[DesuMaiden]

Some people argue that about 100 years ago, Nicola Telsa invented an alternative to oil, called free energy, that can totally replace oil. But then John D Rockfeller, an oil baron, prevented this invention from ever spreading and becoming mainstream. This alternative energy source that can power oil just faded into obscurity.

But there is no evidence that any alternative to oil, that can fully replace oil, actually exists at the present moment. If something can fully replace oil actually exists right now, then we would be using that instead of oil.

Some people argue that the free market will solve peak oil. When oil becomes too scarce and too expensive, that will incentivize the development of alternatives to oil. However, they forget to consider that it will take at least 20 to 30 years to implement effective alternatives to oil even if one were to exist right now.To change our entire industrial infrastructure to alternative energy source(s) will take decades. It cannot be done overnight.

And let's be honest, nothing at the present moment can replace oil. And we have, at most 5 to 10 years, before global oil production peaks. Once global oil production peaks, the economy will slowly grind to a halt. Remember it even takes considerable amounts of oil to implement alternatives to oil since everything in our economy is based on oil! For example, the manufacture of an electric car also consumes oil. So when oil production starts to gradually decline, there will less and less energy to maintain the current infrastructure and economy, so there will be even less and less energy available to implement alternatives to oil.

Another popular conspiracy theory, regarding peak oil, is the fact that oil is abiotic, and a renewable resource. First this theory is bunk. It has been proven, without a doubt, that oil is biotic in origin and, most importantly, nonrenewable. Also, even if oil was abiotic and renewable, it wouldn't matter because we are using up oil much faster than it could possibly replenish.

The bottom line is simple: every conspiracy theory regarding peak oil is probably false. Like most conspiracy theories, these conspiracy theories have been debunked. I don't understand why anyone would believe that the government is hiding a magical alternative to oil that will solve our problems. If the government actually possessed an alternative to oil that 100% replaced oil and was, in fact, even more potent than oil, they wouldn't be waiting until it is too late to change our infrastructure to this alternative energy source. The government would be implementing these alternative energy source(s) right now.

Unless someone has real peer-reviewed, scientific proof that a viable alternative to oil actually exists (i.e. one that has the same power, energy density, portability and convenience), then I have no reason to believe that such an energy source exists.

[diemos]

For someone who is over peak oil you're still posting quite a bit.

[Dybbuk]

Unless someone has real peer-reviewed, scientific proof that a viable alternative to oil actually exists (i.e. one that has the same power, energy density, portability and convenience), then I have no reason to believe that such an energy source exists.

I don't think it needs all those things to be a viable alternative. We can get by with something that's a bit less dense and portable and convenient. The key is to be able to generate plentiful primary energy in some form. I think the best bet is thorium. While it's also a non-renewable resource, it's plentiful enough to buy us time to let renewable energy sources scale up over a century or two. And hopefully, world population can shrink due to reduced fertility so that we don't need as much energy (when combined with efficiency improvements). It's far from a sure thing, but at least it's one plausible path to avoiding the doom of civilization.

[Subjectivist]

Here is ne for you, Yahoo says that 'someone' is holding enough oil in tankers in the Atlantic to crash oil prices whenever they decide to do so.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-wo ... 28557.html

[DesuMaiden]

For someone who is over peak oil you're still posting quite a bit.

I still talk a lot about peak oil because I don't think it is a totally bunk theory.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The bottom line is simple: every conspiracy theory regarding peak oil is probably false. Like most conspiracy theories, these conspiracy theories have been debunked. I don't understand why anyone would believe that the government is hiding a magical alternative to oil that will solve our problems. If the government actually possessed an alternative to oil that 100% replaced oil and was, in fact, even more potent than oil, they wouldn't be waiting until it is too late to change our infrastructure to this alternative energy source. The government would be implementing these alternative energy source(s) right now.

Conspiracy theories continue to exist because their proponents use emotion instead of logic to argue that they're true. There are a lot of people who "think" via their intuition instead of using science or facts or real world data.

So whether it's the government and Area 51 and space aliens, or the Kennedy conspiracy, or the moon landing conspiracy, or 911, or the many "super-energy device" conspiracies, they thrive in some circles. With a medium like the internet, it can make the "membership club" for a conspiracy global in scope (and creative arguments to perpetuate the conspiracy).

I don't buy that "the government" would be "implementing" much towards energy production except regulations and paperwork, given their track record. But I agree that they at least wouldn't be standing in the way of some "super" energy source that would greatly increase their power, election chances, etc.

[StarvingLion]

"...except regulations"

Well, gee, thats no big deal, now is it.

Just try getting some chemical reagents shipped to your home to do a legitimate experiment, and watch the raid happen. Meanwhile, that "safe" neighborhood is riddled with druggies and gangs, and the authorities are too busy trying to find Pablo in the jungle.

Of course there is a giant conspiracy. Synthetic means of chemical production has always been the realm of autarky 'crazies' according to the establishment. Can't have that, it might educate the peasants that a debt yoke around their neck need not be. Its so much more "economical" for the fracing scam to use a zillion gallons of fresh water, special proppant sands, guar gum, chemicals, and smash all the local roads to hell, and the environment. In other words, fracing requires a serious material input just like synthetic methods.

Yeah, I know the joke that is Big Oil spent about 20 minutes on this stuff on their way to the golf course but really, where the hell has there been a serious industrial scale effort? The anglo-saxon maggots spend trillions of confetti money on useless solar panels to generate electricity for an infrastructure that requires chemicals.

[ennui2]

Two things to be learned from this thread.

DesuMaiden has no idea what position he/she wants to strike, starting a thread that seems to be boiler-plate peak-oiler and then later saying it's "bunk". Huh???

Second, StarvingLion is off his meds again.

[sparky]

.
nikola Tesla was one of those mind impossible to comprehend for us lesser beings
defining him as "the man who invented the 20th century" is slightly exaggerated but not by much .
the truth is , it took a couple of decades for engineers to understand what he was talking about
... at best , some of his ideas are still uncomprehended even today .
the general opinion is that he was mad , in a genius sort of way !
except that his simpler inventions , such as Alternative power and radio control was taken by a guy called George Westinghouse , he was the main opponent to his old employer Edison in the great war of currents AC versus DC
he won , the Niagara fall power station build to feed New York was AC ,
his patent made him a lot of money , which he spent on more experiments
the ultimate geek inventor in a time of legendary geeks inventors , he was forgotten
until the General conference of weight and measure of 1960 gave him the ultimate recognition in the SI standard
the unit of magnetic flux is called the Tesla in his honor ,
it put him in the same league as Newton , Ampere , Volta , Faraday ,Hertz , Pascal ,Siemens

for some of his most obscure paper on energy
http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1900-06-00.htm

[DesuMaiden]

Even if there exists an alternative that can fully replace oil, that doesn't change the fact that other resources are peaking too like iron, various metal ores, various rare earth elements, fresh water, fish, wood and etc. We will still need to accept a lower standard of material living even if a replacement for oil exists. I don't believe there is an alternative to oil that will fully replace oil until I see the evidence for it. I would like to see Youtube videos of this alternative energy in its prototype stages of development.

[StarvingLion]

Even if there exists an alternative that can fully replace oil, that doesn't change the fact that other resources are peaking too like iron, various metal ores, various rare earth elements, fresh water, fish, wood and etc. We will still need to accept a lower standard of material living even if a replacement for oil exists. I don't believe there is an alternative to oil that will fully replace oil until I see the evidence for it. I would like to see Youtube videos of this alternative energy in its prototype stages of development.

DesuMaiden, the biggest problem is that the consumer idiot is obsessed with toys. Their heroes, Jobs and Musk (and others), are toy builders for adult children. They believe electric passenger cars and electronic gadgets and all the useless software associated with it constitute an economy. They are not interested in trucks that haul stuff.

[DesuMaiden]

We seem to have cooked up our own conspiracy here at peakoil.com. There are many (perhaps most) on this forum who believe that Evil Wall-Street Speculators and Corporations (rather than the good ole' free market) sent a barrel of crude oil from $20-$30 up to $147/barrel in a few short years. And then kept it above $100 for another half-decade. (and where it will perhaps return until demand destruction once again craters the world economy)

Jeezus those guys must be exhausted. Hiding out like that (where? mama's basement maybe?) and constantly checking their buddies and playing with the markets. Tiring.

Nice graph. Keep up the good work.

[Pops]

Nice chart P, seems to be missing a couple of labels though, the one that notes the beginning of OPEC back in 60-something? You remember OPEC, it was the group of producers who conspired to fix the price of oil and did (more or less) for 50-something years? Up til last november when perhaps they they threw in the towel because they had run out of ammo and were all producing flat out.

It doesn't say anything about the Texas Railroad Commission either, which was OPEC before OPEC was cool. The TRC essentially fixed oil prices for 30 or 40 years prior to OPEC, the same way OPEC did, by setting production quotas in the world's largest producing region. It ran out of power when demand outstripped supply at the US peak in '70-ish.

And that last big spike? No note there either but it corresponds to the spike in unregulated international speculation in crude oil derivatives and ETFs on the NYMEX and ICE. Non-participant speculation really got rolling around 1999, but was distracted by the fleecing to be done on mortgage "securities" but a few years later when speculators abandoned the real estate market en mass they were able to speculate in oil futures big time and they ran them up in a huge bubble like too much money always does. Google London Loophole and Enron Exemption, they allowed speculators who neither produce nor consume the oil they trade to have unlimited positions using the International Commodities Exchange out of London.

Not so coincidentally, in in 2007 rumbles started to be heard and futures stared to fall and by June of 2008 the CFTC had closed the loophole, speculators were locked out of the NY market, and the price of oil tanked. They were still allowed to trade the Brent market tho... and again not so surprisingly, the spread has been evident between WTI and Brent since. Here is a picture of the number of contracts:




The unregulated derivatives market (that is just betting with no actual oil ever changing hads) obviously influences the actual futures market, after all they are betting on the same thing. The futures markets themselves were invented for producers and consumers to exchange actual commodities using bona fide contracts to buy physical oil. If a producer sells a contract to deliver oil in 6 months for x dollars, someone is buying that oil, for that price and better have a place to put it. The contract may change hands any number of times spreading the gains or losses around but bottom line, the producer sold oil for the contract amount. If the price is inflated by speculation he gets an inflated price.

I posted an article recently that reported 60% of fracker's profits in the first quarter were from futures contracts. IOW, a year ago, say, those producers sold contracts for oil at $100/bbl to be delivered in February. They got real money, $100/bbl, because that was what the futures market price was at the time. Somebody bought that contract and in February somebody took delivery of that oil, real oil, sold at $100/bbl, delivered in a $50 spot market. Whether the person who actually took delivery of that oil paid $100/bbl is neither here nor there, the producer recieved $100/bbl.

The thing that is common to both the '70s spike and the '00 spike is tight spare capacity in the major producer. Kind of hard to corner a market when producers have oil coming out of their ears and will undercut each other just to make the rent—as is the case right this second. Dismissing the fairly obvious role of excess speculation because a person is afraid it undercuts their hobby horse (in this case 2005 peak oil) is bumper sticker thinking, trying to fit catchy line to a cat picture. Big price swings don't happen in a well supplied, orderly market. They only happen in one where supplies are tight and the market is opaque. Excessive speculation doesn't cover or mask the supply situation, it magnifies it.

but I'm no expert.

[Pops]

a few other links I forgot
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/07/ ... LX20090709
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... wnload=yes
http://www.globalresearch.ca/perhaps-60 ... ation/8878

[MD]

Re: OP Title

They Abound.

They're dead.

We aren't, yet.

[Pops]

Pops, you're link bombing me, it feels like a Graeme attack. Try a sentence, maybe a paragraph explanation. I'm all ears. (with a touch of mouth)

Gah!
Unlike G, I wrote all that myself.

It don't fit on a bumper sticker P, and would you change your mind if it did?
Here, I'll save you the effort:
No.

But since I can't help myself...
Speculation, price fixing and shortage aren't mutually exclusive, they are self reinforcing. Monopoly pricing by the largest producers has been typical since the 1930s because oil demand is very inelastic in the medium term. Opening the futures market to "nonparticipants" (speculators) in 1999 via the Enron Loophole merely democratized the game and allowed Jamie Dimmon et al to profit as well as the big producers.