Peak OIl "We Did It!"

[Dissenting_Prole]

from "From The Wilderness"

WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Worried soaring oil prices could hurt the best global prospects in years, finance chiefs from wealthy nations met on Friday to try to work out what lay behind the surge and how to buffer the economic expansion.

Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers met at the tightly guarded U.S. Treasury building over lunch and were to work through the afternoon before a dinner with Chinese counterparts that has currency reform on the menu.

The officials will set out their world-view at about 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) in a communiqué sources said would include a call to bolster oil-market monitoring to make it easier to discern if scarce supply, hefty demand or market speculation lay behind crude's drive to record levels.

The answer to this question is critical.

It could affect policy responses big oil consumers must adopt -- higher interest rates to stem inflation or a renewed focus on finding new energy sources -- and may offer key information on how long the price rise will last.

On Friday, U.S. crude oil futures topped $50 a barrel.

RISKS RISING

"High and volatile oil prices pose a risk to the outlook, dampening consumer spending and company profitability," Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, warned on Friday. He said it was vital for the G7 "to improve the transparency and the efficiency of the oil market."

G7 sources said a document released on Friday by Brown laying out his calls for improved energy market data would form the basis of language on oil in the ministers' communiqué.

After the half-day formal meeting, G7 ministers will sit down with China for a working dinner billed as an historic chance to bring the Asian giant into the fold and discuss its plans to ease a peg of its yuan… to the dollar…

The G7 gathering comes ahead of weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank…

Ministers are seeking energy market transparency to discover if world oil supplies may be scantier than they thought in May when they urged producers to open the spigots…

Another G7 official suggested the rise in oil costs was rooted in such fundamental factors as over-estimated supplies and was not solely due to speculation.

There is "a recognition that oil resources are scarcer than was thought a few years ago," the official said. "We agree there is a need for more transparency on the potential supply of various areas."

If scarcity is the chief culprit, the oil price shock may not prove as temporary as hoped, the official said.

"WRAPUP 1-G7 finance chiefs mull oil before China meeting"
Reuters, October 1, 2004

more...
http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_we_did_it.shtml


http://www.endofsuburbia.com/

[Warpy]

1. We didn't do it, actually. If anyone did, it's China.

However, it'll be nice to get all these king cab pickups, momvans and massive SUVs off the roads and into the junkyards as they become prohibitively expensive to feed, especially for suburban warriors who communte a couple of hours each way to work.

The rest of it, meaning the inflation that's coming, will be a royal pain in the ass.

[Strelnikov_]

2. In Agree, I Don't Think It Will Be The 'End Of Suburbia'`

no matter how catchy of a book title it makes.

What it means is that people will no longer be able to travel suburbia in 4 wheel living rooms, to 3000 sq. ft. McMansions for homes. We will simply have to be more efficient. The alternate energy sources are out there, they are just not going to allow the degree of waste that the pre-peak petro economy allowed.

From the current ASPO estimate by 2020 oil production will be back to 1990 levels, or 18% less than todays level. Considering that personal vehicle gasoline accounts for 40%+ of US oil use, and the average efficiency is 20.8 mpg, we can make up for this shortfall by doubling fuel efficiency to 41 mpg, achievable even with today's technology.

Of course, this would only be the beginning, as we would have to continue reducing oil usage.

Personally, I think we are seeing the first economic 'shocks' as we approach peak oil and the supply/demand problem becomes endemic. With even mediocre leadership, I see peak oil as more of an economic problem.

Of course, if we continue on the path of increased oil dependency mapped out by the current administration, peak oil could result in catastrophe.

[jmcgowanjm]

3. You're not looking at the strategic, loindelrio

This is only a piece of what I consider the greatest single act
of national misinvestment ever made: the construction of
the suburban American drive-in utopia as a substitute for
towns and cities, an armature for daily life composed
of buildings designed not to outlast their depreciation
periods and an automobile infrastructure of inconceivable
cost that is destined to fail systemically when the cheap oil
fiesta comes to an end (more on that shortly). We've thrown
away our national wealth on free parking, cul-de-sac
housing subdivisions, strip malls, fried food huts, and the
other ridiculous accessories of the system. What will become
of it all? A fraction of it will be retrofitted for sustainable living,
the rest is apt to become materials salvage operations
(steel, aluminum, copper), and ruins.

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_ure.htm

Once we past peakoil, there will be no more
free energy to devote to retrofitting transport
to 41mpg.

FreeEnergy will have to be rationed into ag
and rail. All will have to move closer to rail/ag
depots.

[meow mix]

4. are we there yet?!?

60 bucks coming? about to hit 51 this morning maybe..

[jmcgowanjm]

5. $60 by the end of next week-IMHO

the eighteen countries in decline accounted for 22.131 Mb/d
of 2003 production. If we then add in the 28.063 Mb/d
coming from those in the sick bay, we can see we
are approaching the tipping point very rapidly indeed. This
is because once 50mn b/d of capacity is in decline, it
is effectively impossible for the rest to offset the production
loss, never mind meet any incremental
demand.
On these figures, I’ll be surprised if we make it to 2008
before the inexorable production decline begins. However,
the real question is, once this becomes more widely known,
will the producers conspire in their own extinction or will
they save their oil for their own people?

http://asponews.org/HTML/Newsletter46.html

[meow mix]

6. 52 today..

making a good run on it.