Comments | peak_oil: Thoughts on Peak Oil This Week?

theheretic in peak_oil

Thoughts on Peak Oil This Week?

Aug 19, 2011 14:22

Post your thoughts on peak oil this week. It went up, then it crashed back down again. The stock market crashed. The currency markets are all kinds of crazy and the dollar keeps weakening. Reactions to the UK riots and the US President's lowest economic approval rating for any president in the last century, including Herbert Hoover, have caused ( Read more... )

Comments 5

l33tminion August 19 2011, 22:53:14 UTC

Peak oil is keeping oil surprisingly cheap (until it's not there anymore).

I have no idea how this mess will pan out. No confident predictions for the next days / weeks / months. At years I'm sticking with my 2005 prediction of "major economic trouble due to peak oil before 2015", but maybe that condition has been met already.

ebenizer August 20 2011, 01:36:16 UTC

I think peak oil couple with the dramatic weather shifts going on will affect global food production leading to famine, then disease, then war once we're far enough down the downslope of peak oil.

mikebeauchamp August 20 2011, 01:48:29 UTC

Sorry, what's all this "peak oil" garbage? Does it have anything to do with Casey Anthony?!

In unrelated news, Goldman Sachs is stockpiling 1/4 of the world's Aluminum supply in former abandoned warehouses in downtown Detroit. Gee, I wonder what these guys are doing with Gold. Fun world!

theheretic August 20 2011, 08:55:17 UTC

Stockpiled Aluminum??

Its dirt, you know. Bauxite ore is in dirt. All clays contain Al2O5. So stockpiling something like that is not a terribly brilliant decision, particularly if electricity gets cheap in the future. Right now, and in the near future it might make sense, but its easier to weld steel, which holds its strength better, than aluminum which is very weak after welding until it's heat treated, so isn't terribly useful as a building material without that energy intensive treatment added. It also cracks the harder its treated so steel is STILL better for everything except aircraft, and those are fuel intensive vehicles so why bother, really? Then again, Goldmann Sachs always gets it wrong.

albionwood August 20 2011, 15:58:32 UTC

Don't think PO has anything to do with what's happening right now. The current mess is almost purely financial in origin. When/if it all gets unwound and global economic growth returns, then we will begin to see PO effects; but right now it's economics reducing demand, not a supply squeeze.