Talk:2000s energy crisis

This page is not a forum for general discussion about 2000s energy crisis. Any such comments may be removed or refactored. Please limit discussion to improvement of this article. You may wish to ask factual questions about 2000s energy crisis at the Reference desk.

This article was nominated for deletion on 3 October 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

Energy Low‑importance

	Energy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Energy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnergyWikipedia:WikiProject EnergyTemplate:WikiProject Energyenergy articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Economics Low‑importance

	Business and economics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Economics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Economics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EconomicsWikipedia:WikiProject EconomicsTemplate:WikiProject EconomicsEconomics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

A summary of this article appears in Price of petroleum.

Archives

Archive 1

Archive 2

Energy crisis or petroleum crisis?

Is it an energy crisis or, more rightly, a petroleum crisis ?. Really, the problem with petroleum. --Mac (talk) 06:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Same thing, considering that most petroleum is used as an energy source. The phrases are used interchangibly, see energy crisis. - Shiftchange (talk) 08:53, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree... IMO Mac is correct, there is no coal or natural gas crisis, no electricity crisis in general, and the crisis (if you will insist on calling it that rather than a price escalation) is largely confined to petroleum. Petroleum makes up about 40% of world energy use if I recall correctly. I was partial to the article's old name, clumsy as it was... TastyCakes (talk) 20:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the trouble is that it's all connected to energy... if we just had enough "alternative energy" we wouldn't need oil, or if the Pickens plan works we wouldn't need oil (supposedly), or if we didn't use so much energy we wouldn't need oil... it's the reliance on oil which drove up the prices, not the other way around (although it was the cheap price of oil that got us hooked). No, there is no petroleum ciris (yet) because, now that consumption has been dropping we have some surplus... and today the price even dropped below $90. When we have a petroleum crisis (if it's not far enough into the future that we manage to switch to a more sustainable lifestyle) you will know it... and there might not be a wikipedia on which to read about it. :) NJGW (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The point I (and apparently Mac) was trying to make is that petroleum and electricity markets remain distinct, with petroleum used almost exclusively (energy wise) for transportation. Electricity prices have not risen to anywhere near the same degree as petroleum because of this disconnect. And as for "alternative energy", it is largely dealing with electricity, so without an electric car or some way to generate a fuel using only electricity it doesn't do a whole lot of good. Even if we used less energy, we would probably still use oil because the internal combustion engine is still such an attractive piece of technology for moving people and things around. But this is besides the point, the question remains: why is this article called the 2000s energy crisis? It involves only energy used for transportation and in both of our opinions (apparently) doesn't classify as a crisis (yet). TastyCakes (talk) 20:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Technically, of course, you're correct — this article only exists because of supply and demand issues with oil, not all energy. But, since "Oil" and "Energy" are used interchangeably in colloquial speech, we aren't obliged to pick "oil". In fact, since (IMO) it's more commonly referred to as the "Energy crisis" than the "Oil crisis", it should stay there. Just as an aside, I think the reason people call it an "energy" crisis is that the "energy crisis" can be solved while the "oil crisis" can't.--Loodog (talk) 21:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm you may have a point about the colloquial speech thing, but I'm pretty sure I hear "oil crisis" a lot more than "energy crisis" today as well as in reference to the oil shocks of the 1970s. The other articles names are conflicting, including the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis (that article, like this one, talks exclusively about oil). They also seem to differ from the recent situation in that these were relatively short term events and resulted in severe gasoline shortages (not just high prices), a situation that hasn't happened this time around and, I believe, makes it less "crisis-like". TastyCakes (talk) 22:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was disappointed by the renaming of this article from its original, technically precise title: Oil price increases since 2003. Calling the oil crisis an "energy crisis" is as imprecise as referring to, say, the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe as a "money crisis." It is true that the Zimbabwean dollar is a type of money, but that particular type of money is having problems quite distinct from many other currencies in the world. Implying that all forms of money are equivalent is misleading, perhaps dangerously so, and would be an excessive abstraction bordering on original work. In many situations the form of money you are dealing with may matter quite a bit, and the different forms of money are more readily interchangeable than the different sources of energy. All forms of energy can be regarded as equivalent in some sense from the first law of thermodynamics, but if that's all there were to it, the United States with its massive coal reserves would be a net energy exporter rather than the world's largest energy importer. Coal is not as useful a source of energy as petroleum is because petroleum has a combination of desirable characteristics unmatched by any other energy source. From engineering and economic standpoints there are all sorts of constraints and limitations on which sources of energy can substitute for which other sources in given applications. Consider: as long as some recoverable oil remains in the ground, it is possible to drill for oil, extract it, refine it, and use it, with processes powered entirely by oil. Oil is the only form of energy flexible enough to meet virtually every energy need (with a few niche exceptions such as the practical advantages of nuclear reactors on military submarines). No other energy source can make that claim today. Every other energy source requires some oil for its production. For example, wind power must consume liquid fuels during the transport and erection of wind turbines. Building a wind farm consumes liquid fuels, and while the wind farm quickly pays back the energy consumed in its construction, it never pays back the liquid fuels. The same is true for nuclear power. And coal. And natural gas. All require petroleum for their production, and none can pay back the liquid fuels consumed in their production (not yet, anyway). We can think of wind power in its current form, then, as a way to generate a lot more electricity from burning a given amount of petroleum than you get by burning the petroleum directly in a thermal power plant. As pointed out above, the petroleum supply problem is to a first approximation a liquid fuels problem. The world has something like a few tens of trillions of dollars invested in a fleet of vehicles that can only run on liquid fuels, which won't be replaced quickly, and either they will run on liquid fuels from petroleum or they won't run at all. Biofuels cannot take up more than a small percentage of the slack in the near future. (It is possible to generate a liquid fuel using only electricity, water, and air - it's called ammonia, and it can burn pretty well in existing internal combustion engines with some adjustments - but there isn't nearly enough electricity available on short notice to generate the amount of ammonia it would take to replace petroleum. There could be if we undertook a massive increase in wind power, for example, but that could not happen quickly. It's also possible to use electricity to convert water and carbon dioxide into mid-alcohols with the reverse water gas shift reaction, but again that's not going to happen on a large scale quickly.) Rather than an "energy crisis" we are having a liquid fuels crisis and thus a transportation crisis, temporarily masked by a sharp contraction in economic activity due to the Global financial crisis of 2008. If technological progress (e.g. ultracapacitors for portable high-density storage of electrical energy) increases the flexibility of other energy sources, making it possible for example for wind power to power its own construction entirely, then the markets for other energy sources will become more tightly linked with the petroleum market. Thus one might regard the techno-fixes such as plug-in hybrids as attempts to expand the petroleum crisis into a true energy crisis, such that a severe shortage of petroleum would cause a commensurate increase in demand for, say, electricity. That would make the crisis more manageable, to be sure, since we have no way to put more oil in the ground, while the available wind and solar resources are vast and durable. But for the time being it's mostly a petroleum crisis, and calling it an energy crisis does some violence to the nonspecialist's ability to comprehend what is going on. In the United States, for example, we import almost 70% of the petroleum we consume, with the percentage steadily increasing, and transport accounts for about 70% of the petroleum we consume, with transport relying on petroleum for about 97% of its energy. Thus one can view the United States as being almost entirely dependent on other countries for its transport. This is a tremendously important sector of the U.S. economy which is almost entirely outside of domestic control now. And should the supply of oil available for the U.S. to import begin dropping due to geological factors, faster than the U.S. can rebuild its transport to run on something else, then this tremendously important sector of the U.S. economy will be outside the control of any humans. --Teratornis (talk) 07:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So... You're for renaming the article? TastyCakes (talk) 18:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Updating

Much of this article needs updating to reflect the collapse of oil prices since last summer. Also, I think all the discussion on hypothetical mitigation to curb the price increase (which for the most part did not factor into the actual price drop) should be gutted. TastyCakes (talk) 00:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the price drop appears to have had little to do with any mitigation efforts, but that is no reason to remove well-sourced discussion of them, unless you argue convincingly that the oil price drop is either going to be permanent or of such long duration that when prices rise again it will be seen as an event distinct from the recent price rise. The conventional wisdom seems to be that oil prices have dropped due to a decrease in world oil demand resulting from the Global financial crisis of 2008. If the oil price rise had anything to do with triggering the financial crisis, or increasing its severity, as I strongly suspect is the case, then one can argue that we are still experiencing an oil crisis, this time in the guise of a recession. (This is exactly what Richard Heinberg has been predicting for years - a series of steadily deeper recessions alternating with weaker recoveries, as global prosperity declines along with global petroleum supply after the peak in world oil extraction.)

The price increase appears to have resulted from the first failure in history of world oil extraction to keep up with world oil demand. One way or another, demand somehow had to come into equilibrium with supply. Demand has declined, but most economists probably agree that demand will pick up again once the economy recovers. In the meantime, the world population keeps increasing, and the amount of oil remaining keeps decreasing. When the economy recovers, the world may discover that the petroleum supply "ceiling" for world economic activity has lowered, in which case the events of summer 2008 may appear mild in retrospect. If this is true, then what needs mitigating is not the high price of oil but the dependency on one single commodity for global economic growth. There is not some magical spigot discharging petroleum in unlimited amounts; instead, there is a maximum extraction capacity at a given time, which is a function of the oil fields in operation and their natural decline rates. At some point it is virtually certain that the world will enter the decline phase in petroleum. Given the critical importance of liquid fuels from petroleum in the transport sector, and the difficulty of finding any large-scale replacement any time soon, the ride could get bumpy unless those mitigation strategies become a lot less hypothetical. --Teratornis (talk) 06:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The title of the article is, for better or worse, 2000s energy crisis. The 2000s are not yet over, and it is far from clear that the "energy" crisis (really the petroleum crisis) is over either. The last time the world had an oil crisis, it ended when large new oil fields opened up in Mexico, the North Sea, and elsewhere, undercutting the ability of OPEC to set prices. No similarly large-scale opening of newly discovered oil fields is occurring today, and Mexico and the North Sea are experiencing sharp oil extraction decline. We may only be seeing a temporary price reduction due to the global economic crisis. Governments around the world are attempting to stimulate their economies to grow again, where "grow" means "use more oil", while at the same time OPEC countries are trying to cut their rate of oil extraction. If these stimulus attempts are successful, the world will bang into the oil supply ceiling and oil prices will shoot up again. And then World "leaders" will be back in Saudi Arabia begging for more oil that the Saudis don't have. The "crisis" is not over until we have some reason to believe we are out of the petroleum dependency cycle. --Teratornis (talk) 08:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, it is wildly optimistic to rate the importance of this article as "low." The peaking of world oil extraction may turn out to be the most important event in the history of industrial civilization, and the oil price increases of the 2000s may then be viewed as an extremely important early indicator of the impending peak. We'll know better in five years or so. --Teratornis (talk) 08:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with everything you're saying, it is quite possible, even probable, that oil prices will spike again in the next few years. But that is not what this article is about. The mitigation section seems well sourced. However, I believe it is outside the scope of this article, it should be in the peak oil/peak oil mitigation articles, which I believe it already is. Now that this particular price surge appears to have abated, and these hypothetical ways the price could drop have been replaced with the actual reason, shouldn't they be replaced with facts rather than ponderings?

Saying these things when oil was at $140 a barrel made sense. People were looking at the article and saying "what next", and that was useful information. But when oil is at $35 a barrel and the article is droning on about all these things that didn't actually happen, how is that encyclopedic? Further, speculating that the crisis is not over is exactly that, speculation, but the article is doubling up on this: that oil prices will again explode and that when they do we could hypothetically mitigate the prices in these ways. I would support the article saying that many experts believe the price hikes are not over but merely in a lull, but having all this other stuff seems a little too removed from the actual situation to belong in an article about a period of time. I think facts, not speculation, should dominate this article and the speculation should be left for the peak oil and peak oil mitigation articles. TastyCakes (talk) 15:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that the mitigation section of the article could be replaced with mitigation techniques actually tried by governments and others during the high prices? TastyCakes (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the oil price graphs are now almost a year old... TastyCakes (talk) 16:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hurricanes

This article is about the price of crude oil (see discussion above, as well as language of entire article). US Gulf Coast Hurricanes affecting gas prices in certain US states (not all of US even) has no place in the lead. Hurricane Katrina affected oil prices world wide. NJGW (talk) 16:42, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can't have it both ways. If you're going to call it "energy crisis", you can't very well say "Hurricanes drive up the price of energy, but not the kind I'm talking about" when you explicitly argued that energy was energy above (note, I wanted to leave it as its old title of "oil price increase", where your argument would have held more water IMO). Hurricanes do not always drive up the price of oil, it is true, but often have. The hurricanes cited have had a drastic effect on gasoline prices since the beginning of the escalation, and that has as much or more of an impact on the people effected than the cost of crude. I can't understand why you think hurricanes should not be cited as a cause of short term energy cost spikes: they are probably the prime example of this, much more so than North Korean missile launches, for example.

If you want to say something making it clear that this did not affect the cost of energy everywhere in the world ("just" north america), go ahead, but I do not believe at all that hurricanes should be left out of the intro. TastyCakes (talk) 20:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember saying that the price of gasoline in a few US states constitutes a global energy issue. In any case that whole sentence is problematic. It doesn't belong in the lead because it has nothing to do with the meat of the article. I was looking for a place in the body of the article to move it to, but drew a blank. Thinking of ditching it, or putting just a blurb in the effects section. The effects section needs its own lead first though. NJGW (talk) 02:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a few US states, all of North America feels the price increase when this happens, certainly as far away as Alberta because I saw it first hand. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? I think NJGW is reverting things based on a set of ideas for this article that exist only in his head. First it was only oil that counted, then only things that effected the "global energy market" rather than just a huge portion of it. And he is extremely revert happy, not to add information but to take it away (IMO, relevant and adequately sourced stuff). If you look through his reasons they are not consistent, he is just looking for reasons to leave things the way he put them, this bit with hurricanes being the most glaring example. TastyCakes (talk) 16:32, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which hurricane? During Gustav the EIA's gas price numbers have the price of gas going down throughout the US. It also depends on the refineries your region gets its gasoline from and how much the price is jacked up to begin with... on the West Coast of the US and the Rocky Mountain region the price went down during Ike [1]. So you see, it is just the price of gasoline (not the topic of this article) in just a certain relatively small area. NJGW (talk) 20:29, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It all depends on the hurricane and it depends on what else is going on in the market. During Ike, for example, the price of crude oil was dropping, and I believe gasoline also dropped as well but not nearly as much because the shut in refineries around Houston increased refining costs. I've been thinking about this a bit more and how about adding a sentence like:

Although the price of gasoline typically follows the price of crude oil, during certain events of the 2000s energy price escalation the two prices diverged, though typically not globally. Examples of this include the shutting in of refining capacity on the US gulf coast during various hurricanes. Other forms of energy, such as natural gas, are typically less tied to the global cost of crude oil since much of it is bought and sold with long term contracts in isolated markets.

TastyCakes (talk) 20:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why? This has nothing to do with the article. So something made the price go up temporarily... that's not what the article is about. The article is about a long trend that appears to have had several complicated causes. I don't see why the lead needs to add "Oh, and one time a temporary [seasonal?] pressure didn't have the effect one might have thought it should have given a similar event 3 years earlier." If this discussion even belongs in the article at all, it's not lead material. How much does this article really need to say about temporary pressures unrelated to the real issues? NJGW (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who says it's nothing to do with the article? If that is the case, why is this sentence is the intro at all:

For a time, certain geo-political events and natural disasters not directly related to the global oil market had strong short term effects on oil prices

Who exactly decided the scope of the article was to include a) only oil, b) only long term price increase of oil? And as a final question, who was it that, despite these strict assumptions/requirements on the article's subject matter renamed the article something that seems to deliberately increase its vagueness? I suspect the answer to all of those is... you. Was it you that moved the article from its old more descriptive name? If so, why, when you were only going to kick up crap when people started putting in information that's as general as the article's name calls for? Are you aware that there are other ways to generate "energy" than crude oil? Are you also aware that the "energy crisis" in most peoples' minds involved short term price spikes as well as if not more than the more gradual increase over several years?

If the article is to have this name and we are to continue talking about it as if it's only about long term crude oil price increases, rather than erratic escalating behaviour in the costs of all forms of energy over the past decade, then surely we need to explain this in the intro. We need to say that we are talking about oil, not gas or gasoline or coal or whatever. And in my opinion, we should say that gasoline and gas are related to the price of oil, but not 100%, so while the price of all three went up during the "crisis", they were uncoupled at various times. Once again: you can't have it both ways: the article was given this name, you can't now go and pretend that "oil" means the same thing as "energy". Of course if you want to rename the article, I'm all for that. TastyCakes (talk) 22:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent)"why is this sentence is the intro at all: ..." Funny, that's exactly the point I made just a few lines up... twice (tap tap, is this thing on?)

"Who exactly decided the scope of the article was to include a) only oil" What makes you say someone has made that distinction? Certainly it's not related to us by the title of the article, nor by the lead or body. Seems to me the article needs to be expanded with sections on substitution effect and the like. Take away oil and you need to substitute something in its place, and if you can't then the price of oil goes up. We couldn't substitute a cheaper alternative when the oil got scarce (or we thought it was getting scarce, which ever your POV), so the markets reflected this. Oil is used for energy, therefore this is an energy issue: we need more stuff that can be turned into energy or more ways to turn what we have lots of into energy. We don't have that stuff or those ways so we have an energy crisis (hey, I'm beginning to see how the mitigation section fits in!)

"Who exactly decided the scope of the article was to include b) only long term price increase of oil?" Uh, you want a whole article about how oil went up $25 one day because of bail-out fears and a sinking dollar? Discuss it at 2003 to 2008 world oil market chronology. How about how it goes up and down cyclically every year? Interesting, but how does that fit in? This aricle is about a confluence of real issues, not some temporary spike. I have no idea how that isn't obvious.

"who was it that, despite these strict assumptions/requirements on the article's subject matter renamed the article something that seems to deliberately increase its vagueness?" I guess we're all entitled to our own opinions, but you need to read this talk page before you say you know what's going on. There is consensus above, and only you and banned user Mac had an issue (though others thought your concerns had been answered). Are you bringing up new points now, or do you have the same issues? Personally I think the real problem is we're still in the thick of the story, and we won't know what happened or what to call it until later.

"you [are] only kick[ing] up crap when people started putting in information that's as general as the article's name calls for" What, this muck about the price of gasoline going up regionally and temporarily after a hurricane... you yourself just asked what the hell it's doing in the lead! Make up your mind. I really hope you're not pushing this gasoline/hurricane bit to proove a point.

"Are you also aware that the "energy crisis" in most peoples' minds involved short term price spikes as well as if not more than the more gradual increase over several years?" Source please... JK! But that is nonsense... we're talking (with this hurricane businesss) about the price of gas going up for a week or less, and not even throughout a whole country. I don't think anybody will ever call that an energy crisis, least wise not where you could cite it reasonably.

As has been pointed out many times above by several people, there is no separating petroleum from energy or energy from petroleum. If you want to suggest a new title or a new lead that's fine, but you're making a huge fuss over wanting to mention piddly local less-than-week-long gasoline increases, in the lead no less. If you want an article about that you'll have to start from scratch and put it somewhere else. NJGW (talk) 01:28, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is that a yes to "it was me, NJGW, that changed this article to its current name and yes it was me, NJGW, that now wants to write the article to fit the old name? By my count in the discussion above it was you (with a confusing, seemingly unrelated blurb on alternative energy) and Loodog (who said he does consider petroleum and energy to be equivalent in every day speech) against me, Mac and (I think) Tetronis. So how exactly was that consensus enough for you to change the name?

I am saying that in an article called "energy crisis" that other forms of energy should at least be mentioned in the lead, if only to say why they are not discussed in the article. That doesn't seem so out there to me. The sentence we both seem to agree does not comply with your expectations of the article has been there for many, many revisions. I expect for the sake of consistency you will be deleting it?

Part of the problem is the use of the word "crisis" in the article's title. Not only was this always going to be tricky POV-wise (a "crisis" to many oil companies is $30 oil), sooner or later the issue we are discussing comes up: it's not the price of oil that causes people pain, it's the price of oil products, namely gasoline. And the two have usually been related, but not always, during the recent price escalation. TastyCakes (talk) 15:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

objectivity in this sentence?

"...worries over Iranian nuclear plans in 2006". Shouldn it be "worries over an armed conflict between USA and Iran" ?--Ezzex (talk) 16:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm I'd argue it was worries about conflict between Iran and the west in general, which even if it hadn't escalated to armed conflict may have resulted in Iran trying to close the Straight of Hormuz to tanker traffic. The cause of this friction between Iran and much of the rest of the world was it's continued nuclear development plans. So I don't think I'd agree with changing that sentence, not to what you're proposing anyway. TastyCakes (talk) 17:14, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Spike Oil" and Demand Destruction

The theory, or perhaps Arab propaganda, that the oil reserves have exceeded their median volume should be included in the article (so called "spike oil").

Some comment about "demand destruction" in the second and third quarter of 2008 should also be included. — [Unsigned comment added by 132.211.195.34 (talk • contribs).]

Is there a source you're referring to for the "Spike oil"? Also, please refrain from pejorative terms such as "Arab propaganda" unless you are discussing their usage within sources. Right now the energy crisis and financial crisis are highly conflated, so we need to be careful how issues like these are discussed. NJGW (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There never was a 2000s Energy crisis

In view of the current (2009) energy and oil consumption, and economic conditions, one has to admit there never was an energy crisis in the 2000s. I suggest this article to be deleted. (September 18) --Environnement2100 (talk) 15:19, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I said at the time (see above), I think it was a bad idea to rename this "crisis". "Price escalation" was, and remains, the best title in my view. Whatever we call it, I think the events were important enough to warrant an article, just as the 1970s oil shocks were. TastyCakes (talk) 15:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fits with 1973 oil crisis, and Energy crisis which defines an energy crisis as: "is any great bottleneck (or price rise) in the supply of energy resources to an economy. It usually refers to the shortage of oil and additionally to electricity or other natural resources."--Louiedog (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To me, crisis fits the '73 situation better because it was sudden, unexpected and brief (just a few months). There were also immediate and severe effects on everyone that depended on oil. It wasn't like the situation over the past few years, where gas was "expensive". In the 1970s, gas was simply unavailable at any price. We can sit here and argue all day over whether or not the more recent oil price increases were a "crisis" or not. To me, the fact that we can have such an argument suggests it is not a cut and dry issue, it is not free of controversy and it should not be the article's name. TastyCakes (talk) 15:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Both were crises. The difference you're talking about - gas being expensive vs. unavailable - was in how it was dealt with by the government. When there's a sudden drop in supply or increase in demand you (the government) can either: (a) let the price float upwards until the two equal (no shortage), or (b) you can fix the price below the equilibrium price (as was done in '73) and create a shortage instead. I see no substantive difference between what happened in 2003-2008 and a "true" energy crisis.--Louiedog (talk) 16:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think your arguments about government response is more or less correct. But it still ignores the entirely different scales of the two events. The 1970s oil shocks were absolutely crippling and unexpected. Industrialised nations literally ground to a halt. They were dominated by the political element - this was seen as a form of economic war on the United States by the Arabs. It was everywhere in the news and it had real consequences for almost everyone. Had the government avoided price controls (I'm not even sure to what degree they really used them) the price spike would have been even greater in the history books and the difference even more glaring. The recent increase, on the other hand, occurred during a period of economic growth. The political element was entirely absent (many OPEC nations were discretely falling over themselves to produce more oil) and while increasingly difficult for people, did not have nearly the same economic, diplomatic or cultural impact that the 1970s did. I think it is therefore overkill, and somewhat demeaning to the people that dealt with the 1973 shock, to describe our recent troubles as a "crisis". But I can see that people would disagree with that, as you so clearly do. I would have no problem with this article saying something like "many considered oil prices to be a crisis" or something like that. But calling the article "2000s energy crisis" applies a judgment that not everyone agrees with, including me and apparently Environnement2100. I see no reason to create this problem, since everybody agreed with the old title: Oil price increase since 2003 (which could now be bookended as "Oil price increase between 2003 and 2008"). TastyCakes (talk) 16:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, there's wiggle room on any natural language term like "crisis" (e.g. when does a collection of sand become a "pile").

On the issue of 2003-2008 not being a result of deliberate political manipulation, this is true but I'd argue that to be a difference of kind and not of category. Crises can be deliberate and political or driven by demand and speculation.

On price controls, the price controls instituted in the US were on the domestic price of gasoline, but this did nothing to dent the open market price of a barrel of oil. Cutting price controls wouldn't have pushed prices any higher. And most economists see domestic price controls as exacerbating the crisis in the US. Ironically, had the price been allowed to free float, people might have had economic reason to consume less, actually driving the price down.

How can it possibly have not dented the open market? The largest purchaser of oil starts guaranteeing a lower price level of gasoline. There is not enough gasoline in the country to provide everyone gas at the demand that results. How could that not impact the price of oil on the open market? You extolled the virtues of supply and demand yourself, how do you figure that such a huge fudging of the world's demand wouldn't have dramatic effect on market prices for crude? Keep in mind that pretty much every country in the world is following similar policies. TastyCakes (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It could have either effect depending on how much the government wanted to subsidize gas. A price ceiling essentially guarantees the consumption of whatever is imported. Whether the government elects to import more or less than would be imported in a free price world is what changes the global demand, not the decision to price control it alone.--Louiedog (talk) 18:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The government" doesn't choose how much oil to import, private companies do. If they can't buy or produce it for less than they'll be allowed to sell it for, they won't do it. Similarly, if they can sell it to some other market for more, they'll do that. Regardless, the global market for oil is profoundly affected when all the consumers in the world set (different) price levels they will allow, and the equilibrium price is above that level. This is all tangential to the issue at hand though... TastyCakes (talk) 18:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So while the underlying causes may have been different and the government responses may have varied, the spike was of similar magnitude:

In terms of price increase, but not in effect. TastyCakes (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When it comes down to what we call it, we do seem to be sorely lacking on sources. There seem to be enough news articles from the 2006-2008 period calling it a crisis. e.g. [2]--Louiedog (talk) 17:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've said my piece, and if people still don't want to change it back, fine. But when the history books are written, I'd be surprised to read about the period as a "crisis". TastyCakes (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gasoline is only a part of energy. Nowadays, coal is definitely the first source, then oil and gas, then hydraulic, nuclear, renewables, biomass, whatnot. Who says the price of electricty climbed ? who says coal was no longer available ? There never was an energy crisis in the 2000s. Also gasoline always was available - worldwide. If there was a crisis, it was en economic one, please read Financial crisis of 2007–2010--Environnement2100 (talk) 18:20, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

article for deletion

Upon request, this article has been proposed for deletion, October 3rd, 2009.--Environnement2100 (talk) 09:05, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changing present tense to past

Now that the mid-2008 oil price hikes to near $150/bbl. have passed and prices plummeted to less than a fourth of its peak, I'm wondering if it's time to change some of the prediction statements to past tense. For instance, a sentence reading, "John Doe, an analyst for XYZ Corp., predicts that oil will hit $200 per barrel by Labor Day," would now read "John Doe, an analyst for XYZ Corp., predicted (emphasis mine) that oil will hit $200 per barrel by Labor Day." Some of the quoted material would now need to be paraphrased to place emphasis on past tense, but that can easily be done. In essence, I think it may be time to revamp sections of this article, as they are now past tense. The sources can remain, as they pertain to valid quotes; it's just that some of the wording may need to be changed. [[Briguy52748 (talk) 16:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)]][reply]

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Muizzaddin, et al.

I am removing the following sentence, pertaining to three living persons:

Futures speculators related to major oil producers, such as Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Muizzaddin of Brunei Shell Petroleum, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud and Russian Vagit Alekperov of LUKoil, may have artificially boosted prices by speculating in the oil futures market.

The citation[3] immediately follows the list of these three individuals by saying: "No, we're not implicating any of these guys in market rigging…" The citation thus cannot be used to justify the claim that they did, in fact, engage in market rigging. YardsGreen (talk) 11:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

non NPOV pov article

this article seems quite POV energy crisis, increases in prices can have posative impacts for sellers vs buyers such as increased tax for those nations and more employment returns to investors etc which gives posative economic outcomes. Maybe a better take on it would be the 2000s energy shock, spike.

also another thing just because say oil goes up in price dosent mean that it is bad as it may cause structural change in the economy resulting lower long run cost to consumers eg Japan and Brazil.

Digmores (talk) 04:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I still agree that a better name for this article would be "2000s energy cost spike" or something like that. "Crisis" is not a neutral term, and it isn't widely used enough to qualify as a non-neutral but common name, as the 1970s events were. Also, if we are going to call it an "energy" spike or crisis, more should be added regarding other energy sources, namely electricity and natural gas price changes during the period. TastyCakes (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Demand Management

Added some counterbalancing info to the telecommuting claim in the demand management section. I think there is still some fluff that could be removed, particularly the bit about "liberating the workforce" and Moore's law which are totally irrelevant (I don't think there are many people who avoid telecommuting because their computer isn't powerful enough). I think a better way of wording this paragraph might be along the lines of: continued high oil prices could/has spur/red and increase in telecommuting and a continued trend towards avoiding unnecessary business travel, documented with appropriate news media sources which I'm sure exist. The study I've posted is not ideal (as it discusses energy consumption, not necessary oil, though for driving to work the two are very closely related) but I think it puts the impact of telecommuting, such as it is, into proper perspective for now. My worry was that this paragraph would be associated with the early one mentioning demand management as perhaps the most effective solution, which is true, but only in the context of urban planning/public transit mentioned immediately after. It might also be useful to insert a bit about the fact that some degree of "demand management" occurs automatically due to the price elasticity of demand for oil, i.e. people cut out unnecessary driving when gas is $4/gallon. Improving public transport and urban planning would, in theory, increase this elasticity (as people would have more alternative ways to get to work, even if they don't prefer them when oil is cheap). Stuffisthings (talk) 03:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A couple more good sources:

Tal, G (2008) 'Reduced Overestimation in Forecasting Telecommuting as a Travel Demand Management Policy.' Transportation Research Record 2082, pp. 8-16. (I don't have access to this journal.)

http://www.azdot.gov/TPD/ATRC/publications/project_reports/PDF/AZ453.pdf

Hope this helps. Stuffisthings (talk) 14:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

crisis?

I question the title of this article. Is crisis really the most apt term? Certainly it may have been a crisis for certain businesses, for a certain period of time, but to describe the overall phenomenon as a "crisis" strikes me as melodramatic. Calling it a crisis almost seems POV. Wouldn't a term such as "2000s energy price increases" be a more accurate and neutral name? Peregrine981 (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. As I argued above, I think a better name for the article would be "Oil price escalation between 2003 and 2008". TastyCakes (talk) 22:12, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A photo of very high gas and diesel prices in Miami in early March, 2011

There was just a huge jump in the fuel prices in Miami, and this is the most expensive gas station I know, it is located right next to an inter-modal center for Miami International Airport. Daniel Christensen (talk) 18:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mid April peak

Here is the same station, the most expensive in South Florida, at it's peak prices over the past few days, it is now expected to start falling, never quite hit a true five a gallon...... :( Daniel Christensen (talk) 13:47, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]