Much attention was garnered last year by those, like T. Boone Pickens, who predicted oil prices rising to $200-300 per barrel with a year or two, but less attention has been paid to the recently revised forecast of the US Department of Energy, published in preview of its Annual Energy Outlook. The Outlook appeared in January, when prices had already plummeted, but was presumably written earlier, when prices were higher. It included the seemingly moderate forecast of prices rising to $70 by 2010 and $110 by 2015, as the figure shows.…
Continue ReadingWhile I’m quoted in the Houston Chronicle’s CERAweek column on an optimistic note, developments with the “stimulus” package make me less optimistic by the day. What I told Tom Fowler of the Chronicle, when discussing the anti-oil mentality of Representative Ed Markey, now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, was…
Continue ReadingMany people believe that national security would be advanced if we reduce our petroleum usage, because, goes this theory, we would be funneling less money to the Middle East which then would reduce, if not eliminate, funding for terrorists who wish to harm the U.S. (more on this in the future). Ex-CIA Director, James Woolsey, for instance, is reported to have said that we need “destroy the strategic power” of petroleum by making us not less dependent on foreign oil, but less dependent on oil, period. See, also, here. …
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