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Title: from Texas_Engineer, posting at The Oil Drum
Source: drumbeat, December 26, 2011
URL Source: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8766/860272
Published: Dec 26, 2011
Author: texas engineer
Post Date: 2011-12-26 18:29:06 by lead.and.lag
Keywords: None
Views: 1286
Comments: 87

Human beings are not creatures of facts and logic - they are people who live in stories. This is not new - it has always been that way. We have certain collective narratives that almost everyone automatically accept without further thought. It is how we make sense of the world. These narratives keep us sane by allowing us to filter out the hurricane of information swirling around us daily and making some sense of it. The current narrative that most people subscribe to is that economic growth will eventually return or we have plenty of oil but the government is not letting is drill for it.

For that reason I am not convinced that you will ever convince the average citizen (not a technical person) by showing them data. I am a data person and I have tried it with my family and their eyes glaze over.

So I think you can only change people's views is by constantly telling them a different story - one that is consistent with their current experience. It worked pretty well with my family. A story something like this:

If peak oil is a possibility - what would it be like? Well for starters the peak oil story is not about potential oil under the ground. That oil is irrelevant because it cannot be used. Peak oil is only about one thing - the ongoing flow rate of oil into the economy. For all of the last century and up until about 2005 that flow rate grew steadily. But that flow rate pretty much came to a halt in about 2005 and for the last half decade could not grow. And as you would expect the global oil price started to rise. That's what happens when supply cannot keep up with demand. Economists told us not to worry - Mr. Market would immediately react with increased supplies, reducing price - but it did not happen.

The global oil price (Brent Crude) is now consistently above $100 per barrel after staying below $20 for most of the last century. This is what peak oil is like. This is what peak oil was predicted to be like. High energy prices eat away at the economy by pouring sand into the gears of the economy. Every country in the world tried to compensate for this slowdown by increasing debt. The world is now ludicrously broke - with no chance of paying off this debt bubble. This is peak oil - it is not about resources under the ground - it is about oil production rate - and high oil prices. Don't tell me peak oil cannot happen - it is happening.

I have personally found that my family is stumped when I present this story in this way. They don't have an answer. But the story caused a few of them to ask to see some data. Then I showed them the data. Now they are worried and they hate me :-)

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 71.

#1. To: lead.and.lag (#0)

Now they are worried and they hate me.

What does it say about a society that hates you for telling the truth? The oil shortage is man made and for a purpose. Ignorance fuels the fire of man made shortages and makes them sustainable and VERY profitable.

Phant2000  posted on  2011-12-26   18:44:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Phant2000 (#1) (Edited)

What does it say

you are supposedly from texas.

texas oil production peaked in the early 70s.

why?

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-26   18:48:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: lead.and.lag (#2)

you are supposedly from texas.

texas oil production peaked in the early 70s.

why?

I'm not from Texas, but Southern California. I lived in Dallas for a few years, but not since 2005. I was in the legal profession, not the oil industry.

However, my untrained understanding of oil peaking is production declines due to resource depletion. However, you are asking about Texas. What about the resources that are available in the entire U.S?

Phant2000  posted on  2011-12-26   19:24:26 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: Phant2000 (#7)

Peak Oil ranks right up there with Leprechauns, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Glowbull Warming, and the "Waronterra". It is a PR/PsyOps bought and paid for by the people who benefit from high oil prices.

Between, The Balkan Formation, Gull Island, the fields off the Florida Coast, and the other massive find in the Gulf we'll hit Peak Oil sometime around the end of this millennium or at least the next - maybe.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-12-26   21:20:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#38. To: Original_Intent (#24)

Peak Oil ranks right up there with Leprechauns ...

Thanks for your encouragement, OI (not that I needed it ... hehehe)!

Phant2000  posted on  2011-12-26   21:50:46 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#41. To: Phant2000 (#38)

Thanks for your encouragement, OI (not that I needed it ... hehehe)!

You're most welcome. ;-)

Peak Oilers are like O'bots, Kristyun Zionists, and true believer Marxists. Facts are irrelevant, evidence is irrelevant, the commonalty boils down to one of two things:

1. I beeeeeeeeeeeeeelieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve.

2. I get paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaid.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-12-26   21:55:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#43. To: Original_Intent (#41)

Seems to me I gave just such a simple answer and was chastized for it. Too bad my story doesn't work for others.

Phant2000  posted on  2011-12-26   21:58:35 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#46. To: Phant2000 (#43)

Seems to me I gave just such a simple answer and was chastized for it. Too bad my story doesn't work for others.

All great truths are simple. If someone is attempting to make the truth complex it is generally a sign they are trying to hornswoggle people and create a fog of untruths.

That by the way is a sure fire way to spot a professional disinformationist on a forum - if you have someone who trying to create a confusion of complexity it generally means that they are either a shill or dirt dumb. Both types are well represented at FreepTardia.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-12-26   22:04:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#47. To: Original_Intent (#46) (Edited)

All great truths are simple

let this thread cool off, come back in a couple days and read it.

then, if you're honest, you'll see who's making the complicated arguments.

meanwhile, the truth is simple: no amount of wishful thinking will get more than five pounds of shit out of a five pound bag.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-26   22:07:24 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#49. To: All (#47)

anyhow, just to summarize...

the most dangerous thing about the idea of peak oil, at this point, is that it explains why the neocons did 9/11.

as we work down the back side of the prodcution curve, that concern will pale as everyone but the looters is preoccupied with surviving.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-26   22:12:46 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#50. To: lead.and.lag (#49)

That is misleading. The reason for 911 was to create a psychological shock to the society to frighten people into accepting actions, policies, wars, and laws that would otherwise have been stridently opposed.

The PATRIOT Act was already written and waiting on the shelf for a situation that would allow its passage.

OKC was conducted to pass Klinton's "anti-terror law".

Yes there was an agenda behind 911 and it was conducted for a purpose, but that purpose had little or nothing to do with the mythological PsyOp known as Peak Oil.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-12-26   23:05:41 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#51. To: Original_Intent (#50) (Edited)

but you still cnt explain why global oil production has been flat, despite so many drills working in such inhospitable places.

you wont acknowledge the fact that giant oil fields are declining in production, you wont acknowledge that new discoveries are not keeping up with production, let alone keeping up with increasing demand that's causing price hikes.

in other words, all you're going on is your faith... you might be right, but the chances get slimmer with each year that passes and no replacement fields are found the size of the old fields that are depleting.

your argument seems to hinge on an oil company conspiracy, yet you cant provide any evidence of that conspiracy, and you cant explain why the most profitable oil company in the world is also the most prominent denier of peak oil, but is be allied with israeli americans who said needed a new pearl harbor just before they got into position to make it happen.

but if your belief works for you, that's really all that counts.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-26   23:16:18 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#54. To: lead.and.lag (#51)

but you still cnt explain why global oil production has been flat, despite so many drills working in such inhospitable places.

What are you talking about? NON Opec production has been STEADILY INCREASING since 1973......

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-26   23:30:36 ET  (1 image) Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#55. To: abraxas (#54) (Edited)

NON Opec production has been STEADILY INCREASING since 1973

do you know the difference between "all liqquids" and "crude oil and condensate"?

how many barrels of oil are produced, and counted, and then used to produce a barrel of alcohol, which only has an energy content of 2/3 of a barrel of oil?

and despite that, the ethanol is counted in addition to the oil used to produce the ethanol.

does that make sense you you?

it makes sense to the people who are tring their best to obscure the fact that global oil production seems to have peaked.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-26   23:35:18 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#57. To: lead.and.lag (#55) (Edited)

Show me where it has peaked........because the production for non Opec nations has steadily INCREASED. You attempt to obfuscate has failed. Even Opec nation production is on the up swing since 1985, producing at levels barely reached before.

America is sitting on oil resources..there has been no peak here either, just a refusal to produce in order to police the world and play empire America with dollar/oil hegemony.

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-26   23:40:47 ET  (1 image) Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#59. To: abraxas (#57) (Edited)

America is sitting on oil resources..there has been no peak here

so all those landmen that go around getting permission to drill on private land are in cahoots... the seismic people have not beat america to death looking for possibilies... and the landmen shun the places that have oil, and only drill 200 miles offshore in 10,000 feet of water, and all of this is a big plot run by the rothschilds.

good deal.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-26   23:50:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#60. To: lead.and.lag (#59)

America is sitting on oil resources..there has been no peak here

Long ago the wells were bought by the big boys and capped. Why would big oil need to use those resources when they can simply war around the world and steal the resources of other nations? The oil/dollar hemogony scheme in 1971 was a license to do just that, which is why the big oil boys had to get those contracts for Iraq's oil. Those Iraqis won't balk at crappy practices for extraction and it's a win-win for Israel too, plus the nation is owned by central bankers and convenient for invasion of Iran.

BTW, Bakken alone is estimated to increase reserves ten times over (3-4 trillion barrels). There's a field in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado with another two trillion barrels. Then there's the oil in Alaska and all the remains untapped off shore of this nation. In the 1920's thousands of "oil placer claims" were made on public lands and are valid today.

The April 2008, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessment shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency’s 1995 estimate of a paltry 151 million barrels of oil. That would be 3,775 million (or 3.775 billion) barrels. The U.S. Geological Survey is in direct contradiction to your peak oil claims.

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-27   0:14:50 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#62. To: abraxas (#60) (Edited)

There's a field in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado with another two trillion barrels.

that's oil shale, and nobody's figured out ow to produce it yet.

it might take a half a barrel of oil (energy equivalent) to get a barrel of oil from the shale.

that wipes out half your reserves.

of course, the process is so difficult that it might take a barrel and a half of energy equivalent to get a barel of oil out of the shale...

...which takes your reserves down from from a plus two trillion barrels to a minus one trillion barrels... that's not so pretty good.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-27   0:24:03 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#63. To: lead.and.lag (#62)

The stunning news is that we have more oil inside our borders than all the other proven reserves on Earth. : )

According to a June 2008 article in Kiplinger Magazine, the United States has enough oil reserves to power the nation for upwards of three centuries.

From the April 2008 study conducted by the United States Geological Survey: "North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation." The report acknowledges that the available oil reserves could be much larger, but the 3.0 to 4.3 billion figure represents oil RECOVERABLE NOW WITH TODAY'S TECHNOLOGY. In fact, Bakken is going full bore as we speak.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuges (ANWR) has 10 billion barrels available.

And beyond the US.......In 2006, the head of the world's largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, said: “We are looking at more than four and a half trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil. That number translates into 140 years of oil at current rates of consumption, or to put it anther way, the world has only consumed about 18 percent of its conventional oil potential. That fact alone should discredit the argument that peak oil is imminent and put our minds at ease concerning future petrol supplies.” (But what does he know about oil? lol)

Much contradiction to your claims for peak oil lead.and.lag.

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-27   0:42:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#64. To: abraxas (#63)

Much contradiction to your claims for peak oil...

...except for the fact that oil production has been flat since late 2004.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-27   0:45:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#67. To: lead.and.lag (#64)

That's what you claim......but you offer no support for it. I have offered US Geological surveys, maps, excerpts from articles, quotes for producers, but all you offer is your claim to flat production over a six year span while the Iraqi fields were not producing due to the empire bombing them.

Basically, the Saudi's increased production to pick up the slack during that attack per GW's instruction and assurance that the price would increase dramatically for them to enrich themselves, which has NOTHING to do with Peak Oil.

Have you ever investigated Opec's price fixing.....produce less to get a price increase is an old game. Make a deal to get a price increase is also very old school. You know America was the biggest oil producer in the world at the turn of the century so they have a lot of experience in how to rig the game with many dupes to fall for the same ol' crap over and over again. Oh noes, peak oil means we HAVE to war more and we HAVE to frighten the people and we HAVE to tax the crap out of them and we HAVE to pretend there is no alternatives to oil. Why do you fall for this crap?

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-27   0:53:14 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#68. To: abraxas (#67) (Edited)

peak oil means we HAVE to war more and we HAVE to frighten the people and we HAVE to tax the crap out of them and we HAVE to pretend there is no alternatives to oil.

peak oil means we will have wars because we are too goddamned stupid, too enslaved to israel, and too misinformed to cooperate in dealing with peak oil.

as a consequence of peak oil, our enslavement to israel, and the oil wars, the situation will soon enough degenerate to the point that peak oil itself will be pretty far down on our list of worries.

now then, all you got to do is produce enough oil to prove that peak oil is a scam, just produce the oil, that's all...

but first you'll have to convince israel that global warming is a scam so they dont have to worry about grabbing palestinian land, so they dont need american protection...

...while you're at it, you can convince them that co2 is not a warming gas, convince them that the world is not producing an extra 30 billion tons of the stuff every year, that america will not run out of oil, and they can slack off this neverending push for more wars.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-27   1:03:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#69. To: lead.and.lag (#68)

Your peak oil and your global warming scare mongering are simply JUSTIFICATION and EXCUSES for what you claim to disdain. It's JUSTIFICATION to roll in that "New World Order" to save the lot of us....it's ridiculous!

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-27   1:10:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#70. To: abraxas (#69) (Edited)

It's JUSTIFICATION

nope, it's just the reason why all this stuff is happening.

if enough people connected the dots, and realized the moral peril jewishness and america are in, we might have a chance at dealing sensibly with these problems.

pretty much of a long shot.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-27   1:14:04 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#71. To: lead.and.lag (#70)

it's just the reason why all this stuff is happening.

You are duped....they tell you what to think and you believe it. It is NOT the reason. It's another parlor trick lead.and.lag. Why do you fall for it?

abraxas  posted on  2011-12-27   1:19:35 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 71.

#72. To: abraxas (#71) (Edited)

....they tell you what to think

peak oil's been on a few people's radar for quite a while, but if it was a big organized scare tactic, it would be hammered into us 24/7 by the israeli american media.

instead, though, we got this yergin guy, mealymouthed little shill from CERA and brookings, saying, "party on, dudes... there's lots of oil."

the fact that global oil production has been flat for seven years should be big news, but it isnt because then everybody would understand why we're bombing oily arabs, and other muslims who live on supply routes, and are threatening to wreck persia.

but worst of all, people would be able to connect peak oil to PNAC and their new pearl harbor and 9/11.

lead.and.lag  posted on  2011-12-27 01:26:16 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 71.

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