Elephant In The Room - Cheney, Blair Bush - All Briefed On, Know About Peak Oil - Guardian

[hatrack]

EDIT

The elephant in the drawing room was the fact that global oil production is likely to peak within about a decade. Aggregate oil production in the developed world has been falling since 1997, and all major forecasters expect world output excluding Opec to peak by the middle of the next decade. From then on everything depends on the cartel, but unfortunately there is growing evidence that Opec's members have been exaggerating the size of their reserves for decades.

Oil consultancy PFC Energy briefed Dick Cheney in 2005 that on a more realistic assessment of Opec's reserves, its production could peak by 2015. A report by the US Department of Energy, also in 2005, concluded that without a crash programme of mitigation 20 years before the event, the economic and social impacts of the oil peak would be "unprecedented". The evidence suggests these fears were already weighing heavily with Cheney, Bush and Blair. In a world of looming shortage, Iraq represented a unique opportunity. With 115bn barrels, it had the world's third biggest reserves, and after years of war and sanctions they were the most underexploited. In the late 1990s, production averaged about 2m barrels, but with the necessary investment its reserves could support three times that. In a report to the security council, UN inspectors warned in January 2000 that sanctions had caused irreversible damage to Iraq's reservoirs. But sanctions could not be lifted with Saddam still in place.

Cheney knew, fretting about global oil depletion in a speech in London the following year, where he noted that "the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies". Blair too had reason to be anxious: British North Sea output had peaked in 1999, while the petrol protests of 2000 had made the importance of maintaining the fuel supply excruciatingly obvious.

Britain's and the US's fears were secretly formalised during the planning for Iraq. It is widely accepted that Blair's commitment to support the attack dates back to his summit with Bush in Texas in April 2002. What is less well known is that at the same summit, Blair proposed and Bush agreed to set up the US-UK Energy Dialogue, a permanent liaison dedicated to "energy security and diversity". Its existence was only later exposed through a freedom of information inquiry.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2111400,00.html

[MidwestTransplant]

1. And now Iraq has made substantial agreements with China behind our backs.

These fools can't even exploit a country for oil properly.

[whistle]

2. So these guys all covered their asses and their base and lied to

...the rest of the world. Just how much gold bullion has Bush secretly shipped to the caves in Paraguay?

[Old and In the Way]

3. If we had had an honest political dialogue about oil and national security

6 years ago, we could have used the hundreds of billions in surplus to begin the conversion to a new energy economy that would wean us off ME oil and create new jobs/industries here by developing and investing in alternative/renewable energy, conservation, and infrastructure changes. But the Big Oil administration could care less about the national interest, only the financial interests of their #1 constituency. So 6 years later - a trillion dollars wasted, 50,000 US lives dead or destroyed, our international reputation ruined....we are still no further along the way to energy independence.

[ramapo]

4. Hey Old...you're off by 20 years

Maybe you meant to type 26. Sure there wasn't a surplus in 1981 but Jimmy Carter was still President (well just barely into 1981) and he was the last guy to even pretend to address the situation. But the rest of your post is just about perfect except we've wasted more trillions and more lives.

Getting old is a bitch because you realize how we've really fucked up what might've been a far different future.

[Old and In the Way]

6. Actually, I've made that case a lot. here..totally agree 100%!

This mess started back when Bush-Reagan ditched Carter's initiatives and negotiated cheap oil with the Saudi's. But we had another point in 2001 when we could have re-examined our ME policy and energy strategy (not the one done in secret with Cheney's buds that laid the groundwork for the hostile acquisition of Iraqi National Oil).

We got the Republican delay the inevitable "Morning in America", the Bush Family and Friends got wealthy, and we got Bush the Lesser presiding over "Evening in America".

[Javaman]

5. And here we go, the sprint to the finish for the last gallon of gas. nt