Confessions of an ‘ex’ Peak Oil Believer

[Budgie]

I'm not to clued up about all the in's and out's of peak oil, Although I do accept it.

Anyway, I do not know what to think of this article. Is it true what he says? Any more info anyone?

http://321energy.com/editorials/engdahl ... 92607.html


Confessions of an ?ex? Peak Oil Believer
F. William Engdahl
September 26, 2007
www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net


The good news is that panic scenarios about the world running out of oil anytime soon are wrong. The bad news is that the price of oil is going to continue to rise. Peak Oil is not our problem. Politics is. Big Oil wants to sustain high oil prices. Dick Cheney and friends are all too willing to assist.

On a personal note, I?ve researched questions of petroleum, since the first oil shocks of the 1970?s. I was intrigued in 2003 with something called Peak Oil theory. It seemed to explain the otherwise inexplicable decision by Washington to risk all in a military move on Iraq.

Peak Oil advocates, led by former BP geologist Colin Campbell, and Texas banker Matt Simmons, argued that the world faced a new crisis, an end to cheap oil, or Absolute Peak Oil, perhaps by 2012, perhaps by 2007. Oil was supposedly on its last drops. They pointed to our soaring gasoline and oil prices, to the declines in output of North Sea and Alaska and other fields as proof they were right.

According to Campbell, the fact that no new North Sea-size fields had been discovered since the North Sea in the late 1960?s was proof. He reportedly managed to convince the International Energy Agency and the Swedish government. That, however, does not prove him correct.

Intellectual fossils?

The Peak Oil school rests its theory on conventional Western geology textbooks, most by American or British geologists, which claim oil is a ?fossil fuel,? a biological residue or detritus of either fossilized dinosaur remains or perhaps algae, hence a product in finite supply. Biological origin is central to Peak Oil theory, used to explain why oil is only found in certain parts of the world where it was geologically trapped millions of years ago. That would mean that, say, dead dinosaur remains became compressed and over tens of millions of years fossilized and trapped in underground reservoirs perhaps 4-6,000 feet below the surface of the earth. In rare cases, so goes the theory, huge amounts of biological matter should have been trapped in rock formations in the shallower ocean offshore as in the Gulf of Mexico or North Sea or Gulf of Guinea. Geology should be only about figuring out where these pockets in the layers of the earth, called reservoirs, lie within certain sedimentary basins.

An entirely alternative theory of oil formation has existed since the early 1950?s in Russia, almost unknown to the West. It claims conventional American biological origins theory is an unscientific absurdity that is un-provable. They point to the fact that western geologists have repeatedly predicted finite oil over the past century, only to then find more, lots more.

Not only has this alternative explanation of the origins of oil and gas existed in theory. The emergence of Russia and prior of the USSR as the world?s largest oil producer and natural gas producer has been based on the application of the theory in practice. This has geopolitical consequences of staggering magnitude.

Necessity: the mother of invention

In the 1950?s the Soviet Union faced ?Iron Curtain? isolation from the West. The Cold War was in high gear. Russia had little oil to fuel its economy. Finding sufficient oil indigenously was a national security priority of the highest order.

Scientists at the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Ukraine Academy of Sciences began a fundamental inquiry in the late 1940?s: where does oil come from?

In 1956, Prof. Vladimir Porfir?yev announced their conclusions: ?Crude oil and natural petroleum gas have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the earth. They are primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths.? The Soviet geologists had turned Western orthodox geology on its head. They called their theory of oil origin the ?a-biotic? theory?non-biological?to distinguish from the Western biological theory of origins.

If they were right, oil supply on earth would be limited only by the amount of organic hydrocarbon constituents present deep in the earth at the time of the earth?s formation. Availability of oil would depend only on technology to drill ultra-deep wells and explore into the earth?s inner regions. They also realized old fields could be revived to continue producing, so called self-replentishing fields. They argued that oil is formed deep in the earth, formed in conditions of very high temperature and very high pressure, like that required for diamonds to form. ?Oil is a primordial material of deep origin which is transported at high pressure via ?cold? eruptive processes into the crust of the earth,? Porfir?yev stated. His team dismissed the idea that oil is was biological residue of plant and animal fossil remains as a hoax designed to perpetuate the myth of limited supply.

Defying conventional geology

That radically different Russian and Ukrainian scientific approach to the discovery of oil allowed the USSR to develop huge gas and oil discoveries in regions previously judged unsuitable, according to Western geological exploration theories, for presence of oil. The new petroleum theory was used in the early 1990?s, well after the dissolution of the USSR, to drill for oil and gas in a region believed for more than forty-five years, to be geologically barren?the Dnieper-Donets Basin in the region between Russia and Ukraine.

Following their a-biotic or non-fossil theory of the deep origins of petroleum, the Russian and Ukrainian petroleum geophysicists and chemists began with a detailed analysis of the tectonic history and geological structure of the crystalline basement of the Dnieper-Donets Basin. After a tectonic and deep structural analysis of the area, they made geophysical and geochemical investigations.

A total of sixty one wells were drilled, of which thirty seven were commercially productive, an extremely impressive exploration success rate of almost sixty percent. The size of the field discovered compared with the North Slope of Alaska. By contrast, US wildcat drilling was considered successful with a ten percent success rate. Nine of ten wells are typically ?dry holes.?

That Russian geophysics experience in finding oil and gas was tightly wrapped in the usual Soviet veil of state security during the Cold War era, and went largely unknown to Western geophysicists, who continued to teach fossil origins and, hence, the severe physical limits of petroleum. Slowly it begin to dawn on some strategists in and around the Pentagon well after the 2003 Iraq war, that the Russian geophysicists might be on to something of profound strategic importance.

If Russia had the scientific know-how and Western geology not, Russia possessed a strategic trump card of staggering geopolitical import. It was not surprising that Washington would go about erecting a ?wall of steel??a network of military bases and ballistic anti-missile shields around Russia, to cut her pipeline and port links to western Europe, China and the rest of Eurasia. Halford Mackinder?s worst nightmare--a cooperative convergence of mutual interests of the major states of Eurasia, born of necessity and need for oil to fuel economic growth--was emerging. Ironically, it was the blatant US grab for the vast oil riches of Iraq and, potentially, of Iran, that catalyzed closer cooperation between traditional Eurasian foes, China and Russia, and a growing realization in western Europe that their options too were narrowing.

The Peak King

Peak Oil theory is based on a 1956 paper done by the late Marion King Hubbert, a Texas geologist working for Shell Oil. He argued that oil wells produced in a bell curve manner, and once their ?peak? was hit, inevitable decline followed. He predicted the United States oil production would peak in 1970. A modest man, he named the production curve he invented, Hubbert?s Curve, and the peak as Hubbert?s Peak. When US oil output began to decline in around 1970 Hubbert gained a certain fame.

The only problem was, it peaked not because of resource depletion in the US fields. It ?peaked? because Shell, Mobil, Texaco and the other partners of Saudi Aramco were flooding the US market with dirt cheap Middle East imports, tariff free, at prices so low California and many Texas domestic producers could not compete and were forced to shut their wells in.

Vietnam success

While the American oil multinationals were busy controlling the easily accessible large fields of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and other areas of cheap, abundant oil during the 1960?s, the Russians were busy testing their alternative theory. They began drilling in a supposedly barren region of Siberia. There they developed eleven major oil fields and one Giant field based on their deep ?a-biotic? geological estimates. They drilled into crystalline basement rock and hit black gold of a scale comparable to the Alaska North Slope.

They then went to Vietnam in the 1980s and offered to finance drilling costs to show their new geological theory worked. The Russian company Petrosov drilled in Vietnam?s White Tiger oilfield offshore into basalt rock some 17,000 feet down and extracted 6,000 barrels a day of oil to feed the energy-starved Vietnam economy. In the USSR, a-biotic-trained Russian geologists perfected their knowledge and the USSR emerged as the world?s largest oil producer by the mid-1980?s. Few in the West understood why, or bothered to ask.

Dr. J. F. Kenney is one of the only Western geophysicists who has taught and worked in Russia, studying under Vladilen Krayushkin, who developed the huge Dnieper-Donets Basin. Kenney told me in a recent interview that ?alone to have produced the amount of oil to date that (Saudi Arabia?s) Ghawar field has produced would have required a cube of fossilized dinosaur detritus, assuming 100% conversion efficiency, measuring 19 miles deep, wide and high.? In short, an absurdity.

Western geologists do not bother to offer hard scientific proof of fossil origins. They merely assert as a holy truth. The Russians have produced volumes of scientific papers, most in Russian. The dominant Western journals have no interest in publishing such a revolutionary view. Careers, entire academic professions are at stake after all.

Closing the door

The 2003 arrest of Russian Mikhail Khodorkovsky, of Yukos Oil, took place just before he could sell a dominant stake in Yukos to ExxonMobil after a private meeting with Dick Cheney. Had Exxon got the stake they would have control of the world?s largest resource of geologists and engineers trained in the a-biotic techniques of deep drilling.

Since 2003 Russian scientific sharing of their knowledge has markedly lessened. Offers in the early 1990?s to share their knowledge with US and other oil geophysicists were met with cold rejection according to American geophysicists involved.

Why then the high-risk war to control Iraq? For a century US and allied Western oil giants have controlled world oil via control of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or Nigeria. Today, as many giant fields are declining, the companies see the state-controlled oilfields of Iraq and Iran as the largest remaining base of cheap, easy oil. With the huge demand for oil from China and now India, it becomes a geopolitical imperative for the United States to take direct, military control of those Middle East reserves as fast as possible. Vice President Dick Cheney, came to the job from Halliburton Corp., the world?s largest oil geophysical services company. The only potential threat to that US control of oil just happens to lie inside Russia and with the now-state-controlled Russian energy giants. Hmmmm.

According to Kenney the Russian geophysicists used the theories of the brilliant German scientist Alfred Wegener fully 30 years before the Western geologists ?discovered? Wegener in the 1960?s. In 1915 Wegener published the seminal text, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, which suggested an original unified landmass or ?pangaea? more than 200 million years ago which separated into present Continents by what he called Continental Drift.

Up to the 1960?s supposed US scientists such as Dr Frank Press, White House science advisor referred to Wegener as ?lunatic.? Geologists at the end of the 1960?s were forced to eat their words as Wegener offered the only interpretation that allowed them to discover the vast oil resources of the North Sea. Perhaps in some decades Western geologists will rethink their mythology of fossil origins and realize what the Russians have known since the 1950?s. In the meantime Moscow holds a massive energy trump card.



F. William Engdahl
September 26, 2007

[oilslick]

I think you need to crank out Google...

I'm not a geologist but I believe this has been well and truly debunked as complete guff...oil creation is very well understood even down to the depths and temperatures that you need to create it.

[isenhand]

Well, he has a number of facts wrong (? Peak Oil theory is based on a 1956? ? it was earlier and King correctly predicted the decline in US oil as a result) and the odd fallacy (?panic scenarios about the world running out of oil anytime soon are wrong? - its not about running out of oil soon but about reaching max production soon, we will still have oil for a long time after that)

However, the Russia theory for oil is irrelevant even if true. If we accept that it is true then given that oil production in a number of fields has started to decline it would appear that oil creation does not keep up with our ever increasing demand for oil so we will still end up in the same situation- too little oil to go a around.

And another point, PO is not a religion so you don?t need to ?believe it?, you just go where the facts lead.


.ui

[syberberg]

Further to what isenhand said about Engdahl's mistakes.

"Big Oil" doesn't set the price for oil, the markets do that and it's based completely on supply vs. demand. For example, it's not "Big Oil" that cranks up the price every time a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico shuts down drilling, it's the cut off in supply. The same goes for whenever the Nigerians shut in production due to fear of kidnappings/explosions/shootings. As a graduate study of economics from the University of Stokholm, he really should know better.

As regards that piece of cornucopian claptrap quoted above, I doubt anyone has shot themselves so throughly in the foot since soldiers on the Western Front tried disparately to get out of the trenches.

[Budgie]

Well, I found this. It seems a pretty decent responses to the abiotic theroy

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _oil.shtml

[Ugo Bardi is professor of Chemistry at the University of Florence, Italy. He is also member of the ASPO (Association for the study of peak oil). He is the author of the book "La Fine del Petrolio" (the end of oil) and of several studies on oil depletion.

Ugo Bardi offers a simple assessment of the abiotic theory. His logic is so clear, and the culmination of his argument is so cogent, that even a child could understand it. And the conclusion is inescapable - at least to honest enquiry - abiotic theory is false, or at best irrelevant. -DAP]

OCTOBER 4, 2004: 1300 PDT (FTW) -- For the past century or so, the biological origin of oil seemed to be the accepted norm. However, there remained a small group of critics who pushed the idea that, instead, oil is generated from inorganic matter within the earth's mantle.

The question might have remained within the limits of a specialized debate among geologists, as it has been until not long ago. However, the recent supply problems have pushed crude oil to the center stage of international news. This interest has sparked a heated debate on the concept of the "production peak" of crude oil. According to the calculations of several experts, oil production may reach a maximum within a few years and start a gradual decline afterwards.

The concept of "oil peak" is strictly linked to a view that sees oil as a finite resource. Several economists have never accepted this view, arguing that resource availability is determined by price and not by physical factors. Recently, others have been arguing a more extreme view: that oil is not even physically limited. According to some versions of the abiotic oil theory, oil is continuously created in the Earth's mantle in such amounts that the very concept of "depletion" is to be abandoned and, by consequence, that there will never be an "oil peak."

The debate has become highly politicized and has spilled over from geology journals to the mainstream press and to the fora and mailing lists on the internet. The proponents of the abiotic oil theory are often very aggressive in their arguments. Some of them go so far as to accuse those who claim that oil production is going to peak of pursuing a hidden political agenda designed to provide Bush with a convenient excuse for invading Iraq and the whole Middle East.

Normally, the discussion of abiotic oil oscillates between the scientifically arcane and the politically nasty. Even supposing that the political nastiness can be detected and removed, there remains the problem that the average non-specialist in petroleum geology can't hope to wade through the arcane scientific details of the theory (isotopic ratios, biomarkers, sedimentary layers and all that) without getting lost.

Here, I will try to discuss the origin of oil without going into these details. I will do this by taking a more general approach. Supposing that the abiogenic theory is right, then what are the consequences for us and for the whole biosphere? If we find that the consequences do not correspond to what we see, then we can safely drop the abiotic theory without the need of worrying about having to take a course in advanced geology. We may also find that the consequences are so small as to be irrelevant; in this case also we needn't worry about arcane geological details.

In order to discuss this point, the first task is to be clear about what we are discussing. There are, really, two versions of the abiotic oil theory, the "weak" and the "strong":

- The "weak" abiotic oil theory: oil is abiotically formed, but at rates not higher than those that petroleum geologists assume for oil formation according to the conventional theory. (This version has little or no political consequences).

- The "strong" abiotic theory: oil is formed at a speed sufficient to replace the oil reservoirs as we deplete them, that is, at a rate something like 10,000 times faster than known in petroleum geology. (This one has strong political implications).

Both versions state that petroleum is formed from the reaction of carbonates with iron oxide and water in the region called "mantle," deep in the Earth. Furthermore, it is assumed (see Gold's 1993 paper) that the mantle is such a huge reservoir that the amount of reactants consumed in the reaction hasn't depleted it over a few billion years (this is not unreasonable, since the mantle is indeed huge).

Now, the main consequence of this mechanism is that it promises a large amount of hydrocarbons that seep out to the surface from the mantle. Eventually, these hydrocarbons would be metabolized by bacteria and transformed into CO2. This would have an effect on the temperature of the atmosphere, which is strongly affected by the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in it. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is regulated by at least two biological cycles; the photosynthetic cycle and the silicate weathering cycle. Both these cycles have a built-in negative feedback which keeps (in the long run) the CO2 within concentrations such that the right range of temperatures for living creatures is maintained (this is the Gaia model).

The abiotic oil-if it existed in large amounts-would wreak havoc with these cycles. In the "weak" abiotic oil version, it may just be that the amount of carbon that seeps out from the mantle is small enough for the biological cycles to cope and still maintain control over the CO2 concentration. However, in the "strong" version, this is unthinkable. Over billions of years of seepage in the amounts considered, we would be swimming in oil, drowned in oil.

Indeed, it seems that the serious proponents of the abiotic theory all go for the "weak" version. Gold, for instance, never says in his 1993 paper that oil wells are supposed to replenish themselves.1 As a theory, the weak abiotic one still fails to explain a lot of phenomena, principally (and, I think, terminally): how is it that oil deposits are almost always associated to anoxic periods of high biological sedimentation rate? However, the theory is not completely unthinkable.

At this point, we can arrive at a conclusion. What is the relevance of the abiotic theory in practice? The answer is "none." The "strong" version is false, so it is irrelevant by definition. The "weak" version, instead, would be irrelevant in practice, even if it were true. It would change a number of chapters of geology textbooks, but it would have no effect on the impending oil peak.

To be sure, Gold and others argue that even the weak version has consequences on petroleum prospecting and extraction. Drilling deeper and drilling in areas where people don't usually drill, Gold says, you have a chance to find oil and gas. This is a very, very weak position for two reasons.

First, digging is more expensive the deeper you go, and in practice it is nearly impossible to dig a commercial well deeper than the depth to which wells are drilled nowadays, that is, more than 10 km.

Secondly, petroleum geology is an empirical field which has evolved largely by trial and error. Petroleum geologists have learned the hard way where to drill (and where not to drill); in the process they have developed a theoretical model that WORKS. It is somewhat difficult to believe that generations of smart petroleum geologists missed huge amounts of oil. Gold tried to demonstrate just that, and all that he managed to do was to recover 80 barrels of oil in total, oil that was later shown to be most likely the result of contamination of the drilling mud. Nothing prevents others from trying again, but so far the results are not encouraging.

So, the abiotic oil theory is irrelevant to the debate about peak oil and it would not be worth discussing were it not for its political aspects. If people start with the intention of demonstrating that the concept of "peak oil" was created by a "Zionist conspiracy" or something like that, anything goes. In this case, however, the debate is no longer a scientific one. Fortunately, as Colin Campbell said, "Oil is ultimately controlled by events in the geological past which are immune to politics."

[clv101]

It's sad to see 321energy.com publish such rubbish - it truly is rubbish. Love the bit about the US 1970 peak being due to cheap imports - what happened in '73 and '79 when the oil shocks sent to price shooting up? US production continued to fall.

[careful_eugene]

drill ultra-deep wells and explore into the earth?s inner regions

If you do this don't you discover magma? (and your drill bit melts)

[Adam1]

Budgie - on abiotic oil and conspiracy theories, you might also want to read this:

http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/171

[RenewableCandy]

An alternative take on all this is the following:

Supposing you subscribe to the "Don't trust nob***er" school of thought: you have never met a geologist or had the chance to assess the trustworthiness of any of the people involved in this debate. You therefore restrict youself to consideration of the known facts, which in my case is 35 years of energy prices as experienced by yours truly.

Even with this limited amount of information, one may jalouse that either:

oil and gas are peaking, or
we are being ripped off by <insert name of guilty party of your choice here>

The response to either is the same: find alternatives, or go without.

[Bandidoz]

I grabbed this article from PeakOil.com a few years ago:

Abiotic Oil
An Explanation




Since we have new members and visitors joining us constantly, I decided to re-post my response from an earlier thread. I emailed this information to Richard Heinberg, and he said that it is the best short rebuttal to the abiotic oil theory that he's seen anywhere.



Dave van Harn




I did some web searching for information on Dr. Gold and the abiotic theory of hydrocarbon creation. I noticed that most of the sites backing the abiotic theory were non-scientific. The best rebuttals to the abiogenic theory that I came up with were from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists at this web site:

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/11nov/abiogenic.cfm

and Dr. John Clarke, a geologist and astrobiologist from Australia (his bio is at this link:

http://aca.mq.edu.au/People/jclarke.htm

I e-mailed Dr. Clark and received permission to post a rebuttal he posted in another forum to the theory of abundant abiotic oil:

Quote:
The fact remains that the abiotic theory of petroleum genesis has zero credibility for economically interesting accumulations. 99.9999% of the world's liquid hydrocarbons are produced by maturation of organic matter derived from organisms. To deny this means you have to come up with good explanations for the following observations.

1) The almost universal association of petroleum with sedimentary rocks.

2) The close link between petroleum reservoirs and source rocks as shown by biomarkers (the source rocks contain the same organic markers as the petroleum, essentially chemically fingerprinting the two).

3) The consistent variation of biomarkers in petroleum in accordance with the history of life on earth (biomarkers indicative of land plants are found only in Devonian and younger rocks, that formed by marine plankton only in Neoproterozoic and younger rocks, the oldest oils containing only biomarkers of bacteria).

3) The close link between the biomarkers in source rock and depositional environment (source rocks containing biomarkers of land plants are found only in terrestrial and shallow marine sediments, those indicating marine conditions only in marine sediments, those from hypersaline lakes containing only bacterial biomarkers).

4) Progressive destruction of oil when heated to over 100 degrees (precluding formation and/or migration at high temperatures as implied by the abiogenic postulate).

5) The generation of petroleum from kerogen on heating in the laboratory (complete with biomarkers), as suggested by the biogenic theory.

6) The strong enrichment in C12 of petroleum indicative of biological fractionation (no inorganic process can cause anything like the fractionation of light carbon that is seen in petroleum).

7) The location of petroleum reservoirs down the hydraulic gradient from the source rocks in many cases (those which are not are in areas where there is clear evidence of post migration tectonism).

8 ) The almost complete absence of significant petroleum occurrences in igneous and metamorphic rocks (the rare exceptions discussed below).

The evidence usually cited in favour of abiogenic petroleum can all be better explained by the biogenic hypothesis e.g.:

9) Rare traces of cooked pyrobitumens in igneous rocks (better explained by reaction with organic rich country rocks, with which the pyrobitumens can usually be tied).

10) Rare traces of cooked pyrobitumens in metamorphic rocks (better explained by metamorphism of residual hydrocarbons in the protolith).

11) The very rare occurrence of small hydrocarbon accumulations in igneous or metamorphic rocks (in every case these are adjacent to organic rich sedimentary rocks to which the hydrocarbons can be tied via biomarkers).

12) The presence of undoubted mantle derived gases (such as He and some CO2) in some natural gas (there is no reason why gas accumulations must be all from one source, given that some petroleum fields are of mixed provenance it is inevitable that some mantle gas contamination of biogenic hydrocarbons will occur under some circumstances).

13) The presence of traces of hydrocarbons in deep wells in crystalline rock (these can be formed by a range of processes, including metamorphic synthesis by the fischer-tropsch reaction, or from residual organic matter as in 10).

14) Traces of hydrocarbon gases in magma volatiles (in most cases magmas ascend through sedimentary succession, any organic matter present will be thermally cracked and some will be incorporated into the volatile phase, some fischer-tropsch synthesis can also occur).

15) Traces of hydrocarbon gases at mid ocean ridges (such traces are not surprising given that the upper mantle has been contaminated with biogenic organic matter through several billion years of subduction, the answer to 14 may be applicable also).

The geological evidence is utterly against the abiogenic postulate.

Cheers

Jon Clarke





Thanks to Dvanharn for this contribution.

[biffvernon]

It's sad to see 321energy.com publish such rubbish - it truly is rubbish.

They do seem to have a rather loose editorial policy at times, but I love the title of the next article down the list at the moment "ASPO-USA's Conference Will Discuss Peak Oil".

An ASPO conference that did not discuss peak oil would be news

[dr_doom]

I'm an 'ex' believer too, I don't know about abiotic oil, I'm not sure it is really provable either way. But the reason he states for US oil production peaking sounds plausible.

What really made me question peak oil, is why TPTB, whoever you believe they are haven't done anything to avert peak oil.

Engdahl discusses in depth in his book how the 70s oil crises were staged by the Bilderberg Group, a shadowy international group, of which David Rockefeller, Henry Kissenger, and many other power brokers attend annually.

Just to make my position clear, I think oil may well peak, but this problem has been engineered. I don't think it's that out of the question that there are energy technologies out there which are being suppressed as well.

Imagine a world with free energy, nobody would need to work. The powers that be, would become totally redundant. 'they' need to keep us in a state of total dependence on the rockefeller/nwo oil monopoly in order to maintain their control.

Peak oil isn't going to usher in a new local-living-utopia like you might be hoping, TPTB are planning to use it, and 'global warming' to advance their insane plans to reorganise the world into a new world order.

[21st_century_caveman]

If what you say is true and these shadowy Illuminati people are trying to impose a new world order, they will certainly fail because you simply cant impose perfect order on a chaotic system.

[dr_doom]

Yes, there is a good chance they will fail.

Especially given the rate the anti-nwo movement is growing.

[syberberg]

What really made me question peak oil, is why TPTB, whoever you believe they are haven't done anything to avert peak oil.

Because it's geological problem and, therefore, they can't actually do anything to stop it.

Just to make my position clear, I think oil may well peak, but this problem has been engineered. I don't think it's that out of the question that there are energy technologies out there which are being suppressed as well.

Even if we had all that wizzer drill and pumping tech, each well would, in turn peak, once you've sucked out half of the contents. Please explain how this is a situation that has been "engineered"?

Imagine a world with free energy,

Please define what you mean by "free" energy.