Am I Wrong To Argue Against Peak Oil Hysteria?

Inside Industry Publications Fear Oil Glut
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3462991

WAR MAKES GAS COST MORE: Why "No War For Oil" is a Dumb Slogan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3435560

Before the Invasion of Iraq all the talk was about the Oil Glut.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3454945

I'm on a couple of transportation-related mailing lists, and no one with any credibility has ever talked of an "oil glut."

To me, talk of an endless supply of cheap oil, given the amount of the known reserves, the inaccessibility of some of the remaining fields, and growing demands from China and India, simply doesn't make sense.

Analysis: Blood for Oil ?
By Retort: Iain Boal, T.J. Clark, Joseph Matthews and Michael Watts
Apr 22, 2005, 18:47

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Retort , a group of writers and activists, considers whether oil was the reason for the invasion of Iraq

Capitalism presents itself, Marx said on more than one occasion, as an ‘immense accumulation of commodities’. In a full-scale commodity producing economy, what comes to matter about each separate article is not so much its constellation of uses as its value as an item of exchange, its function as a ‘material depository’ (Marx again) of exchange value. The commodity’s value is generated from its shifting place in a complex, self-contained world of money equivalents. So that finally the usefulness of petroleum presents itself as merely the outward and accidental aspect of something more basic: the article’s price.

For all the talk lately about the emergence of a post-industrial economy – in which ‘information’ or ‘services’ are displacing the authority of any single material resource – the last few years have been an object lesson in just how vital to capitalist dreams of the future the control of a few strategic commodities still is. They are the motors of production, the ultimate hard currency of exchange. For that very reason they are subject to deep mystification. Oil is a ‘curse’, commentators say, it ‘distorts’ the natural course of development and encourages an economy of hyper-consumption and excess: golf courses in the Saudi desert, bloated shopping malls in Dubai and Bahrain. Democracy is ‘hindered’ by oil (as if cobalt promoted constitutional government), which brings about despotic rule and patrimonialism rather than statecraft and capitalist discipline. There is some truth in this, but it is a shallow view of things because it substitutes a narrow commodity determinism for the larger truths of primitive accumulation: the deadly complicity of guns, oil and money.

If a single political thread tied the anti-war demonstrations of February and March 2003 together, it was the refrain ‘No Blood for Oil’. On every march a flotilla of signs carried variants on the idea, and in San Francisco it was the Chevron building that goaded the marchers to their most vocal dissent.

And with good reason. The American addiction to cheap petroleum has shepherded the brokers, carpetbaggers and hustlers of the oil business directly into political office. Five ‘supermajors’ (Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch-Shell, BP-Amoco, TotalFinaElf and Chevron-Texaco), elephantine oil corporations with wells, pipelines, refineries and subsidiaries in almost every country on earth, and collective sales revenues of more than $500 billion (almost twice the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa), have scaled the walls of the White House. In a bullish five years in the 1990s as CEO of Halliburton, the world’s largest oil and gas services company, Dick Cheney drew $44 million in salary from an outfit that on his own Brechtian admission saw war as offering ‘growth opportunities’. Millions of dollars more in ‘deferred compensation’ were earmarked to tide him over during his time in government. In December 2003 the administration trotted out the Bush family consigliere, James Baker, the consummate oilman, as special presidential envoy to restructure Iraq’s $130 billion debt. Baker’s law firm represents Halliburton; Baker Hughes, his oil-services company, was promised the contract to restore second-tier oilfields in Iraq. He is a member of the politburo of the Carlyle Group, in which it is estimated he owns equity of $180 million – a sliver of their $17.5 billion portfolio. Baker’s mission, we now know, was less about debt-forgiveness than about cutting a deal for the Carlyle Group, which was to receive a $1 billion investment from Kuwait as a quid pro quo for restructuring Iraq’s liabilities, thereby guaranteeing Kuwait – and various oil companies – billions of dollars in war reparations, still due from Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War. Good business if you can get it.



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http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_17015.shtml

over time before now. I've found articles from Business Week from years ago.

It was not only ignored... it was DENIED by the larger Mainstream Media (excepting financial).

There now seems to be a well managed attempt to argue against it's validity from both the Right AND the LEFT.

I saw the same thing when backing Wesley Clark.

Arguments against him designed to manipulate the Right.
Arguments against him designed to manipulate the Left.

BTW, Where's the "hysteria"? There STILL isn't mention of it in the MSM.

Oil companies know how much cheap easy oil can initially be recovered from a well. They also know how much oil can then be extracted using various technologies.

THEY DON'T REPORT THE LATER AMOUNTS OF OIL AT THE OUTSET. THUS IT APPEARS THERE'S 'MORE' OIL BEING FOUND.

I know you couldn't have read it all, because it's too long to have read it all in the time you've had to read it. When you want to denounce information, before even reading it, I'd call that hysteria, and too many around here treat Peak Oil as though it were some kind of article of faith.

Iain Boal is still a freakin' genius. The article is still brilliant. But the oil is running out.

is a freakin' genius and one of the most amazing speakers on Earth.

That article is super.

Some things seem quite obvious to me.


I think it's rather obvious that everything's finite and I would love to have an example of something that isn't.

any science labeled a hysteria makes it so much easier for its opponents to make light.

that's taking place, when oil is taken off the market, by sanctions, invasions, and occupations. There may be Peak Oil, but that's not what's making prices so high right now.

makes many not even want to listen to anything else you have to say.

You may have valid points, but when you start out by painting your opponent as just "hysterical" you give the impression you are just flame baiting and not serious.

I have spent enough time explaining how this administration's policies are for anything but cheap oil, to have gotten a bit fed up with some common misperceptions, so I guess I'm in the mood to raise a few flames.

at the same time.

It's either there and then it has an effect, or it's not there and then it doesn't have an effect.
Your thinking there "may be" Peak Oil doesn't change anything about the extent of the effect.

When demand continues to rise and production starts dropping, doesn't it stand to reason that price will rise?

Which doesn't mean there's no market manipulation, but that doesn't mean you can ignore the effect of peak oil.

Market manipulation is in the fact that producers tend to respond quickly to rising price of extraction, but lag behind whan the price starts dropping. That's where part of their profits come from.
Another part comes from selling reserves that were created when the stuff as cheaper to extract then it is now.

you can't make money on something that is essentially free, right?

There are a number of decisions which would drop the price of a barrel of oil instantly. If a serious push was made by a party in power to double fuel efficiency standards over the next five years, the price per barrel would crash. An increase of fuel efficiency standards here, would raise them all over the world, reducing overall demand. If a party in power were to announce that we would be withdrawing from Iraq, and turning it over to the UN, under whatever terms they wanted it, the price per barrel would crash. Even just making it clear that there is no intention to go to war with Iran, would lower the price of a barrel of oil. War makes gas cost more. Those shouting Peak Oil, whenever this administration wishes for a magic wand to lower oil prices, let them off the hook too easily.

needn't raise them all over the world to have an impact; the US automobile fleet has, overall, the world's worst fuel-efficiency numbers (people in most other countries DON'T buy eight-cylinder SUVs); and the United States consumes a quarter of all the planet's petroleum (while having 5% of the global population). And Americans STILL pay less than half of what citizens of OTHER developed nations do per gallon of gasoline.

That would be all the major auto makers around the world.

and all the major auto manufacturers in the world ALREADY sell fuel-efficient automobiles almost EVERYWHERE BUT HERE. For instance, in Europe, there's a tax imposed on automobiles based on engine displacement; this is an ANNUAL tax, paid as part of the annual vehicle registration fee, and the tax rate becomes rather high for vehicles displacing over 2.0 litres. Not to mention that the significantly higher cost of fuel (as much as $6-7 US per gallon) in most of the rest of the world also encourages the use of fuel-efficient automobiles and alternative modes of transport.

would do the most good.

vast shale oil fields in us and canada which at some point will be economically viable to extract.

an environmental disaster -- more than any other type of oil extraction. It requires enormous amounts of water that becomes permanently contaminated by the oil. True, there may be a technology developed someday when all other oil that is pumped runs out -- as then price may not be the object.

Look, the energy problem isn't something you should take personally. Second, hysteria isn't what's going on at all. If anything, the Peak Oil scenario has been underplayed.

There will be episodic gluts and droughts of any commodity on either side of a supply curve, and this applies to Hubbert's curve, too. Markets don't anticipate supply and demand perfectly. It leads to "stutters" in prices and supply.

But the idea of a coming "oil peak" and the subsequent damage it will cause isn't theoretical. For the first time in the history of the energy industry, we know a shortfall is in the making, and that we do NOT have the ability to compensate for it. The market will compensate for it as well as it can, but there are going to be major "discontinuities". Blackouts will occur, services will become unavailable, and temperature-sensitive people will die. Food won't get distributed. The economy will be damaged as companies cut back on hours, production, personnel, and finally some will close down. And we know this will happen because it has already happened in regional power-downs, such as the "rolling blackouts" that hit parts of California in 2001. China is having its own blackouts, gas shortages, and regional depressions right now.

It's always a good idea to scrutinize radical-sounding ideas or predictions. But this one is well-founded. We've seen it coming since 1970 at least, and a good case could be made that 1956 was the year when we knew it was coming -- M. King Hubbert started publishing his research on resource usage and predicted an oil resource fall-off for "around" the turn-of-the-milennium (2000).

Don't take my word for it -- check out the figures dealing with new oil finds, oil demand, oil supply, and petroleum-based commodities. The picture is not very rosy at all.

Hysteria won't do any good, either. It will take what it's always taken: intelligent, passionate, altruistic leadership. Running low on oil is a Bad Thing, but running low on leadership would be Fatal.

--p!

And then there wouldn't be any more of a shortage, than there is with any other thing taken out of the Earth.

Cutting demand doesn't make the problem disappear. Analysis shows that DOUBLING the amount of oil left in the ground only pushes back the date for peak by FIFTEEN YEARS. There'd still be a shortage, eventually. You can't keep using up a non-renewable resource and expect no shortages. That goes WAY beyond optimism.

But I don't see anyone in the U.S. trying to reduce demand in any significant way, do you?

We're letting companies make inefficient vehicles and letting people buy them without any penalties, we're underfunding public transit, and trying to dismantle what's left of our intercity train service while subsidizing highways and air travel.

These are all highly counterproductive and unlikely to cause an "oil glut."

I see those who voted to increase fuel efficiency in Bush's Energy Bill, as trying to reduce demand in a significant way. Unfortunately they were voted down. You're absolutely correct in what you say, that something must be done about it. I'm saying that it's not an impossible situation, and that something can be done about it.

increased fuel efficiency doesn't solve the problem. Development of viable, cost-effective alternative energy sources is what's needed...but we don't have the lead-time we need to do it. Had the problem been addressed twenty years ago, we might.

Unfortunately for your idea that peak oil is "hysteria", the science has been shown to be sound. Repeatedly. The United States went into decline in 1971. The North Sea, in 1997. Mexico, last year. All over the world, in oil basin after oil basin, peak oil has been proven fact. To think that what's happened in individual oil fields ISN'T going to happen worldwide is ridiculously optimistic, especially given that there have been no significant new fields discovered in the past decade and that the rate of consumption vs replacement through new discovery is negative and has been since at least 2001.

The idea that continuing business as usual...continuing to tie our transportation and economic infrastructure to the use of a commodity that is running out and becoming more difficult and expensive to produce...is a GOOD thing, if we can just figure out how to use it more slowly...is utterly absurd. That's a bit like deciding you're less likely to get emphysema if you just cut down from TWO packs of cigarettes a day to one.

viable, cost-effective alternative energy sources. As fuel efficiency standards become harder, and harder to meet, it would encourage moving to cost-effective alternative energy sources.

This is the question I have. We've known about the potential for "peak oil" as a threat to national security for 30+ years and yet we have not developed alternative energy. We've been given to believe this is due to "shortsightedness" and "greed" but I see it as something more sinister. I believe the one thing the elite fear most is the DECENTRALIZATION of energy markets. Decentralized energy markets MEAN a redistribution of wealth and power.

-

Oil demand reduction, through greater efficiencies, and through use of energy alternatives would advantage everyone else.

of course the only real solution for peak oil is to switch to alternatives and improve efficiency. we could move all energy production to alternatives and reduce demand for oil to zero.

But the problem is we should have started that decades ago. Right now 1% of global energy production is from alternatives - so we have a long way to go. Also improving efficiency by any significant amount isn't exactly trivial. It's doable but it's not simple - it's going to take a lot of time, not to mention a lot of energy (which we seem to be running out of).

We can't reduce demand for oil all that much. This isn't about using the car less and turning off lights, it's about the fact that petroleum provides almost all the energy our civilization uses, and provides the 5-10 calories of energy for each calorie of food grown.

Even a minor shortage of oil at this point would cause severe inflation. In the 1970s, we still had a lot of economic slack to deal with energy shortfalls; today, we don't. Crops wouldn't get fertilized, and it would become much more expensive to send the food anywhere. It's happening now, and you can see the effects of it any time you go shopping. Cabbage is half a buck a pound, three times what it was in 2003; Diet Pepsi (to which my mother is addicted) seldom goes on sale anymore; even the costs of spices have jumped.

And that's just ONE sector of the economy.

People can not just limit what they eat. They can limit their consumption of higher-priced products, but the what happens when food becomes too expensive to buy?

The typical retort is that food is cheap, and Americans need to go on a diet, and har-de-har-har, but the amount of overeating that goes into obesity is minimal, and more than half of the world's population have incomes that are so low that buying food is difficult even now. Mom's Diet Pepsi is not a requirement for her survival, but if chicken cost $150 per pound and tomatoes were $90 each, we'd have some serious trouble in this country.

Then, too, market economies do not respond with the perefect equilibrium that we like to believe. Right now, oil probably IS under-valued; that's coming from the financial sector that will try valiantly to damp the wild swings in oil prices. A volatile commodity is not a popular commodity.

There are hard limits to the amount of market response we can tolerate without economic upheaval. That's the problem with Peak Oil. The markets won't be able to respond well enough, so the end costs will result in misery and death.

The doesn't have to be an apocalypse, but will probably will be. The market has no sensibility of human needs until people -- as units of economic productivity -- begin to die. Even now, preceiving only a threat, the response is to manipulate oil prices, not develop new technology to any great extent. As usual, we can count on being a dollar short -- and a day late.

--p!

peak oil is a legitimate issue with disasters consequence for all if not dealt with seriously.

http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

thanks for pass'n the word :toast:

peace

done to deal with it... at least nothing with the Common Good in mind.

But what 'hysteria' are you talking about?

Concern is not 'hysteria'.

Why are you trying to frame discussions about the issue with 'hysteria'?

over their naked market manipulations. Oil goes over $50 per barrel, and all the Peak Oilers say "It's Peak Oil!". No it's not. Sounds like hysteria to me.

Is that even if there is all of the cheap, plentiful oil that we could ever want or need, we should still wean ourselves away from it for one reason. Global climate change. We're throwing up tons of airpollution, both up the stacks of power plants, and out the ends of our tail pipes. Switching away from oil would help alleviate this problem a great deal, especially if we went with biodiesel, solar and wind.

However it becomes all that much more compelling when you take a look at the very solid reasearch that says that Peak Oil is imminent if not already here. It is time for our society to evolve past fossill fuels and start using energy sources that are renewable and easier on the enviroment.

the supply. If technological improvements are made, and alternatives are employed, that can be done.

Those of us who have been promoting alternative energy for decades now have always done so on the basis of the enviromental damage that fossil fuel produce. Sad to say, if people had started listiening to us twenty six years ago, even given late seventies tech, we could be providing half of all our energy needs with alternatives right now.

Instead, we live in a much dirtier world, whose climate is changing rapidly, and we are still hooked on fossil fuels. Yet with the technological advancements that have been made, we could easily provide all of our energy needs with alternative, renewable resources. Did you realize that the DOE did a study in '91 that found that all of our electrical needs through the year 2030 could be provided by the harvestable wind energy in just three states, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas? Amazing now, isn't it. Given solar, bio diesel, and hybrid tech, we don't need oil.

Peak Oil simply makes this need to switch over all that more dramatic. There is solid science backing it up, and quite frankly I hope it comes about. Nothing like a little price prod to get people off their asses and doing something productive.

energy, you let these bastards off the hook for their market manipulations. The Peak Oil argument actually helps them, by justifying their price gouging, drilling, environmental damaging, and their wars to control the resources. And they don't want to control them to make the resources flow freely. They want to keep us dependent, while dripping the resources out in a way that allows them to charge the maximum amount possible. The Peak Oil argument actually justifies them in doing this. What's next, Peak Coal? The Coal Industry would like that.

Or punishing people for manipulating markets. My focus is to get this country onto alternative energy sources ASAP, and if the myth of Peak Oil(though once again, I must note that I think Peak Oil is real, with solid science backing it up) puts the prod up people's butt to make the switch, I'm all in favor of it. Playing the blame game, and taking corporate America to task for market manipulation can come later, after we've made the switch.

But right now we're faced with two dire crises. The first is global climate change brought about by the use of fossil fuels. The second is Peak Oil. You may not believe in the latter, but the former is a certainty, and we need to act now. Sometimes, and this is one of those times, the ends justifies the means, and if Peak Oil moves America towards a cleaner greener future, I'm all for it.

Quite frankly, corporate America won't be able to drip out resources one by one. The alternatives are out there and being spread by word of mouth. High prices will prod the consumer into seeking out these alternatives, and when corporations see that there is a buck to be made, they will follow the money. This is what has prompted the price of solar panels and wind turbines to come down. Gulf and Shell Oil saw a chance to make money, and followed it. Sometimes you have to work with capitalism in order to get things done. Thus, even if Peak Oil is an excuse used by corporate America to dribble out fossil fuels at an over inflated rate, it's still all good, because it will force the public to get into alternative fuels. And one thing you have to say about renewables, you can't fake Peak Wind, or Peak Sun, now can you.

but it would be a very silly argument.

Since I was a bit on the crimson side come Monday morning;)

but only the ones that are approaching and that our civilization runs on is worth discussing NOW.

what do your studies tell you as to when we will reach global PEAK oil production?

peace

Of course, it will be slowly getting hotter over the next 4 billion years, and within 900 million-1.5 billion years from now, the Earth will not be able to support organic life at all.

By that time, I suspect that NASA will have finally developed a new space shuttle.

--p!

--p!

Wow, its not that hard to see is it? Thought I was alone!
Peak Coal!!! Someday Enron will give it a try there too.
How about Peak Air Quaility and Peak Water Quality? We passed that a LONG time ago, thanks to the very same oil fucks who suck our wallets clean while killing us slowly. right this minute.

I see much worry about it, but little hysteria.

both as a resource and as a way to control it. Remember until the Middle East was nationalized in the 1950s American oil companies were able to dictate favorable extraction terms from the Arabs. With Iraq the U.S. has largely recreated this situation by hand designing the so called government. Your arguments about the temporary spike in Iraqi oil prices is mute, since the long term availably of oil is promising once a stable enough dictator is installed. By your logic leaving Saddam in place would have pleased the Neo-cons more since his sanction era output was tiny and steadily diminishing through infrastructure decay.


Our economy as a whole is based on growth and cheap energy. During the 20th century energy production matched population growth and resulted in the post war happy times that we all love.

You seem to be implying that the secret to enriching yourself is reducing the supply of oil. You will never make money that way because your increased earnings are eaten away by the resultant inflation. No body talks about this but that is one of the key lessons that OPEC learned from its oil embargo. To maximize its wealth did not involve reducing the supply of oil to high inflationary levels.

Also large oil companies are still left with expensive fixed assets such as tankers and refineries. Making the ideal level of profit arises when all your assets are used to capacity. Stock appreciation is generally correlated to earnings growth and book value. Does maximum profit arise when world oil production at zero barrels a day?

That was under the Oil for Food Program, and doesn't even include what was smuggled out. By the time of the 2003 invasion Iraqi oil production was down to 1.3 million barrels per day. I laughed when they bragged that oil production in Iraq was back up to prewar levels, because the 1.3 million barrels per month figure was what they were bragging about being back up to, not the 2.5 million barrels of oil per day that was being produced under the Oil for Food Program. That production had to be taken off the market in order for oil prices to do what they call "firm". Iraqi oil production was at it's peak in 1979 at 3.5 million barrels per day. Of course that was before Reagan/Bush got to work in the region.

http://www.energybulletin.net/5655.html

If you study the production from existing oilfields, experts around the world agree that the decline is between 3 and 5 percent. This means that all the oilfields that today produce 84 million barrels per day, mbpd, will next year at this time produce 80.6 mbpd and in year 2030, 30 mbpd. In the World Energy Outlook 2004 the IEA predicts that we will need 121 mbpd in 2030. In other words, we need to find more then 90 mbpd in new production. “The world needs 10 new Saudi Arabia’s.” Someone might call me a Doomsayer, but if so I’m accompanied by Sadad Al Husseini, as this is a citation from him. He was until recently vice director of Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world.

psst... pass the word

peace

The first thing that was done on entering Iraq in 2003 was to get it back into OPEC, which it had been out of for some time. Even after this right wing media continued to spread the false hope that oil coming out of Iraq could be a counter to OPEC. Even if there is no instability in Iraq, OPEC still decides how much will be produced. As it is continued instability justifies continued occupation leading to continued instability. The world's second largest reserve of oil stays off the market. The Saudis, with their number one reserve of oil in the world make out like bandits. To know what Bush will do, just ask "What do the Saudis want done?"

It is a lie, that there is a refinery shortage, and that it is responsible for the high price of gasoline. The price of gasoline is high, because the price per barrel of oil is high. If the Saudis, or anyone, were to dump more oil on the world market, the price per barrel would go down. The price per barrel of oil is set at the same price everywhere. It is determined by world supply, and world demand . It has nothing to do with refineries, except that a real shortage of refining capacity would lower the price per barrel of oil, by lowering overall demand.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/info_glance/refineryops.html

they just want to treat the whole country the way they did California. Same lie, bigger market.

passing tax incentives for alternative energy investments all the way down (up) to the consumer level. Solar was just getting off the ground and it got a boost from those initiatives, for example. Reagan killed them.

Carter understood and responded responsibly.
Reagan understood and responded, well, greedily.

Edit for spelling dammit.
I might make that my sig.

price --

Peak Oil has been reached in the U.S. in the 1970s, which means that we're progrssively importing a higher rate of oil percentage-wise each year. Peak Oil is near to happening in other oil fields around the world -- which means that the cost to extract it becomes higher each year. It doesn't mean that there may not be an additional 30-year supply, it will simply become more expensive throughout that span of time.

Competition for the oil currently being extracted is causing the price to rise right now -- The needs of China and India will continue to put a strain on the available market of oil. This is not going to go away.

Whether or not a barrel of oil will peak at $50 or $60 this year doesn't mean that it won't go up again next year. I doubt that we will see $30/bbl or $40/bbl prices again.

The entire world needs to look at the total potential supply and recognize that changes made now may very well give everyone an additional few decades of oil production/use. But, since the U.S. uses 25 percent of the entire world's production for 5 percent of the world's population -- this is a pipedream.

Global warming is occurring at an alarming rate -- it's on a collision course with peak oil issues. The combo make force some revision of how Americans use gasoline even if price were to stabilize in the $2.50 range for several years.

It's not hysteria -- we have the data and we have the time to actually do something. If we don't, the hysteria will be real and there will be genuine and real chaos.

We're probably definitely on the downward slope of supply, but if it was going to happen in the next ten years, oil companies would be feverishly working to develop new energy sources, like hydrogen. There's no way corporations would just be sitting around, waiting to lose a gigantic chunk of their business.

Take Philip Morris, for example. They saw the writing on the wall, and started diversifying in non-tobacco industries. They even changed their name. There's no way Chevron, BP et al. would just shrug and say, "Oh well, it was fun while it lasted."

The first real sign of the end of petroleum will be when the oil companies start laying out the infrastructure for a hydrogen or natural gas fuel economy. To the average person, that means your local gas stations start being refitted. Auto manufacturers will also be introducing cars to run on the new fuels in a widespread manner, not the here-and-there way they're doing it now. And let's be honest, Europe, Japan and maybe even China will convert before us.

Corporations will suck every last penny they can out of oil, but they'll also make sure they don't lose their power when the oil ends.

"New energy sources, like hydrogen"?

Hydrogen isn't an energy source. It is an energy CARRIER.

And oil companies AREN'T going to lose a gigantic chunk of their business; if anything, they'll become MORE powerful and wealthier thanks to controlling an increasingly expensive resource for which there is still great demand and no suitable alternatives (which there aren't, by the way; there is NO alternative energy source that adequately replaces oil). Oil isn't like tobacco. Our economy doesn't run on nicotine, nor does our agriculture depend on it.

It has nothing to do with tobacco, and certainly nothing to do with nitpicking on technical terms. The idea that Big Oil's master business plan is to let the oil run out and do nothing to ensure that they'll be in a position to control whatever the replacement will be--and make the transition as smoothly as possible--is preposterous.

Philip Morris was an analogy, not a direct comparison.