"Energy stocks... The only way a human is going to make any money."

even nuclear is a stop gap.
Not even considering the level of risk these introduce, Uranium is a non renewable resource as well so its not going to last.
and the volume of reactor required to match current levels of energy consumption is mindboggling
Think larger numbers (000's)

We'd still be hunting for the panacaea renewable.
Come back Tesla!

Yes! Carbon based energy is on its way out (decades) and we will still need it as raw material for plastics. I suggest that base-load energy be supplied by PBMRs with levelized costs of less than 1.7 cents/KWHr and zero carbon footprint.

Nuclear wastes can be disposed of by olacing in tectonic trenches (nature's natural garbage disposal system).

From everything that has been written and said, about drilling for new fields on land and off-shore, it is said way we off target in an effort to reduce prices at the pumps. New Oil fields like the Bakken for one, needs it's own refinery within a stone's throw from the actual drilling sites. Also to be affected and useful they should be in the process of building refineries as they drill to prevent further delays of delivery. Furthermore the Big Oil Companies have refineries that are dormant and non-productive, rotting in the fields when they could be used for refining Crude. Another excuse saying they don't have the capability to do more refining crude. In the not too distant future these oil companies will have wished they had the American market for crude, when they see we don't need the crude in the quanities of today, and our demands have been met with a different source of energy. It will be too late then, and the Consumer will have finally defeated the big oil forever.
The most truthful answer to maximize the sources of power is not with drilling for crude because everyone says it will take 10 years to make a difference. I just think that is a big lie, and overstatement of facts to give the oil companies an excuse, and what they will have the American People be made to believe.
Since the Consumers have stopped using their vehicle, they have also made the demand for fuel less. That has had an effect at the pumps as prices have dropped to $3.79 per gallon. If Consumers continue to practice less driving, prices should also continue to slide downwards at a steady rate.
Now another source of power is the plan that is in the works by Mr T, Boone Pickens. When his (PickensPlans.com) plan begins to get rolling and producing alternate sources of power the the DEMAND for CRUDE will even be less.
This country is in a new era of discovering different sources of power that will revolutionize the energy system around the globe. With these new power sources being made available, Crude will be less popular, and its used for transportation purpose will be severly limited if used at all for that purpose. Believe me when I say Mr Pickens will not wait for ten years to get his power sources operating and availabls to the Consumers ASAP.

only salt comes from outside!

I go to 321energ.com every day and read phil flyns comments about oil but after your recent tv interview with him in which he called you a peak freak I lost a lot of respect for him he is a moron who dosenot get it Mr Hubbert is right and one day he will get the respect he deserves!! I made a lot of money going long oil for the last 5 years especially bulldog energy which was bought out by tristar res. Best wishes from a fellow peak freaker! Tully meimaris

We are short of energy only because we have chosen to be. We remove all available energy sources (domestic oil, coal, nuclear, etc) and then lament that we don't have any energy. Here is a plan that will get us where we need to be:
1) drill everywhere and drill now
2) expand nuclear. Maybe 200 plants required now.
3) utilize renewables such as wind to their max
4) switch cars to plug in hybrids.

We do not have to see the end of civilation unless we choose to. Faced with this stark reality, the Dems will cave and we will be stonger for it.

HI
Well I agree with the 'peak oil' thesis - but not with the details of the results of drastic reduction of oil as energy for vehicles - there are plenty of other sources that can be used to power vehicles - rather than the outcome described here I think finally the great decline in available crude oil will finally force politicians to authorize expansion of the other sources - nuclear, coal, wind, solar, to generate electricity to run vehicles.

I know it doesn't help when you make your living touting Green energy investments, but the real "inconvenient truth" is the U.S. could be completely ENERGY INDEPENDENT IN TEN YEARS. All we need is the WILL TO DO IT!

We could be driving on oil from ANWR in two years. How do I know this? Hell, it only took THREE YEARS to build Prudhoe Bay in the first place thirty years ago.

You Red-Greens are driving our nation into the ground. But I've got news for you. You're on the verge of driving the Democrats and their e-nut friends right out of Washington instead.

Oh, you've picked your fights carefully alright. You usually just attacked one industry at a time with issues that didn't impact the public directly. But this gasoline crisis is different.

Despite all your lies, diortions and obfuscations, the American people are on to you this time. So we'll see who wins this one with 80% of voters on our side.

I'm sticking with the people who defeated the Red Coats, the Axis and the Nazis myself. Next to them, you guys aren't even a small can of corn (pun intended!).

I think this article is right on and I sent copies of it to everyone I know. Radio commentators
like Michael Medved should be more
aware of info like the contents of
this article.

Dear Chris,

Thank you, this article deserves much wider distribution. Can you distribute it to all of Congress? What about having it read into the record by your representative? Why don't I try that??

Garry R. Thomas

Why bother to enroll your children in first grade? After all, it will be 12 years before they have a high school diploma.

The voters need to get the politicians by the scruff of the neck and simply tell them to stop mucking about, and get on with what we need you to do. More solar, wind etc and move all terrestial transportation to electric via batteries or fuel cells and batteries. Keep the remaining oil for air transport until something very viable comes along, finding creative ways to use the Co2 in the atmosphere to replace oils roll in materials manufacture would also be beneficial.

Your interview comments don't reflect the enthusiasum you use in the stock recommendations being made on a daily basis relative to alternative energy sources. What about the Bakken.Is that just hype? It seems every time your experts discover another hot company it requires a new Newsletter. Credability ???

If only look at the floor you will not only miss some real nice sun rises but you will also eventually walk into something disastrous!

I also remember in 1958 reading how the world would be out of oil in 3 to 5 years. I guess the pessimists were wrong then too.

The bottom line is that OPEC has us by the gonads and until the grip is broken in the rest of the world as Brazil has done, they will continue to sqeeze where it hurts. One of the OPEC ministers recently stated that they had to adjust the price of crude up to allow for income they were not getting because of e-85!!!

There are multiple pieces in the solution that range from letting chemists instead of politicians decide the formulation of gasoline to ethanol/methanol to using NG as a portable fuel instead of generation of stationary electric power to electric vehicles such as the TESLA now in production. http://www.teslamotors.com/

We are not out of crude, we are just out of common sense. I look for example at the Bakken play where 12 months ago vertical wells were drilled with single stage fracs with 100 BOD production and today a well is drilled with multiple horizontals, 8 to 10 stage fracs and 2000 to 3000 BOD. production.

If I hear one more fatalist whine that ANWR won't matter because it would take 10 years to produce, I'll send him a life time subscription to Al Gore novels! The facts are that production on an oil field ramps up and production on ANWR would be equal to 13% of current US demand in 4 years from start of the project. Peak production would be in 10 years.

The same idiots whine about pollution from offshore drilling. The facts are that there is natural oil seepage in the ocean and the place where this seepage is the least is around oil platforms where the subsurface pressures have been reduced.

Instead of listening to people that know the business our brain trust in DC would listen to novelists devoid of consequential logic.

Yes, it is prudent to establish a broad energy plan that develops alternative fuels from NG to hydrogen augmentation and the silver lining is that the current price makes looking for these alternatives economically viable. In the long run it is economics rather than govt mandates that finds solutions. It is economics that forced Detroit to build cars that no longer consume 12 MPG as my 1972 Catalina did and it is economics rather than mandates that are today forcing consumers to look away from SUV's.

Quit looking at your shoes!!!

I recognize that it is your job to sell investment copy. However, your concept of peak oil and reality is delusional.
We have been in the oil business for over fifty years. We are independant investors.
When we drill a "wildcat" well and hit, it takes us less than 2 to three months to get the crude to market.
Understand that it is the infrastructure which allows for the rapid turn around of getting "new" oil to market. the "majors in the business know exactly where to drill because their tech is so superb.
In the Arctic, there is a far greater reserve than that which is disclosed by the majors. Want to see oill flood the market?
Put the gun to the head of those majors and eliminate their ability to hold leases and not drill. Force all lese holdings to be utilized or lose them in three years or less.
Congress is the culprit.
New oil in the arctic would only take a few months from hit to pipeline.
We actually have a greater problem which none of you "experts" are even mentioning,
Refineries, my friend, we are years behind and so short of capacity to process the crude that it is a "choke point" in the line of supply. If you have an interest in this I would be more than willing to "educate" you in this arena and walk you through to failed attempts to take over two refineries which were not operating anywhere near "optimum" through put.
Do not overlook the oil shale issue nor the distillation and extractiion of valatiles in coal.
The actions taken and rules established by Mr. Reagan and his cabal are really foundational and most interesting in re this.
If you decide promote ethanol, I will take you on in earnest!
Peak Oil? ...Bah ...humbug!

I totally agree that we are facing a serious energy crisis when oil becomes scarce (around 2030). But there is a solution that can save us, if it is not too late. Like with so many things, our government has been sleeping at the helm. When something is finally done, it is almost always too little too late, and they usually do the wrong thing.

Green nuclear power is the only practical solution to simultaneously (1) ameliorate global warming, (2) avoid dependence on foreign oil/gas, and (3) overcome oil/gas depletion. Only two prime energy sources, coal and uranium, can affordably deliver terawatts of "mother" electricity for: (a) heavy industry, i.e. manufacture of automobiles, ships, airplanes, bridges, etc; (b) power for vast fleets of future electric plug-in autos; and (c) production of portable synfuels (hydrogen and ammonia) and biofuels to replace oil. However coal worsens global warming and should be preserved as raw material to make plastics and other organics when oil/gas is gone. This leaves uranium as the only "big-mama" green energy source, an "inconvenient truth".

Solar and wind energy are useful for small-quantity power generation in select locations. But at terawatt levels, immense areas of land and/or sea would be needed, requiring enormous maintenance operations, spoiling scenic land- or sea-scapes, and destroying local ecosystems. As scientifically documented in "The Nuclear Imperative - A Critical Look at the Approaching Energy Crisis" (ISBN 1-4020-4930-7), by 2050 when petroleum fuels are basically exhausted, only uranium and thorium can affordably sustain global energy needs for some 3000 years, using proven fuel reprocessing and advanced reactor technology. A serious in-depth analysis of our future energy shortage by engineers (not by anti-nuclear hand-waving philosophers) reveals that nuclear power is essential to rescue our children from a future economic collapse. For the USA, 500 additional nuclear reactors are required, built on 9000 acres (@ $1.5 trillion), compared to 1,500,000 windmills with storage batteries on 6,000,000 windy acres (@ $4.5 trillion). Ten times these numbers are needed for the entire world. (Costs are in 2006 dollars; for later years, these costs must all be multiplied by the dollar inflation factor).

Because it takes a decade to design, license, and build a reactor, action must be taken immediately to prevent an economic catastrophe by 2030 when oil starts to run out. Contrary to false propaganda by anti-nuclear groups, the cost of electricity at terawatts levels is three times less expensive with nuclear than for wind or solar. Solar and wind power generation requires expensive energy storage systems (batteries, etc) when there is no sunshine or wind. Also many miles of access roads for maintenance and repair are needed to keep blades or solar panels clean from bird droppings, dead birds, sand erosion, and storm damage, and to periodically replace electrodes on storage batteries. Aficionados of renewables usually quote peak windmill or solar station capacities, neglecting to multiply their numbers by a factor of four to account for a year-averaged availability of only 25% of peak wind or sunshine. Reactors run continuously all year at 90% capacity. Should the USA limit itself to solar and wind energy, it is guaranteed to become impoverished and dependent on portable synfuels imported from other countries (the future OPECs), who have expanded their nuclear power generation when oil fields are depleted.

Modern nuclear power plants are absolutely safe. Because of the negative "coefficient of reactivity", reactor fuel elements only melt (an explosion is not possible) during a maximum credible accident in which the emergency core cooling system totally fails. This was "experimentally" proven in the Three-Mile-Island (TMI) accident. A negative coefficient of reactivity means that neutron multiplication is automatically stopped when the temperature in the reactor gets too high. The Russian Chernobyl reactor which took the lives of approximately 60 people, had a positive coefficient of reactivity because it used graphite as moderator, a design for nuclear power plants which is now prohibited in all countries. Furthermore the Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel, as is the law in all Western countries and now worldwide. The assertion that perhaps thousands of people could still die from radioactive fallout around Chernobyl is nonsense. Of the 60,000 inhabitants of Pripyat who had been exposed to fallout, about 9,000 will die at an advanced age of cancer because worldwide 15% of all people ultimately die from cancer. To ascribe those 9,000 deaths to Chernobyl's fallout is equally ridiculous as claiming that such a death toll is due to drinking coffee because 15% of all people drink coffee. Security precautions and containment measures for today's nuclear power plants do reckon with the possibility that terrorists might crash a large airplane or bomb on a reactor. Even if aerial obstructions (e.g. balloons) or underground construction can not prevent penetration of the large dome-shaped containment vessel, the reactor core vessel is designed to remain mostly intact. It can further be inundated with neutron-poisoning borated water which suppresses all further uranium fission in case of an accident.

A stale anti-nuclear cry is "what do we do with all the long-lived radioactive nuclear waste". The volume of waste amounts to one aspirin tablet per year per person using nuclear electricity, compared to tons of air pollutants and globe-warming gaseous CO2 emitted by coal or fossil-fuel combustion. Nuclear waste can be easily stored and safely transported, as the US nuclear navy has done for half a century. Contrary to allegations that uranium and plutonium in spent fuel elements pose a problem because of million-year half-lives, they are separated from fission products by reprocessing and burnt as fuel in future fast-breeder reactors. They will not be dumped. This reduces 50,000 tons from ten-year accumulation of spent fuel to 500 tons (with shorter decay lives) of fission products, taking centuries instead of decades to fill the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. The notion that long radioactive lifetimes are undesirable is also erroneous. The longer the decay lifetime, the less the radiation emitted per gram of radio-isotope. Most elements that make up our bodies (hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc) have infinitely long decay lifetimes. All humans are "hot" because everyone has radioactive potassium-40 (K-40; 0.012% abundance) in his body, which continuously emits beta particles with a half-life of one million years! Man successfully evolved in this environment, and there are even indications that low levels of radiation benefit health (called hormesis). The hue and cry about possible terrorism and "dirty bombs" is also highly exaggerated. By the reasoning of anti-nuclear activists, we should stop flying 707 jets because they can be used as weapons to kill thousands of people.

Energy is man's third most important need after water and food. Those who hinder expansion of nuclear power will be viewed as irresponsible neo-luddites by future generations. Any further delay of a committed worldwide nuclear energy program will cause certain impoverishment and death of many people by 2050. Those responsible will and must be held accountable for this. Originally the US had planned to have 300 reactors by the year 2000, but instead there are only 104 today. After the Three-Mile-Island (TMI) reactor meltdown in 1979 in the US (with 0 casualties) and Russia's Chernobyl accident in 1986 (with 57 fatalities), public hysteria fanned by fear-mongering antinuclear activists caused cancellations and moratoria on construction of new nuclear plants. While the USA was once the leader, most US businesses with reactor manufacturing know-how closed. Instead France, Russia, Japan, South-Korea, India, and China are now in charge. Zealous anti-nuclear lobbyists and mal-informed governments have created the pending energy crisis. We are entering a war-like energy-deprivation period as serious as WW-II or Al-Qaida. Strong Manhattan-project-like leadership is needed. If the US government can not soon agree on bipartisan support of a vigorous nuclear-energy expansion program, the job of winning the energy war should perhaps be turned over to the military, like in WW-II. It might help prevent anti-nuclear sabotage by blind parochial interests as well as Al-Qaida terrorists.

Jeff W. Eerkens, Ph.D
Nuclear Science and Engng Institute
University of Missouri, Columbia

Your aricle was good, but did not go far eneough. Alternatives do exist and they can prevent that awful scenario that you describe. that is what must occur ONLY if we continue to do nothing.
Example in point:
There are nearly 100 million cows and about 60 million pigs in the US. The manure from these can be used to make 700 Gigawatts of electricity BEFORE the improvements in technology that are coming on stream shortly. When this technology improves, that number could double. That is nearly as much electricty that the US produces today, and the fuel cost less than free (again, less than, because it now costs money to throw it away).
That is only one aspect of possible solution.

people forget that we can make all the syncrude (high quality, high aromatics, high-octane gasoline precursor) we want from domestic high-volatile bituminous coal using 2-stage hydroliquefaction as practiced @ wilsonville AL during 1982-85. project was killed by r.reagan on orders from the houston oil millionaires who didn't want competition from synthetics. cost estimate was 38.00/bbl.
> jack

A little too much on the doom and gloom side. There are alternatives out there, yes they are expensive at the moment but they will come down in cost. We have much more Natural gas than we thought. Here is a long term solution for trucks, taxis and vechicles that do not drive far distances. Electric cars are just three or four years away. Etnanol from switch grass is very cost effective. Liquids from Coal for aviation fuel is a reality. Wind energy is a short and long term solution. Yes, peak oil is here but let's try to generate solutions. People need hope and we need to provide them with hope.

Eliminate the need for fossil fuels for Transportation and we will the battle and the war.

Our political leaders will do nothing but debate so it is up to us.

K. Kelley

I invest in an oil and gas partnership that closed 10/2006. It invests exclusively in offshore drilling. our first well was not commercial, but I have been receiving checks from my investment since January 2008based on sales of oil and gas from drilled wells. It doesn't take 6-10 years to get oil and gas to market.

I heard that California off-coast oil can start flowing in 1 year, because the water is shallow and has already been explored. Barrack Obama said that it would take 10 years, but then said 7 years in an ad. As you've guessed, I doubt the 10 year figure. Besides, we'll need it worse in 10 years.
I heard that we use 87 million barrels/day (mbd) but only produce 85. If we get 1 or 2 mbd from Alaska and maybe 5 from off the coast, that would seem like more than enough. Of course, in a few years demand will be higher, so that may only slow the price increase. Also, I think all the rigs are in use, so some would be relocated. If they move from an area that would yield 2 mbd to an area that would yield 3 mbd, we'd only net 1 mbd, which is still good. It would come from America and not Iran, which would be another big benefit.
I'm sure the commuter train you took was heavily government subsidized. I heard that what we aought to do is make sure commuter rail sdoesn't interfere with freight. Freight rail will get trucks off the road, helping congestion and maybe also energy.
We should find out the total energy costs of alternatives. It takes a lot of fossel fuel to dig out copper ore, ship it, and use it to build wind generators (or motors and generators in hybrid cars). Also to built and run back-up fossel fuel generatorts for when the wind doesn't blow. Wind generators are heavily government subsidized. Wind generators may use more energy tro build than they save.

If the U.S. Government began spending a billion dollars a day here in the U.S. instead of Iraq the energy infrastructure would not take ten years to rebuild. But they already know this since they have spent trillions on the Middle East. Therefore I can only conclude that domestic energy production is as ultimately irrelevant to them as the lives of the American people.

Further, I began working for a company which has developed an innovative technology for locating subterranean energy resources that has recently emerged from R&D. The system which is hand-held can analyze virtually every element on the periodic table of elements beneath the earth's surface within a ten foot diameter circle. It is about 99% accurate to a depth exceeding 50 thousand feet and can "take a picture" for an expense of a few dollars.

In the course of 3 years of testing and refining the software algorithms over the western U.S. we have discovered petroleum and gas fields which exceed the Bakken find several times over. The precise locations are a "trade secret".

I have concluded that Peak Oil must be propaganda similar to the Cold War and Soviet nuclear threat, which if you recall completely dominated foreign policy... until oneday, after serving its purpose suddenly evaporated and is now forgotten.

Build 1000 nuclear plants and Mag Lev trains (300+ mph) to take the place of short air flights and local car trafic.
Put the excess US auto capacity back to work and build some new steel plants to build the nukes.
For water: NAWAPA

Build 1000 nuclear plants and Mag Lev trains (300+ mph) to take the place of short air flights and local car trafic.
Put the excess US auto capacity back to work and build some new steel plants to build the nukes.
For water: NAWAPA

people have forgotten that we can make all the high-quality syncrude (high in aromatics, excellent high-octane gasoline precursor, no resid) we want from domestic high-volatile bituminous coal using 2-stage hydroliquefaction as performed @ wilsonville AL during 1982-85. the program was cancelled by r.reagan on orders from the houston oil millionaires who did not want competition from synthetics. cost estimate was 38.00/bbl.
> jack

I heard that California off-coast oil can start flowing in 1 year, because the water is shallow and has already been explored. Barrack Obama said that it would take 10 years, but then said 7 years in an ad. As you've guessed, I doubt the 10 year figure. Besides, we'll need it worse in 10 years.
I heard that we use 87 million barrels/day (mbd) but only produce 85. If we get 1 or 2 mbd from Alaska and maybe 5 from off the coast, that would seem like more than enough. Of course, in a few years demand will be higher, so that may only slow the price increase. Also, I think all the rigs are in use, so some would be relocated. If they move from an area that would yield 2 mbd to an area that would yield 3 mbd, we'd only net 1 mbd, which is still good. It would come from America and not Iran, which would be another big benefit.
I'm sure the commuter train you took was heavily government subsidized. I heard that what we aought to do is make sure commuter rail sdoesn't interfere with freight. Freight rail will get trucks off the road, helping congestion and maybe also energy.
We should find out the total energy costs of alternatives. It takes a lot of fossel fuel to dig out copper ore, ship it, and use it to build wind generators (or motors and generators in hybrid cars). Also to built and run back-up fossel fuel generatorts for when the wind doesn't blow. Wind generators are heavily government subsidized. Wind generators may use more energy tro build than they save.

After Katrina, etc wrecked a lot of oil wells, etc, President Bush dropped the reformulated gas mandates for a few weeks to bring the price of gas down. In the summer, many places require unique blends of reformulated gas to improve air quality. It requires more expensive refining, especially with the dozens of separate blends. I heard a few years ago that the improvement in air quality was was minmal, so maybe dropping the requirement will help prices today with little downside. I also heard that the US imports a lot of gasolene, because we don't have enough refineries.
I also heard that hundreds of gulf rigs are still out of commission, at least partly because the companies need government permission to repair them. If this is true, getting them permission should be a top priority. Fixing a rig has got to be faster and cheaper than drilling a new well.