Willful blindness

America has a problem bigger than social security, or the price of prescription drugs, or gay marriage. America is heading into a situation in which it will no longer have an economy. The Republicans at least have an excuse for their willful blindness — they’ve already taken the position that the life of extreme car-dependency and everything it implies is not negotiable.

What if oil cost $200 a barrel? 

IN TWO years’ time the price of oil could reach $200 a barrel. Farfetched? Maybe. Although estimates of oil and gas reserves vary widely, geologists Anders Sivertsson, Kjell Aleklett and Colin Campbell, of Uppsala University in Sweden, are the latest in a growing group of experts who believe that oil supplies will peak by 2010, if not before, and gas soon after.

Onward to Iran

There are good reasons to assume that a US campaign against Iran will commence within months and that this will serve to open the next and much expanded phase of what is actually the Global Oil War of the 21st century.

Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management

“Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before implementing crash program mitigation leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer,” according to a report prepared for the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) by Science Applications International Coporation (SAIC). [Link to the full report mentioned in ASPO Bulletin #51]

Indonesia tests oil dispute waters

INDONESIA’S President plans to visit an island near the Malaysian border after he sent warships there, following Malaysia’s move to award oil exploration rights there, a government official said yesterday.

US: Natural gas reserves slashed

Citing disappointing drilling results in two locales, ChevronTexaco Corp. slashed its U.S. natural gas reserves by 13 percent in 2004, the third year in a row in which it suffered a substantial reserves hit in the region.