I think some politicians are looking for an easy target to skewer, to avoid answering some awkward questions about lack of in-country oil production and refinement.
I think some politicians are trying to avoid something a little bigger. Refinement is not really an issue, they have been running like 89% capacity for the past year. The in-country production is just a distraction from the larger picture. But your are correct, it’s a witch hunt to avoid answering hard question.
Congress needs to spend some time and talk about what we do once we go into terminal decline in the very near future. Nobody has the balls to address this since we don’t have any scalable alternatives at this point.
We are so close to the peak now that quibbles about the numbers cited here do not matter. My familiarity with the oil industry justifies many of the “hidden assumptions” I’ve made and did not have time to discuss. If you remain unconvinced that a peak of world crude oil production is not almost upon us, nothing I could say further will persuade you in any case.
As I said at the top, this is my official forecast and I will not revise it in the future. I will note for the historical record that in July of 2008 few Americans have come to grips with the implications of a permanent peak in the world’s oil supply despite the strong price signal we’ve seen for several years now. I have done all I could over the last few years to warn everyone about what’s coming.
My conscience is clear even as my concern remains high.
For me, the time has come to examine measures we might take in the post-peak world.
