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Growing up in California in the 90s, I remember gas prices being little over a dollar per gallon. In 2005, the price for a gallon of gasoline hit the two dollar mark for the first time in history (not including the oil embargo of the 70s, but that was a different situation). Then of course in 2008 it doubled again to $4 per gallon for the first time. Prices are doubling every few years. How long before it reaches $5? $6?
Peak oil, from what I've read, is when you reach the point where you have used up at least half of the world's supply of oil. The first half is conventional crude that is easy and cheap to get out of the ground. What happens when this supply of cheap conventional oil runs out? You start digging for the unconventional stuff left in the deep oceans, shale rocks, tar sands, the use of fracking, etc. These are much harder and more expensive to get at. As well as more polluting and environmentally degrading.
It seems we are pretty close to that point right now. The cheap conventional stuff is nearly depleted, forcing oil and gas companies to go after the unconventional stuff in a big way. As we speak the Canadian tar sands are being mined on a huge scale, there's lots of talk about importing this stuff directly down to the US by building an XL pipeline, there are massive oil drilling operations taking place in the deep oceans, etc. Every year the oil rigs keep going further and further out, deeper and deeper.
The problem with unconventional crude besides from being dirty and hard to refine, eventually there will come a time when the difficulty of extraction becomes too great that it no longer justifies the time and expense. If companies cant make a profit they will stop producing it. So peak oil doesn't necessarily mean the world is running out of oil. It means that there may be plenty of oil left, but what is left is neither cheap or easy to get at.
There seems to be plenty of signs indicating we are now at or near the top of the bell curve on peak oil. Some say it happened sometime between 2000 and 2005 so we may have already surpassed it.
Seriously...I've been hearing that we've reached, or on the verge of reaching, peak oil production since the 1960's.
I don't think anyone said we were on the verge back then. At least not anyone with any credibility. Hubbert a highly respected geologist back in the 1950s predicted peak oil would occur around 2000 to 2010. He could have been right.
Unlike back then, we have hard evidence to show it is happening. Several respected industry insiders are speaking about it in a serious way. The big shift from conventional to unconventional oil, for example, that is currently underway. That didn't happen until now.
People are beginning to see that Peak Oil was just a theory that has been constantly proven wrong by one mammoth discovery after another over the many years since Peak Oil was written.
Currently, the world is essentially awash in both oil and natural gas, especially as we frack the hell out of every shale play in the nation.
Per a recent piece in the WSJ, we, as a nation, now export more petroleum products than we import.
High prices are a result an election year; oil barons jack up the price every 4 years so they can send unlimited money to super PACs.
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Some discoveries have pushed the timeline back over the past few decades, but we are no doubt nearing the end of the petroleum-based civilization we're used to. More countries are nearing our level of demand, and it can't continue.
Peak Oil is pure and utter garbage. It's used to keep people living in fear and the corporate grip of the oil-banking cartel aruond society's neck. Peak oil is about peak greed and control. Nothing more nothing less. Is there an endless supply of oil in the world? Probably not. Have we reached peak oil in approximately a century or whatever of using it? NOT HARDLY! Peak oil is the old global warming or the old war on terror. Just tools of government and their corporate masters to keep us all dumbed down economically. Notice how we've all just simply gotten "used" to almost $4.00 a gallon gas? Just wait till after Iran is attacked.......oil will probably stay above $4.00 a gallon and keep going up. The world is rich in oil reserves even the cheap middle eastern oil. Hell Iraq was SUPPOSED to be a boon to the oil industry and allow the US access to cheaper oil.. Hmmmmmm who did all those American GI's sacrifice REALLY go to helping? Big oil companies.
Americans and westerners are mentally retarded if they can't realize how they are being manipulated and lied to about oil. Energy needs will change, companies will invest as that change approaches. But the cold hard truth is we could have done like Brazil did 20 however many years ago and became completely middel eastern oil independent atleast from an automobile perspective. Our thirst for cheap plastic crap, polyester and women's make up is an entirely different debate. Tesla was talking about free energy 50 years ago. Who killed the electric car? Big oil is one of the most powerful, entrenched, manipulative, and wealthy industries in the world. Hell they basically run it........puppeteering countries like the US to destabilize entire governments and foreign countries so they can go in and sop up the cheap oil and ransack entire populations. The big oil families like the Rockefellers have been controlling the US for a LONG LONG time. They are more powerful than our own Constitution unfortunately. In fact it's just toilet paper to families like them.
No. Its market speculation. The oil industry discovered that Americans could afford 3.50 dollar a gallon gas without a significant reduction in economic growth.
Why should they lower the price? They are all in it together.
No. Its market speculation. The oil industry discovered that Americans could afford 3.50 dollar a gallon gas without a significant reduction in economic growth.
Why should they lower the price? They are all in it together.
LOL........yeah but our economy is based on the automobile and it would be dead in the water no matter how much the average consumer has to pay for a gallon of gas. It's not about market speculation at all. Americans aren't any wealthier than they were in the 1960s. They've paid for all this "cheap oil" and $3.50 a gallon of gas with DEBT!!!!!!! And as long as we have no alternative types of transportation, public is a joke, Americans will end up paying as much as the British but without the public efficiency of getting around. Plus America is such a vast country. Most British can't even afford to own a car.
This is all planned and engineered by very powerful families who control higher learning institutions like Harvard, Yale, etc. where the "best and brightest" graduate. Some of the most prestigious institutions in America be them higher learning ones or medical ones have been bought and paid for by big oil families since their inception.
LOL........yeah but our economy is based on the automobile and it would be dead in the water not matter how much the average consumer has to pay for a gallon of gas. It's not about market speculation at all. Americans aren't any wealthier than they were in the 1960s. They've paid for all this "cheap oil" and $3.50 a gallon of gas with DEBT!!!!!!! This is all planned and engineered by very powerful families who control higher learning institutions like Harvard, Yale, etc. where the "best and brightest" graduate. Some of the most prestigious institutions in America be them higher learning ones or medical ones have been bought and paid for by big oil families since their inception.
This is a game they play. They raise prices, like they did when they went to 3.00 a gallon gas.
People freak. "OMG, I can't afford to drive". So they cut back, slightly.
Then the oil companies and speculators lower prices, slightly, lets say to 2.80 a gallon.
Then people are relieved, but they were used to paying 2.50 a gallon.
The next time they raise it to 3.50.
People suffer from short term memory. That and you get used to spending more on fuel costs, so the added cost isn't as much of a burden.
Most fuel costs go for manufacturing and farming.
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