liquids
sastyk | August 2, 2012I somehow forgot to draw your attention to Kurt Cobb's wonderful essay on the difference between oil and "liquids" - he does a better job than anyone I know in making clear what most Americans simply don't know about our energy - all liquid fuels are not equivalent. We have been told by implication that they are, and most people are not technically literate enough about oil and energy issues to understand the difference, so it looks like there's plenty of oil - but of course, this isn't oil at all. We could just as easily call it "oil."
But first, an important question. Why do government…
sastyk | September 15, 2011A few readers have asked me to comment on Goldman Sachs' prediction that the US will be the world's largest Oil producer in 2017. I am delighted to do so. Several possible comments come to mind.
1. Apparently Crystal Meth has become the trendy drug at Goldman.
2. How did the Yes Men get this published under Goldman's Name?
3. Goldman is apparently even less optimistic about Saudi oil production than I am. They think the depletion curve is going to be a straight line downwards.
4. Oh, wait, they are talking about "oil" not oil! That "oil" stuff is almost infinite - you can magically turn…
sastyk | February 12, 2010I shouldn't complain - the Telegraph's energy columnist, Rowena Mason is technically affirming that even non-crazy people can believe in peak oil. Her essay, titled "You Don't Need to be a Mad Max Survivalist to Take Peak Oil Seriously" at least acknowledges the point. Her equation of Mad Max survivalism with "grows root vegetables" is obviously going to annoy me, but I know the kind of people she talks about in the article too, the ones who say we'd better hurry into our bunkers now, so I can forgive that.
But the part that is a little problematic is that she doesn't seem to get the oil…