Dans le m\u00eame article de George Monbiot sur la crise p\u00e9troli\u00e8re, publi\u00e9 aujourd’hui<\/a> et d\u00e9j\u00e0 cit\u00e9<\/a> dans cette rubrique, on lit divers d\u00e9tails et diverses pr\u00e9cisions sur la question des r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res. On dispose d’un \u00e9clairage tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Quant aux r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res de l’Arabie, qui est un cas particuli\u00e8rement sollicit\u00e9 en de moment par l’actualit\u00e9, Monbiot \u00e9crit notamment (rappelons que son article est \u00e9crit sous la forme d’une lettre adress\u00e9e au roi Abdallah d’Arabie):<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00ab But what you know and I do not is the extent to which the price of oil might reflect an absolute shortage of global reserves. You and your advisers are perhaps the only people who know the answer to this question. Your published reserves are, of course, a political artefact unconnected to geological reality. The production quotas assigned to its members by Opec, the oil exporters’ cartel, reflect the size of their stated reserves, which means that you have an incentive to exaggerate them. How else could we explain the fact that, despite two decades of furious pumping, your kingdom posts the same reserves as it did in 1988?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbYou say that you are saving your oil for the benefit of future generations. If this is true, it is a rational economic decision: oil in the ground looks like a better investment than money in the bank. But, reluctant as I am to question your Majesty’s word, I must remind you that some oil analysts are now wondering whether this prudence is a convenient fiction. Are you restricting supply because you want to conserve stocks and keep the price high, or are you unable to raise production because your fabled spare capacity does not in fact exist?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbI do not expect an answer to this question. I know that the true state of your reserves is a secret so closely guarded that oil analysts now resort to using spy satellites to try to estimate the speed of subsidence of the ground above your oil fields, as they have no other means of guessing how fast your reserves are running down.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t Passant au cas du gouvernement britannique, Monbiot d\u00e9crit la fa\u00e7on dont ce gouvernement d\u00e9termine sa politique d’\u00e9nergie, notamment \u00e0 partir de quelles pr\u00e9visions, et comment l’on mesure ces m\u00eames pr\u00e9visions, en fonction de quels crit\u00e8res. Cela se fait aujourd’hui encore ou tout comme, puisqu’il s’agit des pr\u00e9visions 2007 de l’Agence Internationale de l’Energie, r\u00e9vis\u00e9es \u00e0 toute vitesse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abOur leaders, though they do not possess the least idea of whether the oil supplies required to support it will be sustained, are also overseeing a rapid expansion of our transport infrastructure. In the UK, we are building or upgrading thousands of miles of roads and doubling the capacity of our airports, in the expectation that there will be no restriction in the supply of fuel. The government’s central forecast for the long-term price is just $70 a barrel.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOver the past few months, I have been trying to discover how the government derives this optimistic view. In response to a parliamentary question, it reveals that its projection is based on the assessment made by the International Energy Agency in its 2007 World Energy Outlook. Well, last week the Wall Street Journal revealed that the IEA is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast. Its final report won’t be released until November, but it has already concluded that future crude supplies could be far tighter than previously thought. Its previous estimates of global production were wrong for one simple and shocking reason: it had based them on anticipated demand, rather than anticipated supply. It resolved the question of supply by assuming that it would automatically rise to meet demand, as if it were subject to no inherent restraints.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOur government must have known this, but it has refused to conduct its own analysis of global oil reserves. Uniquely among possible threats to the economy and national security, it has commissioned no research of any kind into this question. So earlier this year, I asked the Department for Business what contingency plans it possesses to meet the eventuality that the IEA’s estimates could be wrong, and that global supplies of petroleum might peak in the near future. The government, it replied, does not feel the need to hold contingency plans. I am sure I do not need to explain the implications if its forecasts turn out to be wildly wrong.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tQuelles conclusions tirer de toutes ces observations? Le cas des r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res est un immense champ ouvert \u00e0 la sp\u00e9culation int\u00e9ress\u00e9e, aux dissimulations et aux manipulations jusqu’aux plus grossi\u00e8res pour des raisons d’int\u00e9r\u00eats nationaux ou d’int\u00e9r\u00eats \u00e9conomiques divers, de pesanteurs bureaucratiques, de conformisme id\u00e9ologique (des r\u00e9serves faibles signifieraient une mise en cause du syst\u00e8me au travers de la mise \u00e0 jour de ses contradictions internes). Aucune perception assur\u00e9e et stable ne peut \u00eatre retir\u00e9e d’une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 aussi chaotique. La prospective des r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res est devenue, victime des interactions des int\u00e9r\u00eats du syst\u00e8me, un non-sens et une activit\u00e9 eschatologique, contradictoire en essence.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tIl est bien entendu inutile de vouloir b\u00e2tir une politique l\u00e0-dessus; si on le fait, comme dans le cas des Britanniques, on est conduit \u00e0 des confrontations d\u00e9plaisantes avec des r\u00e9alit\u00e9s absentes de ces pr\u00e9visions. A c\u00f4t\u00e9 de cela, on peut \u00eatre assur\u00e9 que la question des r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res est un facteur tr\u00e8s d\u00e9stabilisant pour la psychologie dans les conditions pr\u00e9sentes. Il met en sc\u00e8ne des acteurs aux int\u00e9r\u00eats divers et contradictoires, qui manipulent la question des r\u00e9serves selon leurs int\u00e9r\u00eats du jour, dans un sens ou l’autre. Le r\u00e9sultat est la perception d’une immense incertitude, d’une d\u00e9stabilisation en constante aggravation, qui conduit, quelles que soient les r\u00e9alit\u00e9s que personne ne peut vraiment appr\u00e9hender, \u00e0 privil\u00e9gier une vision pessimiste. (Dans de tels cas, la psychologie r\u00e9agit toujours en noircissant sa perception, en \u00e9voluant vers la vision pessimiste, par prudence ou par \u00e9nervement.) L’effet concret est d’alimenter les pressions vers toujours plus d’instabilit\u00e9 (vers toujours plus de sp\u00e9culations \u00e0 la hausse pour le prix du p\u00e9trole) c’est-\u00e0-dire, de toutes les fa\u00e7ons vers l’aggravation de la crise elle-m\u00eame.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 27 mai 2008 \u00e0 19H16<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dans le m\u00eame article de George Monbiot sur la crise p\u00e9troli\u00e8re, publi\u00e9 aujourd’hui et d\u00e9j\u00e0 cit\u00e9 dans cette rubrique, on lit divers d\u00e9tails et diverses pr\u00e9cisions sur la question des r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res. On dispose d’un \u00e9clairage tr\u00e8s int\u00e9ressant. Quant aux r\u00e9serves p\u00e9troli\u00e8res de l’Arabie, qui est un cas particuli\u00e8rement sollicit\u00e9 en de moment par l’actualit\u00e9,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2759,4316,3600,7598],"class_list":["post-69926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-contradictions","tag-monbiot","tag-petrole","tag-reserves"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}