As oil prices soared to record levels in recent years, basic economics suggested that consumption would fall and supplies would rise as producers drilled for more oil.
But as prices flirt with $120 a barrel, many energy experts are becoming worried that neither seems to be happening. Higher prices have done little to suppress global demand or attract new production, and the resulting mismatch has sent oil prices ever higher.
Aside from the fact that the "basic economics" of supply and demand cannot be blamed entirely for the current price of crude, the idea of peak oil is slowly sinking in to the most sreluctant minds.
ANWR is a dream, predicated on the idea that there will always be plenty to go around. And that just isn't physically possible. And whatever reserves one thinks might be sitting under ANWR, even at the most optimistic estimates, drilling there would not change the fundamental fact that we will run out, and it will be expensive, and we must think bigger about our future than the limiting word "crude".
2 comments:
I'm no conspiracy theorist; I scoffed at Y2K, 911 complicity and the rest. But Peak Oil, even more than Global Warming, is truly the big black elephant in the room, and the one that politicians and activists of all stripes would do well to address. When oil shortage can point to so many world ills from war in the Middle East to food crisis to energy crisis to economic downturn (despite the pundits' assertions, I think gas prices have a lot more to with the latter than mortgage turmoil), it seems foolish to look the other way. But then, the human race seems to look good in motley.
This is not about oil speculation, much less peak oil... but the links I'm providing below show the extent of systemic issues currently happening in the agricultural markets:
http://www.cftc.gov/newsroom/cftcevents/2008/oeaevent042208.html
http://www.cftc.gov/newsroom/cftcevents/2008/event042208_comments.html
This is the real deal...
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