Telling it like it is, almost

Chevron's ad campaign, The Power of Human Energy.

Chevron Human Energy TV Campaign

Now showing on a tv near you and on Chevron's website, from the manhole commercial:

Some say that by 2020 we’ll have used up half the world’s oil. Some say we already have. Making the other half last longer will take innovation, conservation…and collaboration. Will you join us?

When exactly is (or was) the peak? Does it much matter? Chevron says "it's clear, the era of cheap oil is over." What exactly happens when oil demand outstrips supply? Do we understand what we all face with shortages?

clear as bull pucky

Here's a transcript of a recent BP tv commercial.

bp: What would you ask an oil company?
2w (2 women in front of a flower shop): Do you think that oil will never run out, or is it a resource that will be depleted? What's next? What will our kids be driving then?
bp: BP is the biggest investor in new U.S. energy development. We're investing $15 billion over a decade to find and produce new energy supplies in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a start.

At least the 2 women got the question right. Further questions: how much is there left to be found in the Gulf? Would it make a dent in our consumption, even if instantly available? If it's just a start, what then? Why the ads, to soften current and future windfall profits?


On BP's web site and another more recent tv ad, BP focuses on reducing carbon dioxide emissions through alternative energy. Like the recent Montreal climate conference, this is a distraction to the much more pressing problem of oil depletion.

This is how bp defines sustainability:

Sustainability for BP means the capacity to endure as a group, by renewing assets, creating and delivering better products and services that meet the evolving needs of society, delivering returns to our shareholders, attracting successive generations of employees, contributing to a flourishing environment and retaining the trust and support of our customers and the communities in which we operate. Sustainability, therefore, is a journey. We are committed to being open and transparent in our dealings with the outside world as we move in this direction.

But oil is finite and non-renewable, keenly so given our rate of extraction. What then is 'beyond petroleum'?

Here is Caltech physicist David Goodstein's concise analysis of the problem. At a 2004 conference, here's what Prof. Goodstein had to say:

We have created a trap for ourselves.
The United States has so far avoided serious consequences from the trap by relying on imports. The country uses about 7 billion of the 30 billion barrels of oil produced annually around the globe. And it makes us rich. Oil consumption equals standard of living,

A fellow physicist and former Caltech provost Steve Koonin, took a leave of absence from Caltech to become chief scientist at BP, for what that's worth.