Oil scarcity has 'snuck up on us', expert says

[phantom power]

Mostly, I posted this because of the name of this guy's company. It's just so unintentionally perfect. And, of course, the classic "nobody could have predicted this" theme.

Dr Jim Buckee has just retired as president and chief executive of Talisman Energy, a major independent Canadian oil company with a market capitalisation of $25 billion.

..."I think it's pretty alarmist if one or more of the world's largest oil companies say, 'listen guys, supplies of oil are going to get tight'. The ramifications are immense.

"Always the line of the major oil companies, Exxon, Shell, BP has been, 'there's plenty of oil, technology will overcome shortages; we'll find it'.

"They changed a little bit to, 'there's plenty of oil, but access is difficult' and then this is a change again saying, 'well actually, it looks like it's finite and we're looking over the hill'."

http://www.mbtmag.com/articleXml/LN736359382.html

[Ian David]

1. Did they not see the same film strips I did in school in the 1970s?

I remember that sometimes I got to advance the film after the beeps.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. You too, huh?

(Glad to see I'm not the only one.)

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ConfessionsOfAnAudioVisualGeek.aspx


(No, I'm not in the picture, but I might as well have been.)

[Ian David]

2. President George W. "Nobody Could Have Anticipated" Bush. n/t

[FormerDittoHead]

3. ..They'll be saying the same thing for when global warming turns out much worse than "expected"...nt

[cloudbase]

4. Some expert he is. n/t

[Rydz777]

5. Yes, many have been discussing peak oil for years, but as

always seems the case, it takes a crisis to bring change. A silver lining is that the whole globalization fiasco depends on cheap energy to move good over vast distances and cheap energy in the form of oil is going away.

[hatrack]

6. Yeah, it's not like Hubbert predicted a US peak back in 1956 or anything like that .. .

A pathetic abdication of the responsibility that comes with knowledge and power.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. So did age 40

It seems like only yesterday that I was worrying about the OPEC boycotts and energy economics in high school.

--p!

[losthills]

9. It's never been too difficult....

to sneak up on an ostrich.