David Brooks tells new lies about oil, ignores #PeakOil

I don't care that the International Energy Agency claims the US will pass Saudi Arabia in oil production by 2020, or that it will become energy independent in five years, according to Citigroup, as David Brooks breathlessly reports.

Both (all three, counting Brooks himself) are wrong.

The shale gas boom appears Ponzi-like. As blogged here before, Chesapeake is drilling for gas because lenders are forcing it to, based on previous reports.

Oil? Even with the fracking boom, we still import 40 percent of our oil needs. Bakken in North Dakota, and Eagle Ford in Texas, are not THAT big of plays. Neither are renewed finds in the Permian Basin. 

More Brooks:

Joel Kotkin identified America’s epicenters of economic dynamism in a study for the Manhattan Institute. It is like a giant arc of unfashionableness. You start at the Dakotas where unemployment rates are at microscopic levels. You drop straight down through the energy belts of the Great Plains until you hit Texas. Occasionally, you turn left to touch the spots where fertilizer output and other manufacturing plants are on the rebound, like the Third Coast areas in Louisiana, Mississippi and Northern Florida. 

In short, this is where Brooks wants to believe he'll find "heartland boboes." Rather, he'll find "Cancer Alley" on the Louisiana (and Texas) part of that Third Coast. He'll find well-paying, for blue collar, but grinding, drug-use-heavy oilfield jobs by people who have no use for his boboism.

Beyond that, Brooks lies about the IEA lies. Its full report says the Saudis will surpass the US again after a short US "triumph" of less than a decade.

Here's IEA details, per the top link:

The IEA said it saw US oil production rising to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2015 and 11.1 million bpd in 2020 before slipping to 9.2 million bpd by 2035.

Saudi Arabian oil output would be 10.9 million bpd by 2015, the IEA said, 10.6 million bpd in 2020 but would rise to 12.3 million bpd by 2035.

That would see the world relying increasingly on OPEC after 2020 as, in addition to increases from Saudi Arabia, Iraq will account for 45 percent of the growth in global oil production to 2035 and become the second-largest exporter, overtaking Russia.

OPEC's share of world oil production will rise to 48 percent from 42 percent now.

Of course, Brooks thinks incestuous prognosticators like IEA, EIA and Daniel Yergin are just the starting point, anyway, I'm sure.(And I wrote that without reading all the way through his column to see if he had mentioned Yergin or not. He did, prominently.

Brooks also lies by omission by not mentioning the rising EPA fuel standards in years ahead as a factor.

Brooks on energy? A kinder, gentler Dick Cheney.

And Yergin's told his own oil-related lies over the years.