Framing the argument is also a problem, you have to be able to get people interested in finding out about how and oil is made. These days more people are interested in finding alternative energy solutions vs. being dependent in fossil fuels. I think this points out the basis of our class. Politicians listen to their constituents, businesses listen to their consumers and since they are essentially the same people, neither of them is going to invest into finding out if oil is a renewable energy source if the people would rater have the alternative. Finding these alternate sources may be better than what Hirshes possible outcomes about dependencies upon other countries and each society having the ability to create it’s own energy. As Latour said “Laboratories are expensive to build.”

I think this whole argument can be summed up by our first Janus. The old (corporations and governments) When things are true they hold, As the young Janus would say “When things hold they start becoming true.  I as a layman would like to believe the old, but the young does have merit, it’s just too late in the publics opinion I believe to do anything about as their interests lay somewhere else.

The first place I went to was http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=63&contentid=2170&page=2. The problem is that I don’t speak science and had no clue what it said.  It seemed like a bunch of scientific terms that I, a guy who has no clue about whatever than it seemed like gibberish to me.  However through all the scientific mumble jumbo it does state in the beginning that there is no evidence that suggests how oil is formed.  And they don’t claim any, what this site does do for those that can understand the terminology is scrutinize that natural petroleum somehow evolves (miraculously) from biological matter (or comes from dead dinosaurs).

As you go through the Internet you can come to a lot of different arguments that suggest that oil is ambiotic.  The biggest thing that seems to be missing is the fact that there is no real research being placed out there for us to use.  And the claims are not exactly matching in evidence.  All the sites claim that oil being discovered at 30,000 feet, far below the 18,000 feet where organic matter is no longer found, and of course wells pumped dry later replenished.  They also point to a Cornell Physicist Thomas Gold, but they also let you know that he has been known as a plagerist and claim that what he did may have been incorrect in conclusion.  Of course there ar other observations that fuel there debate such as Oil being discoved on saturn, and that Russia’s oil production peaked in 1987, their output has increased tremendously over the past several years.

The biggest problem I have is the credibility of these  websites.  With the exception of the above, none seem to have any scientific jargon that I can’t unserstand. Of course that is not a prerequisite of credibility, could just be the opposite. The point is I have searched PSU’s library and Resouce databases and can not find one peer reviewed article which to me tells me that there is no serious look into this claim. Part of that problem may be due to the fact that even if Oil is abiotic oil we are using up at an alarming rate today will not be replaced within our lifetime. Meaning that it is a very slow process

An example of how these oil companies control the oil is ab internal Chevron memo which states; “A senior energy analyst at the recent API convention warned that if the US petroleum industry doesn’t reduce its refining capacity it will never see any substantial increase in refinery margins.” These reports are derived by experts in the field in order to create a bigger profit margin for thier organizations.

We have already seen this at Eugene island where they were producing 15000 barrels a day, lowered that to 4000, and somehow found an unseen source in the same spot that allowed them to go back to producing 13000.

This completely contradicts peak oil theory and with technology improving at an accelerating pace it seems possible that there are more Eugene Islands out there waiting to be discovered.

Another example that we re not in peak oil times is that 

Earlier this year Saudi Arabia reportedly increased its crude reserves by around 200 billion barrels. Saudi oil Is secure and plentiful, say officials.

“These huge reserves enable the Kingdom to remain a major oil producer for between 70 and 100 years, even if it raises its production capacity to 15 million barrels per day, which may well happen during the next 15 years,”
The thing about the skeptisism towards peak oil is that it may be a ploy to drive up energy prices. As we become more globalized this political view that they have generated will cause panic and decrease how we live. 

OPEC has instituted QUAOTAs for oil based on the size of these reserves. One could assume that these quotas not just limit the oil that is pumped out and used to create reserves, but to limit how much oil is produced so there is only a limmited supply available for consumers.

The essential question that I have and will explore is the claim that Scientific research dating back over a hundred years, and more recently updated in a Scientific Paper Published In ‘Energia’ suggests that oil is abiotic, not the product of long decayed biological matter. Oil, for better or for worse, is not a non-renewable resource. It, like coal, and natural gas, replenishes from sources within the mantle of earth.

ASPO has three missions: define and evaluate the world’s endowment of oil and gas.  model depletion, taking due account of demand, economics, technology and politics. raise awareness of the serious consequences of peak oil for mankind. ASPO also seems to be the leading official advisors to government agencies when it comes to predicting when and how peak oil will occur and what they schould do when and if such an event occurs.  

When answereing these questions, 26 other countries have developed their own national agency to come up with internal solutions and what is best for them indeivdualy. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) wrote a report titled ‘‘Uncertainty about Future Oil Supply Makes it Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production’’

The theory of peakoilism is still in debate, the problem with coming up with and real theory is that they all have too many layers invloved, and which ones will become accepted.  There seems to be no systmsatic methodology because they stem from too many countries and everyone from  petroleum exploration and exploitation, oil refining, oil markets, new energy, finance, economics, ecology, seem to be conducting their own research.  All of these disciplines look good coming from different angles but the next problem is getting reliable information and the changing definaiton of oil. Their last problem is the opposers to the fact that peakoilism exists. The acutal idea or theory is being questioned by governments musch like the the climate theory.  Oil companies try to dismiss it and governmants are afraid to admit that it exists because economies and their GDP are based  upon the use of this energy. In our next post we will look at their side.

Lin Zhao, Lianyong Feng, Charles A.S. Hall, Is peakoilism coming?, Energy Policy, Volume 37, Issue 6, China Energy Efficiency, June 2009, Pages 2136-2138, ISSN 0301-4215, DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2009.02.017.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V2W-4VXT11H-2/2/c725c4d6e22adeed763f87eec24665e5)

This third possible scenario is based upon the

 Upon the political positioning of National Oil Companies taking control of resources located inside the host nations borders.  This change has taken control away from International Oil Companies and gave way for each nation to politicize and control their own resources. Each governing body brings in their own agenda and has caused them to pay less attention of oil field operations in order to give way to their political and social responsibilities, as well as additional layers of corruption

Since he is trying to predict a future event in the article Mr. Hirsh used two significant events that happened to the US in the 1970’s and how it impacted the GDP along with the Oil Shockwave Simulation done by Stanford Bernstien & Co. Using these two articles he was able to describe furture econmic impacts and their impact to the world GDP. 

The possible outcomes described to the peek oil controversy in Dr. Robert L. Hirsch article is fairly unbiased as you we would want to see in one of our science labs.  He does show, how the actual politicizing of what to do with each nations resources have taken precedence over the actual finding of new science and technology of addressing the problem.  And as a former senior energy program adviser for Science Applications International Corporation with primary experience is in research, development, and commercial applications he shows his understanding for needing us to move forward to find solutions.

Hirsch, 2008 R.L. Hirsch, Mitigation of maximum world oil production: shortage scenarios, Energy Policy 36 (2008), pp. 881–889.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=oil++depletion&ei=UTF-8&fr=b2ie7&fr2=tab-web&tnr=21&vid=0001317765053

This video is a good start to get a good view of the controversy at hand. Although keep in mind that they are trying to make you aware of the issue it does take a scare tactic type of slant. He also seems to skew the facts by using non realistic examples, such if barrels of oil are priced at $20. This sounds good in theory but lets keep it realistic. Again keep in mind this is just a good introductory video to get a sense of the issue.

Within the next few weeks I’ll be going onto the sites that they recomend along with those in contras to get a feel for what we everyone really may be facing as we continue to use oil in our daily lives.