THE PEAK OIL MYTH

 

By Dr. Stanley Monteith
November 11, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

The price of oil and natural gas was increasing before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, destroyed almost a fourth of our oil production, raised the price of gasoline to over $3.00 a gallon, and the price of oil to $70.00 a barrel. Will the rising cost of oil devastate our economy?

The web site, hubbertpeak.com warns:

"Oil will become more expensive and less available. This will be painful in the industrialized countries which have become totally dependent upon oil, and in the less developed countries where oil use is extremely sensitive to price escalation."[1]

Dr. M. King Hubbert worked at the Shell Oil research laboratory in Houston, analyzed the oil reserves of the major oil companies, and issued a 1956 report that predicted U.S. oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. Production peaked in 1971, and has declined since then.[2] U.S. natural gas production peaked the same year. How did Dr. Hubbert know what was going to happen? Was he clairvoyant? Was he lucky? Did he have access to "secret information�?

Dr. Kenneth Deffeyes worked at the Shell Oil research laboratory in Houston, taught at the University of Minnesota and Oregon State University, joined the staff at Princeton in 1967, and worked there until he retired. Dr. Deffeyes' book, Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak, he predicted world oil production will peak between 2004 and 2008. During a recent interview, Dr. Deffeyes predicted world production would peak in late 2005 or early 2006.[3] If Dr. Deffeyes is correct, what will happen to our economy? What will happen to the world economy?

en.wikipedia.org states:

"Oil depletion is the inescapable result of extracting and consuming oil faster than it can be replaced. Because the oil resource is not infinite, and its current replacement rate is quite slow relative to use, it will at some point be depleted."[4]

Is oil a finite resource? Will oil production peak in late 2005 or 2006? Many geologists, media pundits, oil company executives, and the people they employ claim the world is running out of oil. Web site www.hubbertpeak.com states:

"As humanity comes to terms with the inevitability of a world beyond oil, the remaining oil supply will be exploited in three ways:

1. To maintain the global economy;
2. To create a new solar economy which will not depend upon oil;
3. To fight over the oil that remains."[5]

Most of the electricity that produces our products and heats our homes is generated by burning coal (which pollutes the environment) and natural gas, but Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon Mobil, claims the U.S. is running out of natural gas. Reuters News Service reports:

"After weak prices in the 1990s due to oversupply, natural gas production in North America will probably continue to decline unless there is another big discovery, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s chief executive said on Tuesday.

'Gas production has peaked in North America,' Chief Executive Lee Raymond told reporters at the Reuters Energy Summit.

Asked whether production would continue to decline even if two huge arctic gas pipeline projects were built, Raymond said, 'I think that's a fair statement, unless there's some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be.'"[6]

healthandenergy.com confirms Mr. Raymond�s statement:

"Natural gas supply in North America is in decline, and no early simple solution is anticipated. These are the conclusions expressed in a study, 'North American Natural Gas: Data Show Supply Problems' just published in the journal Natural Resources Research. . . . Natural gas production in the United States peaked in 1971. Since then, Canada has increasing(ly) supplied the United States to 15 percent of its needs in 2002. However, in 2002, Canadian gas production declined. That trend continued in 2003. Currently 80% of all wells are drilled for gas, not oil, but in spite of this increased effort the production decline has not been reversed. The amount of gas found per foot drilled has also declined nearly 50 percent in the past decade indicating that the easy-to-find large fields have already been discovered. New gas wells are showing decline rates as high as 80 percent the first year."[7]

What will happen when our natural gas is exhausted? Can we generate energy from the wind and the sun? Wind and solar energy are prohibitively expensive, and take years to develop. Are there other alternatives? Can we maintain our standard of living by burning oil? The world produces 80 million barrels of oil a day. The United States has 5% of the world's population and consumes 20.52 million barrels of oil a day. Europe has 7% of the world's population and consumes 16.45 million barrels of oil a day. China has 22-23% of the world's population and consumes 5 million barrels of oil a day, but China, India, and the other developing nations need more oil.[8]

If oil peaks in late 2005 or 2006, how will the U.S., Europe, China, and the other developing nations deal with their growing need for oil? Will OPEC increase the oil price to $100 a barrel? To $200 a barrel? What will happen to our economy? What will happen to the world economy?

China is acquiring oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Africa, purchasing oil in South America, Canada, Russia, and the Middle East, and developing the oil sand deposits in Alberta, Canada. The Los Angeles Times reports:

"Three of China's state-owned oil companies have . . . poured huge investments into the oil sands, including a 40% stake in a $3.6-billion project that will be able to send oil via a new pipeline to Canada's west coast for shipment to China and elsewhere. . . . Scenes like this are being repeated around the world. . . . Chinese crews are building roads in Africa in exchange for the right to extract oil from remote regions. Viewers in Saudi Arabia, a nation that U.S. oil firms once had to themselves now watch Chinese programs on satellite TV as China drills into Saudi sands. China is also taking advantage of tensions between the Bush administration and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to wrest oil from one of the largest U.S. suppliers. To secure deals worth tens of billions of dollars, Beijing is cozying up to regimes in nations, including Iran. . . . And it is flexing its military muscle to lay claim to contested fields in East Asia."[9]

Is the world really running out of oil and natural gas, or is the oil industry running the same scam they ran in 1973 when TV stations broadcast advertisements that depicted dinosaurs lumbering through a forest as a somber voice proclaimed:

"There are no more dinosaurs . . . the world is running out of oil."

The advertisement suggested oil comes from decayed dinosaurs and organic matter, but that isn't true. Honest geologists admit they don't know where oil comes from, but Professor Thomas Gold, an astrophysicist at Cornell University, theorized that oil comes from methane and contains heat-loving bacteria that inhabit the heated biosphere beneath the surface of the earth. en.wikipedia/org/wiki/Thomas_Gold explains Thomas Gold's theory:

"Thomas Gold achieved fame for his 1992 paper, 'The Deep Hot Biosphere' in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which presented a controversial view of the origin of coal, oil, and gas deposits, a theory of an abiogenic petroleum origin. The theory suggests coal and crude oil deposits have their origin in natural gas flows which feed bacteria living at extreme depths under the surface of the Earth; in other words, oil and coal are produced through tectonic forces, rather than from the decomposition of fossils. . . . Recent discoveries have shown that bacteria live at depths far greater than previously believed. Whilst this does not prove Gold's theory, it certainly lends support to its arguments."[10]

If Thomas Gold's theory is correct, oil is constantly replenished, and there is a perpetual supply of oil and natural gas. Has anyone accessed the subterranean regions of the earth to evaluate Professor Gold's idea? The Russians have. That's why Russia is the second largest oil producer in the world today.

freeenergynews.com reports:

"Russians started drilling Kola SG-3, an exploration well which finally reached a staggering world record depth of 40,230 feet. Since then, Russian oil majors including Yukos have quietly drilled more than 310 successful super-deep oil wells, and put them into production. Last year Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest single oil producer, and is now set to completely dominate global oil production and sales for the next century."[11]

If that is true, why haven't we heard about the discovery? Because the oil companies, the media moguls, and the Occult Hierarchy that controls them don't want the public to know the energy shortage is contrived. Saudi Arabia, which funds international terrorism, and the major oil companies have made billions of dollars since they raised the price of oil. They will make trillions of dollars, destroy our economy, and enslave our people if we don't expose the deception. [12]

Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted U.S. oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. It peaked in 1971. How did Dr. Hubbert know that would happen? I suspect he knew the oil cartel was going to finance the environmental movement, get laws enacted that would restrict oil and natural gas production, and block further development of nuclear power in the United States. Gary Benoit's article in the March 27, 2000, issue of The New American notes:

"In a letter published in the February 12th (2000-ed) New York Times, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, identified 'the main problem,' not as a lack of domestic resources, but as 'the administration's efforts to send oil development out of this country through taxes, environmental decisions and bad policy.' After noting that more than half our oil comes from foreign countries and that our wells are being shut down (by government decree-ed) Murkowski candidly stated: 'We've allowed that to happen, and we look a little foolish complaining of the consequences.'"[13]

The article continued: "The United States is awash in energy resources and our dangerous dependence on foreign sources could be ended simply by allowing the development of those resources in a free enterprise environment. . . . Not only has the United States not depleted its proved reserves of oil, but those reserves actually increased over a period of decades, the result of both new discoveries and changing economic and technological conditions.

According to statistics supplied by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), America's proved oil reserves grew from 24.6 billion barrels in 1949 to 38.1 billion barrels in 1971 before declining to 21.0 billion barrels in 1998. Natural gas proved reserves have followed a similar pattern, although they peaked earlier and are somewhat larger than our oil reserves. . . . EIA-supplied statistics show that the U.S. had 152 billion barrels of 'technically recoverable oil' (including proved reserves) in 1998, enough to last another 77 years at the current rate of production. As for natural gas, there is enough to last 71 years at the current production level."[14]

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The oil and natural gas reserves cited in the EIA report are only a fraction of the reserves that have been discovered. Lindsey Williams was the chaplain for the construction crews that built the trans-Alaska pipe line, and was at Prudhoe Bay when Atlantic Richfield tapped into one of the largest oil fields in the world, but the field wasn't developed. I researched that story, and found a BP executive who confirmed the information. Radio Liberty carries Lindsey Williams' book, The Energy Non-Crisis.[15]

I will cover more of this incredible story in my next article �Peak Oil II.�

References:

1, www.hubbertpeak.com
2, www.hubbertpeak.com
3, www.hubbertpeak.com/deffeyes
4, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
5, www.hubbertpeak.com
6, http://healthandenergy.com/natural_gas_ shortages.htm, p. 2.
7, Ibid., p. 3.
8, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
9, Mark Magnier et al, "China Stakes Claim for Global Oil Access," Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2005. See web site: www.latimes.com/business/la-fg-chinaoil
10, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold
11, www.freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/ SustainableOil
12, Richard Morin et al, "72% Say Gas Scalping Is Tied to Storm," Washington Post, Sept. 4, 2005, p. A 27.
13, Gary Benoit, "Energizing America," The New American, March 27, 2000, Volume 15, No.
14, Ibid.
15, Lindsey Williams, The Energy Non-Crisis, Worth Publishing Co., July 1980, pp. 170-202.

� 2005 Stanley Monteith - All Rights Reserved