Your Comments

I've got it, and as a barrel of oil rose to $140 today, you have to be pretty thick not to.
Or you could delude yourself into thinking it's 'speculators' 'the government' or those 'oil companies' or 'OPEC' or some other simplistic nonsense.
It's about flow rates. Conventional economics are out of the window.

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There more to life then worry about petrol price be £1.50 a litre by end of summer as at a record high of $139 a barrel things will only get worse.

car sharing - good idea if you can't take the bus, train or bike.

post #7,
"...My job is in the out skirts of town..." oil prices going up think about how much you would pay for petrol, £2/litre, £3/litre, £4/litre... no one to share with.

Sorry mate but your current solitary commute to work is ending. It might not be this week or even this year but it will be soon.

i would recommend you either move closer to your job if you like it and think you will be there for a while or look for another job closer to your home or on a transport route.

Denying Peak Oil + any of the following (denial, anger, bargaining, depression) = no real solution either.

Actually after asking almost everyone at work I found one chap who is willing to do car sharing that means I will be able save save save. I will drive him for two weeks and he will drive me the other two weeks in a month. We both pay for our own fuel so no money exchanges hands, just brilliant.

I am well pleased with this idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.

Now I will enjoy more driving on weekends, as I will be able to afford more.

Guys are you going to argue Peak Oil for every post? We are talking about car sharing are we not?

I think the solution = Useful contributions to each (specific) topic - never ending Peak Oil discussion.

Less Peak Oil the better the solution.

Tonyw if become unemployed then I will be on benefits, imagine if 10 million more would be on the same boat there will be less money available for research.
Perhaps if I would become your househusband, you work and I spend we would be a winning green team lol.

Tonyw said, " If you get unemployed then you're probably not attractive enough to be my "househusband" since on average there will be 7.5 million more attractive than you anyway (half female, half of the remaining males:-) Since I'm a nice guy and you have given me a few laughs I might let you come and work on my farm and in exchange you can sleep in the barn and I'll give you some food."

LOL. At least I am sorted when the oil runs out. All I have to do is convince Tonyw to marry me lol.

Ok ok tonyw tell you what I will cut my weekend driving to planed trips and necessary journeys.

Peak an Greg an Tonyw ya alllllllllllllll gotta lern ta relacs mon. Allllllllllll dis tork abowt de wurld runin owt a oil is givin us alllllllllll a big hedake. dere is plenti oil alllllllllllllllll ova de wurld an we aint gonna put up wid alllllllllllll of de udda contris takin it awa from us yanowadimin. wat wid nuclea an cole an gas an alllllllllll of de udda invenshuns dat is cumin anyday now we allllllllll gonna be alritee. if we hadda problim de govurnmen an de car companees wud av told us allllllllllll be now. dey keep makin de cars an we ceep byin dem. so were is de problim. me wive an ciddies r goin on de holidaas ani day now an we be usin a lotta petroll. stop scarin me mon abowt de prise of petrol. meesta brown ceep takin de taxss dat is de problim. we alllllllllllllll gotta avago at the govurnmen about allllllllllll of de taxss goin on de fuell an ciggis an everiting. yanowadamin. anyhoy jus relacs a bit an lern ta enjoi ya live mon. chil out mon. das allllllllllllllllll for todai.

The answer is obvious - just slow down. Drive at 50mph instead of 70mph - save money (you'll get there just the same). Drive at 20mph instead of 30mph - be safer.

No speeding tickets, less stress, save money, same car, same freedom - why has no-one ever said "Just slow down!!!!"

I've been lift sharing for 8 years now & have seen my fuel bills fall dramatically, even more so now i've closer to my place of work & changed to a diesel. I estimate my annual mileage has reduced by about 4,000mls per year - a big saving.
The price of diesel is 11% higher than petrol, another 9% and i'll consider moving back to a petrol vehicle next time.

I remember seeing a tv prog last year which said that fuel demand would outstrip supply between 2014 & 2020, this is just the beggining!

Here's an idea, we keep hearing aboutswitching to Public Transport, well I live ina middle sized town in the midlands, work different shifts and If I relied on the buses I'd never get home.

However I am happy to pick a day where everyone that travels to work by car decides to use public transport, if done across the country we would bring all networks to a stand still.

We might all get into trouble for not getting to work but Oh well we won't be able to afford to get there soon anyway!

The G8 tried to "solve" the problem by encouraging OPEC to increase productivity .OPECs response to the west was there is enough fuel in the market. It beginning to look more and more like this is all a stunt to maximise investments.

Well that's just my humble opinion.

I was wondering, what does OPEC got to lose if they announce that they cant increase production.

Just dont see them losing money as a result.

Hmm, I think its best to save the "savings" for the future as fuel becomes more and more expensive.

The Independent - Thursday, 12th June 2008

For generations, we've taken it for granted. But as prices soar and reserves dwindle, the time is fast approaching when mankind will have to live without oil. Are we ready to confront some really inconvenient truths? Michael Savage reports from the North Sea

Aberdeen heliport is heaving. Dozens of rig men are waiting to board helicopters and begin a two-week stint in the middle of the North Sea. It appears that business out on the rigs, known simply as "the job" in these parts, is booming. Eventually, it's our turn to board a cramped chopper, shoulder to shoulder with the solidly built workers who sit silently, psyching themselves up for a fortnight surrounded by cold, crashing waves.

Two hours later, we land at a rusting rig named Alwyn, 440 kilometres off the coast of Aberdeen. Ollie Bradshaw, the rig's burly production supervisor, meets the new arrivals.

"What's life like offshore? Busy. Very busy," he says. He's not joking. As we traipse around the rig's two platforms, perched 200 feet above the (thankfully) calm waters of the North Sea, we navigate between the numerous piles of scaffolding, timber and new equipment that take up almost every last square inch of space. The on-board population has swollen to 250 people lately. In some cases, three men are having to share a room, while new digs are built next to the rig's busy helipad, where several flights land and take off each day, delivering a conveyer belt of fresh workers - from painters and decorators to extra scaffolders and, of course, the men whose expertise lies in harvesting fossil fuels from beneath the sea bed.

Even in the common room, no one is standing idle - not around the television, nor the snooker table. The on-board gym is empty. In the canteen, a few men grab bacon rolls before heading off to start their 4pm shift. Those on an earlier shift have just had their lunch - there's been a run on lemon tart. Yet the hive of activity that Alwyn has become of late is not down to all the oil it is producing. Far from it.

"Alwyn started out as an oil well and platform more than two decades ago. As oil production has fallen, it has been adapted and changed," says Bradshaw, a man who seems devoted to his life here in the middle of nowhere. The rig's expanding team is having to work harder than ever to keep it going. A vast network of underground pipes has linked it to new pockets of oil and gas - some of the neighbouring platforms seem like they are just touching distance away. New techniques have been used to boost the quality of the last dregs of oil coming out of the ground. Empty reservoirs are being drained of natural gas. Now, a major discovery of a field of natural gas has meant that, after 21 years of work, Alwyn's creaking infrastructure is being given a facelift to keep going for another 20 years. But it will also mean its conversion from the oil platform it once was will be complete.

The end of Alwyn's oil well days is a familiar story in the North Sea. The rig men may be working as hard as ever, but UK oil production has been falling rapidly ever since 1999. In the past, that hasn't been such a problem - other producers around the world have always been able to produce more of the black stuff to keep the wheels of world industry lubricated. But according to some, that may be about to change. Oil prices are so high - $137 a barrel - and predicted by Alexey Miller, head of Gazprom, the Russian state energy giant, to rise as high as $250 a barrel - that social tensions have begun to emerge, while the world's leaders have been going cap in hand to oil producers, asking them to squeeze a few more barrels out of their wells. And as prices have kept on breaking records, an ever-growing worry looms in the background, the elephant in the room of the oil price rise: what if they can't produce any more? What if, this time, the oil taps really are running dry?

Worryingly, for a world reliant on the dirt-cheap energy that oil provided throughout the last century, the idea that oil production in all nations may soon start to decline just as in the North Sea has been seeping into the mainstream. The "peak oil" theory - that oil production has reached its maximum and will soon begin its decline, bringing potentially catastrophic consequences to the modern world - no longer just comes from internet crackpots and conspiracy theorists; now geologists, market analysts and oil prospectors believe that this scenario is becoming reality. And within the past year, there have been signs that the major oil companies are admitting this themselves. If they are right, high petrol prices could be the least of the world's problems.

The idea is simple enough. Those warning against an imminent peak oil crisis - the "peakists" - say that while the world will not totally run out of oil, all of the oil that is easy to reach has been all but used up, meaning that producing enough oil to meet the growing world demand is becoming an ever harder task. Worse, we now stand at the high water mark of oil production. That means that not only will we never be able to produce much more oil than the 87 million barrels a day we now consume, but world oil production will actually begin to fall very soon, causing not only ever higher prices, but also creating the prospect of shortages, industrial upheaval, battles over ever-depleting resources, and even an end to the modern world built upon the assumption of a plentiful supply of cheap oil.

"A lot of people keep talking about 'this peak oil theory' - but there's nothing theoretical about it. It's just a very obvious fact of nature," says Colin Campbell, a geologist who searched for oil on behalf of several oil companies, and is the high priest of the peakists. "Oil is formed in the geological past. That means it's a finite resource. That means production begins and ends, and passes a peak in between. So the fact that there is a peak is beyond dispute. We've had the first half of the age of oil, which has changed the world in every conceivable way. We now face a decline."

Campbell is in no doubt that the world's oil production is as high as it is ever going to get. "The result of the latest update I made using industry data was that the regular, conventional oil peaked in 2005 and if you put all the other types in - the heavy oils, the gas liquids, the Arctic oil, the deep water projects - I have it this year," he says, in a softly spoken, matter-of-fact tone. "That's not cast in stone. It could slip a year or two. But I'm absolutely confident that it's in the right area."

Whereas Campbell's fears once branded him a wacky radical, as the years have gone by he has been joined by a growing band of industry experts who have reached a similarly grim conclusion. One of those was an American investment banker examining "flow rates" - the speed at which oil was being taken out of the ground. After being asked to advise Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush on energy policy during the 2000 election campaign, Matthew Simmons found that more and more oil fields had begun to decline. That was because, though new technology was helping to extract oil faster than ever before, it was also causing the fields to run dry more quickly, too. "All of a sudden there were fields that were declining by as much as 30 per cent per year," he says. "But I didn't call it 'peak oil' - I didn't even know what that was back then."

Simmons came across peak oil in 2002, when he attended the first meeting of a new group founded by Colin Campbell. Only around 45 people showed up to the first meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (Aspo), but since then, its findings have convinced a lot more people around the world. Aspo now has branches in 36 countries, with Kuwait the latest wanting to found one. And some serious analysts have also made the mental journey from dissenters to peak-oil prophets.

"I've been on that journey," says Chris Skrebowski, who spent half his career in the oil industry and now edits the UK oil industry's publication of record, Petroleum Review. He admits to having been dismissive of the idea that the world's wells were running dry. It was a visit from Campbell in 1996 that made him change his mind. "I didn't quite believe him, but I didn't think he was the average nutter," he says. Skrebowski began to take a look at the issue himself. The numbers told a clear story. "You can just about struggle through to 2011, if everything goes to plan - which, of course, it won't - but after that, the numbers don't add up. And that's taking a reasonably conservative rate of decline. If you wind it up to a 5 or 6 per cent annual decline, then you are at this peak or plateau now."

One man who believes that could be the real rate of decline is the archetypal US oilman, T Boone Pickens, otherwise known as the "Oracle of Oil". Having made a fortune in the oil industry, Pickens now invests heavily in the oil alternatives he believes will be necessary to fill the gap left by falling oil production.

From the window of helicopter, flying above the uninviting waves of the North Sea, it seems hard to believe that the world could really be running low on easy oil. Dozens of rigs pepper the vast expanse of water, their burning flares making them look like floating candles. Spiralling wisps of smoke fill the North Sea sky - a reminder that there is still oil churning around. Despite the pedigree of the peakists, it's hard not to think we've heard it all before, that it's just the usual doomsayers predicting that the oilfields would run out, and that more will be found somewhere. But for the peakists, the North Sea is a great case study. Its rapid decline has come despite all the advantages the modern world could throw at it.

"The North Sea has the benefit of all the investment anybody could need," says Campbell. "It's got the most modern technology, and it's got a political environment that's stable. There's no reason why it would be producing less oil than is possible, yet it has been declining at a rate of 7 per cent a year." Perhaps even more worryingly, the last year has seen major oil companies begin to make more noises about potential problems ahead. Foremost among them has been head of the French oil company Total, Christophe de Margerie, who has declared that world production will never exceed 100 billion barrels a day, a level of demand expected in less than a decade. "The oil companies are changing their tune," says Campbell. "They can't quite say 'peak' in so many words. They don't want to rock the boat."

Back on dry land, in a seafood restaurant in Aberdeen, a senior oil executive talks freely about a future. "We can try to slow the decline, but we will never stop it," he says casually, over a plate of scallops. "All we can do is get as much oil out of the ground as possible." Meanwhile, Colin Campbell is flirting with official approval. He is already advising a Norwegian oil firm, and has recently been invited to give informal presentations to executives from two of the world's biggest oil companies. A clear momentum has been built up around peak oil fears. For Simmons, it is the peak oil deniers that are now the ones sounding shrill. "I daily read these shrill sounding experts who still believe that oil should be at $40 a barrel," he says. "It's just unbelievable. It's still cheap."

Not everyone is convinced by the peak oil theory, though. This week, The Independent reported that, according to Richard Pike, a former oil industry man, now chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, there is more than twice as much oil in the ground than producers claim. But the most notable peak oil refusnik is the International Energy Agency (IEA), the oil supply watchdog set up by the world's richest nations. It has said that not only is the world not running out of oil, but that production will continue to match the 135 million barrels a day that is forecast to be needed by 2050. It says that while conventional sources of oil may only provide around 92 million barrels a day of that, investment in Saudi Arabia's fields and the growth of new sources of oil will provide the rest.

To the peakists, these standard oil industry ripostes are starting to wear a little thin, and have been damaged by the crashing and burning of some great white hopes. Not a single barrel of commercially viable shale oil, made from oil-rich sedimentary rock, has yet been produced. Oil made from tar sands found in northern Canada is near the top of the list of innovative sources of oil, but even the oil companies themselves admit that the amount of energy currently needed to produce a single barrel of it makes it very inefficient. And while drilling into ever-deeper waters might keep world production on its current plateau, the peakists say the days of "easy oil" are over.

As for the comforting idea that Saudi Arabia could simply turn up its taps and produce far more oil if it felt like it - the preferred belief of President Bush and Gordon Brown - the peakists have some pretty big problems with that, too. "The one thing that made peak oil a bogus issue was the supposedly proven fact that in the Middle East, we had 200 years of oil supply," says Simmons. "Because of that, we obviously couldn't have peaked. I'd just assumed it had to be true. Then I started doing my research." After poring over more than 200 technical papers, he made the grim conclusion that, just like elsewhere, production in Saudi Arabia was either at or very near its peak.

And even the conservative estimates of the IEA have not been unaffected by the spectre of peak oil. It has decided to review how it sources its data on oil reserves, which is widely expected to lead to a lowering of its predictions of future oil supplies when it publishes its overview of the industry in November. If it, too, reveals that the days of free flowing oil could be over, the halls of power might begin to take notice.

None of this will make any difference to life on the Alwyn rig in the near future. For the next 20 years, it will be producing natural gas, and making low-grade oil from some of it. "We'll be here until every last drop of oil is out of the ground," Ollie Bradshaw reassures me.

But unlike Alwyn, more rigs will be decommissioned than refurbished if the peak oil theorists turn out to be right - and they warn that the effects on the world could be dramatic.

A world without plentiful oil, as described by the peakists, looks very different from today's. The peakists are in no doubt about the aspect of modern living that would have to change. With transport soaking up the vast majority of the world's oil, they maintain that our addiction to the car will have to go. According to Chris Skrebowski, large-scale electrification will be needed in all vehicles, perhaps with pylons placed down motorways to provide power. Diesel-powered public transport needs to be replaced with electric trains, trams, and trolley buses. That would create breathing space to make more profound societal changes, such as a growth of working from home. Matthew Simmons also sees the current global economy soon becoming unsustainable. "Local farms are now coming back," he says. "We have all the technology in place to do that."

That's just for starters. According to Campbell, a wholesale change in the western lifestyle will be needed a little further down the road. "Cities will face massive challenges," he says. "By the end of the century, when there really isn't very much oil left, the world will be a very different one - much more rural, probably with fewer people. It's a sort of doomsday message, but in some ways, it's just a change from the modern mindset. There are people in the world who live a simple life like that and are very happy." But that's nothing compared with what could happen if we attempt to carry on regardless with ever-growing oil consumption. "If we don't make changes, we're going to have a resource war and blow ourselves up," says Simmons. "I think that would be a really inconvenient way to end the world."

So will the end of the oil age herald in a new dark age? Are we doomed to go back to sheltering in mud huts and living off a diet of turnips and water? Not necessarily. Thankfully, other peakists are optimistic that we can cope with a world without such vast quantities of cheap oil - if we act now. "Humanity is very ingenious," says Skrebowski. "But at the moment, it doesn't yet see a crisis. We're just acting like a spoilt child who has had its lollipop taken away. At some point, some politician has got to come out and state clearly that the world is going to be different. It's not the end of the world, but we're all going to have to change the way we do things. And the sooner we get on with it, the better. The anticipation is probably worse than the reality."

Let's hope he's right.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Start preparing for a life of austerity. NOW!

Find local employment. Reduce your debts. Reduce your fuel consumption. Grow your own vegetables or buy from local suppliers. Exercise regularly. Insulate your home. Help your family, friends and colleagues to understand the implications of Peak Oil.

Peak oil really knows how to ruin someones weekend doesn't (s)he. We all know oil is a finite resource. but we also know that we WILL come up with alternatives.

Now just in case you did not read post #28

The Viking settlers in Greenland died out when they did not change their ways when the climate got colder - they knew how to as they were in contact with the Eskimos, but the Viking way of life was non-negotiable!

You've hit the nail on the head Rob Johns, the only real problem is

1. finding an alternative that actually enables the privileged few to make money

2. Tonyw, Greg Brown and Peak Oil not having enough faith in mankind's abilities.

Dont worry too much about it, there must be a balance between change and time.

Enjoy your weekend

If the government & the oil companies are totally to blame, how then does the price of fuel vary so much between filling Stations. Today I bought Unleaded Petrol from a Tesco Garage in Hartlepool (NE England) which was 3p/Litre cheaper than in a Billingham Tesco garage which is only approx 4 miles away. Lets not forget that the retailers are also using the oil crisis to make money where they can, and add to our increasing burdon. Lets see them also in the firing line and get a fair across the UK.

now that Shell is hurting wait for them to refill there suppliers then dont use them to fill up. use other suppliers instead then they may be forced to lower the price to shift it.
Other suppliers may be forced to follow.

Like most things in this country of ours, where there is a high demand there usually follows a high tax; you only need to review the governments taxing policy on beer, wines, spirits, cigarettes/tobacco and fuel. Unless demand falls then there is no escaping the high prices.
Most recently I spent some time in the Canary Islands and hired a car while I was there, and unsurprisingly the cost of unleaded petrol was cheaper than in the UK - just 72p per litre!! (Although this too had seen some increases as confirmed by the garage managers)
Car sharing is a great idea but impractical for the minority who live in rural areas and let's face it, the public transport system in the UK falls well short of the service we see in our neighbouring EU countries and can only be classed as 3rd class at best.

I think this is one of the things people can do to help themselves. Good idea.

As some of the other posters have said above, and I have said elsewhere on petrolprices.com, car sharing is only ONE of the things that MUST be done to protect yourself from the coming shocks.

Lift sharing is all very well for those who are employed and working in one town all day, but this is not practical for those of us that are self employed and have to travel to more than one place, and/or carry the tools of their trade with them. I am a self employed accountant, living in Cornwall, with clients spread some distance apart, and often need to travel to more than one client during the day, therefore, lift sharing just is not practical. I have a number of clients who are self employed builders/painters & decorators etc. Please explain to them how they can lift share and carry all of their tools and equipment, paint etc, and find a lift that would get them to their destination for 8am and then be able to pick them up at 8pm or later - it just is not practical! WE ALL NEED TO JOIN THE DEMONSTRATIONS AND TELL THIS APPALLING GOVERNMENT THAT WE ARE NOT STANDING FOR ANY MORE OF THEIR APPALLING BEHAVIOUR AND FORCE THEM TO REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF DUTY BEING LEVIED ON FUEL IN THIS COUNTRY. IT IS NOT THE OIL COMPANIES THAT ARE MAKING OUR PRICES SO EXTORTIONATELY HIGH. THEY SUPPLY THE SAME FUELS AT THE SAME COST PRICES ALL OVER THE WORLD AND YET IT IS ONLY HERE THAT WE ARE NOW PAYING £5.36 PER GALLON FOR UNLEADED AND £5.80 PER GALLON FOR DIESEL. HOW MANY TIMES DO THE PUBLIC NEED TO HEAR THAT THE OIL COMPANIES ONLY RECEIVE APPROX 50 PENCE OF THE AMOUNT THAT WE PAY AND THE REST GOES TO THIS GOVERNMENT IN TAX, BEFORE THEY GET IT!!!!!!! LETS TAKE ACTION AND FORCE THIS GOVERNMENT TO CHANGE NOW!!!

Since each time you fill your petrol tank up, the government "snatches" a whopping 360% tax on your purchase isn't there anyone out there who believes that this is just a tad naughty? even for a sneaky socialist self interested government such as lead by "Grumpy" Brown! Come on! Wake up people - you go to work; your earn your money; they remove at least 45% of it BEFORE they let you keep the remainder; then they have the audacity to tell you it is perfectly NORMAL for them to tax you at 360% when you buy the petrol you NEED so you can get to and from work! Think about it - in order to purchase just one gallon of petrol at say £5.60pence you have to EARN £10.00 thus in fact the TRUE PRICE OF PETROL IS £10.00 a gallon!
The government are all a bunch of thieves - who legally steal your money, throw at one badly planned and execute socialist experiment after another and we just keep on working for them! Oh! bye the way - I escaped ! I am writing this from the sunny Caribbean island of Aruba !! ha ha ha!

We are hitting £123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £2.00a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever
thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place
not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not
purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.


If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!

Now, don't wimp out at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and
pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it... ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and not buy at ESSO/BP) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference .. If this makes
sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e. boycott BP and Esso

peak oil,tony waanker, greg brown,

obviusly you still havent woken up aND SMELT THE COFFEE!
OIL HAS GONE UP BEACUSE DOLLAR HAS GONE DOWN! NOT BEACUSE IT IS RUNNING OUT!
THE US DOLLAR HAS GONE DOWN BECAUSE MORTGAGES WERE NOT GETTING PAID.

PRICES GO UP BECAUSE OIL GOES UP!

GOVERNMENT CAN SOLVE THIS BY REDUCEING THE TAXES ON THE FUEL!

IT IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE MUPPETS

DONT PAY FOR YOUR TAX DISC!
YOU WONT GET ANY POINTS THEY WILL TRY TO TAKE YOU TO COURT MAY EVEN IMPOUND YOUR VEHICLE BUT IF EVERYBODY DOES IT THEY WOULD SOON GET THE MESSAGE!

WE LIVE IN A DICTATORSHIP FOR SURE

re: 53

yes i agree with you it is the tax that the problem.

the point i am trying to prove if everybody did not pay there tax the government will have to have a rethink.

the government friten the motorist into submission but i think the motorist is being persacuted.

we need to fight for our beliefs we need to fight for freedom.

the government have asked/demanded a 10,000 pay increase most of the working class are geting no or a measely 2% rise

Fuel is still rising in Leeds what do we expect it would fall NO CHANCE the oil companys needs the extra money to pay the tanker drivers & recover the loses when they went on strike at least the tanker drivers can afford the fuel, unlike the normal motorist, I for 1 am registered disabled the goverment or fuel companys & tanker driver dont care if we the disabled can afford to buy fuel"""" saying that its not just my group of motorists its every group unless you fall in the eliete tanker drivers group """"SIMON SAVAGE"""" ref your where is the garage lets name and shame them maybe then people will bypass them putting the robbing ******** out of buisness^^^ i bet the owner wont be there it will be some poor sod working there getting the stick

can anyone tell me why we export diesel ,then import same oil at a higher price . profiteering corpret style eh.

Re: 59

I would be interested to find out where you found the above info. Peak Oil is one of those things that I believe to be completely inaccurate, otherwise Car manufacturers would have started releasing more cars powered by other means. If it was true, would you think that we would see more of an infrastructure around the country for renewables such as E85?

I havent seen much change, thats for sure!

Also, If there was a shortage of oil, would OPEC have agreed to increase output by 300,000 barrels starting in July to attempt to bring prices down and protect their long-term investments in the Developed western countries?

I think not. The Problem is with Speculators, people! and I reckon the bubble will burst very soon.

Polies, I have some issues with your post. You talk about oil shale resources, it requires massive amounts of energy to extract oil from shale, possibly about the same amount you'd get out as you put in and hence a completely pointless task. Also it requires water and there's not a lot of water available in Colorado!

And let's suppose that all those new discoveries of oil really add up to major amounts of oil. That does not change the fact that oil is a finite substance and that peak oil is coming, whether it was yesterday, today or 100 years from now. Even if we weren't at the peak the new sources of oil are far more tricky to exploit (and hence more expensive) than the ones we've used.

Come on face it. Fuel prices are never going to go back down significantly. A penny or two maybe, but back to the prices of 6 months ago? - Nahh never in a million years. We take these increases too easily, look at Potatoes a few years ago (Off the subject slightly but stay with it) Chip shops increased their prices but they did not come back down with the potato prices. Well this is just the same thing, we are being mugged by the men in suits. The answer? well I dont have one sorry, but I have ensured all my friends & family do not use any of the Major oil companies filling stations and only use supermarkets. Maybe its a futile exercise but if we all did it maybe someone (In a far too expensive suit would listen. Also the shell oil drivers strike did not affect me in the slightest as a consequence.

Tesco start their national fuel promotion again on monday 30th june for about 6 weeks. This is where anyone spending over £50 in store will get 5p off every litre of fuel. This should help a little over the summer hols.

post #59

"may be the world's biggest discovery in 30 years" MAY BE

"that could boost " COULD

"This find is rumored ....capable of producing as much as 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent" RUMORED ... one sixth of one percent of daily production.

"about 2 billion barrels" Sounds a lot but it's only just over THREE WEEKS global use.

post #60

"otherwise Car manufacturers would have started releasing more cars powered by other means" Such as?? they are working on it but there are no magic answers, technology cannot break laws of physics. If you don't believe that i can sell you a nice perpetual motion machine.


post #62

"300,000 barrels" About a third of one percent of daily production.


post #67

"Any new oil finds found nowadays " We are using four barrels for every one found, i.e. we are using up our "savings"

"harness more power within batteries" A battery is just a store of energy, you need to create the energy first. Batteries are improving but slowly and today the best can only go a few miles on a charge then need a long charge.

"store enough Hydrogen" You need to use more energy to create hydrogen than you get back from burning it. You can't run the world by using more energy to create less energy for very long.

"why are we, as a country punished NOW, for high taxation" Because the country is broke and cannot afford the increase in demand that would result if prices were reduced (would you use less if the price went down?). Look at our "balance" of trade, hint it's in defecit i.e. we have to borrow money from abroad to finance the country - think it can go on forever?


Note, today oil prices hit a new record of over $140/barrel. The chairman of Gazprom predicts oil at $250/barrel next year.

Re: 65

"Whatever happened to Peak Oil, Greg and TonyW?

Finally woken up to the truth guys? ;-) "

Ha ha very good. I know you have missed the cheery banter, but of late I have been more concerned with ensuring my own and local food security, getting rid of debt, arranging my life to minimise the effects of Peak Oil in general, and not missing you guys in the least.

Oh, and reading that assorted list from Polies is comedy gold.

They found two billion barrels of oil in Iraq! We're saved!

Only the world using THIRTY BILLION annually means you've not even got a couple of months supply there. This would be hilarious if only it wasn't so indicative of the ignorance on the street regarding our energy use.

"But they'll make alternatives!"

Yes, let us all assume the very people we criticise for not having a clue in government are also of sufficient mental integrity to plan ahead by decades for an eventuality they have never entertained once in their lives.

"And the oil companies gouging us right now will save us with bountiful supplies of cheap oil again, you'll see."

Denial ain't just a river through Egypt.