CNBC: IEA chief Birol: Oil prices may have hit bottom, but watch the economy
With global oil demand seen growing by 1.2 million barrels per day this year, the draw in global oil stockpiles will start soon, which will help push up oil prices, he said.
2 comments:
Nothing will be done about OIL prices till things get far worse then they are now, if ever. Paradoxically though if demand keeps rising then prices will probably float back up to where people will start abandoning gas cars for long distance electrics, solar panels, windmills etc. So, high Fossil energy prices are not necessarily a bad thing in the short. Hopefully, and eventually a carbon tax will be front loaded to all use of Fossil energy. By then it will be far too little far too late to stop massive climate related changes. At some pt. were going to have to figure out cost effect ways to remove a lot of the excess CO2 methane etc. that's already up there or suffer the consequences. Even then once certain tipping pts. are reached even that might not suffice to stop the major shifts already happening. There for instance is no way to remove all the stored heat in the Oceans and that alone will melt the Ice caps eventually and rise sea levels. It's not a matter of if it's just a matter of when and by how much. So, there are no easy answers or ways out of this and expensive oil and gas prices are really not much of a problem in the over all scheme of things.
Cheap oil leaves virtually no incentive for financial based thinking to switch to solar or wind. Global warming thinking though is not effected. Most people unfortunately think with their wallets. I suspect some of the recent glut was about making solar and wind more expensive that oil. The glut didn't just push non OPEC oil production lower but it probably pushed solar and wind initiatives back as well. I don't know that for a fact though, I am only speculating. There's an article and research on it out there somewhere.
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