LA FINE DEL PETROLIO / THE OIL CRUNCH
Dalla lista "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.":
La situazione del petrolio non sembra causare molta preoccupazione in
Italia. Eppure, da due giorni il petrolio è a oltre 39 dollari al
barile.
Allo stesso prezzo, nel 1973, cominciava la prima grande "crisi del
petrolio". Non sembra che la gente stia correndo a vendere le SUV e a
comprare generatori eolici. Neppure sembra che il giverno abbia qualche
timore che potremmo avere qualche problema a finanziare il beneamato
ponte
sullo stretto.
La mia impressione è che nel 1973 tutti sapevano che la crisi non era
dovuta a una questione di carenza di risorse, quella di oggi è molto
piu'
buia, nel senso che veramente stiamo vedendo una situazione in cui la
produzione sta declinando in modo irreversibile. Da questo vengono i
dinieghi e il girare la testa dall'altra parte.
Eppure non si puo' negare l'evidenza. Paul Krugman, economista
intelligente, ha detto proprio questo in un articolo che è appaso ieri
sul
New York Times, trovando anche il modo di far notare l'idiozia assoluta
di
quelli (tanti) che veramente pensavano che invadere l'Iraq era una buona
idea per avere il petrolio a buon mercato. Krugman cita Rupert Murdoch
fra
questi microcefali de-neuronati (oltretutto anche stronzi), io vi posso
raccontare di aver incontrato l'anno scorso, dopo l'invasione, un alto
funzionario della Commissione Europea che mi ha detto, tutto
preoccupato,
qualcosa come "adesso che abbiamo il petrolio Iracheno a buon mercato,
ci
sarà difficile spingere i nostri programmi di risparmio energetico".
Taccio
il nome di questo signore, per carità di patria.
Leggete l'articolo di Krugman. Dice che ci dovremo adattare. Ha
ragione, ma
non sarà ovvio.
Ugo Bardi
The Oil Crunch
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY TIMES. Published: May 7, 2004
Before the start of the Iraq war his media empire did so much to
promote,
Rupert Murdoch explained the payoff: "The greatest thing to come out of
this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a
barrel for oil." Crude oil prices in New York rose to almost $40 a
barrel
yesterday, a 13-year high.
Those who expected big economic benefits from the war were, of course,
utterly wrong about how things would go in Iraq. But the disastrous
occupation is only part of the reason that oil is getting more
expensive;
the other, which will last even if we somehow find a way out of the
quagmire, is the intensifying competition for a limited world oil
supply.
Thanks to the mess in Iraq — including a continuing campaign of sabotage
against oil pipelines — oil exports have yet to recover to their prewar
level, let alone supply the millions of extra barrels each day the
optimists imagined. And the fallout from the war has spooked the
markets,
which now fear terrorist attacks on oil installations in Saudi Arabia,
and
are starting to worry about radicalization throughout the Middle East.
(It
has been interesting to watch people who lauded George Bush's
leadership in
the war on terror come to the belated realization that Mr. Bush has
given
Osama bin Laden exactly what he wanted.)
Even if things had gone well, however, Iraq couldn't have given us cheap
oil for more than a couple of years at most, because the United States
and
other advanced countries are now competing for oil with the surging
economies of Asia.
Oil is a resource in finite supply; no major oil fields have been found
since 1976, and experts suspect that there are no more to find. Some
analysts argue that world production is already at or near its peak,
although most say that technological progress, which allows the further
exploitation of known sources like the Canadian tar sands, will allow
output to rise for another decade or two. But the date of the physical
peak
in production isn't the really crucial question.
The question, instead, is when the trend in oil prices will turn
decisively
upward. That upward turn is inevitable as a growing world economy
confronts
a resource in limited supply. But when will it happen? Maybe it already
has.
I know, of course, that such predictions have been made before, during
the
energy crisis of the 1970's. But the end of that crisis has been widely
misunderstood: prices went down not because the world found new sources
of
oil, but because it found ways to make do with less.
During the 1980's, oil consumption dropped around the world as the
delayed
effects of the energy crisis led to the use of more fuel-efficient cars,
better insulation in homes and so on. Although economic growth led to a
gradual recovery, as late as 1993 world oil consumption was only
slightly
higher than it had been in 1979. In the United States, oil consumption
didn't regain its 1979 level until 1997.
Since then, however, world demand has grown rapidly: the daily world
consumption of oil is 12 million barrels higher than it was a decade
ago,
roughly equal to the combined production of Saudi Arabia and Iran. It
turns
out that America's love affair with gas guzzlers, shortsighted as it
is, is
not the main culprit: the big increases in demand have come from booming
developing countries. China, in particular, still consumes only 8
percent
of the world's oil — but it accounted for 37 percent of the growth in
world
oil consumption over the last four years.
The collision between rapidly growing world demand and a limited world
supply is the reason why the oil market is so vulnerable to jitters.
Maybe
we'll get through this bad patch, and oil will fall back toward $30 a
barrel. But if that happens, it will be only a temporary respite.
In a way it's ironic. Lately we've been hearing a lot about competition
from Chinese manufacturing and Indian call centers. But a different
kind of
competition — the scramble for oil and other resources — poses a much
bigger threat to our prosperity.
So what should we be doing? Here's a hint: We can neither drill nor
conquer
our way out of the problem. Whatever we do, oil prices are going up.
What
we have to do is adapt.
Dalla lista "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.":
La situazione del petrolio non sembra causare molta preoccupazione in
Italia. Eppure, da due giorni il petrolio è a oltre 39 dollari al
barile.
Allo stesso prezzo, nel 1973, cominciava la prima grande "crisi del
petrolio". Non sembra che la gente stia correndo a vendere le SUV e a
comprare generatori eolici. Neppure sembra che il giverno abbia qualche
timore che potremmo avere qualche problema a finanziare il beneamato
ponte
sullo stretto.
La mia impressione è che nel 1973 tutti sapevano che la crisi non era
dovuta a una questione di carenza di risorse, quella di oggi è molto
piu'
buia, nel senso che veramente stiamo vedendo una situazione in cui la
produzione sta declinando in modo irreversibile. Da questo vengono i
dinieghi e il girare la testa dall'altra parte.
Eppure non si puo' negare l'evidenza. Paul Krugman, economista
intelligente, ha detto proprio questo in un articolo che è appaso ieri
sul
New York Times, trovando anche il modo di far notare l'idiozia assoluta
di
quelli (tanti) che veramente pensavano che invadere l'Iraq era una buona
idea per avere il petrolio a buon mercato. Krugman cita Rupert Murdoch
fra
questi microcefali de-neuronati (oltretutto anche stronzi), io vi posso
raccontare di aver incontrato l'anno scorso, dopo l'invasione, un alto
funzionario della Commissione Europea che mi ha detto, tutto
preoccupato,
qualcosa come "adesso che abbiamo il petrolio Iracheno a buon mercato,
ci
sarà difficile spingere i nostri programmi di risparmio energetico".
Taccio
il nome di questo signore, per carità di patria.
Leggete l'articolo di Krugman. Dice che ci dovremo adattare. Ha
ragione, ma
non sarà ovvio.
Ugo Bardi
The Oil Crunch
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY TIMES. Published: May 7, 2004
Before the start of the Iraq war his media empire did so much to
promote,
Rupert Murdoch explained the payoff: "The greatest thing to come out of
this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a
barrel for oil." Crude oil prices in New York rose to almost $40 a
barrel
yesterday, a 13-year high.
Those who expected big economic benefits from the war were, of course,
utterly wrong about how things would go in Iraq. But the disastrous
occupation is only part of the reason that oil is getting more
expensive;
the other, which will last even if we somehow find a way out of the
quagmire, is the intensifying competition for a limited world oil
supply.
Thanks to the mess in Iraq — including a continuing campaign of sabotage
against oil pipelines — oil exports have yet to recover to their prewar
level, let alone supply the millions of extra barrels each day the
optimists imagined. And the fallout from the war has spooked the
markets,
which now fear terrorist attacks on oil installations in Saudi Arabia,
and
are starting to worry about radicalization throughout the Middle East.
(It
has been interesting to watch people who lauded George Bush's
leadership in
the war on terror come to the belated realization that Mr. Bush has
given
Osama bin Laden exactly what he wanted.)
Even if things had gone well, however, Iraq couldn't have given us cheap
oil for more than a couple of years at most, because the United States
and
other advanced countries are now competing for oil with the surging
economies of Asia.
Oil is a resource in finite supply; no major oil fields have been found
since 1976, and experts suspect that there are no more to find. Some
analysts argue that world production is already at or near its peak,
although most say that technological progress, which allows the further
exploitation of known sources like the Canadian tar sands, will allow
output to rise for another decade or two. But the date of the physical
peak
in production isn't the really crucial question.
The question, instead, is when the trend in oil prices will turn
decisively
upward. That upward turn is inevitable as a growing world economy
confronts
a resource in limited supply. But when will it happen? Maybe it already
has.
I know, of course, that such predictions have been made before, during
the
energy crisis of the 1970's. But the end of that crisis has been widely
misunderstood: prices went down not because the world found new sources
of
oil, but because it found ways to make do with less.
During the 1980's, oil consumption dropped around the world as the
delayed
effects of the energy crisis led to the use of more fuel-efficient cars,
better insulation in homes and so on. Although economic growth led to a
gradual recovery, as late as 1993 world oil consumption was only
slightly
higher than it had been in 1979. In the United States, oil consumption
didn't regain its 1979 level until 1997.
Since then, however, world demand has grown rapidly: the daily world
consumption of oil is 12 million barrels higher than it was a decade
ago,
roughly equal to the combined production of Saudi Arabia and Iran. It
turns
out that America's love affair with gas guzzlers, shortsighted as it
is, is
not the main culprit: the big increases in demand have come from booming
developing countries. China, in particular, still consumes only 8
percent
of the world's oil — but it accounted for 37 percent of the growth in
world
oil consumption over the last four years.
The collision between rapidly growing world demand and a limited world
supply is the reason why the oil market is so vulnerable to jitters.
Maybe
we'll get through this bad patch, and oil will fall back toward $30 a
barrel. But if that happens, it will be only a temporary respite.
In a way it's ironic. Lately we've been hearing a lot about competition
from Chinese manufacturing and Indian call centers. But a different
kind of
competition — the scramble for oil and other resources — poses a much
bigger threat to our prosperity.
So what should we be doing? Here's a hint: We can neither drill nor
conquer
our way out of the problem. Whatever we do, oil prices are going up.
What
we have to do is adapt.