Product Description: With oil around $100 a barrel, drivers wince whenever they pull into the gas station and businesses watch their bottom lines shrink. "Watch out," say doomsayers, "it will only get worse as oil dries up." It's a plausible argument, especially considering the rate at which countries like China and India are now sucking up oil. Even more troubling, the world's largest oil fields sit in geopolitical hotspots like Iran and Iraq. Some believe their nations need to secure remaining supplies using military force, while others consider dwindling supplies a blessing that will help solve the problem of global warming. But wait--is it really the "end of oil"? Absolutely not, says geologist, economist, and industry-insider Robin Mills. According to Mills, many ideas about petroleum depletion and its consequences are not just grossly overstated but plain wrong. Calmly and persuasively, he argues: -The supply of oil and gas is much larger than imagined by the pessimists. -Seeking political, military, or commercial control of oil supplies is unnecessary, self-defeating, and exorbitantly expensive. -Oil is merely one convenient source of energy. Opportunities exist to decrease the global consumption of oil radically while maintaining a healthy economy. -The environmental impact of fossil fuels is the most serious problem the world faces today. But a portfolio of solutions can solve it. There is no other book by an industry insider that effectively counters the "peak oil" theory by showing where and how oil will be found in the future. There also is no other book by an insider that lays out an environmentally and geopolitically responsible path for the petroleum industry and its customers. The Myth of the Oil Crisis, written in a lively style but with scientific rigor, is thus a uniquely useful resource for business leaders, policymakers, petroleum industry professionals, environmentalists, and anyone else who consumes oil. Best of all, it offers an abundance of one commodity now in short supply: hope for the future.
A book for those who wish to remain ignorant This is a book by an author with no clue about geology, geopolitics or global warming. A book with a target audience of people who are and wish to remain ignorant of the fascinating world of petroleum and the petroleum geopolitics
green wash This is a pure propaganda piece by a "insider".It should be given out free with a fill up.
Why is this significant? Can anyone say 'Astroturfing'? Don't believe the other reviews - they obviously have an agenda and may have even been sponsored by interested parties.
The book is sound. Who knows if it was sponsored by Big Oil or not. It doesn't matter. I believe the author is likely correct, in that the oil supply may not run out quite as soon as some pessimists say it will.
However, that completely misses the point. Who cares if oil runs out sooner or a little later. The fact is that using it to produce energy is dramatically changing our climate and damaging our planet in irreversible ways. If we don't stop burning oil soon we may not be around long enough to see it run out anyway! It will run out eventually, so why damage the environment, climate, economy and the cause wars by continuing to use it now just to line the pockets of a few big oil companies? Makes no sense at all.
Despite what one reviewer tries to argue, climate change is not some half-baked theory being propagated by a few scientists and some politicians like Al Gore. Who cares what Al Gore thinks. The climate change we're experiencing and that is being predicted is the consensus view among hundreds of thousands of scientists who have dedicated their lives to its study and have gathered evidence for decades (and also have evidence from millions of years of geological history). Nobody who matters argues otherwise. The only people you'll ever hear denying the reality of climate change are non-experts (e.g. some politicians speaking for oil lobbies), people payed directly or indirectly by big oil and their propaganda machine or people who are just ill-informed and have fallen for the propaganda. Ask any scientist and you'll only get the same answer.
In short - if you want to know if we're in an oil 'crisis' where oil will be depleted very soon or if it'll last a little bit longer if we continue to wreak havoc on the environment to get it, read this book. If you think it is all irrelevant like me, don't bother.
Understanding the Oil Myth. Much has been written about the pending peak of oil and gas production, and the subsequent decline of civilization as we fall back into a pre-industrialized society. Oil has been blamed on everything from triggering global climate change to being the catalyst of geopolitical wars. The result of which has led to calls for developing alternative energy sources such a nuclear, solar and wind, as well as creating more efficient vehicles. Now comes along Robin M. Mills who, in his book entitled "The Myth of the Oil Crisis", to dispel notions that neither oil nor gas has reached peak production.
Mr. Mills discusses in a concise and easy understandable manner the various viewpoints concerning oil production, such as the Geologists, the Economists, the Militarists, the Environmentalists, and the Neo-Luddites. To help the reader appreciate the topic better, Mr. Mills provides a brief history explaining how we've reached our current economic situation along with a "who's who" among oil producers. Mr. Mills goes on to discuss the pros and cons of "near-oil" alternatives such as oil shale, coal, biofuels, gas liquids, and potential alternatives such as wind, solar, and nuclear. Of course no discussion of oil would be complete without discussing the dangerous would of geopolitics and climate change.
"The Myth of the Oil Crisis" is an excellent book for those seeking a better understanding of our dependence on oil, how we got that way, and what we can do about.
Factual and well-researched Mills is highly qualified and highly credentialed to write this book. And that shows throughout. The reader quickly realizes that the book is authoritative, just from the way Mills presents the material. Unlike many (supposedly) nonfiction writers today, Mills uses facts and logic to credibly analyze an issue, without a single instance of fallacious reasoning anywhere. That alone is remarkable. And it's why his conclusions differ from the ones we hear from the less intellectually endowed and less intellectually honest people who write for what I call the "mudstream media."
Turn to the back of the book, and you find extensive backnotes and an exhaustive bibliography. Skim through the book, and you find charts, graphs, tables, maps, illustrations, and other visuals that further polish the credibility level of this author and this book.
What about Mills' qualifications? Mills is originally from the U.K., where he earned a Master's Degree in Geological Sciences from Cambridge University. Today, he lives in Dubai and is the Petroleum Economics Manager for the Emirates National Oil Company in Dubai. He has degrees in geology and economics, and was previously a geologist for Shell. He speaks English, Arabic, and Farsi, and is a member of the International Association for Energy Economics and Association for Petroleum Negotiators.
So, he's not exactly your armchair oil economist but is instead someone who lives and breathes this stuff. Yet, he writes in an easy to follow narrative that is high on factual content but low on jargon. He does use acronyms, but he provides the full text at the first instance of use and there's a table of acronyms in the front of the book.
One conclusion that Mills isn't qualified to make and that he makes anyhow is that humans are warming up the earth, mainly by spewing carbon dioxide into the air. This theory is plausible if you ignore the fact that earth had much higher temperatures during periods of much lower carbon dioxide and if you can explain why Mars is sharing our north pole warming trend. To buy the doomsday scenario of oceans rising (as described by Al Gore), you also have to rewrite the laws of physics that govern why ice, boats, and other objects float in water (they displace their volume). Put ice cubes in a glass of water, and measure the initial water level and the water level after the ice melts.
So far, none of the Gorons or other global warming "experts" has explained these and other "data conflicts" in a way that doesn't require belief in the Tooth Fairy as well (we also know that Al Gore doesn't believe his own line of malarkey or his personal behavior would be quite different). The waste reduction and efficiency-improvement goals of the Gorons, however, are worth pursuing in their own right for other reasons.
Where Mills writes on what he knows, there does not appear to be a single hole in data or logic. That fact makes this book a "must read" for anyone concerned about what nonsense Congress will saddle us with next. One of the current "stupidity first" plans we are suffering from thanks to Congress is the ethanol subsidy program, which is wreaking havoc with world food supplies under the guise of "reaching energy independence" while doing almost nothing to reduce oil dependency due to the amount of oil needed to grow, transport, and process the grain.
Other stupidity enhancements are in the pipeline, so to speak, because Congress never rests in its job to make a hash of everything. Readers of this book will be well-armed with solid understanding and the facts to back up objections to future stupidity enhancements Congress may want to foist upon us. The book may also help undo some existing nonsense such as Daylight Wasting Time, which causes us to burn lights an extra hour each morning but is justified by Congress as an "energy savings measure."
Another advantage to readers of this book, beyond simply being well-informed for the purposes of fighting back against bad public policy, is the sense of security that comes from knowing the truth while being continually pummeled with alarmist propaganda. Mills identifies problems that do exist, but then shows that first of all they are not as dire as they are made out to be and then shows what solutions are either already coming online or soon will be.
Much of the text is devoted to looking at the amount of oil that is actually available. When referring to the size of existing oil reserves, the alarmists use numbers that are low by orders of magnitude. Mills shows why these numbers are low and provides substantiated and corrected numbers. This correction of conventional disinformation is a common theme throughout the book, just as the title portends.
I noted earlier I disagreed with Mills' views on global warming. We have one other point of disagreement, as well. On page 235, he refers to the New York Times as "respectable." Yet, I have found their articles so biased that it's apparent to me their internal mantra is, "If you can't distort it, don't report it." Maybe Mills was just being polite.
This well-written book consists of an introduction, nine chapters, and then a conclusion. The convention for publishers is to not count the introduction as a chapter. For some reason, that convention is not followed in this book. So, Chapter 1 is the introduction and is titled as such. The book begins with Chapter 2. It ends with Chapter 11, "Conclusion," which is only two pages long. The meat of the book is in the middle nine chapters.
Chapter 2 puts forth the views of various factions, such as geologists, economists, militarists, and environmentalists. Mills' presentation seems fair and balanced. He also addresses another group, which he labels neo-luddites. His presentation of their views is less charitable, but more charitable than they probably deserve. I have heard the neo-luddite arguments elsewhere, and find them to be without merit.
Chapter 3 provides a factual account of the oil industry's bust and boom cycle since 1986, and shows how we got to where we are today.
In Chapter 4, Mills provides an expert analysis of what our conventional oil supply actually is. The material here necessarily gets dense, as though Mills is wanting to leave no wiggle room for counterpoints. And it's important he does that, because the book is about exposing the myth of an oil shortage that is just around the corner and will purportedly usher in social doomsday. This chapter is pretty much the fulcrum of this book, and it's the most heavily backnoted chapter.
Chapter 5 bolsters the previous chapter by providing a country by country account of the world's major oil provinces. This chapter is almost as heavily backnoted as Chapter 4. In Chapter 6, Mills provides an expert analysis of what our unconventional oil supply actually is. He also takes pains to define what this concept means and how it's misused by alarmists. Add conventional to unconvential supplies of oil, and you can see we aren't running out of oil any time soon. Chapter 7 looks at natural gas, and takes on the related topic of a looming gas shortage.
Chapter 8 looks at why oil producers do what they do. It examines the interaction between supply, investment, and geopolitics. One of the subtopics, resource nationalism, is instructive for our times. Chapter 9 looks at energy conservation and other options for reducing oil demand. And it provides hard data showing substantial progress has already occurred in these areas. Chapter 10 is titled, "Green Oil" and it addresses what that title suggests.
If you want to be disinformed about one of the most important subjects of our time, stick with the newspapers and CNN. If you want to know what you're talking about, consider this book essential reading.
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