Oil prices didn’t reach $200 a barrel. Gas prices didn’t reach $5.00 a gallon.
So, where are all the nutjobs that were spouting conspiracy theories and peak oil nonsense? Remember how sure you were of yourselves? You knew it all.
Now you’re probably getting ready with your Diebold theories for November.
Obviously, this was all a scam to allow Bush to take credit for lowering gas prices.
Duh.
I’m not a Peak Oil-ist, but I run in their circles. They think peak oil is a long-term issue, not short-term like the current oil speculation phenomenon. Some envision more such price bumps in the future, each one rising and falling to a point higher than the last.
Maybe gonzomax will wander in and give us some of his pearls of wisdom (a.k.a. drive by links) on the subject.
That said, I don’t think a short term drop in price of either oil or refined fuel invalidates the whole Peak Oil thingy. OTHER things invalidate at least the gloom and doom version that the world will end and we’ll go back to living in caves thingy…but fluctuation in the price of oil are just that…fluctuation.
-XT
That’s what I think will happen.
Heating oil is still over $4.00/gallon in my area. That’s something like 5 times what it was when I bought my house ten years ago. So I’m not breathing a big sigh of relief just yet.
Well, you went right for the jugular, didn’t you?
I am hardly a nutjob on this topic, but I do believe in the Peak Oil theory. It seems pretty solid to me. Oh, there might be holes here and there, but M. King Hubbert got it pretty much right. It’s hard to argue with the trend. Hubbert said domestic production would peak between 1965 and 1970, and sure enough, it did.
As for the rest, well, I beat that drum enough for both of us, and on both topics. You can carry the load this time.
I agree with the general idea that oil consumption is going to become more resource intensive in the future because all the light sweet crude is being used up quickly. And shifting to heavier versions will require vastly more environmental damage. But there is no shortage of materials to make gasoline and plastic from. Coal, heavy crude and tar sands will last hundreds of years. They will be expensive and highly polluting. So shifting to other energy sources would be nice. Ethanol from plant materials will hurt food prices and production.
I don’t call myself a peak oil believer because its poor propaganda: it implies the end of the world in 5 to 10 years. Maybe the LHC will do us in later today or this week, but the world is not going to end otherwise. The sense of urgency that the peak oil people evince is self-defeating: it isn’t happening as quickly as their urgency implies, so people dismiss everything they say, which is counter-productive, because if you look at 30 years and further out, it’s pretty bleak and getting bleaker.
Don’t worry. It wasn’t speculators driving up the price, either.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26641528/
I’m with Airman Doors. Does anyone credible actually deny that oil is a finite and rapidly depleting resource? I know there are a few people who think that there’s some magic oil-production process underground that is keeping up with our energy requirements, but they’re the ones I’d consider to be nutjobs.
As far as I can tell, peak oil production is a certainty. The only question is when it will be. Some people think it’s already occurred, some people think it’s going to happen pretty soon +/- a decade, and some people think it’s a few decades in the future.
Pointing at a short-term slump in prices and claiming that it means we’re not going to run out of oil is a fairly foolish argument.
Exactly. It’s like pointing to an unusually cool month as a refutation of global warming.
Meantime, if the OP will let us know when Saudi Arabia increases production, I’d appreciate it. If Saudi Arabia has peaked, then the world peak is either here, or past, or close enough for government work.
Have you ever tried this with a climatologist? You can make their head explode. It’s really fun.
Look… there’s other ways to get oil. Sooner or later, we’ll get one of them working. Sub-five years, as I see it. Maybe eight.
Peak drilled? Maybe. But I dunno. And all we need is one of about seven different technologies to pay off, and we’re back in action for a few decades… or even permanently.
Nothing drills through your coconut. You claimed simply that it was all supply and demand. You said the price was driven by an ever growing demand and price would go up .up up. You also claimed speculation was not a factor. So we were pressing 150 a barrel and now its 104. You can not get it. You will not get it. Nothing in your twisted thinking can explain a 1/3rd drop.
However call it a drive by and you can claim victory in your little world.
When the Dow was soaring there were those that were predicting a DJIA of 36,000. There are aways the bandwagon extremists.
So oil goes from $2.59/gal to $4.39/gal then drops to $3.79/gal. According to a lot of clueless short-thinking people the cost of oil has dropped. Geez, shouldn’t we all be happy? I guess I should be happy that I’m paying a buck more a gallon than I did a short time ago.
The next move will be to go from $3.50/gal. to $5.20/gal and have it drop back to $4.60/gal. The same people will be happy with the drop in gas prices.
Well, see, the thing is I DIDN’T say it was simply supply and demand (you can, of course, cite me if you like saying that it was ‘simply’ ANYTHING). YOU said that I said that. And, as with just about everything else you say, you were wrong. Additionally, I have to say that it’s pretty simple really…supply is up and demand is low (in the US) so the price dropped.
Out of curiosity, in your universe why IS the price dropping? I know it’s some kind of Evil Corporate™ plot, but it would be amusing if you would give your own take on it. I’m not expecting you to, mind, because you will probably have to search for a drive by link first, but one can but ask…
-XT
The price of oil is dropping because the high price cut demand by more than people thought it would, and therefore oil was temporarily overproduced. Inventories went up, inventory holders had to accept lower bids for their oil to move it.
The lowering of prices will cause demand to increase, inventories will drop, the price will go up, and production will be stimulated.
These short-term fluctuations don’t really tell you whole lot about the overall trend. There’s no question in my mind that oil is going to continue to get more expensive over the long haul. Demand in the developing world is increasing faster than production of light sweet crude can keep up with.
That’s not necessarily peak oil - it’s possible that the supply of oil could continue to increase for decades, and the price will still go up so long as demand increases even faster.
Yup…which is pretty much what people were saying would happen. However, that level of detail is lost on gonzomax. In fact, ANY level of detail that doesn’t involve evil corporate oil baron screwing the little guy is lost on him.
Again, yup. Basic supply and demand. The only wrinkle of course is with the commodities market. Right now things are calm, but if, say, that idiot in Iran decides to start babbling again (or if the there is some crimp in either production or refinement, like, say a big honkin hurricane in the gulf), then the price of oil will also go up faster.
We are locked into this cycle until we find some way to break it by switching to some viable alternative.
Oil will continue to cycle upward until it meets some critical threshold, which will open up resources (or prompt alternatives) that are currently to expensive to justify the capital expenditure to fully develop or implement them. No idea what that threshold will be, or what it will trigger…but I doubt it will be the end of the world, dog and cats living together, gonzomax making sense, etc etc.
-XT
Keep trying. Someday you may actually figure something out. I have told you over and over why the price moves up and down. You have explained the demand pushing up the price. The demand, if it has dropped, which in xt land is impossible, is nothing like 1/3. It does not, will not and has not compute. It does not work.
Demand doesn’t have to drop. Lower than expected growth in demand can cause the supply/demand equation to change radically.
