show your work, Yergin

The Future of Oil
Oil super-guru Daniel Yergin knows the issues as well as any man alive. He's in the middle of crisis and controversy. Hear a conversation with Yergin on why the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is now pushing America toward an energy disaster.

This is a link to a Daniel Yergin interview on NPR. I had a listen because of my curiousity regarding Yergin and the CERA report which basically is skeptical regarding a near term oil peak and predicts a supply "plateau" some twenty years out.

After a few short minutes, I came to the conclusion that punk energy provocateur Jame Kunstler knows more about oil and energy issues than this puffed up apologist for imaginary analysis.

Here I will paraphrase some of the claims Yergin makes, in the first few minutes (No transcript available but I encourage readers to listen.)

- Because people have predicted we will run out of oil in the past and were wrong, we have no reason to to expect we will run out of oil now.

Yergin stuttered out this claim twice. It is a logical non-sequiter and misdirection; it doesn't speak to the transparent work performed by ASPO and others that we are approaching peak now.

- We landed a man on the moon and cell-phones are amazing. Who woulda thought. Thus, we won't run out of oil.

Technology will save us. I expect a little more from a supposed energy expert: His examples are of technologies which DEPEND on cheap petroleum! This is the weakest argument imaginable against Peak Oil.

- Oil will come from non-traditional sources.

Not in large amounts, it won't. Show your work. Oil sands and Oil shale have huge inputs of energy, water, and infrastructure. Where's the beef?

At one point, Yergin made reference to his "analysis" in arguing for ever greater supplies of oil coming online. What analysis? A string of half baked assumptions does not add up to critical thinking.

But Yergin is a tenured guru -- he recieved a Pulitzer for his historical work "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power." -- and apparently he feels comfortable standing behind his hallucinated view of non-existant oil reserves.

Americans and the world deserve better than this from our supposed experts. We can't solve the problem of peak oil starting from a foundation of half-truths and rhetorical flourishes.