Thanks for the reference.

btw, in the related matter of public transport, i definitely recommend reading an Australian academic paper on the history and underlying causes of Auckland’s bureaucratic bias toward motorways and against trains. fascinating! (thanks to Brian Rudman in the Herald)

Backtracking Auckland: Bureaucratic rationality and public preferences in transport planning (.pdf)

and the mindlessness of certain elected officials in Auckland is truly impressive. witness the various elected councils’ enthusiasm to continue spending millions on studying road pricing options rather than on getting a decent public transport system up and running!

Regional council backs push to continue road-pricing study

President George Bush announced yesterday that he was suspending deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to make more oil available to consumers as well as putting on hold the traditional regulations requiring additives to make fuel burn cleaner during the summer driving season.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders have had their own response to rising gas prices. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has announced his support for the Menendez Amendment, which would “provide more than $6 billion in relief directly to the American people by eliminating the federal tax for both gas and diesel for 60 days.“

It seems the politicians in the US have taken a leaf out of National’s desperate attempt to bribe motorists at our last election.

Meanwhile the editors at TOD write

We strongly feel that the leaders of both political parties are not only headed in the wrong direction with respect to gas prices, but we also worry that they fundamentally misunderstand the factors behind the current situation at gasoline stations around the US. Public statements by political figures over the past several days would seem to suggest that oil companies and their record profits are the sole factor determining the price of gasoline. Not only is this untrue, but it is dangerous to give the American people the impression that only oil companies are to blame. The American people need to understand that the phenomenon of high gas prices cannot be attributed to a single source.

They then list 4 of the main reasons for high “gas” prices.

1. Oil companies do not single-handedly determine the price of oil. The price of oil is set on the crude oil futures market. Simply put, these prices are affected by supply and demand because, at present, oil trades in a global commodity market where increased demand or reduced supply in one place instantly translates into price shifts everywhere. A variety of publicly available information sources show that supply is relatively static at the moment, while world demand continues to grow as economies grow.
2. We have provided evidence many times at The Oil Drum that the output of major oilfields is declining and that we may now have reached a peak or plateau in global oil supply. Oil companies have not been able to increase production for a number of years, and it is unclear that OPEC is accurately reporting their reserves. Even if there were significant sources of high quality oil remaining, it is getting increasingly difficult and expensive to drill. These factors, along with aging infrastructure for oil exploration and a retiring workforce are also contributing to high oil prices.
3. The geopolitical situation is volatile, and an astute citizen may notice that every time there is news from Nigeria or Iran, the price of oil goes up because of the potential and real effects of these situations on world oil supply. Again, oil traders are fearful that the supply will not remain stable forever.
4. Countries like China and India are industrializing at a great pace, and while we are accustomed to obtaining oil at a comfortable quantity and price, it will be impossible (and immoral) to deny similar resources to these countries. China is working furiously to secure new oil supplies, and they’re content to negotiate with countries we’re reluctant to deal with, like Iran and the Sudan.

Of course the media in this country are as remiss as their US colleagues in faciltating any real debate of these issues.

I wonder why !!

This is the company that still has not paid the fines that were levied in the wake of the Valdez disaster, that has poured millions into anti climate change junk science, and paid it’s outgoing CEO USD400m for a years work. And what’s it doing with last year’s record pile of cash ?

Now - I’ll sit back and wait for the wingnuts to rush to Lee Raymond’s defence

Amazing how easy it is to rejig the straw man argument;-)

Of course you would then want to omit the 5,000+ people who dead on NZ roads in the last decade, the 100,000+ who were seriously injured, the 3,500+ who have died from air poluution etc, plus the loss of freedom of movement of the more vulnerable members of our society.

Public safety is a factor of decent policing- here in the UK actual policing is now too dangerous as they get attacked by gangs. They have been slowly replaced by cheaper CCTV. Your bad experiences on transport are unfortunate but it is also possible to get possessions stolen from private cars, and be intimidated or followed by people in other cars?

Again transport security is an issue that would be resolved by more staff. Also I would point out that violent crime is actually a very rare occurrence, which is heavily played up by the media because it sells papers. A more cynical person would say that people locked up at home are easier to sell to

The issue the Government now have is that we have Dynhoven, Hodgson and Mallard all regurgitating the 2037 IEA reference date as which oil might peak (IEA’s best case scenario is 2067) and Helen Clark making them all look like plonkers by clearly stating we are at peak or it isn’t far away.

Dynhoven even went as far to say last week (I gather he was almost heckled off) that peak oil occuring this decade is no mainstream (read IEA) opinion. The guy is either utterly clueless, is in denial or is parroting party line.

I will publish my theory on the reasons behind the price volatility tomorrow on Scoop. Essentially its an economic argument due to the movement beyond the “margin” for the commodity - there is no swing producer, there is no spare capacity hence the marginal cost becomes irrelevant. So, although we might not quite be at peak, because OECD oil is now in decline, OPEC are pumping at capacity the margin has been exceeded. Hence marginal cost (which is still around US$30) is irrelevant.

My conclusion is THE MARKET IS TELLING US WE ARE AT PEAK. So, yes the market works. Commoditys only sell at marginal prices when we can produce more. We can’t produce any more oil hence the price is all over the place.

Once we move into decline, probably later this decade, be sure - we’ll stand still (due to “human ingenuity”) for quite some time, once in decline oil will most certainly move beyond $200 a barrel.

That equals about $4.70 a litre - several hundred dollars a tank. Pricing off the road every one but the rich.

As for NZ - stagflation (we are already seeing this emerge) massive unemployment, displacement, the end of suburbia (to coin a phrase) - the next great depression, almost certainly.

Cheers
Steve.

All the PowerLess press releases are collected on Roberts site
http://www.oilcrash.com - Click on the Powerless link.

http://ontic.blogspot.com/

As for transport, anyone who has had a bag slashed on a metro, or been intimidated by a gangsta bunch on a bus, or been jostled by a football crowd clean off a BR carriage to make room for their mates, will quickly come to value the safety, privacy and convenience of private transport. A safety externality, you might say.

This isn’t to denigrate the idea of better public transport. But public provision does have to measure up better than the present ‘anyone no matter how munted or dangerous can ride’ policy.

A quick sample will be instructive: ask an XX chromosome human of your acquaintance whether she would ride the 1030 from Wellington Central to Upper Hutt City alone?

I happened to check in on the Energy Bulletin this morning, and the top headline is “HC admits PO”. I think, gee, ANZAC Day has affected her desire to be honest. But then I follow the link to scoop.co.nz and the article is from 18 April! Over a week ago!!! There’s no transcript of the press conference, just audio. A search of google news for “helen clark” and “peak oil” gets a single hit: Steve MacKinlay’s essay carried by EV World (Nebraska).

Why is Steve McKinlay doing the job for the NZ press? WTF is wrong with NZ print media? If scoop had not carried that audio and that not been picked up by a PO activist, the public would have no means of finding out about this huge admission. Not a single MSM source in sight.

And this is where the actual behaviour and the theory diverge so widely as to make a fool of the latter. Yes, I know there are many reasons, political and geological but that is life.