Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:

I have made no assertions here at all. Simply pointed out that the
world's largest fossil fuel importer (EU) and the world's most
dependent fossil fuel importer (Japan) are not spending money
supporting large military capabilities to maintain their security of
supply. Which does not fit with the assertion that the true cost of
oil includes some hidden military premium in addition to its actual
cost.

We are in a world where the sellers need to sell, just as much as the
buyers need to buy. If Chavez in Venezuela could stick it to the US by
stopping selling them oil, he would do it in a heartbeat; but he can't
-- he needs the money. Iran would probably love to strengthen its
negotiating position with the EU-3 over its nuclear program by stopping
selling them oil, but it can't -- even Mullahs need the money. Russia
made it plain to the EU last winter that it could cut off gas supplies
to Europe, but it still kept selling them gas -- Russia needs the
money.

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:

Military budgets pay for pensions, museums, World War I Graves
Commissions and all sorts of other things as well as military force.
Judging by performance, the EU does not spend much on actual military
capability.

Handsome is as handsome does -- in the words of the old saying. The
fact remains that when Yugoslavia was burning, the countries of the EU
were not able to do anything useful. When Muslims were being
slaughtered in a UN-declared safe haven, the only thing the Dutch
soldiers present at the scene could do was stand by and watch.
Individually, the Dutch are certainly not wimps -- but one could not
ask for a clearer demonstration of the military impotence of the EU.
Yet the EU is by far the world's largest importer of fossil fuels.

Your assertion was that the real cost of oil should also reflect the
costs of needing to maintain large military forces to ensure that oil
imports would continue. You have failed to support that assertion.

Dirk Bruere went off the rails:

Let's see -- Japan depends on imports for ~100% of its fossil fuels,
including oil. Next time you see Japan's huge military flexing its
muscles in an oil producing country, be sure to alert the New York
Times; they like to report that kind of thing.

Then there is the EU. It is second only to Japan in terms of the
percentage of its fossil fuel it imports, importing about 2/3 of the
fuels it uses (including 84% of its oil). The EU is also by far the
largest energy importer on the planet, importing over 20 Million
Barrels Oil Equivalent per day, far above the US's 16 Million or
Japan's 9 Million. Yet the EU is militarily so weak that it was not
able, despite much hand-wringing, to stop genocide in its own
neighborhood in Yugoslavia. But despite being a military pygmy, the EU
is still able to keep on importing more fossil fuels than anyone else
on the planet, day after day.

So that old canard about needing a "huge military to ensure continuity
of supply" looks pretty threadbare.

Michael Moroney wrote:

Dirk Bruere wrote:

We may be mixing several different ideas, here, Dirk. Let's try &
untangle them.

1. There is a finite supply of conventional oil in the world, and so
eventually conventional supply will become constrained. Optimists say
that point lies 30-50 years in the future; not so long ago, they said
it lay 70-100 years in the future; regardless, there is a lot of
agreement that sooner or later we will have to look for some energy
source other than conventional oil.

2. Supply & demand will always be in balance, through the miracle of
markets. Higher oil prices may result in some additional supply; they
will certainly result in demand destruction. Demand destruction is not
painless - lost jobs, lower incomes, etc.

Dirk Bruere wrote of the shareholder-owned oil companies:

We are talking about shareholder-owned companies -- BP, Total, people
like that. They most definitely CAN and WILL go out of business if
they do not have oil to sell.

There is a lot of oil in the world, but most of it now is in the hands
of countries, their national oil companies, and entities like Russian
oil companies that may officially be shareholder-owned but are actually
under the very close eye of the Russian state. Will the European
motorist care if he has to buy his diesel at a Q8 station or a Petronas
station instead of a BP station?

We can think of giant companies like BP as the canaries in the coal
mine. When they fall over, it will be hard to avoid taking peak oil
seriously. Since quite a few of them have already fallen (Gulf, Amoco,
Arco, Burmah, Elf, Texaco, etc) ....

William.Mook@gmail.com wrote:

Does that mean we'll never ever see it then ?

Graham

Dirk Bruere at NeoPax wrote:

Dirk Bruere responded to a comment from William Mook:

advertising

bottom

lol.

and

The reason you have never seen anything like this Dan is because I
INVENTED IT! lol.

Dan Bloomquist wrote: