For a public oil company this is the beginning of a slow stock valuation death. Since the early 90’s much of my efforts have centered on the acquisition of producing properties for my clients. If you’re not too distracted by all the buzzing you will see reports of companies acquiring that field or company or acreage position. XTO has been a big buyer the last few years. But, ironically, each acquisition also makes it more difficult for them to escape their corporate PO. This is the biggest problem facing the Big Oil E&P divisions: they can’t even buy enough small companies to change the trend. And if they tried they couldn’t handle the increased labor intensity. This is why they throw $billions at the big projects…little ones won’t help them no matter how successful they are. For years there have been rumors that EM was negotiating to buy Conoco (who bought Phillips to slow down their reserve decline) but nothing has happened. Right now the stock evaluations of the Big Oils are high only because of the pricing change. Normalize the price spike out and there’s little reason to own EM stock other than for the dividends. Without a very major acquisition EM stock value has zero growth potential (excluding oil price increases). And that’s of no interest to Wall Street.

ROCKMAN

pstarr,

One more important point. There are a number of reasons you're seeing the big push towards the various resource plays by the large independent oils. One big component is the corporate PO effect I mentioned above. But this also has a risk. In the late 70's I saw a TX public compnay effectively commit corporate suicide by drilling over 600 successful oil wells. The wells had big initial flow rates but then declined quickly. Owning the stock on the way up was great. But they eventually ran out of locations to drill and their asset base declined too quickly for any new play to help them. The stock became almost worthless and they were sold for scrap. As I said earlier: Wall Street prays at the alter of GROWTH. No growth and you die in there eyes. Wall Street sells the sizzle...not the steak.