Here's a nice little interview to share with your family and friends over the holidays:

Head of IEA

Sent to everyone I know. It's shocking to see the problem discussed so plainly now in the media. They are starting to get it.

'Seems also that he did a very good job with pushing Faith from IEA to speak more clearly. He actually made him achnowledge peak oil and suggest a date for it!'

But he couldn't get him to apologize to the PO community. Oh well.

'Although I think 2020 sounds rather optimistic its a new tone from IEA.'

Note that Birol qualified this by saying this is possible with major investment. In the report it is clear that major investment means trillions of dollars. No one thinks they are going to spend that kind of cash, so he is really saying that peak is sometime much, much sooner.

outstanding!

this means that we probably already peaked.

Not according to the EPA:

Increasing mileage, decreasing oil usage:
Year 1980 1985
mpg 17.0 21.0
oil 17.0 15.7

decreasing mileage, increasing oil usage:
Year 1987 1998 2004
mpg 22.0 20.1 19.3
oil 16.7 18.9 19.7

Sources:
Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975-2008
[url=http://cure.eas.gatech.edu/~chang/eas6135/classnotes/EAS_6135_09.ppt]Light-Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends: 1975-2005
[/url] Oil Consumption

Edit:
Just wanted to mention gasoline specifically. Gross gasoline usage was relatively flat in the early 80's when mpg was increasing(if looked at on a per capita basis, it would have actually fallen). It started growing again in the late 80's(when mpg was falling).

Peak by 2015? 2020? How about 2007 at the very latests.

Please do not mistake web-board user comments with realistic "peak times" for the Monbiot "in 2020" comments in the video.

Plus therealnews.com is Canadian. WHOIS contains:

Registrant:
The Real News
720 Bathurst St. Suite 301
Toronto, ON M5S 2R4
CA

This is an IEA "you are safe until 2020" snow job.

Note that Birol said "with adequate investment" when mentioning the 2020 figure. In the report itself, adequate investment is defined as trillions, even tens of trillions of dollars. No one believes that is going to happen, so in effect he is admitting that the peak is much, much earlier (ie. now). This is one point where the otherwise-quite-aggressive Monbiot could have pressed a bit harder for clarification.

But given the track record of this agency, long a denier of PO and long a ridiculer of anyone who talked about it, the date isn't as important as the shift in general tone on the issue.

Before this year, it was the economists that set the projections. The "assumptions" Birol is referring to were that supply would always cover demand! So they would just make a guess at growing world demand and then say that supply would follow it! This was the basis of the sage advice that this influential body was putting out.

Finally this year they had actual geologists go out and do the kind of thorough study that they should have been doing all along. And what they found scared the B'Jez out of them. I'm told that when these geologists go out to talk to insiders in the field, that they are much more stark and dire. The public report and stance is more muted so that they won't be blamed for mass global panic and probably also at the behest of their funders.

Forgive me but what report are you referring to? Can you offer a link?

Thanks

Thanks, cb. Yeah, that one.

I noticed there is already a thread on this interview. Mods, please feel free to merge.

Also new from Energy Bulletin: Fatih Birol interview on Youtube for the film "PetroApocalypse Now?"

Nice title. Is Matt Simmons merely a messenger boy, sent by grocery clerks?

Thanks for the link, Dude, and the image and allusion (I love the smell of PO in the morning).

It seems that these interviews were conducted before the recent report came out, I assume just a bit earlier this year. It's amazing how fast things are moving now, when discussions from just a few weeks ago seem almost out of date now.

Just to keep us all sharp, I'd like to be a devil's advocate for the holidays and propose that all the earlier IEA reports were the accurate ones, while the most recent was was suspiciously altered, probably so some in the IEA could cash in on a new, rumor generated run-up in oil prices.

Just a thought, but how would the bright minds here argue against such a position?

USO is trading around $27.67, sorry for whoever bought USO at a higher price

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=uso

Consider buying CLZ17 december futures which is trading around $71.50

I will buy CLZ17 when it hits $50

Ha. Just hang on awhile. This dip won't last forever and and previous highs will be surpassed by a very wide margin. You'll see.

volt plant mothballed
Translation: temporarily == permanently