Here comes $500 oil

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/news/economy/500dollaroil_okeefe.fortune/index.htm

Here comes $500 oil

If Matt Simmons is right, the recent drop in crude prices is an illusion - and oil could be headed for the stratosphere. He's just hoping we can prevent civilization from imploding.

By Brian O'Keefe, senior editor
Last Updated: September 22, 2008: 4:43 PM EDT

Matt Simmons argues that Saudi Arabia's oil supplies are much more limited than everyone thinks.

(Fortune Magazine) -- Matt Simmons is as perplexed as anyone that it has fallen to him to take on OPEC, Exxon, the Saudis, and all the other misguided defenders of conventional wisdom in the oil patch. Why should one investment banker with a penchant for research be required to point out what he regards as the obvious - that from here on out, oil supplies can't meet demand, and if we don't act soon to solve this crisis, World War III could be looming?

Why should a man who scorns most environmentalists have to argue that locally grown produce and wind power are the way of the future? Why should a lifelong Republican need to be the one to point out that his party's new mantra - "Drill, baby, drill!" - won't really fix anything and that his party's presidential candidate is clueless about energy? That the spike in oil prices earlier this year wasn't a temporary market anomaly and the recent retreat in prices is just a misleading calm before a calamitous storm? That we're headed toward $500-a-barrel oil?

[Bread and Circus]

1. Sooner or later we will hit peak oil, and it will be like a catastrophic meteor.

[Subdivisions]

5. Production has been on a plateau for nearly 5 years. Sooner or later,

it will begin to decline and will never recover. Meanwhile, today, demand is in excess of supplies of oil and gasoline. In fact, the nation's pipeline system is below MOL, or Minimum Operational Levels. The Colonial Pipeline is still offline. That is why gas is out in Tennessee and Georgia and it will run out in many places, including my own neighborhood tonight where several local stations are out of gas.

I suggest anyone who hasn't done so to study peak oil.

[arcadian]

15. Off topic. Is that Palin photo for real?

Or is it photo-shopped?

[Subdivisions]

16. The image of Palin draped in the US flag can be found in Newsweek. Also,

it was used on MSNBC's special about Palin that's running concurrent with a Biden bio.

[arcadian]

26. My goodness, what kind of person does such a thing?

Great quote on that.

[liberal N proud]

2. At $500/barrel, the Wall Street problems would seem mild in comparison

It would bring the world to a complete standstill.

[Delphinus]

3. That would solve this

bailout crisis, wouldn't it?

[radfringe]

6. it'll be at a standstill way before $500/barrel

I have an hour commute to work each way, my car averages 30-34mph... costing me $50-60 a week just to get to work

when gas goes back up to over $4/gallon and I can't get my boss to let me telecommute 1-2 days a week, I'd be better off taking a lay-off and collecting unemployment

getting to damn expensive to work... as it is I'm looking for a 2nd job to help pay for gas so I can get to my first job

[Turbineguy]

4. Perhaps.

If Bush decides that the world cannot go on unless he stays on as US President.

[Subdivisions]

8. You know what? The economy is not my forte, though I watch it. People

have been screaming about this economic disaster for more than a year and people called them crazy. But they were right and here we are. Oil IS my forte, and people say I'm crazy for thinking oil will one day become unavailable due to peak oil. And when it finally does seize us in its grip, people will be crying the blues like they're doing now with the economic crisis.

Think running out of oil and gasoline is crazy? If you do, you better think again.

[tama]

17. Longer

People have been screaming about disaster (not only economic) as long as I've been listening. And I started to listen since the original Club of Rome report on fate of civilization ("Limits of Growth).

[Subdivisions]

19. Isn't it fascinating? n/t

[tama]

22. Sure

you too into the "deer in the headlights" kind of fascination? ;)

[TheBigotBasher]

9. i find the prospect of an actual Bush third term

far less frightening than the faux Bush 3rd term. At least his VP is just an evil secretive War Criminal, Plain is a God Bothering stupid war causing Idiot one very weak heart from the Presidency.

[MadHound]

7. Well duh, lots of us have been saying this for awhile.

Nice to see at least one Republican is paying attention. C'mon, it was known years ago that Saudi Arabia was running out of oil, along with much of the rest of the world. But whenever we brought that up, we were screamed and shouted down. Now, finally, the idiots are waking up, far too late.

[Subdivisions]

10. People who were sounding the economic warnings a year ago

were called nuts and paranoid maniacs. That's what us they call us Peakists too. We'll see.

[MadHound]

11. There's a reason why they stopped drilling in most of the continental US

That's because the wells have dried up to the point where they were economically unfeasable back in the eighties. So we started sucking down Saudi Arabia crude, and now SA is having to pump in twice as much seawater into Ghawar oil field for the volume of oil that they're getting out. That's the largest oil field in the world, going dry, and there haven't been any strikes that have come near its size for the past fifty years.

ANWR is a joke, the best estimate is that there's enough oil in ANWR to last the US aprox. three years at current rate of consumption.

We're simply running out of cheap, easy to get to oil, and it's time we started getting ourselves off of oil and into clean, renewable alternatives.

[Subdivisions]

12. Preachin' to the choir here, MadHound. But, just like the economic

clarion callers, you and I are batshit crazy.

[MadHound]

13. It's a shame when those who are "batshit crazy" are smarter than the experts.

At least we see what's coming and can prepare for at least our own future. Me, hopefully I'm putting up solar panels next summer, that is unless runaway inflation makes the dollar worthless.

[Subdivisions]

14. Let me know if you decide to go with the panels. I happen to sell them =) n/t

[neverforget]

18. You guys aren't crazy. I first heard about Peak Oil in 2005 and have been

telling anyone who will listen what is coming. Some believe me, others think it's all an oil company conspiracy to drive up profits. Whatever. Only they can decide to open up their minds to something other than conspiracy theories.

[Subdivisions]

20. Their answer is either (in the voice KO uses to mock blllo):

"Oh, there's no such thing as peak oil. It's the oil companies creating an artificlal shortage to raise prices!" or "There plenty of oil in the ground. We'll never run out!" or "Of course we'll eventually run out! But not anytime soon!"

Jeebus. Some people are just plain stupid and/or stubborn.

[colorado thinker]

21. Now, now

There are more of us peakers out there than you might suspect. . . been watching the oil situation since 2003.

It will happen - sooner rather than later.

[wildbilln864]

23. It jumped almost $15.50 a barrel today! nt

[Subdivisions]

24. And that was what it came back down to. At one point it was up $26. n/t

[wildbilln864]

27. wow, that's bad.

I only got to check this afternoon. Hope it drops $20.00 tomorrow. lol. I know that ain't gonna happen.

[kirby]

25. Want to know my personal theory?

These greedy crooks on Wall Street dont know anything but speculation. During Clinton it was the dot.com bubble. Once they milked that for all they could, they quickly replaced it with a housing bubble. I think oil is the next ripe target for these crooks...