Centerfield

Exxon is placing ads because they don't want anti-oil company sentiment to build up so much that Congress is forced to impose restrictions on their profits or otherwise interfere with the market.

As for peak oil, it'll be here one day but I don't know when. It's been predicted before and it'll be predicted again. I will place no bets as to when it will actually happen.

While I think the Peak Oil argument may be a bit premature, I agree with the idea that once it hits, it is already too late to start working on the alternatives. Exxon knows where a lot of funding would likely come from right now if Peak Oil's influence comes from. It will come from their profits.

The other thing that they fail to mention is that, yes, there is new technology; but the cost of extraction is going to increase at a sizeable rate over what it is now.

Exxon/Mobile is taking the standard short term look at a long term problem. (Actually they could be taking a long term look at their profits and hoping for a crunch so they can cash in in the long run; but that is being a bit more cynical then I usually am) The words "windfall profits tax" have been getting whispered in the halls of Congress. I don't think it will get legs, as of yet. This is as much PR to Congress that if they push forward with one, it will cut into their development of technology to avoid peak oil. Chicken and the Egg. What is going to happen first? Development of viable alternatives before a crunch from a possible peak oil hits and energy diversification from a commodity that is largely in an unstable region that gets a huge subsidy of our military protecing it, or will some of their profits be diverted to finding their replacement in the form of a more direct subsidy? Or, do we do neither and just let things go as they are?

Exxon would win the largest in the later. The lose big in the first and a little in the second. Guess which one they really want. By poo-pooing peak oil, it helps their case with the third.

Please deposit all free-floating animosity about oil companies and other big corporations in box A, line 7.

All speculation about oil prices and the date of peak oil production should be removed from your rectal cavity and placed in the sanitary disposal by the door before exiting the thread.

Exxon/Mobile is right, but they're hiding their hole cards and self-interst. Namely, that while there's plenty of oil in one form or another, it will grow increasingly expensive to produce and bring to market. We don't run out, we just keep paying more to oil companies.

The quicker that alternative portable fuels come into use, the quicker the technology develops to make those fuels cost-effective and competitive with oil. And when they are, oil companies start losing their monopolies, and their massive investment in oil infrastructure and reseres declines in value.

So, gee, why would they want to discourage the development of alternative portable fuels by assuring everyone there's plenty of oil to go around? :-)

Found this article about Enhanced Oil Recovery yesterday.

"State-of-the-art enhanced oil recovery with carbon dioxide, now recognized as a potential way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, could add 89 billion barrels to the recoverable oil resources of the United States, the Department of Energy has determined. Current U.S. proved reserves are 21.9 billion barrels. Multiple advances in technology and widespread sequestration of industrial CO2 could eventually add as much as 430 billion new barrels to the technically recoverable resource. Beginning efforts to develop the 89-billion-barrel addition to resources would depend on the availability of commercial CO2 in large volumes."

It's technology like this that makes knowing when Peak Oil will occur so tricky. The amount of "technically recoverable oil" is an ever-moving target.

why don't we just walk? :)

Wanna trade knees? ;-)