Thursday, February 16, 2006

Peak Oil Today : Increasing Awareness, More Lies

Catching up on the slowly growing awareness of Peak Oil, we find the bleeding edge news program The Daily Show featuring guest Peter Tertzakian, author of A Thousand Barrels a Second (which Chaos has not read, nor heard of prior to the airing). Peak Oil on The Daily Show! OMFG! (Kindly excuse the vulgarity...) Only for five minutes or so, and some of that sacrificed to Stewart's jocularity, but still, an important milestone in media awareness.

Meanwhile, on another front, the "Official Energy Statistics From the US Government," the Energy Information Administration (known as the EIA), has released it's latest report (suggest reading the "Overview"pdf file). What would be the odds, do you think, that this report has realistic projections of oil and gas production and prices? Congratulations if you said "not very good," because in fact this report is filled with delusional figures and projections. For example, US lower 48 oil production is projected to magically rise between now and 2016, defying the gradual and continual decline that has gone on since 1970. Oil prices are projected to increase to $54.08/barrel in 2025 and $56.97/barrel in 2030 (for reference, yesterday's oil price was $57.25/barrel). A rosier picture of our energy future can hardly be found, and one seemingly calculated to drive the country completely off the cliff when reality begins to set in.

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