Peak Oil Group Placing $100K Wager They Are Right

[Chuck]

The ASPO group will pay $100,000 to CERA if daily global oil production rises 20 milion
bbls by 2017, but give it to charity if they are correct about peak oil.

Energy Bulletin - Feb 7, 2008

The peak-oil debate no longer is a matter just of the planet’s future. Now it’s the subject of a one-sided $100,000 bet.

Reveling in the role of the fly tweaking the elephant, a group of peak-oil proponents has challenged prominent oil-industry consultancy Cambridge Energy Research Associates to a not-so-friendly wager.

If CERA proves correct in its prediction that global oil production will rise by 20 million barrels per day by 2017, then the challengers, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, will hand CERA a check for $100,000 nine years hence. If oil production falls short of CERA’s projection, as the group known as ASPO projects, ASPO will get the bragging rights and the check - and donate the money to charity.

CERA, the Boston-based company headed by prominent consultant Daniel Yergin, forecasts that global oil-production capacity could rise to 112 million barrels per day in 2017. Today, according to CERA, capacity is about 91 million barrels.
....[Read More]

[Earthling]

A growing chorus of voices is screaming for the United States to undertake a Manhattan Project-type program to wean America off its oil dependency. But as Charles T. Maxwell, the “dean” of Wall Street’s energy analysts, looks into the future, he deeply fears that Washington won’t do anything to head off the oil crisis he sees rapidly developing starting in 2010. He says this will make the financial crisis he fears even worse. Also, because Washington will be seen by angry voters (who will be paying $12 to $15 for a gallon a gas) as the cause of their “Nightmare on Main Street,” Maxwell sees the American political system being shaken to its roots.

Princeton and Oxford-educated Maxwell believes that if the Democrats are in power, their core constituencies - farmers, workers and intellectuals - will be ranged against one another, resulting in an impasse. If the Republicans are in power, he expects whatever “solution” they come up with to be politically untenable because it will be premised on people with money continuing to consume as before, with the have-nots expected to do without.

Seeing no chance of a timely political response to America’s looming oil calamity, Maxwell, senior energy analyst at Weeden & Co., expects an oil-induced financial crisis to start somewhere in the 2010 to 2015 timeframe. He said that, unlike the recession the U.S. appears to be in today, “This will not be six months of hell and then we come out of it.” Rather, Maxwell expects this financial crisis to last at least 10 or 12 years, as the world goes through a prolonged period of price-induced rationing (eg, oil up to $300 a barrel and U.S. pump prices up to $15 a gallon), while waiting for new technologies that can wean nations off their oil dependency to take hold in the marketplace. (It will take time to change over the world’s one billion or so oil-consuming cars and trucks.)

As this combined oil and financial crisis worsens, Maxwell would not be surprised if the U.S. government started functioning the way it did in World War II, when the democratic dialogue was often put on hold so that unilateral decisions could be made by people given special powers

It could turn ugly, very ugly, in the not-too-distant future.

We have to conserve our precious oil reserves. Why are we waiting?

As far as Peak Oil being far off, or not happening, what about Peak Oil in America? Our oil production peaked a long time ago, the early 70's, I believe. Why wouldn't the same thing happen globally?

Batten down the hatches, stormy weather is coming. Pop a Mad Max movie in the DVD and have a glimpse at our future.

Good article! Lots of scary stuff in there, including commentary on what ethanol is doing to food prices and the prospect of famine around the world.

Harry