[QUOTE=edwardsdj;329248]I just worked writing software in the petroleum industry for almost five years. A few observations:
1. The days of finding large fields have been over for a couple of decades;
2. The oil companies keep downgrading thier estimates of the oil recoverable from thier reserves (Shell by 30% a few years ago);
3. No major survey by Western oil companies has been done in Saudi since the 1950s - odds are they have far less than they would like to have us believe;
4. The discoveries that are being made are a huge technical challenge (like drilling in 5km of water); and
5. World demand continues to increase every day - particularly from the rapidly growing Chinese economy.
You've hit the nail on the head. Read "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann for more on this grim picture...
Still, I was watching the news a year or two ago when I heard George W. Bush say something like "I can see us driving (alternatively powered) cars in the not too distant future".
It was one of those things that often just slip by without you really noticing and I said to my wife, "What did he just say? This is G W Bush - Texas oil - teling us that we will be driving these cars in the "not too distant future"? What does he know that we don't know?"
Made me feel some people are sitting on technology that we don't know about?
Cheers
Mark
