A poignant portrait of post peak production...

[Atman]

Americans don't represent oil companies behavior well, so no,

emergent effect. different parts of the organism decide on their action... I'm not going to speculate on every part but consider a country as a 'super-organism',even if the components consider themselves independent. Collectively you can see the benefit for that organism in holding back on its own resources whilst consuming others.

I like the thinking. Do you read http://questioneverything.typepad.com/? He makes a lot of comparisons between the economy and organisms. What makes me laugh is how organisms function best when all parts are working towards a singular goal. Imagine if the cells of the human body all decided to do what they wants whenever, go to sleep, attack the brain, fight amongst each other constantly etc. It would be chaos. Our political and economic system function the same way with maximum competition and minimum cooperation. Every country competing for scarce resources. Corporations competing for market share. People competing for nonsense. Clusterfuck.

See climate negotiations. Self interest beats cooperative action and the result is nothing gets done.

[Ralph]

I think it's missed the drift in what I was saying. The drift being:
1. The easy stuff's fading fast

The "easy stuff" was disappearing by 1901 when new drilling technologies were required to reach deeper into the resource pyramid for oil, if you want to count how many new technologies were needed as progressively less easy stuff continued to disappear, the number is more like 5 or 6 I'm betting.

You were raised on less easy stuff, as were probably your grand parents.

2. Fracking (etc) is "scraping the barrel"

Fracking comes from back at about 3rd generation of "harder" stuff, and certainly no, with only a trillion barrels of chemical feedstock consumed, and another 5-6-7 to go, we aren't scraping the bottom of anything yet.

3. Costly oil (a direct effect of point (1) ) is a problem for anybody who isn't:
(a) filthy rich
(b) completely detached from the conventional (mainly oil-fuelled) economy.

That clear enough?

Which part? Your demonstrable lack of knowledge on the topic of what is/was easy, and what is not, where fracking fits in that schema, or the idea that when the IEA put together their cost curve back in 2008, neither Richard Heinberg, TOD, ASPO, Ruppert, Asklett, PCI, Hughes, Berman, the UK centre on peak oil fear mongering or ANYONE in the mainstream peak oil community has been able to publish a competing one? And until they do? Your point #3 is irrelevant, because the IEA has already defined what "expensive" is, and therefore (a) doesn't apply, and neither does (b) at this point in time.

Certainly the price paths as laid down by the major economic modelers have oil prices potentially going quite a bit higher than the IEA cost curve, and US and world don't self destruct in those scenarios.

May I recommend you try again?

[RenewableCandy]

3. Costly oil (a direct effect of point (1) ) is a problem for anybody who isn't:
(a) filthy rich
(b) completely detached from the conventional (mainly oil-fuelled) economy.

That clear enough?

(more condescending twaddle)

From which I jalouse that it is one of the lucky former, or else does not yet know that it is not one of the latter

[odaeio]

All "Ralph" is doing is showing that the predicted fast crash into Armageddon in the first 3 weeks of 2012 didn't happen. I feel that is only because the guy's didn't have the total picture at the time - who knew, and therefore could include, that $100.00 oil would make it economical to frack or drill deep water? Who, at the time, even considered that the controllers would magic many 10's or 100's of trillions of dollars out of thin air to give to themselves to make that an economic possibility? All he is saying is that the decline has not had the sharply disastrous effect that would have been the case if TPTB had not kicked the can down the road a bit.

Don't worry, it WILL come, perhaps just slightly delayed. Unfortunately when it does come, the fall will be rather more exaggerated than any of the guy's ever thought.

[peaceful_life]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -recession

Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies'.

'Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, ***was particularly critical of the UK government's policies, including abandoning large-scale wind farm projects, the reduction of feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, and support for shale gas. "The government will do anything for the short-term economic bounce," he said, "but the consequence will be that the UK is tied more tightly to an oil-based future, and we will pay dearly for it'

[biffvernon]

Sweet. Nafeez Ahmed is one of our better journalists, frequently bringing awkward truths to public (well, at least Guardian readership) attention.

From
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 2006.xhtml
the introduction is free to read and is quite enough to be getting on with:
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 30179.full

[Ralph]

All "Ralph" is doing is showing that the predicted fast crash into Armageddon in the first 3 weeks of 2012 didn't happen.

Incorrect. I'm pointing out all sorts of predicted crashes that didn't happen. Here is what peak oil in 2005 was supposed to do. And then didn't.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2005- ... l-nutshell#

The problem is that this has been going on ever since Colin Campbell claimed that oil production in 2013 should be around 32 million barrels a day. Instead of the 75+ it became.

If peak oil has been claimed to just cause some higher prices, the usual whining related to it, etc etc, no one would have noticed. But that isn't how it was sold, way back when, or even a few years ago.

Maybe better luck next generation? We can all revisit this in the 2020's and lament how smart apparently the EIA was in calling these things then the like of Colin and Co.?

[peaceful_life]

All "Ralph" is doing is showing that the predicted fast crash into Armageddon in the first 3 weeks of 2012 didn't happen.

Incorrect. I'm pointing out all sorts of predicted crashes that didn't happen. Here is what peak oil in 2005 was supposed to do. And then didn't.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2005- ... l-nutshell#

The problem is that this has been going on ever since Colin Campbell claimed that oil production in 2013 should be around 32 million barrels a day. Instead of the 75+ it became.

If peak oil has been claimed to just cause some higher prices, the usual whining related to it, etc etc, no one would have noticed. But that isn't how it was sold, way back when, or even a few years ago.

Maybe better luck next generation? We can all revisit this in the 2020's and lament how smart apparently the EIA was in calling these things then the like of Colin and Co.?

You didn't take lunch at a foodbank today I take it?

[Ralph]

You didn't take lunch at a foodbank today I take it?

Nope. Didn't like unemployment the last time it happened to me, decided right then to be pretty good something so that it wouldn't happen again.

Go with what works.