[90PercentAwake]

A few words upfront as this introduction may be long and I am not the best at expressing my thoughts on “paper”. With that, I wanted to convey my observations as a Peak Oil newbie to a group of people that are actually willing to talk about the issue(s).

My background or introduction into Peak Oil is this. The week before turkey day I had just finished reading a rather long book entitled “Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale” by Andrew Gulliford. My interest in the book had nothing to do with oil, but with the ghost towns of Colorado. Being that this book was published in 1989, I figured with its age, it mostly would talk about how oil towns had died in that state.

In reading this book it became blaringly apparent that the subject was not about ghost towns but of how oil can make or break a town, or an entire region of a state.

This is a must read if you want to understand how the miracle of oil shale will work. Long story short on this is that Exxon dumped a TON of money at oil shale development during the 70’s and then realized there was NO money to be made, pulled out of the project altogether there by leaving a lot of people on their collective Asses.

I wanted to know more about this subject so being somewhat Internet savvy I typed “Colorado Oil Shale” into Yahoo! and that was about it for me being in the dark about Peak Oil.

Since Thanksgiving I have been researching, and asking questions, and talking to friends and family about the subject. And this is where the frustration and stress of the subject come in. The information is out there, in fact you have to be blind to not see it, but that is a whole other issue. When I mention the subject to family and friends, I typically get a response of how ethanol or hydrogen is going to fix everything, or that the new hybrid cars will really help the problem.

When I offer my side of what I know of the situation, I typically get a blank look or some typical left-field response of how the Middle East is full of oil and we will always have ANWR. Also, I have had the whole Y2K failure used as a rather valid argument against Peak Oil.

Like I said before, the information is out there and that is why this issue is so damned confusing. For example, by reading the AP and Reuters news wires you see a ton of articles on energy, or different aspects of oil and how prices alone are pointing higher. Also, from those same news wires you see how the affects of high oil prices are actually affecting the economy. Since I have started my research, I have counted no fewer than fifteen articles about a plant closing or a company completely shutting down just due to the higher cost of doing business.

So, the costs are rising again for oil and the reason is because of market speculation, according to most media outlets. And they go ahead and explain that prices will continue to rise because of refinery maintenance and the reformulation of gas to higher EPA standards. These are minor reasons why prices should go higher, but that is what is sold to the media, which in turn is being packaged to us. The news wires tell a different story.

Because I like to think of myself as a happy-go-lucky optimist I hate to say these words; but I honestly feel that we are heading down the wrong path as a city, as a state, as a nation and as a society. Anyway, I look forward to discussing ideas here and hopefully we all will be able to make some sense from all of this.

[EnergySpin]

Welcome ....
{Ad hominem deleted by MQ}I hope you become 100% aware

[threadbear]

90% Awake, Welcome, welcome, welcome. So great to have another member on board. Your post was very interesting and enlightening. You'll likely learn quite a bit here and we, in turn, will learn from you. For example, I didn't know any of the particulars of the Colorado oil shale--so there you go, for starters!

[coyote]

Welcome, 90Percent, to a very difficult topic.

Get used to those blank stares. I remember when gasoline came down for a while last year I got all kinds of knowing grins from people I'd talked to ("Well, where's your crazy theory now, huh?"). Very short-term thinking. Blank stares and smirks are all you're likely to get from most people. That is, until TSHTF.

[MonteQuest]

Moderator's note:

The abiotic discussion was moved to the Abiotic oil Official thread.