So how does this all relate to peak oil? It seems to me that if shale oil can't turn a profit, it will increase the demand on conventionally drilled oil and hence accelerate its exhaustion. I think the idea that oil is about to disappear any time soon is simplistic but the tendency for desperate violence over control of diminishing resources does confirm in its way the peak oil hypothesis. In any event, I think that "peak oil" is a much more serious problem. On Thanksgiving day, we had a friend of my wife from Istanbul and her husband over for dinner (we ate hindi, as the Turks call the bird.) Her dissertation was on competition for water in the Middle East, the Euphrates specifically. Her comment: declining water supplies in the region have more to do with the wars than Shi'a/Sunni conflicts.
---- It is clear that among the major losers in the fall in the price of Brent crude petroleum from $115 a barrel last summer to about $75 a barrel today are Russia, Iraq and Iran. Petroleum sales are 50% of Russia’s income, and are also central for Iran and Iraq. But the big loser will likely be shale oil producers and prospectors in the US, who probably cannot make a profit if the price falls into the 60s. http://www.juancole.com/2014/11/targets-shale-russia.html _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
