The Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) folks are very concerned about the prospect of rising oil prices in the future, and I agree with them. Better to be safe than sorry. Because they feel so vulnerable to rising oil prices, the KIUC is much more focused than most about world oil supply issues. We all should have that sense of urgency.

Oil uncertainty pushes KIUC to find alternatives

By Paul Curtis – The Garden Island
Published: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 3:11 AM HST

LIHU‘E — Oil prices topped $80 a barrel last month despite lower demand and a bad economy, leading Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative Chief Financial Officer David Bissell to think that speculation is to blame.



“The sky is almost the limit as far as petroleum is concerned,” Bissell said last week at the monthly KIUC Board of Directors meeting at KIUC headquarters in Lihu‘e.


The uncertainty of oil prices makes it that much more important for KIUC leaders to push forward aggressively with plans for alternative forms of energy, he said, to “try to mitigate our exposure.” (Read more here)

Recently, 500 geologists attended a conference in London, where they voted 2 to 1 that Peak Oil is a concern. This is quite different from the opinions of some of their employers. At the Peak Oil conference I attended in Denver last month, the most prevalent view was that the world will start to slip down the other side of the supply curve in four to five years.

I think that it should be expected that many folks on the other side will be tying themselves into pretzels in order to explain how rising prices are due to declining demand and not declining supplies.

I say, “Better to be safe than sorry.”

Go geothermal.