The world’s premier energy monitor is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast, a shift that reflects deepening pessimism over whether oil companies can keep abreast of booming demand.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency is in the middle of its first attempt to comprehensively assess the condition of the world’s top 400 oil fields. Its findings won’t be released until November, but the bottom line is already clear: Future crude supplies could be far tighter than previously thought.
A pessimistic supply outlook from the IEA could further rattle an oil market that already has seen crude prices rocket over $130 a barrel, double what they were a year ago. U.S. benchmark crude broke a record for the fourth day in a row, rising 3.3% Wednesday to close at $133.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
No one could have predicted that we would face a gas shortage. This is going to be good times:
“[T]he prices that we’re paying at the pump today are, I think, going to be ‘the good old days,’ because others who watch this very closely forecast that we’re going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon,” Hirsch said. “And then, after that, when oil – world oil production goes into decline, we’re going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, but in addition to that, we’re not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.”
As always, I would remain skeptical about anything and everything, and if I were not so damned lazy today I would look for what I am sure are numerous rebuttals to this claim, but it might be prudent to plan for the future.
Good times.
nightjar
Throw in the effects of Global Warming and you have yourself the ingredients for some Apocalyptic Tea.
4tehlulz
Obligatory Mad Max reference.
Ryan S.
As soon as gas hits 4.50 where I live. I’m marching my ass over to the store and buying myself a bicycle… I don’t care I’ll be the fat man on a bike. Also whats the deal with people in cars throwing things at people on bikes. ( flash back from my youth.)
Should Know Better
I’ve never owned a car, but this is still gonna suck when all you drivers start crowding onto my train each morning.
Not to mention little things like every other damned thing going up in price as delivery costs increase. Sigh… I only just made it to the middle class in time to see it vanish I guess.
4tehlulz
Stupid question: why wait?
slippy hussein toad
I think $12-$15 gas is not even possible, because at those prices a significant number of people will simply stop driving. There is a sustainability argument here.
I also think that there are a lot of oil alternatives that are ready to go today that will get deployed quite rapidly as the prices increase. It is going to be ugly, but there’s going to be some rapid innovation to catch those sectors of the market. We have been trapped in an economy based on this single paradigm for a long time due to inertia and political cowardice, but fortunately for us, 2008 is an election year in which there promises to be a tectonic shift in American attitudes.
It’s going to get ugly, but $15 a gallon with the current U.S. car fleet is insane. It would only stay at those prices for a short time before the price became $0 as nobody would even bother trying to use the shit anymore.
BFR
You’ll also be significantly less fat of a man after not too long – little side benefit.
zzyzx
I’m going to bitch about this again – I was pretty damn responsible and bought a house near downtown Seattle on multiple bus lines but I can’t take mass transit to work because all of the programming jobs are in outer suburbs. Sprawl isn’t just for homeowners anymore.
Keith
This is why Houston voters are so awesome. We had a chance 10+ years ago to have monorails going out to the suburbs for commuters but passed. Now we’ve got a light rail that goes from downtown to the baseball/football stadiums instead so people can leave work to go get drunk and watch our various teams blow leads.
slippy hussein toad
zzyzx: it’s called work from home. Broadband may be part of the hottest energy strategy since the original oil wells were drilled in the 1800’s.
I wonder if that’s why the telcos are so hot on shitcanning net neutrality recently here?
scarshapedstar
That’s why I’m using my stimulus check as a down payment for the Hummer H4, whenever they make one!
Morat20
Keith: To be fair to Houston, 90% of the reason we didn’t have anything better than a mediocare bus system could be traced to Tom Delay.
I don’t know if I ever found out what, exactly, he had against mass transit in Houston, but that man single-handedly gaveled down federal funding for a Houston system each and every time it came up. He fought it tooth and nail, with ever tool available to him — and during that time period, he was VERY powerful — especially over transportation.
And it wasn’t mass transit he hated — he happily funded stuff elsewhere. Something about it happening in Houston got his head up his butt.
As for the rail line — have you seen the proposed expansions? I mocked it all at first too, but they made the smart decision to work on hooking up the inner city (through rail and subsidiary bus lines) and then expanding out along the park-and-ride lines, and then moving out to lines to Hobby, Intercontintal, the Woodlands, Clear Lake, and Galveston — even with some running out to Hempstead.
It’s better than I expected, and probably the best you can do without massive public buy-in — buy-in that only became a remote glimmer of a political possibility when gas topped 3.50 a gallon.
Billy K
Me too (except for the programming part).
Krista
I wish I COULD work from home to save on gas, but I know myself too well. I waste enough time during the workday gabbing with you hooligans as it is. If I was home, it’d be even worse.
I might look into biking when the weather’s nice once we move into the house, as I’ll be 5K closer to work. Something to think about, anyway.
Ryan S.
I’ve actually been thinking about it for some time now, but the route to work would be treacherous. I still don’t understand in a state like kansas where there’s so much space, they have to make the roads so narrow, and without shoulders. If there was a way to do it without having to risk the psychos in trucks, I’d do it in an instant. Also there’s no place where I work to cleanup afterwards, but at 4.50 it will prolly be worth it even if I have to do the old whores shower in the sink… and any other lame excuse I can think up ;)
Ned Raggett
Times like this I’m just glad I never had a car nor got used to relying on one for basic stuff (getting to work and back, shopping, etc.) — I’m not saying that to be smug, trust me! I live south of Los Angeles, and public transit compared to a lot of places is a crapshoot, though it sounds like we’re better off than Houston.
Krista
I’m pretty much in the same boat as you. Narrow roads, not much in the way of shoulders, and RVs barrelling through all summer long. (I hate RVs with a white-hot passion — I’m always stuck behind the goddamn things on my way to work.) After having visited Holland, I realized how bike-UNfriendly things are around here.
And a shower is one thing I’m really going to push for in our site plan when we get around to actually building our facility. I’m sure more people would bike or walk to work if they had a place to change and clean up.
Jeff
My wife just approved my purchase of this for my commute. You can ride it in the bike lanes, so watch out fat man on bike. I can charge it at work so I now also get an automatic bonus. Living within 5 miles of work and not having to take the freeway helps.
SnarkyShark
Which is why I moved to Galveston. I can ride my bike anywhere, and I only drive my truck when necessary. There is a reasonably good public transportation including real trolly-cars. I am as happy as I have ever been in my life. And don’t forget all those bikini wearing beachlovers that add so much to the scenery.
Yep, and the dipshits in Dist. 22 kept voting for his criminal ass. Fuck Sugarland and all the SUV driving idiots who live there. Teh stupid hurts.
Houston is fucked, the only salvation is that the gas/oil industry will be doing good from now on. I work in that industry, and I knew this was coming. Everything we drill anymore is really really marginal. I’ve seen a lot of cement getting poured down 22 million dollar holes.
RampantSexism
Well, wide roads cost more money. Money comes from taxes.
Lots of space means not many taxpayers.
Ergo, lots of people, wide roads. Few people, narrow roads.
BFR
Wha? Outer suburbs now include Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond? The bus service in and around Seattle and the near part of the eastside works pretty well for me at least, though I mostly use it when I have to go into Seattle.
Dreggas
I heart the OCTA. I take public transportation and don’t drive whatsoever. I will kick gas money to people to go to L.A. once in a while, otherwise I love taking the bus 45 dollars a month for a bus pass and I can go anywhere in OC.
double-plus-ungood
Ha. Vancouver BC, best bike commuter system in North America, and I have 16,000 km on my bike odometer. Eat it, bitches.
Of course, we’re paying more that $5 a gallon for gas already …
Punchy
Me too. I’d be biking from Olathe to Lenexa, which is only about 10 miles each way, but mostly on busy roads. Of course, if the number of bikers quadruples, we may become more the norm than the oddity. Which means the drivers HAVE to pay attention.
Morat20
I can’t imagine biking to work in Houston. Six months of the year the temperature is above 90 and the humidity is through the roof.
Add in the pollen, the various petrochemicals fouling the air, and I’m not sure how healthy a 13 mile bike ride to work would be.
I’d certainly arrive soaked in sweat, that’s for sure.
jake
Jimmy Carter laughed and laughed.
My plan for the future: Kidnap lobbyists for oil companies and auction them off to the highest bidder or the angriest mob.
Don
Blah blah blah driving. When we see oil prices 4x current levels the consumer driving is going to be the least of our worries. Want an exercise in stark, raving terror? Go pick up Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and read the section on industrial farming.
What you’ll find is that we’re at a perfect storm of fucked when it comes to food. The largest single component of what you eat is a corn derivative, either through processing (corn syrup, oil, emulsifiers, cereal) or as a feedlot staple (your cows, pigs, and chickens are fed it). Which might seem like no big deal except that almost all our grown corn… depends on petroleum-based fertilizers.
According to Pollan, by the time you create the petrol-based pesticides & fertilizers and go through the process of planting, harvesting, and transport to the grain elevators you’ve used about 1/3 a gallon of gas for each bushel (or 56lb) of corn.
People are bitching now about food prices, even though we as Americans pay a tiny percentage of our incomes for our food compared to much of the world. What happens when the single most common element in our food supply suddenly becomes 4 times as expensive to grow. Worse, what happens when we no longer can sustain the way we farm all that land the only way we can anymore?
This seriously has reached the point where it interferes with my sleep.
David Hunt
It’s my understanding that Delay’s district was so gerrymandered that one portion of it was a one yard wide path moving down a piece of highway between spots were his supporters lived. There was no way that he was ever going to not get re-elected short of being indicted (oh, wait) or caught with the proverbial dead girl or live boy.
It’s shitheads like him that make me ashamed to admit that I’m a Texan. (No, I’m not a Dixie Chick in disguise).
nightjar
Would you like to weigh in Soylent Green?
Ryan S.
That’s why I’m putting together the finishing touches on my design for a solar powered hydroponic greenhouse. Complete with a rainwater recycling system. I just need to find something to use as a water tank… I’m thinking four 55-gal drums connected with pipe.
David Hunt
I’m beginning to think that it would be a good idea to look into the solar panels before there’s a rush and the price goes through the roof.
Marshall
I am old enough to have gone through the 1970’s oil shocks, where the price of gas more than tripled almost overnight. That caused us a world of pain, but also did us a world of good. Energy efficiency greatly increased throughout the economy, cars got more efficient, etc. Don’t forget, too, that Reagan gutted the alternative energy research programs started by Carter, which had the potential to do even more good.
So, if gas goes to $ 8.00 / galloon, it will be painful, but you will be surprised how much less oil we will consume one or two years later.
Smudgemo
Pollan also advocates planting a garden wherever you can(http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=92).
All of this crap worries the pants off of me, but between 18 miles of bicycle commuting five days a week and gardening on weekends, I actually sleep pretty well.
One piece of advice for prospective bike commuters is to not think of your route like a motorist. There are often quieter and safer routes available. Ask for suggestions from local advocacy organizations and bike shops. You can also drive part of the way and ride the rest.
Don
Ryan S – look up the info for your local Pepsi plant. They don’t seem to re-use their syrup containers anywhere and most plants sell them for a pittance. I picked up 4 for $5 each. There’s some pictures here when I wrote about buying them.
Growing your own food seems like a fine idea but I am more worried about the larger economic chaos if our food system suffers a massive disruption.
Ned Raggett
Yeah, it’s a good bunch for what it is, and the fact that OC can and did kick down for an extra sales tax for improvements is a good thing. Still, the Centerline rail project failure shows there’s only so far this place will go.
(Okay, I am actually smug about this point — I don’t have to pay anything for my pass! Working at UCI has its benefits and free bus service is one of ’em.)
Max
I happened to be thinking about Mad Max today…it occurred to me that where they got it wrong was that all those psychos would be driving not the awesome choppers but rather scooters, mopeds, and other unsexy energy-sippers.
“Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
mikefromtexas
I was born and raised in Houston. Rode the bus everywhere, school, work, sporting events. Rode the bus to the Astrodome to watch Evel jump a bunch of buses. When I graduated HS, went to work and saved every dollar I could. Took me 2 1/2 years, but I booked in 1980 and haven’t missed a thing about Houston. Except the Museum of Fine Arts and Miller Outdoor Theater.
Phoenix Woman
Don, check out what Youngstown, Ohio and other Rust Belt cities like Pittsburgh are doing. They’re turning the old unoccupied ‘burbs that were deserted in the 1980s into CSA gardens, and what soil is too polluted for feed crops is used to grow sensible biofuels like sunflowers and switchgrass — crops that also pull toxins from the soil, in what’s known as “bioremediation”. Pittsburgh’s gas stations are already selling diesel fuel from these brownfield crops.
As for newbies riding bikes: You folk who must ride on rural roads with narrow shoulders, go and get “hardtail” (shocks up front, regular fixed bike frame in rear) mountain or cross bikes with 1.75-inch tires. The bumps will be a lot less bumpy! Another thing: Avoid toeclips, and especially avoid “clipless” pedals (the ones that require you to have special shoes that lock onto the pedal). My husband, who got back into biking after a fifteen-year absence, tried clipless pedals but kept crashing and twisting his ankles whenever he had to make an emergency stop and get his feet off the pedals. Go for BMX platform pedals — they grip like you wouldn’t believe (I ride in my Teva sandals during the summer), yet you can always remove your feet as needed.
Also, you budding bicyclists, check online, or at your local bike shop, and see if there are bike trails in the area; you might be pleasantly surprised to find that the rails-to-trails people have been active in your area.
Happy cycling!
Krista
That’s one thing that IS nice about where I live — the Trans-Canada Trail passes by less than a few kilometres from my house. A lovely place for running, walking, biking, etc. Gotta watch for bears, though.