OPEC still sings same tune - David Lazarus, SF Chronicle

[Coastie for Truth]

And now a brief word on oil prices from our friends at OPEC:

They're fine right where they are, thank you very much.

In fact, we think we're providing you more than enough oil, so we're not going to increase production even though the United States, the world's largest oil consumer, is entering its peak driving season.

"We believe there is 2 million barrels per day of overproduction in the market," the president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Sheikh Ahmed Fahd al-Sabah of Kuwait, was quoted as saying this week.

Added Iran's oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zangeneh: "The market situation is good."

In reality, said David Goodstein, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology and author of "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil," we're nowhere near a good market situation.

"There's very little excess capacity," he said. "Everyone is pretty much maxed out in terms of production."

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A lot more - follow the link -->

Lazarus has written about peak oil. "Peak Oil" is the inevitable moment when global oil production hits its peak and, from that point on, reserves are on an ever- dwindling downward spiral.

To paraphrase the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen (R-Illinois) "What this means to the framer in dollars and cents..." is that prices will push higher and higher in the face of surging demand. Lazarus, drawing on an earlier inreview and column about Prof David Goodstein, says that this in turn will have a catastrophic impact on oil-addicted economies worldwide and, according to some prognosticators, will lead to wars over remaining supplies.

Notwithstanding what Lazarus calls "...OPEC's persistent and almost laughable declarations that the planet is burdened with a glut of oil,..." Lazarus say that many analysts say we'll reach peak oil at some point during the next decade (if we haven't already).

As we approach, hit, and pass "peak oil" oil prices -- and, in turn, the price of virtually everything else -- will continue to rise until world economies hit the breaking point.

Lazarus reports that Goodstein says that OPEC keeps going out of its way to create an illusion of excess capacity as a means of deterring investment in alternative energy sources. (This is exactly what Ovshinsky and Lovins and Deffeyes have been saying...)

Goodstein is quoted as saying "If they can keep people believing they can flood the market with cheap oil anytime they want, no one will pursue alternatives, ... But it's just a myth. Supplies are very tight."

It's a good read, by a business/economics columnist, in the MSM. (Okay - California, but still MSM)

[carnie_sf]

1. Maybe

we'll finally do something about alternative energy.