NationStates Jolt Archive


More energy education

PsychoticDan
11-04-2006, 17:07
Christophe de Margerie, who is the head of exploration and production and the likely next CEO of Total, the French oil major and one of the four or five largest oil companies in the world gave an interview to the London Times. Here are some of his quotes:
People are failing to deal with the reality of the price, which has nothing to do with speculators or even any lack of reserves, which are ample. "It is a problem of capacities and of timing," de Margerie says. "This is the real problem of peak oil."

The oil is there, he says, but the amount you can deliver today depends on how many wells you can drill and how fast you can deplete an oilfield, not to mention gaining the co- operation of governments, which guard access to the precious resource jealously. There is no prospect of reaching the lofty peaks that economists at the International Energy Agency, predict will be needed to satisfy world demand for oil.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8210-2124075,00.html
http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2006/4/10/193511/863
PsychoticDan
11-04-2006, 17:09
Another, more concise take on the interview:

http://www.energybulletin.net/14774.html
PsychoticDan
11-04-2006, 17:12
One more quote:
I finance windfarms, so I figure that it's a safe business to be in the long term. My colleagues down the hall finance new highways and bridges, on the basis of tolls to be paid by drivers, and they usually assume a steadily, if slowly, growing traffic, over periods like 30 years or more. When I ask them, "but who will pay for your tolls in 30 years when oil is scarce and/or incredibly expensive?", they just look at me and say that some substitute will have been found by then....

Well, scientists had better hurry, and it's not the US government who's going to help...



Get it in your head: no sane oilman believes in the rosy production increase scenarios still touted by the authorities. It's time to act on it.

http://www.eurotrib.com/files/3/060411_US_energy_research_budget_78_06.gif