Peak Oil And Cognitive Dissonance

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Is not believing in the peak oil theory and believing that there are no shortages of gasoline fuel and that the oil companies are gouging us mutually exclusive?


If we're indeed,running out of oil doesn't it make sense for the price of oil to become more and more expensive as it runs out and until the day it is all gone and none is available...


The end of "cheap" oil is over but there is plenty of oil available just at prices that most folks can't afford...It is un affordable because it's very expensive to unearth...


In my opinion a steady but slow increase in oil prices would discourage consumption while providing incentives to make more efficient automobiles and find alternative sources of energy....

I think there should be tax breaks targeted toward working folks since they are the most likely to be hurt by rising fuel prices..As your income goes up the relative amount of your income spent on necessities such as food, shelter, and energy go down...

[Burma Jones]

1. Right Now, the Refiners are the gougers

Refineries are the bottleneck and the Refiners are claiming that they would be more than happy to build more refineries if it wasn't for those pesky environmentalists keeping new refineries from being built in the Northeast and in California.

The oil markets, and in the era of deregulation, so many other markets, are becoming highly speculative. This speculation will enrich a very few, well connected, oil companies. In a normal speculative market, a loser will lose big, but oil companies will pass any speculative losses on to us. At the same time, competition in the oil bidness has been reduced significantly since the last big price rises of the late 70's early 80's. So, as Paul Simon wrote: "Any way you look at it, you lose."

[whatever4]

2. I'm thinking

And this is an uninformed opinion, that they're basically getting what they can, while they can get it. Hit the market for what it's worth, and then bail, leaving the mess where it is, because after all, the mess was bound to happen anyway. Prevailing thinking must be it's just as well to make money off it, because the fall is coming, either way. Gouge us now, while we still have money to pay them, and while we still depend on them.

Take etihcs and future worries out of the equation, and the actions all make sense.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. You Are Basically Echoing Me...

Get as much as you can for oil before it runs out....


There's many schools of thought re oil... They all make a bit of sense...


School One- The peak oil school... We are basically running out of the stuff ... They talk about inflection points which is just a fancy way of saying demand will exceed supply...

School Two - Oil is available but cheap oil is dead ... There's plenty of oil left but it will be increasingly expensive to unearth...

School Three- Oil will continue to be available at reasonable prices for the foreseeable future...


Whichever school is right, a prudent nation would hope for three and plan for one....

[anarch]

4. I think we have a winner....

Two points:

1. yes, we are approaching the global oil production peak (if we aren't there already), and extracting/producing oil will relatively soon be extremely costly...

and

2. yes, we are being gouged at the pump.

If I am understanding the original post, the question is whether these two things are mutually exclusive, and I'd have to say no.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. How Can They Be Price Gouging If The Peak Oil Theory Is True

If the oil companies are running out of oil it makes sense for them to get as much as they can before they go out of business for lack of product...

[electron_blue]

6. Isn't price gouging just charging more based on fear related

to the natural disasters? It's not market driven, it's charging more bcs you know people will *expect* it to be higher after Katrina & Rita, they'll have no choice but to pay it. Doesn't matter if peak oil is also true on top of that. The recent almost doubling of gas prices is, imo, due to price gouging and not reflective of truly how close we are to running out.

Still... I think it's overall going to be good for this country to see this high prices for awhile. It's getting our attention. Who knows, maybe more of us will demand change in how we use oil.

[anarch]

7. if we have not yet quite reached the production peak,

which I don't think we have on a global scale, then the high price of gasoline right now is not exactly a peak oil effect.

When it does hit, gasoline will be in such short supply that the prices will be astronomically higher than they are now...but right now there isn't really a gas shortage, just relatively high prices.

Also, when the oil supply itself starts to dwindle on a large scale, I think it will have a dramatic and disastrous effect on the economy as a whole. Money will be worthless at that point, but it is not worthless now, and accumulating additional wealth at this point will help protect the wealthy when it all does come crashing down. I think.

Here's an interesting article I found that I think describes what the effect of peak oil will be:

http://www.fcnp.com/529/peakoil.htm

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Wow....

$36.00 a gallon for gas....


I do think reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is not beyond our grasp though...

[anarch]

9. let's hope it's not beyond our grasp,

because it's going to have to happen sooner or later.