Typical short term planning and gain, leading to a greater calamity in the future!

Or to put it another way (thanks to a posting over at Powerswitch)…

In retrospect, it will be proved to be just about as smart as pissing in your pants on a cold day. You get a nice warm feeling. For a while…

Meanwhile, the FT has some discussion on meeting future oil demand.
What is interesting in it is the admission of Peak Oil.

The study makes clear the shift could come sooner than many people in the industry had expected, even though some major conventional oil fields will still be increasing their production in 2020. Those increases will not be enough to offset the decline at other fields.

‘It becomes unclear beyond 2020 that conventional oil will be able to meet any of the demand growth’ Wood Mackenzie said. The report added that natural gas products such as liquids and condensate would also become important sources of growth.

Now, I happen to disagree with the date. ASPO thinks it’s 2011 (a mere 4 years aware). It could have already happended in the last year or so, we just don’t have the historical data yet to see it (I think there is a real possibility of this, but who knows).
However, for the FT to come up with this is interesting.

Of course, no need to worry, because Gordon says so. I’m not convinced (… and if George Osbourne was standing in the same place as Gordon Brown, I suspect he’d be saying things pretty much along the same lines).