From The Peak Oil Crisis: Hard Truths:

The most interesting thing that can be said about the NPC report is that it has very little to do with providing government officials and the rest of us insight into the likely availability of oil over the next 25 years. There are federal employees, international organizations and contractors loaded with expertise that the Secretary of Energy can whistle up in minutes and can produce papers comparable in scope to the NPC’s efforts in days rather than years.

In reality, the “Hard Truths” report is a piece of political theater carefully constructed to deflect responsibility from the administration for failing to publicly acknowledge and start preparing the nation for the consequences of oil depletion.

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To the report’s credit it does discuss peak oil and some of the arguments for an imminent reduction in world production. However, these are quickly dismissed as not giving sufficient weight to economic forces and technological innovation that will soon bring forth sufficient oil and gas, or adequate substitutes, to satisfy the world’s growing demands.

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If the administration is lucky, the matter will rest until January 2009 when oil depletion becomes somebody else’s problem. If not, and serious shortages develop in the next 18 months, then “hard truths” may take on a whole new meaning.

Yep, another NPC Report summary. This one better than most.

The notion that the current administration is doing its best to dodge the peak oil issue is, in my opinion, undeniably true. It’s simply another example of their approach to almost everything, from global warming to withdrawing troops from Iraq to doing anything about the massive budget deficits we’ve run since Bush was sworn in.

We desperately need adults in charge, and I urge everyone reading this who will be eligible to vote in the US electins in 2008 to learn about these issues, support the candidate who best reflects your views, and freakin’ vote!!!

From Oil firms find reserves elusive:

This decade’s high crude prices mean there’s plenty of incentive for Daniel O’Byrne, chief operating officer of Calgary-based Provident Energy Trust, to keep finding oil and gas for his company to produce. But he faces a problem - there’s less and less reserves to locate, and the costs of developing them haven’t stopped going up.

“Finding and development costs have had a huge ramp up in the last few years, but the size of the prize is getting smaller,” Mr. O’Byrne said. “Hunting [for reserves] in Western Canada has become much more challenging than it used to be, and it will be a struggle for the whole basin to stay competitive in a global market.”

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“The increase is a function of the world’s maturing basins,” said Randy Ollenberger, an analyst at BMO Nesbitt Burns and author of the report. “Companies are still spending capital but they are finding less reserves, while costs for land, equipment, steel and manpower are all increasing.”

And to think that the article never uses the term “peak oil”, when it provides details that so directly support the most basic idea of peak oil, namely that we’ll use up the easy oil first and then have to rely increasingly on far less convenient deposits that can’t be produced at the same rate as the easy oil at anywhere near the same price.

From $100-a-barrel oil may be only a few months away:

The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group said would prevail by 2009 could be just a few months away.

Jeffrey Currie, a commodity analyst in London for Goldman Sachs, the largest brokerage firm, said that $95 crude was quite likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increased production and that declining inventories were raising the chances for oil prices to reach $100.

Jeff Rubin, chief strategist at the brokerage unit of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Toronto, said $100 a barrel could come next year.

John Kilduff of the New York office of the futures trading firm Man Financial said, “We’re only a headline of significance away from $100 oil. The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring.”

Again, the words “peak oil” are never uttered. Another example of what Duke Ellington meant when he said you have to find a way to say it without saying it.

And I have to say that I’m insanely jealous of the line, “The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring.” Now that’s a good, and accurate, turn of phrase.