Peak Oil - the manipulation of opinion
Dr Tony Wellborough | 12.09.2008 09:34 | Ecology
As some in the environmental movement begin to wake up to how they have been manipulated by the major oil companies into supporting the myth of Peak Oil, SchNEWS produces an excellent article talking about the reality of the world we will find ourselves in.
In order to clarify my position on 'Peak Oil,' it would be instructive to briefly review the areas of agreement, and the areas of disagreement, that I have with those who are selling the scam.
The Peakers claim that 'Peak Oil' is the single most important issue that we are facing today. I agree with that assessment (but not because 'Peak Oil' is a valid concept).
The Peakers claim that much of America's military might has been directed in recent years at conquering the key oil and gas producing regions of the world. And that is obviously quite true. Central Asia and Iraq have been seized, Venezuela has suffered through constant meddling by the CIA, the Sudan has been targeted for a future assault, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have been subjected to saber rattling.
But the Peakers also claim that these military ventures have been motivated by America's desire to seize what will soon be the last drops of the world's precious reserves of oil -- and that is entirely untrue.
The Peakers claim that we will very soon be facing a world where chaos reigns supreme -- a world of war, famine and death on a scale unknown in recorded human history. And that does, in fact, appear to be the case. And we're not talking about the distant future here, folks; we're talking about the very near future.
But the Peakers also claim that this global "die off" will be a regrettable, but quite natural, and entirely unavoidable, consequence of the world's oil taps running dry. And that is the really big lie. That is the lie that will very soon be used to rationalize the killing off of hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of the world's people. There are, you see, simply too many people in the world who, by merely being alive, are standing in the way of the aspirations of the global elite.
The people that the 'Peak Oil' pitchmen are fronting for are deadly serious about selling 'Peak Oil' to the masses -- and not just in theoretical terms, as a cynical ploy to raise prices and increase profits. No, it has become clear that the real goal is to actually cut off most of the world's oil supplies under the ruse that the oil simply no longer exists. The desired result is massive social unrest, widespread famine, and endless war. The majority of the world's people will not survive. Those that do will find themselves living under the overtly authoritarian form of rule that will quickly be deemed necessary to restore order. And if you think that we here in America are exempt, you are sadly mistaken.
In order to pull off this stunt, all the world's major oil producing regions must be solidly under the control of the U.S. and it's co-conspirators, otherwise known as 'allies.' In other words, the puppet-masters have to control all the major oil taps, so that they have complete control over the flow of oil -- or lack of it. And that, in a nutshell, is the real reason for America's recent military ventures. The goal, you see, is not to steal Iraq's oil, or the oil in the 'Stans, or in the Sudan, or in Venezuela, or anywhere else. We don't want to take their oil, because the truth is that we don't really need it (
http://www.oilandgasreporter.com/stories/090101/cov_opinions.shtml). What we want to do is sit on the taps so no one else can get to the oil.
The Peakers have claimed that the Central Asian adventure - launched with the invasion of Afghanistan, but certainly not limited to Afghanistan - has largely been a bust. We have all heard the spin: the hoped-for reserves aren't there, what has been found can't be extracted economically, the grand plan simply didn't pan out, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Frankly, I find all of that a little hard to believe. After all, hasn't Central Asia been the subject of intense interest and study by geologists and the petroleum industry for the last century or so? You would think that the lords of oil were operating on more than just a hunch when they drafted this gameplan. And I couldn't help noticing that the United States has established a massive military presence in the area, and it looks very much like it was designed to be a permanent military presence. If the oil and gas aren't there, then what exactly is it that our troops are standing guard over?
At least one researcher has doggedly claimed that the Central Asian and Middle Eastern military ventures are but a prelude to military confrontations with Russia and China. But that hardly seems to be the case. It does not appear as though there is any urgent need for 'regime change' in Russia or China, since the West seems to already have 'friendly' regimes in place in both countries. And I have to add here that if the ruling regimes of Russia and China really are enemies of the United States, they will undoubtedly go down in history as the stupidest enemies of all time for watching approvingly as the United States entrenched its military machine in their backyards on the most transparent of pretexts.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe that the Central Asian adventure has been wildly successful. True, the West hasn't reaped the bounty of the region's oil and gas reserves -- but I don't think that was ever the goal. To the contrary, I think the U.S. has done exactly what it set out to do: deny anyone else the opportunity - by force if necessary, and it will become necessary - to exploit the area's resources.
Also contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe that the Iraq adventure has also been successful. Again, the goal was not to steal Iraqi oil; the goal was to shut down or severely limit the flow of Iraqi oil, and that goal has obviously been accomplished. Indeed, some reports have held that American troops (and American mercenaries) are responsible for at least some of the pipeline bombings and other attacks on the Iraqi oil infrastructure.
Interestingly, Michael Ruppert began one of his recent "Peak is the Word" rants with an ominous quote attributed to an "Anonymous Middle Eastern Participant at the Third Conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas - Berlin, May 2004." The quote, which Ruppert presents without comment, reads as follows:
The one thing that every Middle Eastern leader, manager, and planner who dreams of holding his country together fears now, is that there will be a widespread uprising, inspired by the perceived victory against Spain after Madrid, and Spain's withdrawal from Iraq, that it might prompt much of the Muslim world to start attacking oil facilities everywhere. This is the way they see that has worked to defeat the West and to avenge their grievances. May God help us all if that happens.
( http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062104_berlin_peak.html)
This statement, if taken literally, is patently absurd -- beginning with the Bill O'Reillyesque claim that the 'terr'ists' somehow scored a victory in Spain, and continuing through the astounding leap of faith required to equate manufactured attacks on commuter trains to widespread attacks on oil facilities. The only way that the uncredited statement makes any sense at all is as a tip-off that the CIA's future playbook is packed with false-flag terr'ist operations directed at critical oil facilities -- especially in countries that haven't yet been convinced that their vast oil reserves don't really exist.
In order to carry out the 'Peak Oil' agenda, the powers-that-be need to have all the major oil producers on board. Some of them have been on board all along. Some have to be recruited through military force (Iraq, for example). Some will be compelled to join the team through covert operations (e.g., Venezuela). And some are being brought on board through threats, intimidation, and saber rattling.
The two most sought after recruits, of course, are Russia and Saudi Arabia, since they are the world's two top oil producing nations. As of this past April, Saudi Arabia apparently hadn't yet received the latest memos on 'Peak.' Much to the consternation of Ruppert and his handlers, Saudi officials announced on April 28 that the Kingdom's estimate of recoverable reserves had nearly quintupled! (The article below says "tripled," but the math isn't that hard to do.)
Saudi Oil Is Secure and Plentiful, Say Officials
Tim Kennedy, Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6§ion=0&article=44011&d=29&m=4&y=2004
WASHINGTON, 29 April 2004 - Officials from Saudi Arabia's oil industry and the international petroleum organizations shocked a gathering of foreign policy experts in Washington yesterday with an announcement that the Kingdom's previous estimate of 261 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum has now more than tripled, to 1.2 trillion barrels.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia's key oil and finance ministers assured the audience - which included US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan - that the Kingdom has the capability to quickly double its oil output and sustain such a production surge for as long as 50 years.
[...]
"Saudi Arabia now has 1.2 trillion barrels of estimated reserve. This estimate is very conservative. Our analysis gives us reason to be very optimistic. We are continuing to discover new resources, and we are using new technologies to extract even more oil from existing reserves," the minister said.
Naimi said Saudi Arabia is committed to sustaining the average price of $25 per barrel set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. He said prices should never increase to more than $28 or drop under $22.
[...]
"Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves are certainly there," Naimi added. "None of these reserves requires advanced recovery techniques. We have more than sufficient reserves to increase output. If required, we can increase output from 10.5 million barrels a day to 12 - 15 million barrels a day. And we can sustain this increased output for 50 years or more. There will be no shortage of oil for the next 50 years. Perhaps much longer."
Note that the oil reserves claimed by Saudi Arabia alone (1.2 trillion barrels) exceed what the Peakers claim are the total recoverable oil reserves for the entire planet. Let's pause here for a minute and think about the significance of that: one tiny patch of land, accounting for less than than 1/2 of 1% of the earth's total surface area, potentially contains more oil that the 'Peak' pitchmen claim the entire planet has to offer! Is there not something clearly wrong with this picture?
Needless to say, that sort of candor by the Saudis could put a serious crimp in Washington's plans to sell the 'Peak Oil' scam. Perhaps that is why, just three days after that announcement, the Saudi oil industry was attacked by some of those terr'ists. Not to be deterred, however, Saudi officials announced three weeks later, on May 21, that the Kingdom still intended to dramatically increase its petroleum output. And a week after that, on May 29, those crafty terr'ists launched yet another brazen attack on the Saudi oil industry. Shit happens, I guess.
At that very same time, and in the months that followed, the U.S. was sending clear signals that it would not hesitate to set its military dogs loose on the Kingdom if necessary. Michael Moore's "the Saudis are the real enemy" movie, for example, splashed across America's screens. Various voices involved in both the official and unofficial 9-11 investigations were pointing the finger toward the Saudis as well. The message couldn't have been clearer: "we can easily drum up public support for 'regime change' if you won't play ball." The Saudis, it would appear, have now fallen in line.
Meanwhile, in Russia, the regime of Western puppet Vladimir Putin has been working diligently to transfer control of Russian oil production to what the L.A. Times referred to as "more complaint owners." From a July 23, 2004 report by Kim Murphy:
Since the arrest in October of former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now on trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion [editor's note: probably trumped-up charges], the financial community has debated the Russian government's decision to assess at least $8 billion in back taxes against Yukos: Was it to punish Khodorkovsky for his political activism and alleged financial misdeeds, but leave his company intact? To hand control of the company to more complaint hands? Or destroy a company that produces 2% of the world's oil supply?
("Oil Flow Could End, Yukos Says," Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2004)
"Yukos," according to the Times, "produces about 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, equal to some OPEC countries." The turning point in the case against Yukos, the Times noted, came "when court bailiffs moving to execute an initial $3.4-billion tax judgment announced that they were preparing to seize and sell not one of the dozens of small Yukos assets that might easily settle the tax bill, but the company's production unit, Yuganskneftegaz ... the two-month deadline for selling the company means there would be little time to raise financing, and a potential buyer would acquire it at a fire-sale price, analysts said. The government listed the unit's official value at about $1.8 billion."
The actual value of Yuganskneftegaz, as the Times admitted, is probably closer to $30 billion, or nearly 17 times the Russian government's ludicrous assessment. And who do you suppose will acquire the assets of Yukos, and the control of Yukos, at these fire-sale prices? I'm guessing it could very well be one or more of the Western oil giants. The Russian people, of course, will be less than thrilled with such a scenario, which is probably one of the key reasons that Putin has recently opted to reveal the iron fist within the velvet glove.
Michael Ruppert, being the top-notch journalist that he is, has either completely ignored or grotesquely misrepresented these recent developments in Russia and Saudi Arabia. The 'Peak Oil' crowd has claimed, with nothing to offer in the way of supporting evidence, that the Saudis are lying about their oil reserves and their ability to increase production. The Peakers have also strongly implied that the Saudis actually attacked their own facilities, so that they would not have to deliver on their promises. No logical explanation has been offered though for why the Saudis would lie and then immediately attack themselves to cover up the fact that they were lying. It seems to me like it would have taken less effort to just not tell the lie to begin with. The Saudis, meanwhile, have insisted that it is the Peakers who are lying. ( http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=42933)
[For a discussion of the 'evidence' presented by the Peakers, see Michael Lynch at http://www.aramcoexpats.com/ArticleDetail.asp?article=701. Lynch concludes: "There literally seems to be no evidence that the Saudi oil fields are facing any unusual challenges or that Saudi production will be constrained in the future by anything other than policy ... The use of vague language ("tired" fields, "challenges") rather than specifics about efforts and costs indicate that this is one more instance of Malthusian bias."]
Even if the Saudis could boost production, say the Peakers, no one would want their extra crude anyway, because, as it turns out, Saudi crude oil just isn't very good. Who knew? What will we learn from the Ruppertians next? That you can't get decent Champaign in France? That Russian caviar isn't all it's cracked up to be?
On the FTW website is a re-post of an article that begins: "The world's oil refiners are unimpressed by Saudi Arabia's boost to production capacity that would only swell supplies of sour, high sulphur crude while they hanker for sweet oil ... 'Most refiners couldn't take more sour if they tried,' said one refiner, who asked not to be named. 'We have a glut of sour crude and a short supply squeeze on low sulphur crude oil and products, so extra Saudi makes no difference whatsoever,' a physical oil trader said."
( http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/100604_refiners_unimpressed.shtml)
Now, I hesitate to point this out, because I know that Ruppert prides himself on his journalistic professionalism, as well as his police training, and I certainly wouldn't want to needlessly embarrass him, but the truth of the matter is that the article that The Great One re-posted appears to be a fake -- a fake that was planted, no doubt, for the 'Peak' team to 'find.'
Here are a few clues that Detective Ruppert missed: the article ran in the tabloidesque Gulf Daily News, which claims to be the "Voice of Bahrain," although one wouldn't expect Bahrain to speak in an English voice; the article has no byline, indicating that no real reporter wanted his name attached to it; and the two alleged insiders quoted to establish the premise of the article declined to be identified, even though they were supposedly voicing an uncontroversial opinion shared throughout the industry.
( http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=92871&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=27194)
What we have here then is an unsigned, unsourced article from the Middle Eastern version of the National Enquirer being presented as real journalism. And this from the man who constantly questions the journalistic ethics and integrity of his detractors! Simply put, if this was a real news story that Ruppert was promoting, he would have been able to round up at least one credible report from a legitimate media outlet.
Bizarrely enough, Ruppert has headlined the fake article, "Peak Oil On The Table - Hard To Miss." Really, Mike? It can't be that hard to miss, because I'm having trouble seeing it myself. I realize that it might be partly my fault, since I haven't been attending the 'Peak' indoctrination sessions, but here is what I'm having difficulty with: I get the part about how we're quickly running out of oil, and I understand that it is foolish to consider the viability of alternative energy sources, because only oil will do; but are you now saying that we also have to be very picky about what kind of oil we use?
That reminds me of a story about a guy who was lost in the desert and spent days wandering aimlessly in search of water. This guy - we'll call him Peak Oil Man - was followed by a circling vulture, who occasionally spoke to him. At one point, the vulture asked Peak Oil Man why he kept ignoring all the succulent plants along his route, from which he could extract life-saving fluids. "A waste of time," said Peak Oil Man, "must have water." Later in the journey, Peak Oil Man stopped to relieve himself in the sand. "Why do you not capture and drink your urine, Peak Oil Man," asked the vulture. "It could save your life." Ignoring the vulture, Peak Oil Man pushed on, still muttering his mantra: "must have water." Eventually, Peak Oil Man - emaciated, severely dehydrated, and barely clinging to life - stumbled upon a stranger, and the stranger extended his hand and offered Peak Oil Man a container of water. Peak Oil Man raised the vessel to his lips and began to drink, but quickly spat out the offending liquid. "Is that fucking tap water!?" asked Peak Oil Man. "Where can I get some bottled water around here?" And the vulture said: "But Peak Oil Man, how can you afford to be so picky at a time of such great need? How can you turn away not only viable alternatives to water, but even water itself if the water offered to you doesn't meet your high standards? It is almost as if you don't really need water at all." Peak Oil Man just smiled and continued on his way.
Meanwhile, Mexico, which also hasn't been reading the 'Peak' memos, recently announced the discovery of massive quantities of new petroleum reserves. The Peakers, as we all know, repeatedly claim that no new reserves of any consequence have been found for years. In fact, they go so far as to say that there are no new reserves to be found. In one recent collection of lies posted on the FTW website, Julian Darley writes: "Major oil discoveries have declined every year so that 2003 saw no new field over 500 million barrels ... It is well over twenty years since more oil was found than consumed in a year."
( http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031704_two_planets.html)
Really, Mr. Darley? Are you sure about that? Let's check with the Mexican press to see if you are correct:
Three years of exploration has enabled Pemex to map oilfields that the state-owned oil monopoly believes will more than double the nation's known crude oil reserves. Luis Ramírez Corzo, Pemex's director for exploration, told EL UNIVERSAL that on a "conservative" estimate, almost 54 billion barrels lie underneath the oilfields. That would take Mexico's reserves to 102 billion barrels, more than the United Arab Emirates (which has reserves of 97.8 billion barrels), Kuwait (94 billion) and Iran (89.7 billion), and almost as much as Iraq (112.5 billion). The official also said the discovery could enable Pemex to increase Mexico's oil production from the current level of 4 million barrels per day (bpd) to 7 million bpd. Saudi Arabia currently produces 7.5 million bpd, while Russia's oil output is 7.4 million bpd. Ramírez Corzo said the exploration, at an investment of US 4.6 billion, led to the identification of seven separate blocks rich in oil and natural gas. The most promising blocks are under water in the Gulf of Mexico, thought to contain around 45 billion barrels.
( http://www.el-universal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=6110&tabla=miami)
No new fields over 500 million barrels? How about the 45 billion new barrels sitting in the Gulf of Mexico, right in our own backyard? Isn't that just a tiny bit more than is "consumed in a year"?
Of course, the oil will not be easy to extract. Mexico will need some help, since it "lacks the technology for deep water pumping." And there is another problem as well: "there are territoriality issues with the United States and Cuba over the fields." In order to bring the oil to market, Mexico will need the cooperation of both the United States government and the major players in the oil industry. In other words, the newly discovered oil isn't going to be extracted any time soon, which is why the American media, and the 'Peak' crowd, haven't bothered to acknowledge its existence. ( http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=15958)
It will no doubt be determined that it is not economically feasible to extract the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, Reuters has reported that, "Oil from deep-water reserves could cost $4 a barrel to extract, nearly double the cost of oil from shallow water." And we certainly can't expect any responsible corporation to shell out $4 a barrel to extract something that they can then trade for $50 a barrel, can we?
Or maybe the Peakers will claim that the oil doesn't even exist -- that Mexico, like Saudi Arabia, is lying about increased levels of reserves. There seems to be a lot of that sort of lying going around these days. [For more on oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and various other issues directly related to the 'Peak Oil' debate, see:
http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf124/sf124p10.htm
http://www.newaus.com.au/040908-oil-sources.html
http://www.pnl.gov/er_news/08_95/ER_News/oil1.kb.html]
The real problem with the Saudi crude, as near as I can determine, is that the Saudis and the 'Peakers' have entirely different ideas about what the price of crude oil should be. At the time of the attacks in Saudi Arabia, it was hovering at about $40.00/barrel, and is now at about $50.00/barrel. The Saudis would like to bring it down to $25.00/barrel. And the 'Peakers' would like to see it raised to - are you ready for this? - a whopping $182.00/barrel -- which would, quite obviously, place oil out of reach for the vast majority of the world's people.
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3777413.stm)
The $182.00/barrel figure was provided by Matthew Simmons to a BBC reporter at the 'Peak Oil' conference held earlier this year in Berlin. According to Simmons, "Oil is far too cheap at the moment ... we need to price oil realistically to control its demand." Simmons is described in the BBC article as "an energy investment banker and adviser to the controversial Bush-Cheney energy plan." He is, in other words, a perfectly credible source -- if we choose to overlook the fact that everyone connected to the Bush-Cheney team reeks of corruption and outrageous lies.
Nevertheless, the Peakers just adore Mr. Simmons, who was described by Michael Ruppert as "the de facto star of the [Peak Oil conference]." 'Peak Oil' pitchmen just love to quote Simmons, says Ruppert, "because his voice is refreshing."
( http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062104_berlin_peak.html)
Simmons is a member of ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil), founded and led by 'Peak Oil' guru Colin Campbell and promoted relentlessly by Michael Ruppert, who boasts of having "a great many friends in ASPO." According to the BBC, ASPO includes in its ranks "a diverse range of oil industry insiders," including a good number of "oil executives" and "investment bankers." Just the sort of salesmen we should trust, in other words, when shopping for a suitably apocalyptic future.
And make no mistake about it: the future that has been scripted by the architects of 'Peak Oil' is not going to be pretty. Massive population reduction has always been a key component of the 'Peak Oil' agenda. Ruppert first acknowledged that fact in an e-mail to this website in March of this year. This is what he wrote at that time:
I advocate an immediate convening of political, economic, spiritual and scientific leaders from all nations to address the issue of Peak Oil (and Gas) and its immediate implications for economic collapse, massive famine and climate destruction (partially as a result of reversion to coal plants which accelerate global warming). This would, scientifically speaking, include immediate steps to arrive at a crash program - agreed to by all nations and in accordance with the highest spiritual and ethical principles - to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction as a painful choice made by all of humanity.
At that time, I accused Ruppert of advocating a eugenics program, and I was, not surprisingly, harshly criticized by the Ruppertians for doing so. Numerous members of the cult of 'Peak Oil' sent e-mail accusing me of "putting word's in Ruppert's mouth." But more recently, while addressing the Commonwealth Club (which apparently just began extending invitations to dissident journalists; who knew?), Ruppert put the words in his own mouth when he quoted approvingly from a eugenics tome penned in 1952 by Charles Galton Darwin. Darwin was, for the record, a rather notorious figure in the American eugenics movement, as were other Darwins and Galtons before him. Are we supposed to believe that there was no significance to the fact that Ruppert referenced a noted eugenicist while addressing such a distinguished audience?
(www.fromthewilderness.com/PDF/Commonwealth.pdf)
In a previous newsletter, I reported that Ruppert had briefly addressed the issue of population reduction during the speech that he delivered at this year's 9-11 conference in San Francisco. Since then, I have had the opportunity to review an audiotape of Ruppert's entire 'Peak Oil' presentation at the event. Here is a complete (enough) transcript of that presentation:
Look, let's talk about Peak Oil quick, and [sounding clearly irritated] I'm really tired of the debate. I'm really tired of "there's no proof; there's no evidence." I'm not gonna take time to go through this, but if we talk about Peak Oil real quickly, who's been talking about it?
[Ruppert then ran through a lengthy list of mainstream media and trade journal articles. The presentation went something like this: "Foreign Affairs Magazine, yadda, yadda, yadda, James Kenneth Galbraith, yadda, yadda, yadda, Sunday Herald, yadda, yadda, yadda, Los Angeles Times, yadda, yadda, yadda." Several derisive comments were added about these sources not being "conspiracy rags." Ruppert then read lengthy and unsubstantiated excerpts from the writings of both Galbraith and Dale Pfeiffer, before closing with the following.]
Now the question is: do we want to do it nice or do we want to do it nasty? The world has chosen to embark on a path that is the worst Nazi nightmare ever seen. It will be bloody, it will be violent, it will involve population reduction by the most brutal, venal, underhanded methods. So ultimately what I have to say to you is that, as I look at this, and as I've studied this, and as I've worked for 26 years to unravel this -- this covert mechanism that governs our lives, I'm firmly convinced that what we are now faced with is a choice offered to us by our creator: either evolve or perish. Thank you. Thank you.
So what is Ruppert telling us here ... other than that "our creator" is now apparently now demanding that we evolve?
What exactly is this "world" of which he speaks -- this "world [that] has chosen to embark on a path that is the worst Nazi nightmare ever seen"? I don't think that it is the people of planet Earth that have collectively chosen to take this path. And I doubt that it is the planet itself that has chosen this path. Isn't it really the case that this path was forced upon the world by the global elite and their paid stooges?
Is Ruppert telling us that we are all facing a violent, bloody death, so we might as well start taking care of the job ourselves -- in a less "nasty" and more, uhmm, "nice" manner? Are those the only two options available? Why is a "bloody," "brutal," "violent" and "venal" future taken as a given? To be sure, we are certainly heading in that direction, but we needn't necessarily continue to do so, unless we blindly accept the manufactured reality as an objective, and inevitable, reality. Of course, Ruppert and his fellow 'Peakers' seem to be working very hard to guarantee the arrival of that "Nazi nightmare" future.
The truth is that such a future awaits us only if the claims of the 'Peakers' are true, or, more importantly, if we allow ourselves to be convinced that the claims are true when they most certainly are not. It is vitally important, therefore, that the people of the world be given the opportunity to thoroughly review all sides of this issue. After all, if the Peakers are right, then all of our lives are very much on the line. And yet, strangely enough, the majority of the Ruppertians who have chosen to spew their bile into my mailbox have made it quite clear that they have no desire to read any opposing points of view.
Could it be any more obvious that these people have no interest in ascertaining the truth?
Just this week, Ruppert discretely added a new article to his website, which he posted "on an unpublished URL at the FTW web site" -- guaranteeing that none of his readers will ever know it is there, unless they learn of it elsewhere. Asked to explain his previous comments on population reduction, Ruppert does not deny that he advocates some type of forced depopulation program; he only denies having a specific program in mind:
I have no list of people who should be in charge of this. Everyone should have a say. I have suggested that such an endeavor might best include people of more humane vocations than those of the economists, politicians, and financiers who are currently in charge of most domestic and international institutions. I have never said anywhere that there was a specific group of organizations or people who should run this. I have listed philosophies and disciplines that ought to be included in an effort to avoid the sort of draconian disaster that now seems likely. ( http://www.fromthewilderness.com/10questions.shtml)
I wonder why it is that Ruppert continues to shelter his readers from this aspect of the 'Peak Oil' gameplan? If this is such an important issue, and if we should all have a voice in the 'debate,' as Ruppert has claimed, then why has he not brought the issue to the forefront? Why has he chosen instead to leak it in a limited way? Ruppert claims that, in order to be "ethical in the face of an inevitable disaster, the entire human community will have to share useful information as equably as is humanly possible." Why then is Ruppert not sharing this most important of information?
We turn now to a disturbing new post on the FTW website, which Ruppert has modestly titled "WE DID IT!" Before even getting to the actual text of the piece, we already know, just from the article's lengthy subtitle, that Ruppert is taking another stroll into Bizarro World. With equal parts bombast, ignorance, and unintentional irony, he actually refers to his critics as "Flat-Earth, Abiotic Oil Advocates." This is a guy, it will be recalled, whose mission in life is to relentlessly promote a scam predicated on a unproven, 250-year-old theory, while blithely ignoring an unchallenged body of modern scientific research -- and yet he dismisses the other side as Flat Earthers! ( http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_we_did_it.shtml)
The full subtitle of the post is "World's Seven Largest Economies Admit They Have No Idea How Much Oil Is Left - Issue Emergency Call for Transparency at DC Summit: A Challenge to the Flat-Earth, Abiotic Oil Advocates and Cornucopian Economists - It's Now or Never."
Ruppert begins by re-posting a Reuters report:
Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers met at the tightly guarded U.S. Treasury building over lunch and were to work through the afternoon before a dinner with Chinese counterparts that has currency reform on the menu.
The officials will set out their world-view at about 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) in a communiqué sources said would include a call to bolster oil-market monitoring to make it easier to discern if scarce supply, hefty demand or market speculation lay behind crude's drive to record levels ...
The G7 gathering comes ahead of weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Ministers are seeking energy market transparency to discover if world oil supplies may be scantier than they thought in May when they urged producers to open the spigots.
Another G7 official suggested the rise in oil costs was rooted in such fundamental factors as over-estimated supplies and was not solely due to speculation.
There is "a recognition that oil resources are scarcer than was thought a few years ago," the official said. "We agree there is a need for more transparency on the potential supply of various areas."
Ruppert next segues into a rant of his own -- a rant that may some day be regarded as the quintessential Ruppert diatribe. In just a few short pages, he manages to squeeze in virtually all of his most acclaimed rhetorical flourishes, including:
arrogant self-importance - "We were right and this can no longer be ignored. We did it."
the appearance of Mike the Martyr - "a group of dedicated men and women, recognized as being in the forefront of the movement to place Peak Oil front-and-center on the world's agenda, have endured intense resistance ... I hope I speak for all of us when I say that whatever we have endured, it was worth it."
the bombastic challenges - "Show us the oil! People are dying now ... Put up or shut up."
the bizarre delusions of grandeur - "I do know that the world is paying very close attention to what I have written."
the deliberate misrepresentation of critic's arguments - "That's what these 'critics' argued would happen when the time came: there would be some magic switcheroo, and a new energy source would be unveiled."
and, the newest addition to his arsenal, the shameless hyping of his book - "This book may change the outcome of the election."
While Ruppert celebrates his 'victory,' perhaps the rest of us should pause here and consider exactly what it is that he is celebrating. Just months ago, Ruppert called for the leaders of the world to meet and discuss the implications of 'Peak Oil,' including the necessity of taking "immediate steps to arrive at a crash program" for depopulating the world. And now we have the global elite meeting behind closed doors to discuss the implications of a phantom oil shortage, and those elite are, Ruppert believes, "well into discussing 'options' which they don't want the rest of us to know about." At stake, Ruppert notes, is "everyone's chances for survival and, most importantly, the future of all the world's children."
And we are supposed to believe that this is somehow a positive development? I don't think so. To the contrary, it would appear that the call for 'transparency' is a signal that the puppeteers have control of enough of the global chessboard to begin implementing the 'Peak Oil' scam. They are not meeting behind closed doors to discuss how to contend with a global oil shortage; they are meeting behind closed doors to discuss how to manufacture a global oil shortage.
As I said earlier in this post, these people are deadly serious about staging this apocalyptic scenario. And the stakes, for all of us, are very high. Consider that, for many years now, concerted efforts have been made to program our children to passively accept death as a mundane, routine occurrence. Do not make the mistake of assuming that that is a phenomenon unrelated to the 'Peak Oil' agenda.
Television, movies, and video games dwell relentlessly on death, frequently violent death. Each and every year, the volume and intensity of such propaganda is cranked up higher and higher. By the time our kids reach adulthood, they have processed through their malleable minds thousands of graphic images of death. Many of those deaths they may even have caused themselves, as operators of graphically violent "first person" computer and video games.
The next in the series of "Harry Potter" books - promoted endlessly as the best thing to happen to children's books since Dr. Seuss - will reportedly feature the death of one of the beloved characters. One of the new features of the latest version of the wildly popular "Simms" computer game is that the virtual characters that our children create to populate their virtual worlds will now die virtual deaths.
Our high schools for some time now have offered students "death education." The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has noted that, "For decades, schools around the world have used 'death education,' a psychological experiment in which the children are made to discuss suicide, what they would like placed in their coffins, and write their own epitaphs in an effort to 'get kids more comfortable with death.'" ( http://www.cchr.org/topics/educators/violence/)
Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld writes that "Death education has been a part of the progressive curriculum in virtually every public school in America for at least the last fifteen years. Yet no one in the establishment, let alone the U.S. Department of Education, has sought to find out what death education is doing to the minds and souls of the millions of children who are subjected to it. But we do have plenty of anecdotal information on hand."
( http://www.ritalindeath.com/blumenfeld31.htm)
Why are our children being conditioned to accept death? How thorough will this depopulation program be? How long will it take to shatter all remaining social bonds -- to instill in the masses an "every man for himself" mind set? How quickly will we collectively descend into barbarism? If the masters of our collective illusion can convince us that we live in a "kill or be killed" world, how much of the dirty work of depopulation can they get us to do ourselves? What would we all do to stay alive in a high stakes game of global Survivor?
The architects of 'Peak Oil' hope to find out soon.
In order to clarify my position on 'Peak Oil,' it would be instructive to briefly review the areas of agreement, and the areas of disagreement, that I have with those who are selling the scam.
The Peakers claim that 'Peak Oil' is the single most important issue that we are facing today. I agree with that assessment (but not because 'Peak Oil' is a valid concept).
The Peakers claim that much of America's military might has been directed in recent years at conquering the key oil and gas producing regions of the world. And that is obviously quite true. Central Asia and Iraq have been seized, Venezuela has suffered through constant meddling by the CIA, the Sudan has been targeted for a future assault, and Saudi Arabia and Iran have been subjected to saber rattling.
But the Peakers also claim that these military ventures have been motivated by America's desire to seize what will soon be the last drops of the world's precious reserves of oil -- and that is entirely untrue.
The Peakers claim that we will very soon be facing a world where chaos reigns supreme -- a world of war, famine and death on a scale unknown in recorded human history. And that does, in fact, appear to be the case. And we're not talking about the distant future here, folks; we're talking about the very near future.
But the Peakers also claim that this global "die off" will be a regrettable, but quite natural, and entirely unavoidable, consequence of the world's oil taps running dry. And that is the really big lie. That is the lie that will very soon be used to rationalize the killing off of hundreds of millions, possibly billions, of the world's people. There are, you see, simply too many people in the world who, by merely being alive, are standing in the way of the aspirations of the global elite.
The people that the 'Peak Oil' pitchmen are fronting for are deadly serious about selling 'Peak Oil' to the masses -- and not just in theoretical terms, as a cynical ploy to raise prices and increase profits. No, it has become clear that the real goal is to actually cut off most of the world's oil supplies under the ruse that the oil simply no longer exists. The desired result is massive social unrest, widespread famine, and endless war. The majority of the world's people will not survive. Those that do will find themselves living under the overtly authoritarian form of rule that will quickly be deemed necessary to restore order. And if you think that we here in America are exempt, you are sadly mistaken.
In order to pull off this stunt, all the world's major oil producing regions must be solidly under the control of the U.S. and it's co-conspirators, otherwise known as 'allies.' In other words, the puppet-masters have to control all the major oil taps, so that they have complete control over the flow of oil -- or lack of it. And that, in a nutshell, is the real reason for America's recent military ventures. The goal, you see, is not to steal Iraq's oil, or the oil in the 'Stans, or in the Sudan, or in Venezuela, or anywhere else. We don't want to take their oil, because the truth is that we don't really need it (
http://www.oilandgasreporter.com/stories/090101/cov_opinions.shtml). What we want to do is sit on the taps so no one else can get to the oil. The Peakers have claimed that the Central Asian adventure - launched with the invasion of Afghanistan, but certainly not limited to Afghanistan - has largely been a bust. We have all heard the spin: the hoped-for reserves aren't there, what has been found can't be extracted economically, the grand plan simply didn't pan out, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Frankly, I find all of that a little hard to believe. After all, hasn't Central Asia been the subject of intense interest and study by geologists and the petroleum industry for the last century or so? You would think that the lords of oil were operating on more than just a hunch when they drafted this gameplan. And I couldn't help noticing that the United States has established a massive military presence in the area, and it looks very much like it was designed to be a permanent military presence. If the oil and gas aren't there, then what exactly is it that our troops are standing guard over?
At least one researcher has doggedly claimed that the Central Asian and Middle Eastern military ventures are but a prelude to military confrontations with Russia and China. But that hardly seems to be the case. It does not appear as though there is any urgent need for 'regime change' in Russia or China, since the West seems to already have 'friendly' regimes in place in both countries. And I have to add here that if the ruling regimes of Russia and China really are enemies of the United States, they will undoubtedly go down in history as the stupidest enemies of all time for watching approvingly as the United States entrenched its military machine in their backyards on the most transparent of pretexts.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe that the Central Asian adventure has been wildly successful. True, the West hasn't reaped the bounty of the region's oil and gas reserves -- but I don't think that was ever the goal. To the contrary, I think the U.S. has done exactly what it set out to do: deny anyone else the opportunity - by force if necessary, and it will become necessary - to exploit the area's resources.
Also contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe that the Iraq adventure has also been successful. Again, the goal was not to steal Iraqi oil; the goal was to shut down or severely limit the flow of Iraqi oil, and that goal has obviously been accomplished. Indeed, some reports have held that American troops (and American mercenaries) are responsible for at least some of the pipeline bombings and other attacks on the Iraqi oil infrastructure.
Interestingly, Michael Ruppert began one of his recent "Peak is the Word" rants with an ominous quote attributed to an "Anonymous Middle Eastern Participant at the Third Conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas - Berlin, May 2004." The quote, which Ruppert presents without comment, reads as follows:
The one thing that every Middle Eastern leader, manager, and planner who dreams of holding his country together fears now, is that there will be a widespread uprising, inspired by the perceived victory against Spain after Madrid, and Spain's withdrawal from Iraq, that it might prompt much of the Muslim world to start attacking oil facilities everywhere. This is the way they see that has worked to defeat the West and to avenge their grievances. May God help us all if that happens.
(
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062104_berlin_peak.html) This statement, if taken literally, is patently absurd -- beginning with the Bill O'Reillyesque claim that the 'terr'ists' somehow scored a victory in Spain, and continuing through the astounding leap of faith required to equate manufactured attacks on commuter trains to widespread attacks on oil facilities. The only way that the uncredited statement makes any sense at all is as a tip-off that the CIA's future playbook is packed with false-flag terr'ist operations directed at critical oil facilities -- especially in countries that haven't yet been convinced that their vast oil reserves don't really exist.
In order to carry out the 'Peak Oil' agenda, the powers-that-be need to have all the major oil producers on board. Some of them have been on board all along. Some have to be recruited through military force (Iraq, for example). Some will be compelled to join the team through covert operations (e.g., Venezuela). And some are being brought on board through threats, intimidation, and saber rattling.
The two most sought after recruits, of course, are Russia and Saudi Arabia, since they are the world's two top oil producing nations. As of this past April, Saudi Arabia apparently hadn't yet received the latest memos on 'Peak.' Much to the consternation of Ruppert and his handlers, Saudi officials announced on April 28 that the Kingdom's estimate of recoverable reserves had nearly quintupled! (The article below says "tripled," but the math isn't that hard to do.)
Saudi Oil Is Secure and Plentiful, Say Officials
Tim Kennedy, Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6§ion=0&article=44011&d=29&m=4&y=2004 WASHINGTON, 29 April 2004 - Officials from Saudi Arabia's oil industry and the international petroleum organizations shocked a gathering of foreign policy experts in Washington yesterday with an announcement that the Kingdom's previous estimate of 261 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum has now more than tripled, to 1.2 trillion barrels.
Additionally, Saudi Arabia's key oil and finance ministers assured the audience - which included US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan - that the Kingdom has the capability to quickly double its oil output and sustain such a production surge for as long as 50 years.
[...]
"Saudi Arabia now has 1.2 trillion barrels of estimated reserve. This estimate is very conservative. Our analysis gives us reason to be very optimistic. We are continuing to discover new resources, and we are using new technologies to extract even more oil from existing reserves," the minister said.
Naimi said Saudi Arabia is committed to sustaining the average price of $25 per barrel set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. He said prices should never increase to more than $28 or drop under $22.
[...]
"Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves are certainly there," Naimi added. "None of these reserves requires advanced recovery techniques. We have more than sufficient reserves to increase output. If required, we can increase output from 10.5 million barrels a day to 12 - 15 million barrels a day. And we can sustain this increased output for 50 years or more. There will be no shortage of oil for the next 50 years. Perhaps much longer."
Note that the oil reserves claimed by Saudi Arabia alone (1.2 trillion barrels) exceed what the Peakers claim are the total recoverable oil reserves for the entire planet. Let's pause here for a minute and think about the significance of that: one tiny patch of land, accounting for less than than 1/2 of 1% of the earth's total surface area, potentially contains more oil that the 'Peak' pitchmen claim the entire planet has to offer! Is there not something clearly wrong with this picture?
Needless to say, that sort of candor by the Saudis could put a serious crimp in Washington's plans to sell the 'Peak Oil' scam. Perhaps that is why, just three days after that announcement, the Saudi oil industry was attacked by some of those terr'ists. Not to be deterred, however, Saudi officials announced three weeks later, on May 21, that the Kingdom still intended to dramatically increase its petroleum output. And a week after that, on May 29, those crafty terr'ists launched yet another brazen attack on the Saudi oil industry. Shit happens, I guess.
At that very same time, and in the months that followed, the U.S. was sending clear signals that it would not hesitate to set its military dogs loose on the Kingdom if necessary. Michael Moore's "the Saudis are the real enemy" movie, for example, splashed across America's screens. Various voices involved in both the official and unofficial 9-11 investigations were pointing the finger toward the Saudis as well. The message couldn't have been clearer: "we can easily drum up public support for 'regime change' if you won't play ball." The Saudis, it would appear, have now fallen in line.
Meanwhile, in Russia, the regime of Western puppet Vladimir Putin has been working diligently to transfer control of Russian oil production to what the L.A. Times referred to as "more complaint owners." From a July 23, 2004 report by Kim Murphy:
Since the arrest in October of former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now on trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion [editor's note: probably trumped-up charges], the financial community has debated the Russian government's decision to assess at least $8 billion in back taxes against Yukos: Was it to punish Khodorkovsky for his political activism and alleged financial misdeeds, but leave his company intact? To hand control of the company to more complaint hands? Or destroy a company that produces 2% of the world's oil supply?
("Oil Flow Could End, Yukos Says," Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2004)
"Yukos," according to the Times, "produces about 1.7 million barrels of oil a day, equal to some OPEC countries." The turning point in the case against Yukos, the Times noted, came "when court bailiffs moving to execute an initial $3.4-billion tax judgment announced that they were preparing to seize and sell not one of the dozens of small Yukos assets that might easily settle the tax bill, but the company's production unit, Yuganskneftegaz ... the two-month deadline for selling the company means there would be little time to raise financing, and a potential buyer would acquire it at a fire-sale price, analysts said. The government listed the unit's official value at about $1.8 billion."
The actual value of Yuganskneftegaz, as the Times admitted, is probably closer to $30 billion, or nearly 17 times the Russian government's ludicrous assessment. And who do you suppose will acquire the assets of Yukos, and the control of Yukos, at these fire-sale prices? I'm guessing it could very well be one or more of the Western oil giants. The Russian people, of course, will be less than thrilled with such a scenario, which is probably one of the key reasons that Putin has recently opted to reveal the iron fist within the velvet glove.
Michael Ruppert, being the top-notch journalist that he is, has either completely ignored or grotesquely misrepresented these recent developments in Russia and Saudi Arabia. The 'Peak Oil' crowd has claimed, with nothing to offer in the way of supporting evidence, that the Saudis are lying about their oil reserves and their ability to increase production. The Peakers have also strongly implied that the Saudis actually attacked their own facilities, so that they would not have to deliver on their promises. No logical explanation has been offered though for why the Saudis would lie and then immediately attack themselves to cover up the fact that they were lying. It seems to me like it would have taken less effort to just not tell the lie to begin with. The Saudis, meanwhile, have insisted that it is the Peakers who are lying. (
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=42933) [For a discussion of the 'evidence' presented by the Peakers, see Michael Lynch at
http://www.aramcoexpats.com/ArticleDetail.asp?article=701. Lynch concludes: "There literally seems to be no evidence that the Saudi oil fields are facing any unusual challenges or that Saudi production will be constrained in the future by anything other than policy ... The use of vague language ("tired" fields, "challenges") rather than specifics about efforts and costs indicate that this is one more instance of Malthusian bias."] Even if the Saudis could boost production, say the Peakers, no one would want their extra crude anyway, because, as it turns out, Saudi crude oil just isn't very good. Who knew? What will we learn from the Ruppertians next? That you can't get decent Champaign in France? That Russian caviar isn't all it's cracked up to be?
On the FTW website is a re-post of an article that begins: "The world's oil refiners are unimpressed by Saudi Arabia's boost to production capacity that would only swell supplies of sour, high sulphur crude while they hanker for sweet oil ... 'Most refiners couldn't take more sour if they tried,' said one refiner, who asked not to be named. 'We have a glut of sour crude and a short supply squeeze on low sulphur crude oil and products, so extra Saudi makes no difference whatsoever,' a physical oil trader said."
(
http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/100604_refiners_unimpressed.shtml) Now, I hesitate to point this out, because I know that Ruppert prides himself on his journalistic professionalism, as well as his police training, and I certainly wouldn't want to needlessly embarrass him, but the truth of the matter is that the article that The Great One re-posted appears to be a fake -- a fake that was planted, no doubt, for the 'Peak' team to 'find.'
Here are a few clues that Detective Ruppert missed: the article ran in the tabloidesque Gulf Daily News, which claims to be the "Voice of Bahrain," although one wouldn't expect Bahrain to speak in an English voice; the article has no byline, indicating that no real reporter wanted his name attached to it; and the two alleged insiders quoted to establish the premise of the article declined to be identified, even though they were supposedly voicing an uncontroversial opinion shared throughout the industry.
(
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=92871&Sn=BUSI&IssueID=27194) What we have here then is an unsigned, unsourced article from the Middle Eastern version of the National Enquirer being presented as real journalism. And this from the man who constantly questions the journalistic ethics and integrity of his detractors! Simply put, if this was a real news story that Ruppert was promoting, he would have been able to round up at least one credible report from a legitimate media outlet.
Bizarrely enough, Ruppert has headlined the fake article, "Peak Oil On The Table - Hard To Miss." Really, Mike? It can't be that hard to miss, because I'm having trouble seeing it myself. I realize that it might be partly my fault, since I haven't been attending the 'Peak' indoctrination sessions, but here is what I'm having difficulty with: I get the part about how we're quickly running out of oil, and I understand that it is foolish to consider the viability of alternative energy sources, because only oil will do; but are you now saying that we also have to be very picky about what kind of oil we use?
That reminds me of a story about a guy who was lost in the desert and spent days wandering aimlessly in search of water. This guy - we'll call him Peak Oil Man - was followed by a circling vulture, who occasionally spoke to him. At one point, the vulture asked Peak Oil Man why he kept ignoring all the succulent plants along his route, from which he could extract life-saving fluids. "A waste of time," said Peak Oil Man, "must have water." Later in the journey, Peak Oil Man stopped to relieve himself in the sand. "Why do you not capture and drink your urine, Peak Oil Man," asked the vulture. "It could save your life." Ignoring the vulture, Peak Oil Man pushed on, still muttering his mantra: "must have water." Eventually, Peak Oil Man - emaciated, severely dehydrated, and barely clinging to life - stumbled upon a stranger, and the stranger extended his hand and offered Peak Oil Man a container of water. Peak Oil Man raised the vessel to his lips and began to drink, but quickly spat out the offending liquid. "Is that fucking tap water!?" asked Peak Oil Man. "Where can I get some bottled water around here?" And the vulture said: "But Peak Oil Man, how can you afford to be so picky at a time of such great need? How can you turn away not only viable alternatives to water, but even water itself if the water offered to you doesn't meet your high standards? It is almost as if you don't really need water at all." Peak Oil Man just smiled and continued on his way.
Meanwhile, Mexico, which also hasn't been reading the 'Peak' memos, recently announced the discovery of massive quantities of new petroleum reserves. The Peakers, as we all know, repeatedly claim that no new reserves of any consequence have been found for years. In fact, they go so far as to say that there are no new reserves to be found. In one recent collection of lies posted on the FTW website, Julian Darley writes: "Major oil discoveries have declined every year so that 2003 saw no new field over 500 million barrels ... It is well over twenty years since more oil was found than consumed in a year."
(
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031704_two_planets.html) Really, Mr. Darley? Are you sure about that? Let's check with the Mexican press to see if you are correct:
Three years of exploration has enabled Pemex to map oilfields that the state-owned oil monopoly believes will more than double the nation's known crude oil reserves. Luis Ramírez Corzo, Pemex's director for exploration, told EL UNIVERSAL that on a "conservative" estimate, almost 54 billion barrels lie underneath the oilfields. That would take Mexico's reserves to 102 billion barrels, more than the United Arab Emirates (which has reserves of 97.8 billion barrels), Kuwait (94 billion) and Iran (89.7 billion), and almost as much as Iraq (112.5 billion). The official also said the discovery could enable Pemex to increase Mexico's oil production from the current level of 4 million barrels per day (bpd) to 7 million bpd. Saudi Arabia currently produces 7.5 million bpd, while Russia's oil output is 7.4 million bpd. Ramírez Corzo said the exploration, at an investment of US 4.6 billion, led to the identification of seven separate blocks rich in oil and natural gas. The most promising blocks are under water in the Gulf of Mexico, thought to contain around 45 billion barrels.
(
http://www.el-universal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=6110&tabla=miami) No new fields over 500 million barrels? How about the 45 billion new barrels sitting in the Gulf of Mexico, right in our own backyard? Isn't that just a tiny bit more than is "consumed in a year"?
Of course, the oil will not be easy to extract. Mexico will need some help, since it "lacks the technology for deep water pumping." And there is another problem as well: "there are territoriality issues with the United States and Cuba over the fields." In order to bring the oil to market, Mexico will need the cooperation of both the United States government and the major players in the oil industry. In other words, the newly discovered oil isn't going to be extracted any time soon, which is why the American media, and the 'Peak' crowd, haven't bothered to acknowledge its existence. (
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=15958) It will no doubt be determined that it is not economically feasible to extract the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, Reuters has reported that, "Oil from deep-water reserves could cost $4 a barrel to extract, nearly double the cost of oil from shallow water." And we certainly can't expect any responsible corporation to shell out $4 a barrel to extract something that they can then trade for $50 a barrel, can we?
Or maybe the Peakers will claim that the oil doesn't even exist -- that Mexico, like Saudi Arabia, is lying about increased levels of reserves. There seems to be a lot of that sort of lying going around these days. [For more on oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and various other issues directly related to the 'Peak Oil' debate, see:
http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf124/sf124p10.htm http://www.newaus.com.au/040908-oil-sources.html http://www.pnl.gov/er_news/08_95/ER_News/oil1.kb.html] The real problem with the Saudi crude, as near as I can determine, is that the Saudis and the 'Peakers' have entirely different ideas about what the price of crude oil should be. At the time of the attacks in Saudi Arabia, it was hovering at about $40.00/barrel, and is now at about $50.00/barrel. The Saudis would like to bring it down to $25.00/barrel. And the 'Peakers' would like to see it raised to - are you ready for this? - a whopping $182.00/barrel -- which would, quite obviously, place oil out of reach for the vast majority of the world's people.
(
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3777413.stm) The $182.00/barrel figure was provided by Matthew Simmons to a BBC reporter at the 'Peak Oil' conference held earlier this year in Berlin. According to Simmons, "Oil is far too cheap at the moment ... we need to price oil realistically to control its demand." Simmons is described in the BBC article as "an energy investment banker and adviser to the controversial Bush-Cheney energy plan." He is, in other words, a perfectly credible source -- if we choose to overlook the fact that everyone connected to the Bush-Cheney team reeks of corruption and outrageous lies.
Nevertheless, the Peakers just adore Mr. Simmons, who was described by Michael Ruppert as "the de facto star of the [Peak Oil conference]." 'Peak Oil' pitchmen just love to quote Simmons, says Ruppert, "because his voice is refreshing."
(
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062104_berlin_peak.html) Simmons is a member of ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil), founded and led by 'Peak Oil' guru Colin Campbell and promoted relentlessly by Michael Ruppert, who boasts of having "a great many friends in ASPO." According to the BBC, ASPO includes in its ranks "a diverse range of oil industry insiders," including a good number of "oil executives" and "investment bankers." Just the sort of salesmen we should trust, in other words, when shopping for a suitably apocalyptic future.
And make no mistake about it: the future that has been scripted by the architects of 'Peak Oil' is not going to be pretty. Massive population reduction has always been a key component of the 'Peak Oil' agenda. Ruppert first acknowledged that fact in an e-mail to this website in March of this year. This is what he wrote at that time:
I advocate an immediate convening of political, economic, spiritual and scientific leaders from all nations to address the issue of Peak Oil (and Gas) and its immediate implications for economic collapse, massive famine and climate destruction (partially as a result of reversion to coal plants which accelerate global warming). This would, scientifically speaking, include immediate steps to arrive at a crash program - agreed to by all nations and in accordance with the highest spiritual and ethical principles - to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction as a painful choice made by all of humanity.
At that time, I accused Ruppert of advocating a eugenics program, and I was, not surprisingly, harshly criticized by the Ruppertians for doing so. Numerous members of the cult of 'Peak Oil' sent e-mail accusing me of "putting word's in Ruppert's mouth." But more recently, while addressing the Commonwealth Club (which apparently just began extending invitations to dissident journalists; who knew?), Ruppert put the words in his own mouth when he quoted approvingly from a eugenics tome penned in 1952 by Charles Galton Darwin. Darwin was, for the record, a rather notorious figure in the American eugenics movement, as were other Darwins and Galtons before him. Are we supposed to believe that there was no significance to the fact that Ruppert referenced a noted eugenicist while addressing such a distinguished audience?
(www.fromthewilderness.com/PDF/Commonwealth.pdf)
In a previous newsletter, I reported that Ruppert had briefly addressed the issue of population reduction during the speech that he delivered at this year's 9-11 conference in San Francisco. Since then, I have had the opportunity to review an audiotape of Ruppert's entire 'Peak Oil' presentation at the event. Here is a complete (enough) transcript of that presentation:
Look, let's talk about Peak Oil quick, and [sounding clearly irritated] I'm really tired of the debate. I'm really tired of "there's no proof; there's no evidence." I'm not gonna take time to go through this, but if we talk about Peak Oil real quickly, who's been talking about it?
[Ruppert then ran through a lengthy list of mainstream media and trade journal articles. The presentation went something like this: "Foreign Affairs Magazine, yadda, yadda, yadda, James Kenneth Galbraith, yadda, yadda, yadda, Sunday Herald, yadda, yadda, yadda, Los Angeles Times, yadda, yadda, yadda." Several derisive comments were added about these sources not being "conspiracy rags." Ruppert then read lengthy and unsubstantiated excerpts from the writings of both Galbraith and Dale Pfeiffer, before closing with the following.]
Now the question is: do we want to do it nice or do we want to do it nasty? The world has chosen to embark on a path that is the worst Nazi nightmare ever seen. It will be bloody, it will be violent, it will involve population reduction by the most brutal, venal, underhanded methods. So ultimately what I have to say to you is that, as I look at this, and as I've studied this, and as I've worked for 26 years to unravel this -- this covert mechanism that governs our lives, I'm firmly convinced that what we are now faced with is a choice offered to us by our creator: either evolve or perish. Thank you. Thank you.
So what is Ruppert telling us here ... other than that "our creator" is now apparently now demanding that we evolve?
What exactly is this "world" of which he speaks -- this "world [that] has chosen to embark on a path that is the worst Nazi nightmare ever seen"? I don't think that it is the people of planet Earth that have collectively chosen to take this path. And I doubt that it is the planet itself that has chosen this path. Isn't it really the case that this path was forced upon the world by the global elite and their paid stooges?
Is Ruppert telling us that we are all facing a violent, bloody death, so we might as well start taking care of the job ourselves -- in a less "nasty" and more, uhmm, "nice" manner? Are those the only two options available? Why is a "bloody," "brutal," "violent" and "venal" future taken as a given? To be sure, we are certainly heading in that direction, but we needn't necessarily continue to do so, unless we blindly accept the manufactured reality as an objective, and inevitable, reality. Of course, Ruppert and his fellow 'Peakers' seem to be working very hard to guarantee the arrival of that "Nazi nightmare" future.
The truth is that such a future awaits us only if the claims of the 'Peakers' are true, or, more importantly, if we allow ourselves to be convinced that the claims are true when they most certainly are not. It is vitally important, therefore, that the people of the world be given the opportunity to thoroughly review all sides of this issue. After all, if the Peakers are right, then all of our lives are very much on the line. And yet, strangely enough, the majority of the Ruppertians who have chosen to spew their bile into my mailbox have made it quite clear that they have no desire to read any opposing points of view.
Could it be any more obvious that these people have no interest in ascertaining the truth?
Just this week, Ruppert discretely added a new article to his website, which he posted "on an unpublished URL at the FTW web site" -- guaranteeing that none of his readers will ever know it is there, unless they learn of it elsewhere. Asked to explain his previous comments on population reduction, Ruppert does not deny that he advocates some type of forced depopulation program; he only denies having a specific program in mind:
I have no list of people who should be in charge of this. Everyone should have a say. I have suggested that such an endeavor might best include people of more humane vocations than those of the economists, politicians, and financiers who are currently in charge of most domestic and international institutions. I have never said anywhere that there was a specific group of organizations or people who should run this. I have listed philosophies and disciplines that ought to be included in an effort to avoid the sort of draconian disaster that now seems likely. (
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/10questions.shtml) I wonder why it is that Ruppert continues to shelter his readers from this aspect of the 'Peak Oil' gameplan? If this is such an important issue, and if we should all have a voice in the 'debate,' as Ruppert has claimed, then why has he not brought the issue to the forefront? Why has he chosen instead to leak it in a limited way? Ruppert claims that, in order to be "ethical in the face of an inevitable disaster, the entire human community will have to share useful information as equably as is humanly possible." Why then is Ruppert not sharing this most important of information?
We turn now to a disturbing new post on the FTW website, which Ruppert has modestly titled "WE DID IT!" Before even getting to the actual text of the piece, we already know, just from the article's lengthy subtitle, that Ruppert is taking another stroll into Bizarro World. With equal parts bombast, ignorance, and unintentional irony, he actually refers to his critics as "Flat-Earth, Abiotic Oil Advocates." This is a guy, it will be recalled, whose mission in life is to relentlessly promote a scam predicated on a unproven, 250-year-old theory, while blithely ignoring an unchallenged body of modern scientific research -- and yet he dismisses the other side as Flat Earthers! (
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_we_did_it.shtml) The full subtitle of the post is "World's Seven Largest Economies Admit They Have No Idea How Much Oil Is Left - Issue Emergency Call for Transparency at DC Summit: A Challenge to the Flat-Earth, Abiotic Oil Advocates and Cornucopian Economists - It's Now or Never."
Ruppert begins by re-posting a Reuters report:
Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers met at the tightly guarded U.S. Treasury building over lunch and were to work through the afternoon before a dinner with Chinese counterparts that has currency reform on the menu.
The officials will set out their world-view at about 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) in a communiqué sources said would include a call to bolster oil-market monitoring to make it easier to discern if scarce supply, hefty demand or market speculation lay behind crude's drive to record levels ...
The G7 gathering comes ahead of weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Ministers are seeking energy market transparency to discover if world oil supplies may be scantier than they thought in May when they urged producers to open the spigots.
Another G7 official suggested the rise in oil costs was rooted in such fundamental factors as over-estimated supplies and was not solely due to speculation.
There is "a recognition that oil resources are scarcer than was thought a few years ago," the official said. "We agree there is a need for more transparency on the potential supply of various areas."
Ruppert next segues into a rant of his own -- a rant that may some day be regarded as the quintessential Ruppert diatribe. In just a few short pages, he manages to squeeze in virtually all of his most acclaimed rhetorical flourishes, including:
arrogant self-importance - "We were right and this can no longer be ignored. We did it."
the appearance of Mike the Martyr - "a group of dedicated men and women, recognized as being in the forefront of the movement to place Peak Oil front-and-center on the world's agenda, have endured intense resistance ... I hope I speak for all of us when I say that whatever we have endured, it was worth it."
the bombastic challenges - "Show us the oil! People are dying now ... Put up or shut up."
the bizarre delusions of grandeur - "I do know that the world is paying very close attention to what I have written."
the deliberate misrepresentation of critic's arguments - "That's what these 'critics' argued would happen when the time came: there would be some magic switcheroo, and a new energy source would be unveiled."
and, the newest addition to his arsenal, the shameless hyping of his book - "This book may change the outcome of the election."
While Ruppert celebrates his 'victory,' perhaps the rest of us should pause here and consider exactly what it is that he is celebrating. Just months ago, Ruppert called for the leaders of the world to meet and discuss the implications of 'Peak Oil,' including the necessity of taking "immediate steps to arrive at a crash program" for depopulating the world. And now we have the global elite meeting behind closed doors to discuss the implications of a phantom oil shortage, and those elite are, Ruppert believes, "well into discussing 'options' which they don't want the rest of us to know about." At stake, Ruppert notes, is "everyone's chances for survival and, most importantly, the future of all the world's children."
And we are supposed to believe that this is somehow a positive development? I don't think so. To the contrary, it would appear that the call for 'transparency' is a signal that the puppeteers have control of enough of the global chessboard to begin implementing the 'Peak Oil' scam. They are not meeting behind closed doors to discuss how to contend with a global oil shortage; they are meeting behind closed doors to discuss how to manufacture a global oil shortage.
As I said earlier in this post, these people are deadly serious about staging this apocalyptic scenario. And the stakes, for all of us, are very high. Consider that, for many years now, concerted efforts have been made to program our children to passively accept death as a mundane, routine occurrence. Do not make the mistake of assuming that that is a phenomenon unrelated to the 'Peak Oil' agenda.
Television, movies, and video games dwell relentlessly on death, frequently violent death. Each and every year, the volume and intensity of such propaganda is cranked up higher and higher. By the time our kids reach adulthood, they have processed through their malleable minds thousands of graphic images of death. Many of those deaths they may even have caused themselves, as operators of graphically violent "first person" computer and video games.
The next in the series of "Harry Potter" books - promoted endlessly as the best thing to happen to children's books since Dr. Seuss - will reportedly feature the death of one of the beloved characters. One of the new features of the latest version of the wildly popular "Simms" computer game is that the virtual characters that our children create to populate their virtual worlds will now die virtual deaths.
Our high schools for some time now have offered students "death education." The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has noted that, "For decades, schools around the world have used 'death education,' a psychological experiment in which the children are made to discuss suicide, what they would like placed in their coffins, and write their own epitaphs in an effort to 'get kids more comfortable with death.'" (
http://www.cchr.org/topics/educators/violence/) Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld writes that "Death education has been a part of the progressive curriculum in virtually every public school in America for at least the last fifteen years. Yet no one in the establishment, let alone the U.S. Department of Education, has sought to find out what death education is doing to the minds and souls of the millions of children who are subjected to it. But we do have plenty of anecdotal information on hand."
(
http://www.ritalindeath.com/blumenfeld31.htm) Why are our children being conditioned to accept death? How thorough will this depopulation program be? How long will it take to shatter all remaining social bonds -- to instill in the masses an "every man for himself" mind set? How quickly will we collectively descend into barbarism? If the masters of our collective illusion can convince us that we live in a "kill or be killed" world, how much of the dirty work of depopulation can they get us to do ourselves? What would we all do to stay alive in a high stakes game of global Survivor?
The architects of 'Peak Oil' hope to find out soon.
PEAK SPOIL
AS SchNEWS DRILLS FOR THE TRUTH IN PEAK OIL THEORY...
From Transition Town workshops to the city slickers at the Financial Times (to over-excited pieces in ill-researched journals like SchNEWS), there’s been more and more interest in ‘Peak Oil’. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the price of a barrel reaching $140+ (down to a mere $115ish at the mo), and more noticeably for most, petrol at the pumps is at record highs. Not to mention UK power companies pushing the burden on to punters with up to 35% price increases.
So, is the reality of scarce energy really beginning to hit home? Is the oil now running out?
The basic premise is what’s known as Hubbert’s Peak. Oil, a finite commodity with an ever expanding demand, will reach its halfway point somewhere in the early 2000s (now) and from then on will irreversibly decline. Hubbert developed his theory in the 1950s when he predicted that America’s domestic oil would peak by the mid 70s. In the mid-80s they realised he was right. Since then others have taken his predictions and expanded them to fit the whole globe, where the consensus has been for a peak in the first decade of the 21st century.
Scary stuff, and not just for gas guzzling SUV drivers but for all of us; it’s oil that fuels the equipment that sows and reaps our crops (and makes the pesticides to slowly kill us with blemish-free uniform produce) and oil that fuels the trucks that drive the food to our shops. Add to this plastics, fertilisers, and all the other by products it becomes easy to predict apocalypse if the pumps ever run dry (see SchNEWS 499).
Something like this actually happened not so long ago, back in the ‘90s, in that wacky dictatorship called North Korea. The industrialised and oil dependent nation found itself without petroleum after its sole provider - the Soviet Union - collapsed. The result was that, far from western eyes, over a million people died as the infrastructure collapsed. And, so warns the Peak Oil doomsayers, this could happen on a global scale.
WELL WELL WELL
All of this has some anarcho-primitivists jumping with glee at the prospect of the imminent collapse of earth-raping industrial capitalist society. But, before you stock up on tinned goods, shotgun cartridges and bottled water, here’s a few things to consider:
Firstly, there’s no oil shortage. This may come as a bit of a surprise to all those who’ve been watching the prices rise and rise. As the Saudis recently pointed out to outgoing President Bush - pumping more oil won’t lower the price. Actually, there’s a glut of oil in the supply markets. The Iranians (one of the oil nations pumping under their maximum capacity) have tankers full of the stuff that they just can’t shift because no one wants it. What’s lacking is refining capacity.
While oil use in the US has increased 35% in the last 30 years, no new refineries have been built to keep up with demand. The ability to turn oil into petrol, diesel, aviation fuel etc is massively underdeveloped by the oil corporations, who generally like to keep refining to ‘safe’ (i.e. Western and friendly) countries. By artificially creating a bottleneck in the amount of usable oil, the price just goes up and up, leading to massive profits for the oil business as this nice little scam can keep functioning. Exxon Mobil made profits of $11.8 bn in the last quarter alone, and the other big five oil companies are making similarly obscene dosh. The scam has worked pretty well so far.
The predictions of world oil reserves are based on proven, reachable oil. This is a tricky concept because, as it turns out, there’s a whole lot of ‘unproven’ marginal oil that’s already making its way on to world markets. The most known about of these are the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. Until very recently (when the technology became economical on a large scale) these were considered ‘unproven,’ yet a lot of these are now making their way to the US (and world) oil markets.
The tars sands, also known as bitumen, are a very dirty form of oil, one that’s very expensive, polluting and energy hungry to exploit and process. It takes the equivalent of one barrel of oil to extract six barrels of oil from the tar sands. They also happen to be located in an area of unspoilt natural wilderness, but hey, what profitable minerals aren’t these days? Canada’s tar sands contain an amount of oil in excess of that under Saudi Arabia’s sands. And exploiting them is fast becoming its most profitable activity.
Venezuela has similar deposits of bitumen in Orinoco, and significantly larger than Canada’s. They’re estimated at around 260 million barrels (i.e. another Saudi Arabia) on top of the 80 million or so of ordinary oil. They’re easier to exploit than Canada’s and are barely touched. It’s no wonder that the US has got such a keen interest in the actions of Venezuelan President, Hugo the Chavmeister. Industry experts had been saying that these areas will become among the world’s future energy heartlands, but that until oil was worth over $40 per barrel it was too expensive to develop. Oil’s now worth over $100 and will be so for some time to come, so go figure.
CRUDE THOUGHTS
A real danger of Peak Oil, or rather, the fear of peak oil, is that it risks handing states and corporations even more planet-wrecking power. If people believe the oil is running out, then pressure from consumers and businesses alike is to find more at any cost. This is already being written into the US election strategy of the republicans, where John McCain is promoting drilling in the Arctic Circle as a way out of the energy ‘crisis’.
This could lead to a seriously deadly irony: The warnings of Peak Oil by environmentalists could lead to the erosion of the public’s psychological barriers protecting the few remaining areas of wilderness left. There’s oil in unknown (but quite possibly huge) quantities in Greenland, as well as plenty in Alaska, where the Bush junta has already green-lighted the destructive process of exploring and exploiting. The Russians have laid their claim to their chunk of the Arctic Circle too, with an eye to expansion for more oil.
And, in a genuinely insane piece of economic logic, as global warming melts the Arctic’s frozen seas, the previously unreachable oil reserves that lay under the ice become more exploitable, and, as they are burned, yet more undersea oil becomes available. Or if that runs out there’s always the Antarctic…
And if these reserves still don’t prove to be quite enough to satisfy demand, there’s always ole king coal. China, main producers of the world’s plastic consumer tat, is rich in coal but virtually empty of large oil deposits.
To keep their economy expanding at its current pace they are building two coal fired power stations a week. However, they need oil as well for their cars and trucks (and tanks). As oil’s expensive and foreign suppliers can be notoriously unreliable (they haven’t as yet turned to Amercian-style invasion of oil producers) what they really crave is a domestic source of oil, which they don’t have.
Or at least didn’t, until they turned to the combined wisdom of the Nazis and the apartheid-era South Africans. Both the Nazis during the war and the South Africans during sanctions found it hard to import oil. Luckily for them a German scientist found a way to turn coal into synthetic oil, known as the Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis. It’s a very energy hungry process (of course) and needless to say massively polluting (obviously) but it does mean that, even if oil is tricky to get hold of, you can just magic some out of coal - kind of like a very dirty alchemy that’s bad for the planet.
China has already constructed its first huge synthetic oil refinery in Chinese Mongolia.
PRICE OF SUCCESS?
The current cost of oil, often mistaken as a indicator of its scarcity, is actually driven by far more complex forces.
As a commodity like any other, it’s traded on the international markets via brokers. In recent years the power of the cartel that set the price of oil, OPEC, has been significantly reduced, and now it’s the speculators that call the shots on its price (more or less - OPEC still caries a lot of weight, but it’s a player now rather than the whole game). That means that, as long as the price of oil is rising, speculators will push the price even higher.
It’s estimated that as much as 60% of the price of today’s oil is pure speculation. To give an example of the logic of nonsense capitalism: Today oil is worth, say $125 a barrel. As the price is going up, you, a speculator, figure that if you buy some at that price today, you can sell it in a week or two for $135. Because you’re buying oil, other speculators have more confidence the price will continue upwards, so they’re happy to pay $130 after you.
This continues until no one who actually needs to use oil for their cars, homes or businesses etc. can even afford to refill their zippo lighters, at which point the entire economy crashes, taking the price of oil with it.
In fact, herein lies one of the central flaws in the theory of peak oil - supply and demand: that fundamental essential of capitalism. If the price of oil goes up as its demand goes up (and its availability goes down) then at some point it will be too expensive for oil based industrial capitalism to afford. At that point we enter a new depression/recession. Businesses collapse, people can’t afford to run their cars, factories grind to a halt and so on. The effect of a depression means that, with the entire economy in free fall, the demand for oil drops. As the demand drops so does its price, until at some point people can afford to buy it again, and, hurrah, capitalism reasserts itself (albeit in a leaner, less carbon-heavy form).
DRILLER KILLER
The truth is that the oil has already peaked for Western multinationals. In the 70s, major Western oil giants controlled over half the world’s oil, they now only own 13%. As Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs puts it: “What we have now is geopolitical peak oil.”
There’s plenty of oil left, but it’s all in either politically unstable / US-unfriendly states (Iraq, Iran, Russia) or difficult and expensive to get at (the Arctic, Canadian tar sands). These alternative sources of fossil fuels could keep us going well into the future, past our lifetimes and maybe even that of our grandchildren. The problem is: exactly that. The effect of burning a trillion tons of coal and perhaps a trillion barrels of oil is that the planet will burn up faster than a petrol-soaked moth near a candle. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the world’s leading authority) predict a global temperature rise of at least 3°C by 2050, with further predictions that CO² and climate temperatures will rise and rise.
Mother nature has been steadily locking away excess carbon under the ground for the last three billion years in order to maintain a steady, liveable temperature for all of us life-forms. Suddenly, us wayward children have begun reversing the process, sticking it back in the air. In the process we’re experimenting with the atmosphere on an unprecedented scale, causing massive changes to the climate and biosphere, driving many species to extinction on a par with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The real problem isn’t that we’re going to run out of fossil fuels. The problem is what happens when we don’t...
AS SchNEWS DRILLS FOR THE TRUTH IN PEAK OIL THEORY...
From Transition Town workshops to the city slickers at the Financial Times (to over-excited pieces in ill-researched journals like SchNEWS), there’s been more and more interest in ‘Peak Oil’. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the price of a barrel reaching $140+ (down to a mere $115ish at the mo), and more noticeably for most, petrol at the pumps is at record highs. Not to mention UK power companies pushing the burden on to punters with up to 35% price increases.
So, is the reality of scarce energy really beginning to hit home? Is the oil now running out?
The basic premise is what’s known as Hubbert’s Peak. Oil, a finite commodity with an ever expanding demand, will reach its halfway point somewhere in the early 2000s (now) and from then on will irreversibly decline. Hubbert developed his theory in the 1950s when he predicted that America’s domestic oil would peak by the mid 70s. In the mid-80s they realised he was right. Since then others have taken his predictions and expanded them to fit the whole globe, where the consensus has been for a peak in the first decade of the 21st century.
Scary stuff, and not just for gas guzzling SUV drivers but for all of us; it’s oil that fuels the equipment that sows and reaps our crops (and makes the pesticides to slowly kill us with blemish-free uniform produce) and oil that fuels the trucks that drive the food to our shops. Add to this plastics, fertilisers, and all the other by products it becomes easy to predict apocalypse if the pumps ever run dry (see SchNEWS 499).
Something like this actually happened not so long ago, back in the ‘90s, in that wacky dictatorship called North Korea. The industrialised and oil dependent nation found itself without petroleum after its sole provider - the Soviet Union - collapsed. The result was that, far from western eyes, over a million people died as the infrastructure collapsed. And, so warns the Peak Oil doomsayers, this could happen on a global scale.
WELL WELL WELL
All of this has some anarcho-primitivists jumping with glee at the prospect of the imminent collapse of earth-raping industrial capitalist society. But, before you stock up on tinned goods, shotgun cartridges and bottled water, here’s a few things to consider:
Firstly, there’s no oil shortage. This may come as a bit of a surprise to all those who’ve been watching the prices rise and rise. As the Saudis recently pointed out to outgoing President Bush - pumping more oil won’t lower the price. Actually, there’s a glut of oil in the supply markets. The Iranians (one of the oil nations pumping under their maximum capacity) have tankers full of the stuff that they just can’t shift because no one wants it. What’s lacking is refining capacity.
While oil use in the US has increased 35% in the last 30 years, no new refineries have been built to keep up with demand. The ability to turn oil into petrol, diesel, aviation fuel etc is massively underdeveloped by the oil corporations, who generally like to keep refining to ‘safe’ (i.e. Western and friendly) countries. By artificially creating a bottleneck in the amount of usable oil, the price just goes up and up, leading to massive profits for the oil business as this nice little scam can keep functioning. Exxon Mobil made profits of $11.8 bn in the last quarter alone, and the other big five oil companies are making similarly obscene dosh. The scam has worked pretty well so far.
The predictions of world oil reserves are based on proven, reachable oil. This is a tricky concept because, as it turns out, there’s a whole lot of ‘unproven’ marginal oil that’s already making its way on to world markets. The most known about of these are the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. Until very recently (when the technology became economical on a large scale) these were considered ‘unproven,’ yet a lot of these are now making their way to the US (and world) oil markets.
The tars sands, also known as bitumen, are a very dirty form of oil, one that’s very expensive, polluting and energy hungry to exploit and process. It takes the equivalent of one barrel of oil to extract six barrels of oil from the tar sands. They also happen to be located in an area of unspoilt natural wilderness, but hey, what profitable minerals aren’t these days? Canada’s tar sands contain an amount of oil in excess of that under Saudi Arabia’s sands. And exploiting them is fast becoming its most profitable activity.
Venezuela has similar deposits of bitumen in Orinoco, and significantly larger than Canada’s. They’re estimated at around 260 million barrels (i.e. another Saudi Arabia) on top of the 80 million or so of ordinary oil. They’re easier to exploit than Canada’s and are barely touched. It’s no wonder that the US has got such a keen interest in the actions of Venezuelan President, Hugo the Chavmeister. Industry experts had been saying that these areas will become among the world’s future energy heartlands, but that until oil was worth over $40 per barrel it was too expensive to develop. Oil’s now worth over $100 and will be so for some time to come, so go figure.
CRUDE THOUGHTS
A real danger of Peak Oil, or rather, the fear of peak oil, is that it risks handing states and corporations even more planet-wrecking power. If people believe the oil is running out, then pressure from consumers and businesses alike is to find more at any cost. This is already being written into the US election strategy of the republicans, where John McCain is promoting drilling in the Arctic Circle as a way out of the energy ‘crisis’.
This could lead to a seriously deadly irony: The warnings of Peak Oil by environmentalists could lead to the erosion of the public’s psychological barriers protecting the few remaining areas of wilderness left. There’s oil in unknown (but quite possibly huge) quantities in Greenland, as well as plenty in Alaska, where the Bush junta has already green-lighted the destructive process of exploring and exploiting. The Russians have laid their claim to their chunk of the Arctic Circle too, with an eye to expansion for more oil.
And, in a genuinely insane piece of economic logic, as global warming melts the Arctic’s frozen seas, the previously unreachable oil reserves that lay under the ice become more exploitable, and, as they are burned, yet more undersea oil becomes available. Or if that runs out there’s always the Antarctic…
And if these reserves still don’t prove to be quite enough to satisfy demand, there’s always ole king coal. China, main producers of the world’s plastic consumer tat, is rich in coal but virtually empty of large oil deposits.
To keep their economy expanding at its current pace they are building two coal fired power stations a week. However, they need oil as well for their cars and trucks (and tanks). As oil’s expensive and foreign suppliers can be notoriously unreliable (they haven’t as yet turned to Amercian-style invasion of oil producers) what they really crave is a domestic source of oil, which they don’t have.
Or at least didn’t, until they turned to the combined wisdom of the Nazis and the apartheid-era South Africans. Both the Nazis during the war and the South Africans during sanctions found it hard to import oil. Luckily for them a German scientist found a way to turn coal into synthetic oil, known as the Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis. It’s a very energy hungry process (of course) and needless to say massively polluting (obviously) but it does mean that, even if oil is tricky to get hold of, you can just magic some out of coal - kind of like a very dirty alchemy that’s bad for the planet.
China has already constructed its first huge synthetic oil refinery in Chinese Mongolia.
PRICE OF SUCCESS?
The current cost of oil, often mistaken as a indicator of its scarcity, is actually driven by far more complex forces.
As a commodity like any other, it’s traded on the international markets via brokers. In recent years the power of the cartel that set the price of oil, OPEC, has been significantly reduced, and now it’s the speculators that call the shots on its price (more or less - OPEC still caries a lot of weight, but it’s a player now rather than the whole game). That means that, as long as the price of oil is rising, speculators will push the price even higher.
It’s estimated that as much as 60% of the price of today’s oil is pure speculation. To give an example of the logic of nonsense capitalism: Today oil is worth, say $125 a barrel. As the price is going up, you, a speculator, figure that if you buy some at that price today, you can sell it in a week or two for $135. Because you’re buying oil, other speculators have more confidence the price will continue upwards, so they’re happy to pay $130 after you.
This continues until no one who actually needs to use oil for their cars, homes or businesses etc. can even afford to refill their zippo lighters, at which point the entire economy crashes, taking the price of oil with it.
In fact, herein lies one of the central flaws in the theory of peak oil - supply and demand: that fundamental essential of capitalism. If the price of oil goes up as its demand goes up (and its availability goes down) then at some point it will be too expensive for oil based industrial capitalism to afford. At that point we enter a new depression/recession. Businesses collapse, people can’t afford to run their cars, factories grind to a halt and so on. The effect of a depression means that, with the entire economy in free fall, the demand for oil drops. As the demand drops so does its price, until at some point people can afford to buy it again, and, hurrah, capitalism reasserts itself (albeit in a leaner, less carbon-heavy form).
DRILLER KILLER
The truth is that the oil has already peaked for Western multinationals. In the 70s, major Western oil giants controlled over half the world’s oil, they now only own 13%. As Arjun Murti, an energy analyst at Goldman Sachs puts it: “What we have now is geopolitical peak oil.”
There’s plenty of oil left, but it’s all in either politically unstable / US-unfriendly states (Iraq, Iran, Russia) or difficult and expensive to get at (the Arctic, Canadian tar sands). These alternative sources of fossil fuels could keep us going well into the future, past our lifetimes and maybe even that of our grandchildren. The problem is: exactly that. The effect of burning a trillion tons of coal and perhaps a trillion barrels of oil is that the planet will burn up faster than a petrol-soaked moth near a candle. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the world’s leading authority) predict a global temperature rise of at least 3°C by 2050, with further predictions that CO² and climate temperatures will rise and rise.
Mother nature has been steadily locking away excess carbon under the ground for the last three billion years in order to maintain a steady, liveable temperature for all of us life-forms. Suddenly, us wayward children have begun reversing the process, sticking it back in the air. In the process we’re experimenting with the atmosphere on an unprecedented scale, causing massive changes to the climate and biosphere, driving many species to extinction on a par with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The real problem isn’t that we’re going to run out of fossil fuels. The problem is what happens when we don’t...
Dr Tony Wellborough
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