It seems the peak oil message is making the mainstream news more and more lately. When Matt Simmons, (CEO of Simmons & Co Intl, author of "Twilight in the Desert", and energy adviser to the Bush administration), says to "...fasten your seat belts – we're in for a rough ride ahead", he's a little harder to ignore than your average peak oil "doom & gloomer". Last week he spoke at the New Zealand Petroleum Conference and it sounds like he got their attention.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3602571a1864,00.html
The issue has made it to NZ current affairs program 'Close-up' also...
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/tvone_minisite_story_skin/678721%3fformat=html
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/tvone_minisite_story_skin/679406%3fformat=html
I have to say though that the way the topic was covered on this program was pretty disappointing. It started out well in the first half with some pretty good reality checks from people like Matt Simmons. But hang on... right at the end of the first instalment they bring a guy (who remained nameless) to tell us its OK because we are sitting on a black "gold mine" here in NZ. To quote this mystery expert, "there are people who think there are hundreds of million, perhaps even billion barrel oil fields down there, or trillions of cubic feet of gas, in other words, prospects that are comparable to or even bigger than Maui." Very comforting, but hardly conclusive. There are 'people' who 'think' many different things on the subject; they are not all right.
They second part then goes on to suggest if we can just convince overseas oil companies to come and explore here, we will be fine because as a little country we don't need that much oil. It suggested that the Maui field has completely filled our energy needs for decades (why have we been we importing more than half of our oil then?) and we just need to find another field just like it. Pipe dreams. Overseas oil companies are already exploring here, and have been for years. They are looking for scraps. One commentator on the video clip at the link above suggests that because oil companies are prepared to come a long way and spend a lot of money to look in our back yard, there must be a lot of oil down there. As one industry insider with 30 years experience in exploration already exploring in NZ told me, it simply means they are getting desperate. And even if they do find something significant, the international demand for oil will soon be so great that we won't be able to afford to keep it anyway; it will go to the highest bidder (or the biggest army, which ain't us). At least we don't have any WMD's here in NZ to warrant an occupation... but then neither did Iraq.
Personally I hope they don't find anything major. Not because I want to see an economic crash, but because I think clinging to false hopes of continuing this consuming way of life are dangerous. All this talk of more investment, more exploration, more technology, is just a futile attempt to (slightly) delay the inevitable. The sooner we come to grips with the reality of the situation, the sooner we can all just get on with the huge task of preparing for a lifestyle that ISN'T predicated on cheap fossil fuels. CHEAP fossil fuels are a thing of the past... regardless of how much effort we put into pretending that isn't so.
The first thing you should do when you find yourself stuck in a hole is, stop digging.
1:19:37 PM 
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