It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Republican lawmaker Mike Beard feels fine.
Exxon basically heralded the arrival of “peak oil” at its annual fiscal report on Tuesday, saying it can no longer find as much new oil in the ground as it refines above ground. The very same week, Minnesota Republican lawmaker Mike Beard insists that we should burn fossil fuels freely, because God will provide infinite natural resources, forever.
Announcing their annual fiscal report, Exxon revealed that for every 100 barrels of oil it pumps above ground, it can now only find 95 to replenish the supply below ground. The Wall Street Journal writes, “It’s a conundrum shared by most of the other large Western oil-producing companies, which are finding most accessible oil fields were tapped long ago, while promising new regions are proving technologically and politically challenging.”
This, essentially, is “peak oil”—the hypothetical tipping point long feared by scientists and energy realists when the world’s finite oil supplies are depleted to the point where oil companies have to start working harder and harder for diminishing returns. Diminishing supply at higher cost, paired with ever-growing global demand, creates a massive, irreversible energy crisis. Hence, all the talk about “renewable energy” alternatives.
But one man who’s not buying it is Republican Minnesota state rep Mike Beard. “We are not going to run out of anything,” Beard recently said, arguing to resume coal mining in Minnesota. “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable.”
The news comes on the heels of last week’s Wikileaks cable detailing how the ex-president of Saudi Arabia’s oil monopoly—the single biggest oil producer in the world—told the U.S. Saudi Arabia had overstated its oil reserve supply by as much as 40%, and predicted “peak oil” would come as soon as 2012.
Part of the “peak oil” energy crisis scenario is that energy companies will scramble to cull other natural resources like gas to make up for the dwindling oil supply, but that these efforts won’t stave off crisis-making price shocks, since other resources simply aren’t as cost-efficient. As the WSJ writes, “The shift toward gas is troubling some investors, because gas sells for less than the equivalent amount of oil.”
And there is no doubt—the shift from oil and toward gas has started. “Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s chief executive said last month the European company will produce more gas than oil next year for the first time in its 104-year history,” says the Journal.
Yesterday Bernie Madoff insisted the banks knew about his fraud, but exhibited “willful blindness” in order to keep doing business with him. Rep. Mike Beard told MinnPost “It is the height of hubris to think we could [destroy the earth].” In light of the real, hard evidence from oil companies like Exxon who say the earth is running out of easy-access oil, to insist that “we are not going to run out of anything” is the height of “willful blindness.”
If the crisis the financial industry invoked through it’s “willful blindness” is any indication, we should all be extremely concerned about the blindness of lawmakers like Beard. Damage to the environment, unlike financial markets, is relatively irreversible, and can’t be manipulated for a quick fix when crisis hits. When the shit hits the fan, it’s going to stick.
February 17, 2011 at 5:56 pm, Peace said:
Now exxon finally admits to peak oil. Even that doesn’t penetrate the stuck in denial GOD fanatics. We need a new definition for what society calls madness!
February 17, 2011 at 7:20 pm, Soonergriff said:
What’s left out of this article are the words “where we have so far been allowed to drill”. You came close with your ‘easy-access oil’ line, but then I wouldn’t expect journalistic integrity from someone who writes for Death & Taxes.
February 18, 2011 at 3:10 pm, brill333 said:
Allowed to drill? How about possible to drill. Do you understand that once the amount of energy required to extract equals the amount of energy realized by that extraction it becomes pointless to continue?
February 22, 2011 at 8:08 am, Anonymous said:
Oh, be nice. He’s just saying “More will magically appear when it’s most convenient for humankind.”
February 17, 2011 at 5:56 pm, Peace said:
Now exxon finally admits to peak oil. Even that doesn’t penetrate the stuck in denial GOD fanatics. We need a new definition for what society calls madness!
February 18, 2011 at 7:02 am, Martin Hanson said:
Just one small point. “Fiscal” refers to public finances. The correct term in the first sentence should be ‘financial’. Most journalists don’t know the difference.
February 18, 2011 at 8:00 am, john charles webb jr. said:
news
Exxon Says Oil Is Running Out, GOP Lawmaker Says God Won’t Allow It ;
tHAT IS WHY WE ARE INVADING THE MIDDLE-EAST :
CLUE:
ALLAH WILL ALLOW IT : RUNNING OUT OF OIL
WE NAMED A CAR AFTER “CHRIST” – CHRYSLER !
AND NOW WE ARE FUCKED !
February 18, 2011 at 1:51 pm, Takashi Higashiyama said:
日本では報道されていません。
October 06, 2011 at 7:49 pm, Uncle B said:
Can U.S. pay fairly for oil?
“In addition to an existing nearly
US$10 trillion of outstanding Treasury Debt, the U.S. has a
near-unfathomable US$66 trillion of future liabilities,” noted
PIMCO boss Bill Gross in his August investment outlook, urging
investors to consider how the American government would be able to
service its obligations. “One rather clever way for the US to
pay its bills to foreign creditors is to pay them in depreciated
dollars.”
Canada’s Tar Sands:
Alberta’s
Tar Sands: Plan “B” already in place! Google Alberta’s
politicians carefully now! They already have published plans to put
Safe, plutonium free, benign waste product, Chinese Thorium fueled
LFTR reactors on the Tar Sands, to provide clean, “CO2 free”
heat for a much more environmentally friendly, Chinese/Canadian money
backed, “Steam Extraction” of the oil there, which barely
disturbs the top-soil! This methodology has already been tested,
proven effective too! Currently, under obligation from the “Great
American Corporate and Capitalist Propaganda Whore’s”
ridiculous, unsustainable “American Dream” and her “Sales
pitch bull Shiite”, huge amounts of Canadian Natural Gas is
burned off in the out-dated American devised technologies for oil
recovery there, land is dug up, washed, and put out in great
contaminated tailing ponds, and leaks out to surrounding rivers,
streams, swamps, and destroys even them, and the indigenous Canadians
we intend to protect!(That’s ‘Us’ !)
Canadian/Chinese
proposal includes Churchill Manitoba as a huge new Northern
Super-Port, oil, and natural gas pipe lined there, coal. iron ore by
train, shipped through the North West Passage, with assistance from
existing Russian nuclear ice-breakers, Russian, Finnish and Swedish
mariners with experience in Northern waters already, doing the job,
The Ontario Northern Railway reinforced, revived, to bring products,
goods, from Ontario’s Golden Horse-shoe region to Churchill for
export, China wishes to liquify Canadian Natural Gas, ship it in
their existing vessels to Asian markets, larger, richer Asian
populations. Even suggested are shipments of Canadian Iron Ore, Coal,
minerals, metals, grains, flax, hemp, even well educated medical,
engineering, sciences, mathematics, students can migrate. Canadian
schools, and a concerted Canadian effort to read and write in yet
another language, Mandarin, an easy task in a multi-Lingual Canada!
We await the establishment of another West Edmonton styled Mall,
another Canadian adaptation to our rich and prosperous Socialist
Democracy our truly Northern country! The “Official Opposition”
in our parliament today, The NDP Socialists would agree, and will
probably win a majority in the next Canadian election! Fed’s in U.S. plan yet another fiat, “Funny money” printing spree! Q3 ‘easing’, to rob even the savings of widows and orphans of their savings. no more “Hard-Ball” with the Yanks, Harper! Show them “Hockey Night in Canada! or step down.
October 06, 2011 at 7:49 pm, Uncle B said:
Can U.S. pay fairly for oil?
“In addition to an existing nearly
US$10 trillion of outstanding Treasury Debt, the U.S. has a
near-unfathomable US$66 trillion of future liabilities,” noted
PIMCO boss Bill Gross in his August investment outlook, urging
investors to consider how the American government would be able to
service its obligations. “One rather clever way for the US to
pay its bills to foreign creditors is to pay them in depreciated
dollars.”
Canada’s Tar Sands:
Alberta’s
Tar Sands: Plan “B” already in place! Google Alberta’s
politicians carefully now! They already have published plans to put
Safe, plutonium free, benign waste product, Chinese Thorium fueled
LFTR reactors on the Tar Sands, to provide clean, “CO2 free”
heat for a much more environmentally friendly, Chinese/Canadian money
backed, “Steam Extraction” of the oil there, which barely
disturbs the top-soil! This methodology has already been tested,
proven effective too! Currently, under obligation from the “Great
American Corporate and Capitalist Propaganda Whore’s”
ridiculous, unsustainable “American Dream” and her “Sales
pitch bull Shiite”, huge amounts of Canadian Natural Gas is
burned off in the out-dated American devised technologies for oil
recovery there, land is dug up, washed, and put out in great
contaminated tailing ponds, and leaks out to surrounding rivers,
streams, swamps, and destroys even them, and the indigenous Canadians
we intend to protect!(That’s ‘Us’ !)
Canadian/Chinese
proposal includes Churchill Manitoba as a huge new Northern
Super-Port, oil, and natural gas pipe lined there, coal. iron ore by
train, shipped through the North West Passage, with assistance from
existing Russian nuclear ice-breakers, Russian, Finnish and Swedish
mariners with experience in Northern waters already, doing the job,
The Ontario Northern Railway reinforced, revived, to bring products,
goods, from Ontario’s Golden Horse-shoe region to Churchill for
export, China wishes to liquify Canadian Natural Gas, ship it in
their existing vessels to Asian markets, larger, richer Asian
populations. Even suggested are shipments of Canadian Iron Ore, Coal,
minerals, metals, grains, flax, hemp, even well educated medical,
engineering, sciences, mathematics, students can migrate. Canadian
schools, and a concerted Canadian effort to read and write in yet
another language, Mandarin, an easy task in a multi-Lingual Canada!
We await the establishment of another West Edmonton styled Mall,
another Canadian adaptation to our rich and prosperous Socialist
Democracy our truly Northern country! The “Official Opposition”
in our parliament today, The NDP Socialists would agree, and will
probably win a majority in the next Canadian election! Fed’s in U.S. plan yet another fiat, “Funny money” printing spree! Q3 ‘easing’, to rob even the savings of widows and orphans of their savings. no more “Hard-Ball” with the Yanks, Harper! Show them “Hockey Night in Canada! or step down.
October 06, 2011 at 7:49 pm, Uncle B said:
Can U.S. pay fairly for oil?
“In addition to an existing nearly
US$10 trillion of outstanding Treasury Debt, the U.S. has a
near-unfathomable US$66 trillion of future liabilities,” noted
PIMCO boss Bill Gross in his August investment outlook, urging
investors to consider how the American government would be able to
service its obligations. “One rather clever way for the US to
pay its bills to foreign creditors is to pay them in depreciated
dollars.”
Canada’s Tar Sands:
Alberta’s
Tar Sands: Plan “B” already in place! Google Alberta’s
politicians carefully now! They already have published plans to put
Safe, plutonium free, benign waste product, Chinese Thorium fueled
LFTR reactors on the Tar Sands, to provide clean, “CO2 free”
heat for a much more environmentally friendly, Chinese/Canadian money
backed, “Steam Extraction” of the oil there, which barely
disturbs the top-soil! This methodology has already been tested,
proven effective too! Currently, under obligation from the “Great
American Corporate and Capitalist Propaganda Whore’s”
ridiculous, unsustainable “American Dream” and her “Sales
pitch bull Shiite”, huge amounts of Canadian Natural Gas is
burned off in the out-dated American devised technologies for oil
recovery there, land is dug up, washed, and put out in great
contaminated tailing ponds, and leaks out to surrounding rivers,
streams, swamps, and destroys even them, and the indigenous Canadians
we intend to protect!(That’s ‘Us’ !)
Canadian/Chinese
proposal includes Churchill Manitoba as a huge new Northern
Super-Port, oil, and natural gas pipe lined there, coal. iron ore by
train, shipped through the North West Passage, with assistance from
existing Russian nuclear ice-breakers, Russian, Finnish and Swedish
mariners with experience in Northern waters already, doing the job,
The Ontario Northern Railway reinforced, revived, to bring products,
goods, from Ontario’s Golden Horse-shoe region to Churchill for
export, China wishes to liquify Canadian Natural Gas, ship it in
their existing vessels to Asian markets, larger, richer Asian
populations. Even suggested are shipments of Canadian Iron Ore, Coal,
minerals, metals, grains, flax, hemp, even well educated medical,
engineering, sciences, mathematics, students can migrate. Canadian
schools, and a concerted Canadian effort to read and write in yet
another language, Mandarin, an easy task in a multi-Lingual Canada!
We await the establishment of another West Edmonton styled Mall,
another Canadian adaptation to our rich and prosperous Socialist
Democracy our truly Northern country! The “Official Opposition”
in our parliament today, The NDP Socialists would agree, and will
probably win a majority in the next Canadian election! Fed’s in U.S. plan yet another fiat, “Funny money” printing spree! Q3 ‘easing’, to rob even the savings of widows and orphans of their savings. no more “Hard-Ball” with the Yanks, Harper! Show them “Hockey Night in Canada! or step down.
October 06, 2011 at 7:49 pm, Uncle B said:
Can U.S. pay fairly for oil?
“In addition to an existing nearly
US$10 trillion of outstanding Treasury Debt, the U.S. has a
near-unfathomable US$66 trillion of future liabilities,” noted
PIMCO boss Bill Gross in his August investment outlook, urging
investors to consider how the American government would be able to
service its obligations. “One rather clever way for the US to
pay its bills to foreign creditors is to pay them in depreciated
dollars.”
Canada’s Tar Sands:
Alberta’s
Tar Sands: Plan “B” already in place! Google Alberta’s
politicians carefully now! They already have published plans to put
Safe, plutonium free, benign waste product, Chinese Thorium fueled
LFTR reactors on the Tar Sands, to provide clean, “CO2 free”
heat for a much more environmentally friendly, Chinese/Canadian money
backed, “Steam Extraction” of the oil there, which barely
disturbs the top-soil! This methodology has already been tested,
proven effective too! Currently, under obligation from the “Great
American Corporate and Capitalist Propaganda Whore’s”
ridiculous, unsustainable “American Dream” and her “Sales
pitch bull Shiite”, huge amounts of Canadian Natural Gas is
burned off in the out-dated American devised technologies for oil
recovery there, land is dug up, washed, and put out in great
contaminated tailing ponds, and leaks out to surrounding rivers,
streams, swamps, and destroys even them, and the indigenous Canadians
we intend to protect!(That’s ‘Us’ !)
Canadian/Chinese
proposal includes Churchill Manitoba as a huge new Northern
Super-Port, oil, and natural gas pipe lined there, coal. iron ore by
train, shipped through the North West Passage, with assistance from
existing Russian nuclear ice-breakers, Russian, Finnish and Swedish
mariners with experience in Northern waters already, doing the job,
The Ontario Northern Railway reinforced, revived, to bring products,
goods, from Ontario’s Golden Horse-shoe region to Churchill for
export, China wishes to liquify Canadian Natural Gas, ship it in
their existing vessels to Asian markets, larger, richer Asian
populations. Even suggested are shipments of Canadian Iron Ore, Coal,
minerals, metals, grains, flax, hemp, even well educated medical,
engineering, sciences, mathematics, students can migrate. Canadian
schools, and a concerted Canadian effort to read and write in yet
another language, Mandarin, an easy task in a multi-Lingual Canada!
We await the establishment of another West Edmonton styled Mall,
another Canadian adaptation to our rich and prosperous Socialist
Democracy our truly Northern country! The “Official Opposition”
in our parliament today, The NDP Socialists would agree, and will
probably win a majority in the next Canadian election! Fed’s in U.S. plan yet another fiat, “Funny money” printing spree! Q3 ‘easing’, to rob even the savings of widows and orphans of their savings. no more “Hard-Ball” with the Yanks, Harper! Show them “Hockey Night in Canada! or step down.
October 06, 2011 at 7:49 pm, Uncle B said:
Can U.S. pay fairly for oil?
“In addition to an existing nearly
US$10 trillion of outstanding Treasury Debt, the U.S. has a
near-unfathomable US$66 trillion of future liabilities,” noted
PIMCO boss Bill Gross in his August investment outlook, urging
investors to consider how the American government would be able to
service its obligations. “One rather clever way for the US to
pay its bills to foreign creditors is to pay them in depreciated
dollars.”
Canada’s Tar Sands:
Alberta’s
Tar Sands: Plan “B” already in place! Google Alberta’s
politicians carefully now! They already have published plans to put
Safe, plutonium free, benign waste product, Chinese Thorium fueled
LFTR reactors on the Tar Sands, to provide clean, “CO2 free”
heat for a much more environmentally friendly, Chinese/Canadian money
backed, “Steam Extraction” of the oil there, which barely
disturbs the top-soil! This methodology has already been tested,
proven effective too! Currently, under obligation from the “Great
American Corporate and Capitalist Propaganda Whore’s”
ridiculous, unsustainable “American Dream” and her “Sales
pitch bull Shiite”, huge amounts of Canadian Natural Gas is
burned off in the out-dated American devised technologies for oil
recovery there, land is dug up, washed, and put out in great
contaminated tailing ponds, and leaks out to surrounding rivers,
streams, swamps, and destroys even them, and the indigenous Canadians
we intend to protect!(That’s ‘Us’ !)
Canadian/Chinese
proposal includes Churchill Manitoba as a huge new Northern
Super-Port, oil, and natural gas pipe lined there, coal. iron ore by
train, shipped through the North West Passage, with assistance from
existing Russian nuclear ice-breakers, Russian, Finnish and Swedish
mariners with experience in Northern waters already, doing the job,
The Ontario Northern Railway reinforced, revived, to bring products,
goods, from Ontario’s Golden Horse-shoe region to Churchill for
export, China wishes to liquify Canadian Natural Gas, ship it in
their existing vessels to Asian markets, larger, richer Asian
populations. Even suggested are shipments of Canadian Iron Ore, Coal,
minerals, metals, grains, flax, hemp, even well educated medical,
engineering, sciences, mathematics, students can migrate. Canadian
schools, and a concerted Canadian effort to read and write in yet
another language, Mandarin, an easy task in a multi-Lingual Canada!
We await the establishment of another West Edmonton styled Mall,
another Canadian adaptation to our rich and prosperous Socialist
Democracy our truly Northern country! The “Official Opposition”
in our parliament today, The NDP Socialists would agree, and will
probably win a majority in the next Canadian election! Fed’s in U.S. plan yet another fiat, “Funny money” printing spree! Q3 ‘easing’, to rob even the savings of widows and orphans of their savings. no more “Hard-Ball” with the Yanks, Harper! Show them “Hockey Night in Canada! or step down.
October 06, 2011 at 7:49 pm, Uncle B said:
Can U.S. pay fairly for oil?
“In addition to an existing nearly
US$10 trillion of outstanding Treasury Debt, the U.S. has a
near-unfathomable US$66 trillion of future liabilities,” noted
PIMCO boss Bill Gross in his August investment outlook, urging
investors to consider how the American government would be able to
service its obligations. “One rather clever way for the US to
pay its bills to foreign creditors is to pay them in depreciated
dollars.”
Canada’s Tar Sands:
Alberta’s
Tar Sands: Plan “B” already in place! Google Alberta’s
politicians carefully now! They already have published plans to put
Safe, plutonium free, benign waste product, Chinese Thorium fueled
LFTR reactors on the Tar Sands, to provide clean, “CO2 free”
heat for a much more environmentally friendly, Chinese/Canadian money
backed, “Steam Extraction” of the oil there, which barely
disturbs the top-soil! This methodology has already been tested,
proven effective too! Currently, under obligation from the “Great
American Corporate and Capitalist Propaganda Whore’s”
ridiculous, unsustainable “American Dream” and her “Sales
pitch bull Shiite”, huge amounts of Canadian Natural Gas is
burned off in the out-dated American devised technologies for oil
recovery there, land is dug up, washed, and put out in great
contaminated tailing ponds, and leaks out to surrounding rivers,
streams, swamps, and destroys even them, and the indigenous Canadians
we intend to protect!(That’s ‘Us’ !)
Canadian/Chinese
proposal includes Churchill Manitoba as a huge new Northern
Super-Port, oil, and natural gas pipe lined there, coal. iron ore by
train, shipped through the North West Passage, with assistance from
existing Russian nuclear ice-breakers, Russian, Finnish and Swedish
mariners with experience in Northern waters already, doing the job,
The Ontario Northern Railway reinforced, revived, to bring products,
goods, from Ontario’s Golden Horse-shoe region to Churchill for
export, China wishes to liquify Canadian Natural Gas, ship it in
their existing vessels to Asian markets, larger, richer Asian
populations. Even suggested are shipments of Canadian Iron Ore, Coal,
minerals, metals, grains, flax, hemp, even well educated medical,
engineering, sciences, mathematics, students can migrate. Canadian
schools, and a concerted Canadian effort to read and write in yet
another language, Mandarin, an easy task in a multi-Lingual Canada!
We await the establishment of another West Edmonton styled Mall,
another Canadian adaptation to our rich and prosperous Socialist
Democracy our truly Northern country! The “Official Opposition”
in our parliament today, The NDP Socialists would agree, and will
probably win a majority in the next Canadian election! Fed’s in U.S. plan yet another fiat, “Funny money” printing spree! Q3 ‘easing’, to rob even the savings of widows and orphans of their savings. no more “Hard-Ball” with the Yanks, Harper! Show them “Hockey Night in Canada! or step down.