What if....?
Feb. 10th, 2005 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueConsipiracy theory time
Imagine youre a mid level department head. You're 3 years from retirement. The department you're in charge of, is the one that handles estimating for an oil company, and your standard formula takes a few parameters, and gives a result, with a 30% plus or minus error margin.
The markets start to fail, and worldwide economies start to fall apart. Your board of directors 'subtley' suggests that publishing a figure on the 'plus side' of the error margin would be very good for the continued health of the company, and therefore your job. (Link)
And this continues during the times of falling markets and share prices. Investment in your company remains good.
But then, one of your smart arse researchers notices something. The magic formula you've been using for 20 years, is based around a rectangular volume, when actually, you should be basing it around an ellipse. When the oil reserves were 'ok' then that formula was pretty good. If anything, gave a slightly conservative estimate. However, as the reserves deplete, it becomes more inaccurate in the opposite direction - a semi-sphere has a similar volume to a half-cube, but when there's only 10% left, the cube has _much_ more remaining than your sphere.
There's an urgent meeting of the board. They realise that they cannot release the information, after all it is still an estimate, no one knows for sure. And they don't want to be the people who announce to the world that oil is going to run out in the next 3 years.
The price of petrol steadily escalates as the reserves run low.
Days after the last drop of oil is pumped, the last tankers reach the refineries. The oil power stations start to run low, and the power grid becomes less stable. Petrol stations use up the last of their reserves and close. The nations cars stop, and the factorys close down due to lack of workers.
Transport companies start to panic, because they have fuel tanks, but they won't last more than a week. After which, supermarkets around the country will start to run out of food. Not long after that, there will be a real crisis in the inner cities, and starvation of a level never before seen sets in.
The "First world" collapses under it's own weight, as a lynch-pin is pulled away.
And so instead, the board of directors asks to see the President/Prime minister. They raise their concerns, and an emergency plan is prepared. Oil is urgently needed, and the eye of the powerful turns towards Afganistan and Iraq.
But it's still all an estimate. And they cannot move openly, because that would mean competition for the precious reserves. A cassus-belli is necessary. A cause for war.
A few hundred civilians are sacrificed in the largest terrorist incident ever. But you now have your pretext. You move your soldiers into two oil rich countries, securing reserves for a few years more. When 'the others' realise, you'll already have control.
And in the mean time, the oil companies announce reduced oil reserves, but quietly, so there's no panic and the price rises slower, getting the world ready for 'the crunch'.
Imagine youre a mid level department head. You're 3 years from retirement. The department you're in charge of, is the one that handles estimating for an oil company, and your standard formula takes a few parameters, and gives a result, with a 30% plus or minus error margin.
The markets start to fail, and worldwide economies start to fall apart. Your board of directors 'subtley' suggests that publishing a figure on the 'plus side' of the error margin would be very good for the continued health of the company, and therefore your job. (Link)
And this continues during the times of falling markets and share prices. Investment in your company remains good.
But then, one of your smart arse researchers notices something. The magic formula you've been using for 20 years, is based around a rectangular volume, when actually, you should be basing it around an ellipse. When the oil reserves were 'ok' then that formula was pretty good. If anything, gave a slightly conservative estimate. However, as the reserves deplete, it becomes more inaccurate in the opposite direction - a semi-sphere has a similar volume to a half-cube, but when there's only 10% left, the cube has _much_ more remaining than your sphere.
There's an urgent meeting of the board. They realise that they cannot release the information, after all it is still an estimate, no one knows for sure. And they don't want to be the people who announce to the world that oil is going to run out in the next 3 years.
The price of petrol steadily escalates as the reserves run low.
Days after the last drop of oil is pumped, the last tankers reach the refineries. The oil power stations start to run low, and the power grid becomes less stable. Petrol stations use up the last of their reserves and close. The nations cars stop, and the factorys close down due to lack of workers.
Transport companies start to panic, because they have fuel tanks, but they won't last more than a week. After which, supermarkets around the country will start to run out of food. Not long after that, there will be a real crisis in the inner cities, and starvation of a level never before seen sets in.
The "First world" collapses under it's own weight, as a lynch-pin is pulled away.
And so instead, the board of directors asks to see the President/Prime minister. They raise their concerns, and an emergency plan is prepared. Oil is urgently needed, and the eye of the powerful turns towards Afganistan and Iraq.
But it's still all an estimate. And they cannot move openly, because that would mean competition for the precious reserves. A cassus-belli is necessary. A cause for war.
A few hundred civilians are sacrificed in the largest terrorist incident ever. But you now have your pretext. You move your soldiers into two oil rich countries, securing reserves for a few years more. When 'the others' realise, you'll already have control.
And in the mean time, the oil companies announce reduced oil reserves, but quietly, so there's no panic and the price rises slower, getting the world ready for 'the crunch'.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 12:41 pm (UTC)actually thats a pretty good idea for some paranoia plot in SINergy Maybe once we've ironed out the Global background.
no subject
no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 05:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 06:51 pm (UTC)Traditionally, oil companies have always worked to stop development into alternatives, electric cars, etc...
However, if the directors start to see the end of Oil within their lifetimes, they are likely to stop the blocking of such things, because, damn it, they still want their cars, and living in luxury is so difficult with society collapsing around your ears! Of course, they won't actually support such things yet. They'll only do that once it starts to get desparate...
So Ed. How is research into such things going?
no subject
Date: 2005-02-10 07:59 pm (UTC)I'll go and dig the garden a bit, I think.