Scientific American and the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) both did a better job than How the World Works of demolishing last week's ExxonMobil advertisement in the New York Times declaring that peak oil is not a problem.
But the ASPO also tacked on a little note at the end of its rebuttal that will discourage anyone who might be hoping that the U.S. government is going to take a realistic look at the problem. Late in 2005, noted the ASPO, "the Congress tasked the U.S. Department of Energy to study the peak oil issue. DOE appointed the National Petroleum Council to do the work."
The National Petroleum Council is an advisory committee to the DOE made up mostly of representatives from the U.S. oil and gas industry. And it is currently headed by the recently retired CEO of ExxonMobil, Lee Raymond.
Lee Raymond has long been notorious for his personal skepticism about global warming and climate change, and he is on record as declaring, on numerous occasions, that there is nothing to worry about with respect to world oil supplies.
Could there be a worse person in charge of investigating peak oil for the Department of Energy?
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