[Peakoil] Yergin belittles Peak Oil

[Keith]

Jim Kunstler set Yergin's assertions in the context by looking beyond the technical arguments and considering politics, economics and American capitalism in his column on Yergin on Monday morning:

" ... two ersatz bombshells zinging across the web-waves this past week, 
fired off by two of the foremost professional liars on the scene. The first 
comes from the oil industry's leading prostitute, Daniel Yergin of 
Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), owned by the 
mammoth HIS consulting company. CERA is the main public relations 
shop for the oil industry. Its mission is to blow smoke up America's ass 
in order to keep investment dollars flowing into oil companies because 
oil companies prefer to use other people's money to perform their risky 
operations. They make a lot of money themselves, and accumulate it 
diligently, but they are not so foolish as to squander it on dry holes and 
adventures in alchemy.

"So, last week Daniel Yergin came out with a blast in the Wall Street Journal 
affecting to debunk peak oil. His own theory is much like Irving Fisher's 
economic theory set out October 21, 1929 that "stock prices have reached 
what looks like a permanently high plateau." Three days later, the markets 
crashed and the Great Depression commenced. Yergin says we've hit a 
permanent plateau for oil production. He is pimping for a bonanza in 
shale oil, tar sands, and other innovative ventures in picking "fruit" that 
is not hanging so low anymore. He says:

" "Meeting future demand will require innovation, investment and the 
development of more challenging resources. A major reason for continuing 
growth in petroleum supplies is that oil previously regarded as 
inaccessible or uneconomical is now part of the mix, such as the "presalt" 
resources off the coast of Brazil, the vast oil sands of Canada, and the oil 
locked in shale and other rocks in the U.S."

"Spoken like a true PR whore. Translation: give us money. Calling all 
investors. Give your dollars to the folks working the Bakken play, or 
Eagle Ford down in Texas. These shale plays represent oil that is 
trapped in "tight," low-permeability rock that has to undergo fracturing 
operations ("fracking") before you can drain it out. It costs a lot more to 
get oil this way than by sticking a pipe in the ground and running a 
pump-jack to get it out the old-fashioned way. There are more than a 
few dirty secrets about the shale oil plays, but the biggest one is that 
you have to throw a huge amount of capital and steel at it to keep it 
running as an ongoing enterprise, and that money - other people's 
money - will be in shockingly short supply in the years ahead."
-----------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
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On 20/09/2011, at 1:03 AM, Alex Pollard wrote:

Prominent cornucopian Daniel Yergin wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street
Journal "There Will Be Oil". As if anyone is saying there won't be. Here
are some responses:

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-09-19/responses-daniel-yergins-attack-peak

Alex

O4O4873828